State Rep. Miguel Santiago, facing federal charges alleging that he was paid by a government agency for work he never did, has been hired by Rosemont Mayor Donald E. Stephens to be a $5,000-a-month liaison with the village’s tiny Hispanic community.
Santiago, a Near Northwest Side Democrat, was indicted in June on charges alleging that he received $148,000 as part of a ghost-payrolling scheme in the Cook County treasurer’s office. But the charges did nothing to dissuade Rosemont from hiring him, Village Atty. Peter Rosenthal said.
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“Rosemont takes seriously the presumption of innocence,” he said.
Stephens himself has been indicted twice by federal authorities but was cleared in both trials.
Santiago, who has pleaded not guilty to the federal charges, starts his Rosemont job this month. He will be paid for at least a year and will have use of a village car while on duty.
There is no provision in Santiago’s contract that would automatically strip him of the job should he be convicted on the ghost-payrolling charges, Rosenthal said. But the contract could be canceled if Santiago were unable to carry out his duties.
Rosenthal said he did not know whether other candidates were considered for the job. But, he said, Santiago is clearly qualified to help the village reach out to the few hundred Hispanic residents living in a cluster of apartment buildings north of the Rosemont Horizon.
“He’s a well-known figure in the Hispanic community. He knows how to communicate, and he knows the culture,” Rosenthal said.
Santiago did not return phone calls seeking comment.
Despite Santiago’s legal troubles, Stephens’ decision to hire him is in keeping with the mayor’s longtime practice of reaching out to politicians in both parties.
Stephens has long been a political force in the suburbs and Springfield. Though a Republican, he has doled out substantial amounts of campaign cash over the years to Democrats, including $2,000 to Santiago in the last campaign cycle, according to state records.
Santiago’s district, west of Humboldt Park, is a good distance from Rosemont, a town dominated by office buildings, hotels, theaters and a huge convention center–all built during Stephens’ four-decade reign.
But Santiago is close to a number of Stephens’ chief allies in the General Assembly.
For instance, Rep. Angelo “Skip” Saviano (R-Elmwood Park), whose district includes Rosemont, and Rep. Ralph C. Capparelli (D-Chicago), who aided Stephens’ unsuccessful effort to bring legalized gambling to Rosemont, co-sponsored a fundraiser in October to benefit Santiago’s legal defense fund.
Rosemont had fewer than 4,000 residents in the 1990 census, and less than 20 percent of those were Hispanic.
Most of the village’s Hispanic population is clustered in a collection of three-story, brick apartment buildings called “The Courts,” a stone’s throw from the huge Horizon parking lot.
Rosenthal, the village attorney, said the area has been plagued by overcrowding, gang activity and public drunkenness.
“What we’re trying to do is establish a means of communication with people living primarily in that area so the village can determine what the issues are and how to deal with them–essentially, so that it doesn’t become a slum,” Rosenthal said.
People out and about in the working-class neighborhood Tuesday knew nothing of Santiago’s hiring or the village’s plans to reach out to them.
“If he can get that kind of money, good for him,” said resident Eddie Blancas, 19.
Blancas and other residents said they welcome a chance to make their concerns known to the village and hope that it will lead to public improvements in the area.
“For one thing, the garbage–getting the garbage picked up around here would be a good thing,” said Blancas, who graduated from Maine South High School and plans to study auto mechanics at Oakton Community College.
“There are no places to go around here. No stores. Nothing. There are a lot of kids living here, but there is no place for them to play, just a small park,” he said.
His friend Arturo Camario, 20, agreed: “There is nothing for kids to do around here.”
Blancas and Camario both disputed that the neighborhood had any serious problems with crime or gangs.
Most of the people who live in the development are Latinos, and a large number are from Mexico. But there also are people from El Salvador, Colombia and other Spanish-speaking countries, said Antonio Martinez, a former resident who was visiting a relative Tuesday.
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“Most of the people who live here work,” Martinez said. “They work in the hotels in Rosemont, some work in the nearby restaurants like Fountain Blue, some work at the carwash.”
Lt. Joe Peterson, a spokesman for the Rosemont Police Department, said the apartment complex is the most densely populated of the village’s four residential areas.
“I would have to say that 95 percent of the people who live here are law-abiding folks who are just trying to make a living,” he said. “But we have gotten calls about problems with juveniles and drinking, and sometimes you find Latino gangs trying to reach out in that area.”
Helen Galvan, a social worker at Orchard Place School in Des Plaines, where many of the neighborhood’s children attend class, called the village’s effort to reach out to the Hispanic community “a blessing.”
“We can’t discount them,” she said.
Santiago’s legal troubles came to a head last summer when a federal grand jury, in one of the most ambitious local probes into allegations of ghost payrolling, indicted him, along with state Sen. Bruce Farley (D-Chicago) and longtime Cook County Treasurer Edward Rosewell. James Fuglsang, Rosewell’s chief deputy, also was indicted.
All four have pleaded not guilty.