In a city that celebrates its history of ballot-box chicanery, Abel Gomez thought it perfectly reasonable to trade his vote for a promise that the city would chop down the hated maple tree in front of his house.
“If you’re going to vote for somebody, they should do something for you,” said Gomez, a maintenance worker who lives in a two-story frame house on the city’s Southwest Side.
It’s common knowledge that Mayor Richard Daley, who was born on Arbor Day, loves trees, but his political apparatus loves to win elections even more.
So the machinery of politics arrived at Gomez’s home in the form of a chain saw, chewing through the maple out front. That same machinery chomped more than two dozen other trees in the 12th Ward into mulch in the weeks before the hard-fought February 2003 election.
The orders to take down those 12th Ward trees came from the top: Al Sanchez, Daley’s commissioner of the Streets and Sanitation Department.
Sanchez was a leader of a pro-Daley political group that was backing one of the candidates in the 12th Ward aldermanic election, a race so tight it was ultimately decided by 52 votes. The campaign machinery was in overdrive.
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Several ward residents told the Tribune they got unwanted trees taken down because they agreed to vote for the candidate backed by Daley and Sanchez.
Sanchez’s role in the tree removals raises new questions about the Daley administration’s use of public resources for political gain.
Bombarded with requests
The Tribune reported in July that Streets and Sanitation was bombarded by service requests from the 12th Ward in the weeks before the 2003 election.
In response to the published story, Daley dismissed suggestions that his administration provided city services for political reasons.
So the Tribune went back to the ward, talked to its voters and scrutinized documents about the removal of trees. The investigation revealed that when it came to getting trees removed, votes were the currency.
Under Illinois law, it’s a crime to buy a vote or to promise to do any official act in exchange for a vote. The law has been used against campaign workers who give cash to voters, but not against those who offer city services such as tree removal.
On Friday, Daley spokeswoman Jacquelyn Heard said she did not know whether the 12th Ward trees came down because of politics.
“Honestly, I don’t know the circumstances of their removal, except it seems residents wanted them removed,” Heard said. “The concerns of residents inform our decisions.”
Trees are famously close to Daley’s heart. The mayor claims to have planted as many as a quarter million trees since taking office in 1989. He has also made it much harder to chop down trees on parkways or other city property.
But not all residents share the mayor’s enthusiasm for trees. In fact, many Chicagoans seem to loathe the trees in front of their homes and want them gone. They complain about all the leaves, the roots that clog pipes, the berries that stain sidewalks.
Gangs, they say, use trees to stash guns and drugs.
A helping hand
The tree in front of Abel Gomez’s house on Artesian Avenue was perfectly healthy. But Gomez said its roots blocked drains and caused flooding in the crawl space under his home.
Gomez couldn’t get the tree removed by calling 311, the usual way to request non-emergency city services. City workers are permitted to cut down trees only on public property that are in bad shape or pose a safety hazard.
For years, Gomez had asked for help from his alderman. Each year, every alderman is allowed to remove as many as 20 trees, including healthy ones. But Gomez said his alderman, Rafael “Ray” Frias, demanded proof that the tree had caused damage.
It wasn’t that way when the workers for Frias’ opponent, George Cardenas, came by looking for votes. Gomez pointed to the tree and told them he would vote for Cardenas, the candidate backed by Daley, if they could remove it, he told the Tribune.
“They promised it would come down,” he said.
Soon after the visit, the city chopped down the tree on Sanchez’s order. A week later, Gomez cast his vote for Cardenas.
Questionable timing
While Sanchez had the authority to take down any public tree at any time, he rarely exercised it–except in the 12th Ward when the election was at stake.
In the weeks before the Feb. 25, 2003, election, Sanchez ordered the removal of 26 trees, most of them healthy, according to city documents obtained under the Illinois Freedom of Information Act.
In the entire six years he was commissioner, he approved the removal of just 31 other trees across the remaining 49 wards.
And when politics were involved, the trees came down fast–within just a few days, interviews show. It typically takes about two months for the city to remove a tree, according to Matt Smith, a spokesman for Streets and Sanitation.
Smith said Sanchez approved the 12th Ward tree removals after city workers conducted a “general survey” of the ward that focused on unhealthy trees. He could not explain why Sanchez ordered a survey in the 12th Ward just before the election. “You would have to ask him,” Smith said.
Smith, however, could not provide any documentation of a tree survey, and inspectors had indicated that there was damage or decay in only four of the 26 trees, city records show.
Asked about the tree removals at a fundraiser for Cardenas late last month, Sanchez declined to comment. His lawyer also declined to comment.
Sanchez, who retired in June 2005, has been a leader of the Hispanic Democratic Organization, a political group with hundreds of workers on the city payroll. For more than a decade, HDO has sent troops across the city to campaign for the mayor and Daley-supported candidates.
HDO backed political-newcomer Cardenas in the 12th Ward race in 2003 after Frias, a two-term incumbent, fell out of favor.
Federal authorities previously described Sanchez as a key participant in a scheme to rig city hiring and promotion decisions to reward the mayor’s political supporters. Sanchez has not been charged with wrongdoing in the ongoing investigation, but Daley’s former patronage chief and three others were convicted in July for their roles in the hiring scheme.
Frias, who dropped out before a runoff election, has long complained that the Daley administration used city services to win votes for his opponent.
Opponent `appalled’
Frias said last week that he had been aware that many healthy trees came down during the campaign but did not know until told by the Tribune that Sanchez had ordered their removal.
“I’m appalled and shocked that he would go to that extent to use public moneys for campaign purposes,” Frias said.
Attributing the downed trees to a ward-wide survey is “nonsense,” said Frias. “I was alderman. I would have been informed about a general survey.”
Cardenas said his requests for tree removals did not get special treatment, but he could not explain why they were fulfilled so quickly.
“Look, I’m not an insider,” Cardenas said. “I didn’t know Al [Sanchez]. I didn’t know anybody.”
A total of 67 people were registered to vote at the houses where Sanchez had trees removed, and 31 of those actually voted.
Julia Samudio said Cardenas himself came to her home during the campaign and asked “what was it that I wanted.”
Samudio said she saw her chance to get rid of a maple tree in front of her house on Whipple Street. The tree prevented proper drainage and clogged her gutters with leaves, she said.
But she hadn’t been able to get Frias to cut it down.
Samudio recalled telling Cardenas: “`The only thing I ask for with all my heart is to cut the tree down.’ Cardenas said, `Of course, I’ll do it.'”
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She said she did not know how Cardenas could arrange for the tree’s removal before he became alderman. It was cut down Feb. 14 at Sanchez’s direction, records show.
“Either I have to clean the gutters myself or I have to pay someone to do it,” said the 69-year-old widow. “That’s money I don’t have. That’s money out of my Social Security check.”
Six registered voters lived at Samudio’s address. Samudio and two daughters voted for Cardenas, although she said she would have voted for him even if the tree had not come down.
Dulce Balderas said Cardenas workers came to her house on 46th Place during the campaign and asked “if I had any problems.” She showed them an ash tree on the public parkway in front of her house. Roots from the tree, she believed, were causing flooding in her home.
Records show city workers removed the tree on Feb. 18 on orders from Sanchez. A week later, Balderas cast her vote.
“They cut it down,” she said. “Since they helped, I voted for Cardenas.”
But the tree might have died in vain. Water has continued to back up into her home even after the tree was removed.
First-timers
Another tree cut down on orders from Sanchez grew in front of Virginia and Ned Montalto’s house on Claremont Avenue. They said they wanted the maple tree down because its roots were blocking drainage pipes and they had to pay $150 to a plumber each time their basement flooded.
When campaign workers for Cardenas stopped by, “They wanted votes. I told them we wanted that tree down,” Virginia Montalto said. “They said, `We’ll have it taken care of.'”
City workers cut down the tree a few days later. The Montaltos said they and three relatives voted for Cardenas. Virginia Montalto said she had no problem promising her vote in exchange for having the tree removed.
“When the knock came on the door, that was the opportunity,” Virginia Montalto said. “I have heard that people do that, and we did that too. We had never done that in our lives.”
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Trading trees for votes
In the weeks before a heated aldermanic election in the 12th Ward in February 2003, Al Sanchez, then Mayor Richard Daley’s commissioner of the Streets and Sanitation Department, ordered the removal of 26 trees. That represented nearly half of the total trees he ordered cut down during his six years as head of the department.
SANCHEZ’S TREE REMOVALS
By ward, from August 1999 to June 2005
%%
12th 26
10th 9
23th 8
11th 3
34th 2
19th 2
29th 1
33rd 1
27th 1
13th 1
44th 1
21st 1
1st 1
%%
Note: Ward boundaries shown are from the 2002 redistricting
Source: City of Chicago
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