`Do the best you can with him' (the latest in the Chicago corruption)

[Robbien]

One former city official griped to Mayor Richard Daley's patronage chief about being forced to hire a politically connected "drunk" and was told to "do the best you can with him." Another clout-heavy worker was on active military duty in Iraq when he had a very impressive "interview" and got a city job. Top city officials put an operative on a must-hire list, though it must have been difficult to judge his credentials--he had died.

There were some jaw-dropping stories in the round of corruption charges filed Monday by federal prosecutors in the ever-broadening Hired Truck scandal. Robert Sorich, the Daley administration's patronage chief, and Patrick Slattery, a top official in the Streets and Sanitation Department, were accused in a wide-ranging scheme to steer jobs to favored applicants with political pedigrees.

. . .

The prosecutors weren't just crying, "Politics!" They were talking about fraud. "The hiring system was rigged, the interviews were rigged," said U.S. Atty. Patrick Fitzgerald.

Daley has shaken up his Cabinet, installed a city contracting watchdog, sworn off taking campaign cash from city vendors and implemented other reforms to demonstrate his ability to clamp down on corruption. He deserves credit for those moves.

. . .

Nor were these rogue operations in out-of-control city departments. For the last 12 years, Sorich has been a top official in the Office of Intergovernmental Affairs, an arm of the mayor's office and the focal point for city lobbying operations and hiring.

All that suggests the mayor doesn't need to fix the City Hall hiring operation. He needs to create one.

http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/opinion/chi-0507190222jul19,1,3209942.story?coll=chi-news-hed