Why Quincy City Hall needs ethics reform Part III

Email from a reader:

I found out that the Quincy Police Dept circulates a gift card/donation for the Mayor every year. Although this is not a “technical” violation of the Illinois Ethics Act (which Quincy has adopted in the city code), it surely stinks to high heaven.

Anybody with any REAL ethics training knows it is wrong to give such a gift, or to receive it. Brown nosing the boss with something of value is most assuredly NOT ethical – and for the boss to also allow it shows how low integrity in this city has sunk.

Meanwhile, we continue to get these meaningless reports and updates from the City Hall Gazette highlighting the mayor for his symbolic sacrifice of just over $500.

The Whig on 12/26

As of Thursday, Spring had made two of the three $175.78 payments (a total of $527.34) he plans to make as a furlough contribution based on his annual salary of $91,550, which includes deductions for taxes and other expenses.

In the follow up on 12/31

Meanwhile, Spring donated $527.34, Hayden $501.66 and Crim $388.83. The amounts differ because the withholding for each person varies according to their individual tax bracket and other qualifying deductions.

According to Copley, QPD has 76 sworn officers. That comes out to $6.94 per officer to cover Spring's donation. I'd bet they are encouraged to dig a little deeper than that.

No wonder Spring waited until the last minute to pay his furlough days. He knew he wouldn't actually have to withdraw any money from his bank account as his customary Christmas bonus was on its way.

The city was supposedly required to comply with state law back in 2004 to ban these types of gifts (5 ILCS 430/10-10). In addition, the city is supposed to maintain an ethics commission to handle any complaints and violations. Solution: ignore the law. Click here to find the members of the Quincy Ethics Commission. Hint: There is no such commission. No one to file a complaint with? That solves the problem of any pesky ethics violations. No need to worry about the hapless enablers over at the Whig looking into any of this either. One would also have to be a bit naive to believe that every other city department doesn't solicit the same "gift" for our much deserving mayor. This is what is commonly referred to as soft corruption.


cross posted at Quincy Pundit