Ald. Jim Gardiner hit with a $20,000 fine for ethics violations
In what was described as a first-of-its-kind punishment in Chicago, Northwest Side Ald. Jim Gardiner has been fined $20,000 after being accused of retaliating against a constituent and political critic by directing city staff to issue bogus citations against him for overgrown weeds and rodents.
The Chicago Board of Ethics on Monday came down with the ruling against the long-controversial alderman, stating Gardiner committed 10 violations of the city’s ethics code and unanimously voted to impose the maximum fine of $2,000 per violation.
The board’s fines follow a July report from the city’s inspector general that found an unnamed sitting alderman violated their fiduciary duty and misused city property when that alderman hatched a plan with two staffers to issue citations to the “home of a constituent who had been publicly critical of the alderperson.”
While the report didn’t identify the alderman, sources confirmed to the Tribune Gardiner was the subject of that OIG finding. In issuing its written ruling, the ethics board did cite Gardiner by name.
The city’s watchdog has only successfully pursued a probable cause finding in 13 ethics investigations and Gardiner was the first who was a sitting City Council member.
Inspector General Deborah Witzburg underscored the seriousness of the findings and the historic nature of the fines.
“This is the first time an OIG investigation has resulted in a punishment for a sitting elected official” for breaking the city’s ethics ordinance, Witzburg said Monday. “That’s a big deal. I have made a commitment that we will more rigorously investigate violations of the ethics ordinance … this is us making good on that.”
Gardiner, 45th, did not return a message seeking comment and he was not present at the City Council on Tuesday as budget hearings for Witzburg’s office and the ethics board were being held. According to the Board of Ethics, Gardiner rebutted the findings and has the right to challenge the determination in a confidential administrative hearing.
“The violations at issue here had to do with an elected official using the power of a public office for their own political good. They don’t get to do that,” Witzburg said. “The power of a public office belongs to the people of the city of Chicago, not to the person sitting in the seat.”
In the inspector general’s report, the office requested the Board of Ethics issue a finding that the alderman violated the ethics ordinance. In June, the board voted unanimously to do so.
Gardiner and his attorney “met with the board at its August, September and October 2023 meetings” to contest the findings but the board issued fines for five violations related to Gardiner’s fiduciary duty and five for unauthorized use of city property.
While Gardiner wasn’t in council chambers on Tuesday, Witzburg was and she issued a general warning to other bad actors in city government: Her office is watching.
In giving opening remarks to aldermen tasked with weighing her proposed increased budget, Witzburg began by touting “more rigorous enforcement of the city’s ethics rules than ever before,” including providing a statistic that almost one-third of the past decade’s probable cause findings pursued by the inspector general took place in 2023 alone.
Questioned by alderman about findings within city departments that are overseen by the mayor, Witzburg responded by declaring, “Railing against unethical behavior in city government is not as good as enforcing the rules against it.”
“And so while I do not think historically, ethics investigations have been a priority for OIG, they are a priority for us now, and they will be one going forward,” she said. “That it is by enforcing the city’s ethics rules that we will get a city government which more closely resembles the one Chicagoans deserve.”
Witzburg said her office’s proudest achievements are that “on the investigative front, that we have successfully enforced the rules against the abuse of public — the abuse of the public trust, the abuse of positions of power.”
Pete Czosnyka was the constituent who was cited for those garden violations, which occurred in 2019.
He received a $675 ticket for excessive weeds that led to a rodent infestation, but the case was dropped after a long municipal court battle. Czosnyka also runs the NWS Examiner that has been critical of Gardiner. He previously told the Tribune he’d been interviewed multiple times by the city’s watchdog.
In an email, Czosnyka said the board’s decision “provides a satisfaction that (Gardiner’s) aberrant behaviors have been formally recognized” and gives Czosnyka hope that the investigation “will make other (aldermen) think twice before doing the same or similar things. The $20K will make it harder for Gardiner to explain his bad behavior to his political contributors.”
Czosnyka notched a win in a separate battle over Gardiner’s use of Facebook in federal court last month.
U.S. District Judge Sharon Johnson Coleman enjoined Gardiner “from blocking any users from his official Facebook Page or restricting any comments or posts on his Facebook Page until he develops a content moderation policy that comports with the First Amendment’s requirements.”
Those are two of several scandals that have engulfed the alderman since his election in 2019 and reelection in 2023. In 2021, he took the highly unusual step of apologizing on the council floor after leaked texts showed him using profane and offensive language to describe a gay colleague, a female city staffer and a female political consultant.
And last January, a sworn deposition was made public in a federal lawsuit against Gardiner that detailed how a former aide last autumn said the alderman obsessed over Facebook criticism and pledged to rid the ward of his detractors, who he referred to as “rats.”
Gardiner was also the subject of an investigation into whether he accepted a $5,000 payment from a developer in exchange for stalling a housing development in his ward. He has not been charged.
Asked about the four years it took for the case to be adjudicated, Witzburg said: “Investigations are better when they happen faster, there are lots of reasons for which that’s not always possible. What matters is that we get it right. That’s what happened here.”
Chicago Tribune’s Gregory Royal Pratt contributed.
