PEOPLE Edited by Jennifer Davis
U.S. attorney nominee chosen U.S. Sens. Carol Moseley-Braun and Dick Durbin want Scott Lassar to be the next U.S. attorney for the Northern District of Illinois. A better question: Would Republican U.S. Sen. Phil Gramm of Texas? Gramm and Moseley-Braun are having a spat. She blocked his choice for the Commodity Futures Trading Commission; he blocked hers for the State Justice Institute. Pundits suggest Gramm could use senatorial privilege to hold up this nomination. But according to a Gramm spokesman, the senator hasn't considered it. "This [nomination] isn't even to the Senate yet," Larry Neal said last month. "And it won't be until they reconvene in February" Lassar has been acting U.S. attorney since Jim Burns decided to run ¦ for governor. "If there is some monkey business, as a practical matter, he's already there and will stay there," said Michael Briggs, Moseley-Braun's spokesman. Lassar of Highland Park has been first assistant U.S. attorney since 1993. He was chosen over Chicago attorneys Ann C. Tighe and Andrea L. Zopp. Plates for parks Wildlife Prairie Park in Peoria has a new advocate: the Illinois secretary of state's office. A new license plate featuring a North American bison silhouetted against a setting sun on a tan background will soon help the cash- strapped, 2,000-acre park filled with Illinois' native wildlife. For every plate sold and renewed, $25 will go to the park for park improvement and operation. Conservationist William Rutherford created the park 20 years ago (see Illinois Issues, September 1996, page 26). Since then, it has fallen on hard financial times. Rutherford has even offered to donate the park, which features 30 species native to Illinois, including a herd of bison, to the state. For more information or to order a plate, call 1-800-252-8980 or visit the secretary of state's website at www.sos.state.il.us.
38 / January 1998 Illinois Issues Chicago contracts for all the world to see If you ever wondered who provides the city of Chicago with toilet paper, just hold onto your, um, drawers. That person's name and vitals will eventually turn up on the city's new website. Indeed, the site includes the names of contractors, details on the services they provide and the cost to the taxpayers. Mayor Daley decided to throw open his books and splash city contracts all over cyberspace in response to the ethics scandal that recently forced his trusted floor leader, former city alderman Patrick Huels, to resign. When the project started in early December, fewer than two dozen contracts were listed, but "we will continue to update it as fast as is humanly possible," says Matt Smith, spokesman for the city's department of planning. "This is pretty revolutionary for municipal government." You can get a look at: www.ci.chi.il.us. Old contracts won't be added, but everything from here on out will be open to public scrutiny. MSI redux It's James Berger's turn to face down that pesky little acronym: MSI. Berger, a deputy director of the Illinois Department of Public Aid now on unpaid suspension, is the highest ranking state official implicated thus far in the federal fraud and bribery trial of Management Services of Illinois Inc. His trial, in which he faces 16 counts of mail fraud and one count of converting funds of a state agency that receives federal money, started last month in U.S. District Court in Springfield. Berger has pleaded innocent. As of press time, a verdict had yet to be reached. This summer, MSI, former MSI co-owner Michael Martin and former Public Aid administrator Ronald Lowder were found guilty of using cash, campaign contributions, gifts and trips to renegotiate an MSI contract to do computer work for the public aid department that overpaid the company some $7 million. Another former MSI co-owner William Ladd was acquitted, but then later found guilty of money laundering and lying to a financial institution in a related case in November. Michael Belletire, a former top aide to Gov. Jim Edgar, whose name surfaced during the first MSI trial, was mentioned again early in this trial. Belletire, who now heads the Illinois Gaming Board, has not been charged with any crime. And he denies any wrongdoing. Condolences Illinois Issues extends condolences to Illinois Senate Assistant Secretary Linda Hawker and her family on the loss of Hawker's mother K. Lucille Hopwood of Springfield.
Illinois Issues January 1998 / 39
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