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Politicians serve all of their constituents, not just the ones who vote for them. Apparently 45th Ward Ald. Jim Gardiner never got that memo.
One of Gardiner’s constituents is Pete Czosnyka, who, as is his right in a free country, puts together a Facebook page that has been openly critical of Gardiner. A few months after Gardiner took office in 2019, Czosnyka was hit with $675 in tickets for overgrown weeds and rodents in his garden. Czosnyka wisely fought back. The matter went to court and Czosnyka eventually got the case against him dropped. In the meantime, the city’s Office of the Inspector General began looking into Gardiner’s actions.
Last week, Inspector General Deborah Witzburg released her findings. Though she didn’t name Gardiner in her report, the Tribune confirmed she was speaking about him. Witzburg concluded that the alderman worked with two office workers to conjure up the retaliation. Czosnyka still was cited for the weeds even though Gardiner and his people had previously been told that Czosnyka’s garden did not violate any city ordinance.
The city’s Board of Ethics agreed with Witzburg’s findings and issued a finding of probable cause that Gardiner violated the city’s ethics ordinance. Gardiner gets a chance to respond to the board’s finding, after which the board can either exonerate or fine him.
When it comes to Gardiner’s unethical behavior, this is just the tip of the iceberg.
Leaked texts have revealed how Gardiner once used profane and offensive language to describe a gay colleague, a female city worker and a female political consultant. In 2021, the Cook County Democratic Party called Gardiner’s behavior “abhorrent and despicable,” and accused him of using “misogynistic, homophobic and obscene language” toward others. The party stripped him of his party committee seats and formally rebuked him.
Gardiner is also the subject of an FBI investigation into allegations that he engaged in political corruption and retaliated against political opponents.
How Gardiner managed to get reelected this year bewilders us. We did not endorse him in either first-round voting or in the aldermanic runoff. His base in the Far Northwest Side ward is strong, though we hope at some point his backers realize that his transgressions are too voluminous for him to get reelected the next time around.
In the meantime, it’s up to the city’s Board of Ethics to settle on a fine. It’s not on us to recommend a specific number, but we urge the board to set an amount that packs a wallop. Doing so would send an unequivocal message not just to Gardiner, but to a City Council that consists of a plethora of rookie aldermen.
In many respects, those newbies represent a clean slate, and a startlingly hefty fine would cement the idea that ethics in city government isn’t just high-minded wishful thinking — it’s nonnegotiable.
Chicago Tribune Opinion
Witzburg also mentioned in her report a finding of probable cause that former Mayor Lori Lightfoot solicited campaign contributions from city workers during her unsuccessful reelection bid. In an editorial published in May, we criticized the former mayor and her campaign team’s actions as a prime reason why “citizens have scant trust in candidates, their politics and the government offices they seek.”
Witzburg’s latest report only reinforces that criticism, and reveals the urgent need for City Hall to take action that jettisons the city’s troubled history as an ethics wasteland. Since 1972, more than 30 aldermen have pleaded guilty or been found guilty of crimes related to their official duties. Former longtime Ald. Edward Burke is slated to stand trial later this year on racketeering, bribery and extortion charges, a case that undoubtedly will again put the city in the spotlight for all the wrong reasons.
For far too long Chicago has been synonymous with corruption and unethical behavior. The city’s Ethics Board can begin to chip away at that image by coming down hard on violators of the ethics ordinance. A slap on the wrist would simply invite more bad behavior.
Will Gardiner change his ways if his fine amounts to a traffic ticket? Not likely. The matter with the garden weeds might sound trivial, even laughable. But think about it: Witzburg is alleging that Gardiner used the power of his position to punish a seemingly innocent man whose criticisms he just did not happen to like. That’s more like a story from Vladimir Putin’s Russia than Chicago’s Far Northwest Side. And unless Gardiner has one heck of a good explanation we’ve yet to hear, it’s completely unacceptable.
At minimum, a withering broadside to Gardiner’s pocketbook would, for him and everyone else in City Hall, cast adherence to ethics laws as the new norm. Deterrence only works if the punishment has teeth. It’s high time that Chicago applies that maxim to ethics enforcement.
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