Politics
Ethics Board ‘Revokes’ Informal Agreement That Allowed Mayor to Accept Pricey Gifts
Video: The WTTW News Spotlight Politics team on the Chicago mayor’s gift room and more of the day’s top stories. (Produced by Andrea Guthmann)
Mayor Brandon Johnson is subject to the city’s ethics ordinance and prohibited from accepting most gifts worth more than $50, the Chicago Board of Ethics announced Monday.
No longer will gifts accepted by Chicago’s mayor on behalf of the city be covered by an “unwritten arrangement” dating back to the late 1980s during the administration of former Mayor Eugene Sawyer, Board President William Conlon said during a meeting Monday.
“Any informal agreement made years ago is over and revoked,” Conlon said. “The board expects compliance with the ordinance.”
Under the informal arrangement, gifts accepted by the mayor were supposed to be logged in a book that would be available for public viewing, while the items themselves were stored in the mayor’s suite of offices on City Hall’s fifth floor.
Any gift accepted by an elected official or city employee on behalf of the city must be “reported to the board and to the comptroller, promptly,” according to the rules.
That unwritten and little-known agreement burst into public view Jan. 29 when Inspector General Deborah Witzburg released an audit revealing that Johnson’s office accepted luxury handbags, electronics, designer cuff links and shoes on behalf of the city without properly reporting them as required.
When an undercover investigator working for Witzburg asked in June to see the list of the gifts to Johnson on a required official document, they were turned away, in violation of city law, according to the report.
In November, staff in the mayor’s office refused to allow representatives of the inspector general’s office to inspect the gifts to ensure they were being properly stored.
The inspector general has yet to gain access to the mayor’s “gift room” at City Hall in order to “inspect the manner in which gifts are stored, audit the presence of gifts that were purportedly stored in the gift room as stated in the gift log, or to review controls around access to the gift room,” according to the report.
Witzburg declined to comment on the Ethics Board’s announcement that the “unwritten” or informal arrangement involving the mayor’s ability to accept gifts on behalf of the city had been revoked.
In response to Witzburg’s report, the Chicago Board of Ethics directed Johnson to report all gifts accepted on behalf of the city to the Board of Ethics within 10 days. Those disclosures will be published online.
“The board also recommends that any gifts accepted on behalf of the city that remain within the mayoral suite of offices or within City Hall be accessible for viewing by members of the public on reasonable terms set by the mayor’s office,” Chicago Board of Ethics Executive Director Steve Berlin wrote.
Cristina Pacione-Zayas, Johnson’s chief of staff, told Witzburg the mayor’s office would follow those rules and instruct the mayor’s aides to document all gifts to ensure public disclosure of their origin.
However, Corporation Counsel Mary Richardson-Lowry announced Feb. 4 that the mayor’s office would publish a video of the “gift room” in the mayor’s City Hall office where those items are stored.
“Every mayor receives gifts from people who visit, dignitaries who visit from other countries, people who are in communities who believe they ought to acknowledge the mayor for his good work by giving them gifts,” Richardson-Lowry said. “We’re going to make sure that we have a process that acknowledges the date that it came in on, to the extent that we know who gave it and their affiliation. The public has a right to see the gifts every mayor receives.”
A spokesperson for the mayor did not respond to a request for comment, and no video of the gift room had been published as of late Monday.
Pressed by reporters, Johnson has bristled at Witzburg’s report and the controversy.
“I don’t mean to make light of, you know, this so-called investigation, but quite frankly, it bears very little,” Johnson said Jan. 29, adding that the real threat to democracy is President Donald Trump, not the mayor’s office’s gift log.
“The only benefit that I get from being mayor of Chicago is I get to see the full breath of what the greatest freaking city in the world looks like,” Johnson said. “I see this job as an opportunity to serve people who have been ignored in this city for decades.”
Johnson has repeatedly said he would not allow the inspector general or her staff to make unannounced inspections of the gifts accepted by the mayor on behalf of the city, saying it is not required by city law. That is contested by Witzburg.
Witzburg’s report details repeated efforts by the mayor’s staff to hinder her probe into the mayor’s acceptance of gifts.
After the request from the inspector general’s undercover investigator to inspect the gift log was refused, they filed a Freedom of Information Act request in their capacity as a member of the public. The mayor’s office failed to respond to that request as required by state law.
Only after the inspector general submitted an official request for the log did the mayor’s office acknowledge Johnson accepted gifts including jewelry, clothes and accessories on behalf of the city.
Those gifts included Hugo Boss cufflinks; Givenchy, Gucci, and Kate Spade handbags; a personalized Mont Blanc pen; and size 14 men’s shoes, according to the inspector general’s report.
In all, Johnson accepted 236 gifts on behalf of the city, according to the log the inspector general finally obtained. By comparison, former Mayor Lori Lightfoot accepted 144 gifts between February 2022 and when she left office in May 2023, including a bottle of Uncle Nearest 1856 Premium Aged Whiskey, according to the report. Lightfoot also failed to properly report and document those gifts, according to the inspector general.
The log fails to identify the giver of more than 70% of the gifts, even though the log includes space to document the date the gift was received, gift description, location of the gift, the name, associated organization and address of the giver as well as whether a thank you note has been written and sent.
A document published by the Ethics Board designed to help employees avoid running afoul of the gift restrictions in the city Governmental Ethics Ordinance offers advice in “plain English”:
“City employees and officials (and persons or businesses who wish to offer something of value to them) should consider not only whether the city’s ethics laws allow them to offer or accept it, but whether acceptance may create the perception that the recipient’s independent judgment could be compromised,” according to the guide. “When in doubt, it’s always safest to say ‘no thank you’ or just pay fair market value for anything offered.”
Contact Heather Cherone: @HeatherCherone| (773) 569-1863 | [email protected]
