Politics
Video of City Hall Gift Room Raises ‘More Questions Than Answers’: Watchdog
A video of the room in the mayor’s office at City Hall where he stores gifts he has accepted on behalf of the city of Chicago. (Chicago’s Mayor’s Office)
A video released Wednesday by Mayor Brandon Johnson’s office of a small City Hall room crammed with gifts his office accepted on behalf of the city raises “more questions than answers,” Inspector General Deborah Witzburg told WTTW News.
The 21-second video, posted to the mayor’s YouTube page, slowly pans around a small room stuffed with artwork, coffee mugs, shoes, baseball caps, T-shirts, awards, plaques and books on shelves lining three walls.
But the video makes it impossible to identify all but the largest items, including what appears to be the NASCAR tracksuit Johnson wore when he kicked off the NASCAR Chicago Street Race in July.
It is unclear whether Hugo Boss cufflinks; Givenchy, Gucci, and Kate Spade handbags; a personalized Mont Blanc pen; and size 14 men’s shoes, remain stored in the gift room as required, based on the video.
Witzburg released an audit two weeks ago revealing that Johnson’s office accepted pricey items on behalf of the city without properly reporting them as required. Neither Witzburg nor members of the news media, including WTTW News, have been allowed to inspect the gift room, as Witzburg said is required by city ordinance.
“I’m not sure there is a great deal of comfort to be taken from the video,” Witzburg said. “These items belong to the city of Chicago and ought to be accessible to the public to which they belong.”
A 20-second video is “not a substitute for public access to public property,” Witzburg said.
The city’s ethics ordinance prohibits elected officials and city employees from accepting most gifts worth more than $50.
Witzburg said she “appreciated the clarity” of the ruling from the Chicago Board of Ethics on Monday that revoked an “unwritten arrangement” dating back to the late 1980s that called for gifts accepted by the mayor 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.
That little-known agreement burst into public view two weeks ago with the release of Witzburg’s audit, which detailed repeated efforts by the mayor’s staff to hinder her probe into the mayor’s acceptance of gifts.
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.
Only after the inspector general submitted an official request for the log did the mayor’s office acknowledge Johnson accepted gifts including alcohol, jewelry, clothes and accessories on behalf of the city.
Johnson’s office published that log Wednesday, listing the 365 gifts his office has accepted since May 2023, when he took office. The log fails to identify the giver of the majority of the gifts, even though the log includes space to document the date the gift was received, the name and associated organization who gave the gift and the location of the gift.
The log details the acceptance of 22 gifts on Tuesday alone, including four pairs of “men’s GoldStar dress socks” and a “crystal necklace.”
The log does not identify who gave the mayor those gifts, even though they were accepted one week after Corporation Counsel Mary Richardson-Lowry told reporters the mayor’s office would “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.”
Witzburg said that is an indication the mayor’s office has yet to fully comply with the city’s ethics ordinance.
“We have not made a lot of progress,” Witzburg said. “Something like this leaves more questions than answers.”
Contact Heather Cherone: @HeatherCherone| (773) 569-1863 | [email protected]
