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.

The Chicago Board of Ethics fined indicted former Ald. Carrie Austin’s son, who works as an assistant commissioner in the Department of Streets and Sanitation, $7,000 on Monday for supervising his former sister-in-law for six years, in violation of the city’s governmental ethics ordinance.

Ald. Jim Gardiner (45th Ward) agreed to pay $157,500 to settle a lawsuit claiming he violated the First Amendment by blocking six critics from his official Facebook page in 2021, court records show.

The revised governmental ethics ordinance prevents what Board of Ethics Chair Steve Berlin called the “erasure of 13 years of reform.”

Ald. Matt Martin (47th Ward) said the plan, which is estimated to cost approximately $9.5 million per election, was designed to reduce the influence of “big special interest donors.”

The Chicago City Council is poised to fill two long-vacant seats on the city's Board of Ethics after Mayor Brandon Johnson faced months of criticism from good-government advocates.

The proposal, based on a unanimous recommendation by the Chicago Board of Ethics, now heads to a final vote at the City Council meeting set for June 12.

The Chicago Board of Ethics has fined Conyears-Ervin a total of $70,000 in the past month for a series of violations of the city's Government Ethics Ordinance. 

The recommendation followed the unanimous decision on Monday by the Chicago Board of Ethics to dismiss an enforcement action against a City Hall lobbyist who donated to Mayor Brandon Johnson’s campaign fund.

The board found Conyears-Ervin committed 12 total violations of Chicago’s Governmental Ethics Ordinance for violating her fiduciary duty to the city, for the unauthorized use of city property and prohibited political activity.

The cancelation of the meeting leaves the pending probe against City Treasurer Melissa Conyears-Ervin up in the air, four months after the Ethics Board ratified the determination that she fired two city employees after they warned her she was violating the city’s government ethics ordinance by using city resources to host a prayer service.

The Chicago Board of Ethics ratified the inspector general’s findings on Nov. 13, and Chicago Treasurer Melissa Conyears-Ervin now has an opportunity to contest the results of the probe at a future meeting of the board. Each violation of the law could trigger a fine of $20,000.

New rules requiring nonprofit organizations to register as lobbyists are set to take effect July 1 after a delay of nearly four years.

The board’s ruling could also complicate efforts to hold public officials or candidates responsible for other kinds of violations, unless the City Council acts to change the law, sources told WTTW News.

Michael Dorf, former Mayor Lori Lightfoot’s attorney, said the board’s decision “avoided setting a dangerous precedent.”

The probe by the Civilian Office of Police Accountability concluded that two Chicago Police lieutenants “may have directed an improper campaign of harassment” against Pete Czosnyka “in retaliation for the exercise of his First Amendment rights.”