A top aide to Richard Daley said Thursday that the mayor does not recall receiving a 2004 letter from U.S. Rep. Luis Gutierrez (D-Ill.), who wrote Daley on behalf of a developer who had just loaned him $200,000.
Daley's press secretary, Jacquelyn Heard, said the congressman's lobbying did not have anything to do with the city's reversal of its long-standing opposition to the West Side residential and commercial project proposed by Gutierrez campaign contributor Calvin Boender.
Federal investigators have obtained Gutierrez's letter to Daley as part of their grand jury investigation into City Hall's zoning process, the Tribune reported Wednesday.