Charity That Employs Patti Blagojevich On Verge Of Bankruptcy After City Hall Deal

UPDATE

Mayor Daley denied any impropriety in the Christian Industrial League building deal Thursday, blaming the charity's dire financial conditions on mismanagement, the Sun-Times' Fran Spielman reports:

Today Daley acknowledged that the shelter, now in the 2700 block of West Roosevelt, is in "dire" financial straits. But he categorically denied that the city-subsidized move he helped to engineer put the shelter in jeopardy.

"The problem is mismanagement in the last four or five years, unfortunately, of the operation," the mayor said.

Daley called the Sun-Times story "unfair" and said that it was he, and not old friend and developer Michael Marchese, who engineered the deal.

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"It was supposed to be a quintessential City Hall deal," Tim Novak reports in the Chicago Sun-Times.

"Help the homeless. Remove an eyesore from a booming neighborhood.

And help Mayor Daley's pal build a multi-million-dollar condo development.

The deal cost Chicago taxpayers at least $13.5 million. But it hasn't worked out as planned."

The Chicago Christian Industrial League, a century-old charity, entered into a supposed win-win deal with the city to relocate its homeless shelter from an old building in Greektown to a brand new facility in Lawndale. The deal wound up leaving the charity on the cusp of bankruptcy, leading them to hire Patti Blagojevich as a fundraiser, which hasn't exactly stemmed the tide.

Read all of the Sun-Times story here.

Watch Carol Marin's report on the story for NBC Chicago:

Comments

[Max01]

You would think that Celllini, a wealthy Repug, would have a better hair stylist. Couldn't afford Grecian formula around the entire head? This crook should be in a cell at Cook County.

[moAb]

Well what do you know...Cellini's name pops again. As well as other longtime Illinois pols/businessmen. This deal smells worse than the Bier Kase I just got for Christmas (wife made me throw it out). Wish we could throw these sleaze dealers out too.