Streets and Sanitation Attacks

When Carothers stole the first election via the absentee vote in the 29th Ward⁽¹⁾, he made Tommie Johnson the 29th Ward Superintendent, replacing a lady named Carol Hardwell.  Most of the time when a new Ward Superintendent is appointed (more on this in a second), the old Superintendent is moved to another position within the city of equal or greater stature.  In this case, Carol Hardwell was fired.

Regarding the appointment....

Aldermen should not control any positions within Streets and Sanitation or any other department for that matter.  This leads to the promotion practice of the City of Chicago.  Fact is, there are many good city workers who deserve to be promoted because of their skill and/or time on the job.  However, in this case, Carothers and other aldermen hand pick their Ward Superintendent.  This is a bad labor practice and a potential violation of Election Law; one is promised a job with the city in lieu of working an election; although Johnson worked for the city already, he was not in any position of authority.  Tommie Johnson did work the election and came to be Carothers right hand man.  In fact, Johnson allegedly ran a business (a vending machine business) in District 3 Headquarters, although he claimed it was someone else's machines.  Any other city employee would have been fired on the spot but not Johnson.  Why?  Carothers stepped in.  How does the story go? "Birds of a feather flock together."  In this case, corruption protects corruption!

Within a relatively short time, Johnson was promoted to District 3 District Superintendent.  For the record, Carothers was appointed to the Committee for Police and Fire.  Ironic, because they should really be in jail.

So, after the flood of 1997, which Wayne dubbed as the "Great Chicago Flood," Wayne got involved by starting a picket in front of the Alderman's office - the Alderman was Burrell.  The fact was that Burrell didn't care about the north end of the 29th Ward, just like Carothers.  However, one thing was for sure and that was Burrell should not be in office.

Wayne helped the alternative candidate - Floyd Thomas.  That is when he met Congressman Danny K. Davis.  It is also when he met Richard Barnett.

After the election, Richard pointed out to Wayne that the 29th Ward traditionally had only 200-300 absentee votes.  The first time Carothers ran, there were more than 1600; Carothers won by approximately 1,000 votes. 

We filed a Freedom of Information Act request with the Board of Election Commissioners to get the data and copies of the Absentee Ballot Applications and Ballot envelopes.  From there Wayne built a database and started inputting data.

After more than 2400 hours of work, reports were generated that showed exactly were problems exists.  This information was presented to the Board of Election Commissioners.

A short time after that, Congressman Davis was visited by Wayne and Richard.  He was asked to arrange a meeting with Devine to go over the information that was discovered.  This he did without reservation.

How does Streets and Sanitation enter the Picture?

At the time, Carothers was a Deputy Commissioner of the Bureau.  He was also in charge of the WINS program.  Interestingly enough, every voter that filed an application to vote absentee, did not have a voter registration number!

About a month after Devine received the data, Wayne started his picket on the south end of the Brickyard Mall.  During that time he also circulated petitions on behalf of the community to get needed services.  Unfortunately, the alderman (Carothers) was not too willing to comply with the will of the people, as expressed in their petition.  He, like his predecessor Burrell, did not care about the north end of the 29th Ward.

The first place we logically looked was Streets and Sanitation because of the link to Carothers.

What we found shall astound you, if you do not work for the city.  If you do work for the city and are not involved in the corruption then you know the facts and the facts presented are the truth.  If you are a city employee and involved in the corruption, then we know that you wish this would never make it to the internet.  Sorry, but it did and will continue.

From here you can click on one of the other buttons located above and read about some of the things that were experienced.

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1.  The information relating to the absentee vote can be found online.  It shows all the information that was presented to the Cook County States Attorney, Richard Devine as well as the Chicago Board of Elections, that did absolutely nothing.