SHOCKER: SUN-TIMES QUESTIONS TRANSPARENCY OF CITY GOVERNMENT

Daley says he's leading by example. I don't believe him.

All not so clear in Daley's 'transparent' city :: CHICAGO SUN-TIMES :: Carol Marin

Relatives of the mayor are certainly entitled to go out into the world and make millions of dollars. There's nothing inherently wrong with that.

But the question at the heart of these two deals is whether clout drove the train on either or both.

And there's another question that goes along with it. It's whether taxpayers are entitled to simple answers to simple inquiries when it comes to city business.

...

For example, was it just a coincidence that one of the properties Vanecko and Davis were in the process of purchasing won a lucrative lease with the City Water Department a month before they took possession? Reporters Novak and Chris Fusco have asked for information about that transaction from the mayor's office, the General Services Department, and from the Water Department. No one will tell them. No one will show them the lease. Though the money that pays for that lease is taxpayer money. Our money.

Inspector General Hoffman, meanwhile, sought information from the city pension boards about the Vanecko and Davis deal. The pension boards in question, some of whose members are city officials, wouldn't answer, refusing to respond to a Hoffman subpoena. That's when Hoffman brought in the feds and lowered a larger subpoena boom on them.

That shouldn't have been necessary. Those pension funds, those city officials and all those stonewalling city departments should have been as transparent as the mayor claims he is.

Remember last month? That's when Mayor Daley said he didn't need to take a position on a reform bill that was being massacred in Springfield because he was "leading by example." He even brought up the inspector general saying, "We've done everything here. We're leading the way with our inspector general. ... We're more transparent than any other government. Look at it."

We are.