Sun Times suddenly awakens from Trotter coma

 

Annabel Kent, Chicago Media Critic

 

Isn’t it amazing!

 

State Senator Donne Trotter tries to pack a piece onto an airplane and, presto, those intrepid reporters at the Chicago Sun Times suddently discover all sorts of interesting things about Donne’s Night Doings.  

 

The ink’s hardly dry on his bail paperwork and already those Times’ journalistic sleuths Natasha Korecki and Chris Fusco have discovered that “The security company employing state Sen. Donne Trotter has been paid more than $350,000 as a subcontractor on a City of Chicago security deal and is represented by a politically powerful lobbying firm run by a onetime top aide to former Mayor Richard M. Daley.”  

 

What a shocker!

 

And there are more sudden revelations: “Records show that AllPoints Security and Detective Inc. is represented by Chico & Nunes, a lobbying firm headed by Illinois State Board of Education Chairman Gery Chico. Chico & Nunes is a registered lobbyist with the city and its specialty is certifying businesses to become women- and minority-owned companies. That distinction gives them a leg up to win city business.”

 

Is the ubiquitous interlinking of Chicago’s political-interests incestuous, or what?

 

Donne chairs the Illinois Senate Appropriations Committee and he does…something…maybe…for a company represented by Gery Chico’s lobby-law firm; he heads the Illinois State Board of Education.

 

What’s next: Jack Lavin on the AllPoints Board of Directors?

Oh, and did we mention that the Executive Director for Business Development and Marketing at AllPoints used to work in the Office of the Mayor of Chicago, in the Illinois Attorney General’s Office, at Cook County Stroger Hospital, and at the Chicago Urban league – all in Public Relations or Communications functions.

But hey, so what?  Everyone not working in their first job has to have worked somewhere else, and the city, county, and state employ a lot of people. A whole lot.

Donne apparently has trouble living on his $90 grand from the Illinois State Treasury so he moonlights as a .25 cal pistol-packing security guard? (Is it okay to laugh out loud at this point?)

 

In the meantime, Illinois ranks 5th place among states with the highest debt-per-capita, at $21,607 per person And the guy who heads the Senate Appropriations Committee is night security guard?  Stop it – you’re killin’ me.

You just can’t make this stuff up – assuming it’s true and Donne’s job responsibilities are not turning off the men’s toilet lights on even-numbered Thursdays, in months with an “r”, during alternate Leap Years.

 

So all of a sudden, the Times discovers Donne’s side job. Plus, the dogged reporters find that “The company [AllPoints] has made $49,000 in campaign contributions to local and state politicians since 2002, including to Daley, former Gov. Rod Blagojevich and $500 to Trotter.”

 

They don’t call it “pay-to-play” cause it’s bingo.

 

Donne has been a favorite to take over J.J. Jr.’s job as a member of The United States House of Representatives and the Times just now learns that he moonlights for a security company represented by Gery Chico’s lobbying law firm, and that the company had made contributions to Donne’s campaigns?

 

Wow! It’s as though the reporters at the Sun Times have awaken from a Totter coma.

 

Or, was all this stuff common newsroom knowledge and recent circumstances provided a convenient opportunity to use it – before the Trib did?