PEOPLE

Edited by Jennifer Davis

Shifts at the Top Mike Tristano is House Republican chief of staff Again. He replaces Michael Stokke, who resigned. Tristano left a post at the University of Illinois at Chicago to return to the Capitol this month. He had quit the chief of staff job only three years ago. Stokke said he wanted to spend more time with his family. Keith Sanders is the new executive director of the Illinois Board of Higher Education. He replaces Richard Wagner, who is retiring next month. Sanders, an Illinois native, was most recently senior vice president for administration and CEO of the University of Wisconsin. Robert Lawley is chief counsel at the Illinois Department of Natural Resources, replacing Phil Montalvo.

U.S. attorney nominee chosen

U.S. Sens. Carol Moseley-Braun and Dick Durbin want Scott Lassar to be the next U.S. attorney for the Northern District of Illinois. A better question: Would Republican U.S. Sen. Phil Gramm of Texas? Gramm and Moseley-Braun are having a spat. She blocked his choice for the Commodity Futures Trading Commission; he blocked hers for the State Justice Institute. Pundits suggest Gramm could use senatorial privilege to hold up this nomination. But according to a Gramm spokesman, the senator hasn't considered it. "This [nomination] isn't even to the Senate yet," Larry Neal said last month. "And it won't be until they reconvene in February"

Lassar has been acting U.S. attorney since Jim Burns decided to run ¦ for governor. "If there is some monkey business, as a practical matter, he's already there and will stay there," said Michael Briggs, Moseley-Braun's spokesman. Lassar of Highland Park has been first assistant U.S. attorney since 1993. He was chosen over Chicago attorneys Ann C. Tighe and Andrea L. Zopp.

Plates for parks

Wildlife Prairie Park in Peoria has a new advocate: the Illinois secretary of state's office.

A new license plate featuring a North American bison silhouetted against a setting sun on a tan background will soon help the cash- strapped, 2,000-acre park filled with Illinois' native wildlife.

For every plate sold and renewed, $25 will go to the park for park improvement and operation.

Conservationist William Rutherford created the park 20 years ago (see Illinois Issues, September 1996, page 26). Since then, it has fallen on hard financial times. Rutherford has even offered to donate the park, which features 30 species native to Illinois, including a herd of bison, to the state.

For more information or to order a plate, call 1-800-252-8980 or visit the secretary of state's website at www.sos.state.il.us.

HONORS One achieved an "all but unachieviable task," the other was just plain "tough, stubborn and pragmatic" in the "tempestuous spotlight of high "public office." For these feats, Mary Gade and Richard Daley were chosen among Governing's top 10 public officials of the year in the magazine's December issue. Gade, for those who don't know, runs the Illinois Environmental Protection Agency. And Daley, as everyone knows, runs the city of Chicago. Every year Governing, a national magazine devoted to states and localities, chooses leaders "who have mastered an office or organization, brought it to a level of outstanding performance, and kept it there." This year, Illinois was the only state with two honorees. Gade, who took over as IEPA's director in 1991, was selected because she recently chaired a multi- state negotiation to control air pollution, a two-year effort many called "unachievable." The magazine notes she "agreed to lead the effort despite the political risk of possible emissions regulations that could cost Illinois industry but benefit downwind neighbors." Daley, on the other hand, was given kudos for his 1995 decision to assume control of Chicago's failing school system. "When the mayors of the 1990s look around for innovative approaches to urban management, more often than not they discover Daley was the one who tried them first," according to the magazine. Daley's recent troubles concerning the city council's ethics, however, weren't noted. John Comerio of the Illinois Department of Natural Resources received national recognition for a career that has spanned nearly three decades. Comerio, a department deputy director, was one of three people nationwide given the William Penn Mott Jr. Award for Excellence by the National Society of Park Resources. Comerio is co-chair of the research advisory council of the Illinois Association of Park Districts and is a member of the National Recreation and Park Association's Great Lakes Regional Council.

38 / January 1998 Illinois Issues

Chicago contracts for all the world to see

If you ever wondered who provides the city of Chicago with toilet paper, just hold onto your, um, drawers. That person's name and vitals will eventually turn up on the city's new website. Indeed, the site includes the names of contractors, details on the services they provide and the cost to the taxpayers.

Mayor Daley decided to throw open his books and splash city contracts all over cyberspace in response to the ethics scandal that recently forced his trusted floor leader, former city alderman Patrick Huels, to resign.

When the project started in early December, fewer than two dozen contracts were listed, but "we will continue to update it as fast as is humanly possible," says Matt Smith, spokesman for the city's department of planning. "This is pretty revolutionary for municipal government."

You can get a look at: www.ci.chi.il.us.

Old contracts won't be added, but everything from here on out will be open to public scrutiny.

MSI redux

It's James Berger's turn to face down that pesky little acronym: MSI.

Berger, a deputy director of the Illinois Department of Public Aid now on unpaid suspension, is the highest ranking state official implicated thus far in the federal fraud and bribery trial of Management Services of Illinois Inc. His trial, in which he faces 16 counts of mail fraud and one count of converting funds of a state agency that receives federal money, started last month in U.S. District Court in Springfield.

Berger has pleaded innocent. As of press time, a verdict had yet to be reached.

This summer, MSI, former MSI co-owner Michael Martin and former Public Aid administrator Ronald Lowder were found guilty of using cash, campaign contributions, gifts and trips to renegotiate an MSI contract to do computer work for the public aid department that overpaid the company some $7 million. Another former MSI co-owner William Ladd was acquitted, but then later found guilty of money laundering and lying to a financial institution in a related case in November.

Michael Belletire, a former top aide to Gov. Jim Edgar, whose name surfaced during the first MSI trial, was mentioned again early in this trial. Belletire, who now heads the Illinois Gaming Board, has not been charged with any crime. And he denies any wrongdoing.

Condolences

Illinois Issues extends condolences to Illinois Senate Assistant Secretary Linda Hawker and her family on the loss of Hawker's mother K. Lucille Hopwood of Springfield.

TRANSITIONS James Schultz of Effingham is the newly elected chairman of the Illinois Chamber's board of directors. Schultz is also chairman and CEO of Telemind Capital Corp. of Effingham. Gary Rainwater of Springfield is the newly elected president and CEO of Central Illinois Public Service Co.'s board of directors. He succeeds Clifford Greenwalt, who retired. Rainwater joined the utility a year ago. Prior to that, he was vice president of corporate planning fox Union Electric Co. of St. Louis. Margie Schroeder left Illinois Radio Network's Statehouse bureau to focus on her work as a downstate correspondent for States Radio, a Washington D. C.-based daily broadcast wire service. Eva Goltermann of WMAY, WNNS & WQLZ will replace Schroeder. Emily (Wilkerson) Neal of Copley News Service also left the State- house pressroom. She moves to Joliet to become the online editor of the chain's northern Illinois papers. Toby Eckert, another former Statehouse pressroom veteran, recently joined Copley's Washington, D.C., bureau covering Illinois issues and politics. Eckert spent six years covering Illinois government from Springfield for the Peoria Journal Star. Most recently, he was with the Indianapolis Business Journal, a business weekly. Molly Hall is now the Department of Human Services' deputy press/communications secretary. Hall has worked for the comptroller's communications office. She also spent six years covering the Statehouse for WCIA-TV in Champaign. Brian Reardon, news director of Illinois Radio Network, is now press secretary for lieutenant governor candidate and state Rep. Corrine Wood, a Lake Forest Republican. Rob Phillips, IRN's sports director, is replacing Reardon.

Illinois Issues January 1998 / 39