Mark asserts...
but nowadays every politician knows that having your name linked to any facet of organized crime is political and personal suicide...just ask the former mayors of Cicero & Rosemont, Illinois.
When you say the "former mayor of Cicero" presumably you're referring to the "Maltese Falcon." To say she was
linked to (some) facet of organized crime would be an understatement. "Married to the Mob" might have been more accurate. I'm not sure whether she understood exactly what would be expected of her when she was appointed Town President, or if she was an unwitting patsy, sucked-in and stuck once she accepted the job. Since her release from prison, she's been presented with a number of life-changing career opportunities including hostess at a (highly recommended) neighborhood pizza joint and in automotive sales.
As for the former mayor of Rosemont, there's only one of those. And he's dead. But the cause of death was neither political nor personal suicide. It was mostly old age. And he might have been the original "Teflon Don" when it came to allegations of being mobbed-up. Following its incorporation as a municipality in 1956, he was the Village of Rosemont's first and only mayor for FIFTY years. Whatever associations he was alleged to have with organized crime over his FIFTY years as the mayor didn't seem to affect his political career. Moreover, there's a fair body of evidence that he did more to actually rid the village of organized crime influences.
Here's
another great post from the Illinois Police and Sheriff's News web site that addresses that very issue.
Or perhaps it could be viewed like the Illinois Tollway system under control of a Republican Governor vs. a Democratic Governor. We simply traded one form of graft and corruption (the patronage tollway worker) for another (the construction contracts for "open road tolling.")
tony b.
Long live the memory of Dave and Harry's Maroon Raccoon, Fools Rush Inn, and the Caravelle Motel...
