Here's an early Christmas gift for Chicago housing advocates: Dr. Leon
Finney Jr., president of the clouted Woodlawn Organization, has
reportedly resigned from the influential Plan Commission, which sets development policy across the city.
Finney, if you'll recall, manages several affordable housing buildings that consistently flaunt building code regulations. A Chicago Reporter investigation,
which had its seeds at our site, showed that Finney's group received millions in contracts while Daley administration officials
simultaneously took him to court for building violations like rat
infestations, broken plumbing, and leaking roofs. The cause of his
resignation is unknown, but it's likely connected to the retirement of
his ally Mayor Richard Daley.
An official with Carol Moseley Braun's campaign announced that Finney was supporting her bid at the former U.S. senator's mayoral launch in late November.
Last week, we suggested
that one subtle but crucial impact of Mayor Richard Daley's impending
retirement would be the eventual changes in leadership at the city's
top departments and governing boards. In an excellent piece published this
morning, the Sun-Times' Fran Spielman points out that the new mayor won't have free rein to shake up City Hall agencies right away:
Scores
of Daley loyalists have been locked in to long-running appointments on
policy-making boards and commissions. They will continue to serve in
those posts for years to come, potentially undermining the power of
whoever becomes Chicago's new mayor.
Among those likely
staying on will be businessman Jim Reynolds, who was recently named
chairman of the Chicago Housing Authority, and former Buildings Commissioner Mary Richardson-Lowry, who was
just selected as school board president. The new mayor will have some
influence over the influential Plan Commission; five of Daley's nine
appointees -- including alleged slumlord Leon Finney Jr. -- are serving expired terms. Read the full piece here.
City of Chicago subsidies continue flowing to The Woodlawn Organization (TWO), the politically connected non-profit headed by Mayor Daley ally Leon Finney Jr., despite the fact that the city's own lawyers keep hauling the group into housing court for code violations at buildings it manages across the South Side. This startling revelation, uncovered by the Chicago Reporter, is the latest controversy surrounding TWO, which has gained an infamous reputation for leaving its affordable housing units in poor condition.
The piece also points out that the open spigot for TWO cuts against legislation passed by City Council earlier this year that forbids city contracts from going to "building code scofflaws." Since January, when the new rules were approved, TWO received
$1.3 million from the in subsidies from the Daley Administration. "Over that same time period," the Reporter
finds, "the city initiated 15 separate legal cases against the South
Side developer for violations including rat infestations, broken
plumbing, leaking roofs and deteriorating porches." A city spokesman said that officials are still writing enforcement rules for the law.
Those rules can't come too soon. Here's Progress Illinois' video from earlier this year of Latasha Thomas, talking about the conditions she and her family dealt with while living in a TWO building on South Kimbark in Chicago's Woodlawn neighborhood:
When Thomas's story originally broke, Progress Illinois asked why Leon Finney was invited by the mayor to serve on the Chicago Plan Commission, a development advisory body. An updated version of that question might be put thusly, given recent political developments: Will Chicago's next mayor demand accountability from contractors like Finney when she or he takes the reigns of city government next spring?
Four days after some South Side residents disrupted a City of Chicago Plan Commission meeting to demand that Mayor Richard Daley dump reputed slumlord Leon Finney Jr. from the board, the mayor has ordered an investigation into some of Finney's properties.
Leon Finney Jr., president of the Woodlawn Organization, has a long and less-than-stellar record managing low-income housing on Chicago's South Side. But that hasn't affected his clout at City Hall. Not only has Mayor Daley reappointed him to the Plan Commission time and again, he has also directed millions of taxpayer dollars into Finney's organization.
Here's an early Christmas gift for Chicago housing advocates: Dr. Leon
Finney Jr., president of the clouted 
