Mayor Brandon Johnson vowed Tuesday to shine the light on gifts the mayor has accepted “on behalf of the city” in hopes of putting to rest the controversy caused by his secretive handling of the items .
Inspector General Deborah Witzburg has accused the mayor of accepting valuable gifts — including jewelry, alcohol, AirPods, designer handbags and size-14 men’s shoes — and failing to report those gifts while denying internal investigators access to the room where the items are purportedly stored.
Perhaps most troubling to the inspector general was how difficult it was to secure the information, which is supposed to be promptly reported to the Chicago Board of Ethics and the city comptroller so the items can be added to the inventory of city property.
Johnson has accused Witzburg of a “mischaracterization” while insisting he has never personally benefited from any gifts. But, he is apparently determined to put to rest the unflattering image the inspector general’s investigation created.
The new gift handling policy outlined by Corporation Counsel Mary Richardson-Lowry is aimed at doing just that.
Starting next week, logs of the gifts Johnson receives from visiting dignitaries and the public will be meticulously maintained and posted on the city’s website, along with a video of the “gift room” in the mayor’s City Hall office where those items are stored.
When the mayor receives a gift at a public appearance, the item will be brought back to City Hall immediately and documented in the public log.
The log or gift list will include a description of the item and the name of the person or organization that gave the gift. That includes “large pictures and works of art,” the corporation counsel said.
Mayoral aides who receive gifts on the mayor’s behalf at public events will make it a point request the giver’s name.
If they don’t get a name, the donor will be categorized as “unknown” or “not knowable,” the corporation counsel said.
Perishable items like food or flowers will be “re-distributed.”
“I can’t wait to see this [gift] room myself,” Johnson said Tuesday. “I’ve never seen it. I’ll be online clicking” on the video.
Johnson defended his decision to deny internal investigators access to the gift room.
“You can’t just come to the 5th floor demanding to roam the 5th floor. The FBI can’t do that,” the mayor said.
Witzburg strongly disagreed.
“I read the law to be very clear on the obligation of city and elected officials to cooperate with” the Office of Inspector General, she said.
Witzburg called the new procedure outlined Tuesday a marked “improvement in transparency and accountability,” but said it won’t eliminate the need for oversight.
“We cannot expect people to take City Hall at its word. I will continue to consider unannounced inspections under appropriate conditions an important [aspect of] accountability,” she said.
Richardson-Lowry stayed out of the back-and-forth between the mayor and the inspector general.
She simply said the goal of the new procedure was to “take a little of this bluster out of the air and be focused on, what will be the procedure that we’re using going forward,” knowing that the gifts will keep on flowing.
“Every mayor receives gifts from people who visit, dignitaries who visit from other countries, people who are in communities who believe they ought to acknowledge the mayor for his good work by giving them gifts,” Richardson-Lowry said.
“We’re gonna make sure that we have a process that acknowledges the date that it came in on, to the extent that we know who gave it and their affiliation. … The public has a right to see the gifts every mayor receives.”
Witzburg found every mayor since Eugene Sawyer in the late 1980s has been exempt from those rules, based on an informal agreement with the Board of Ethics that has never been put into law. And her undercover investigators were denied access to the official gift log.
Richardson-Lowry, who served as Daley’s buildings commissioner, was a witness to that history.
“The log procedure … dates back to Mayor Sawyer. Mayor Daley had a version of that. Mayor Rahm [Emanuel, Mayor [Lori] Lightfoot, Mayor Johnson will continue with that concept, but we’re gonna best it and move it further to make it available for the public to see with a video of the space so that everyone has access to see the kinds of things that are received by every mayor—any mayor — when they’re in the role,” Richardson-Lowry said.