Was it an ethics violation for Mayor Brandon Johnson to accept a $1,000 campaign contribution from an executive overseeing a concessionaire working at O’Hare and Midway airports?
Aides to Johnson — who oversees both airports, and is subject to longstanding rules barring campaign money from City Hall contractors — still won’t say, as neither his governmental aides nor his political people will comment.
But the mayor’s campaign fund has returned the campaign money to Hyde Park Hospitality CEO Marc Brooks, according to disclosure paperwork filed by Friends of Brandon Johnson this week with the Illinois State Board of Elections.
On Dec. 20, the same day the Chicago Sun-Times reported on Brooks’ August 2023 donation to Johnson, the campaign fund returned the money to Brooks, according to the elections filing dated Wednesday.
Brooks said last month that he didn’t believe the donation represented a violation of any rules “as I’m aware of other similar organizations that have donated, that being said, I’ve asked the city to return my donation.”
Brooks’ company has several agreements for food and beverage concessions at the airports and a city-owned hotel at O’Hare.
The firm is part of a joint venture opening a bar and restaurant in O’Hare’s Terminal 5 this year, officials have said. Hyde Park Hospitality is also part of a “mobile ordering platform” at O’Hare.
An ethics order signed in 2011 as then-Mayor Rahm Emanuel took office prohibits “city contractors, owners of city contractors, spouses or domestic partners of owners of city contractors, subcontractors to a city contractor on a city contract, owners of subcontractors to a city contractor on a city contract, and spouses or domestic partners of owners of subcontractors to a city contractor on a city contract from making contributions of any amount to the mayor.”
That prohibition is mentioned in at least some of the written concessions agreements still in effect governing Hyde Park Hospitality’s airport business, records show.
The mayor has faced repeated questions since he was elected in April 2023 about his acceptance of campaign money from contractors that work for City Hall, as well as unions that rely on his administration’s decision making and contractors for the so-called “sister agencies” such as Chicago Public Schools that he also oversees.
He’s previously returned some of the other money from City Hall contractors, but not all.
The latest campaign filings from Johnson’s political fund also show a very light quarter in terms of fundraising: less than $1,000 raised in October, November and December.
That would be the smallest take since his election.
A Johnson campaign aide told Politico the figure reported was a mistake, and the mayor actually raised something like $200,000.
Records show the mayor has more than $1 million in his fund.