The Chicago Board of Ethics on Monday fined Northwest Side Ald. Jim Gardiner $20,000 after he was accused of retaliating against a constituent and vocal critic by directing city staff to issue bogus citations against the resident for overgrown weeds and rodents in September 2019.
In all, the board said Gardiner violated the city’s ethics code on 10 separate occasions.
The fine comes after a July report from the city’s inspector general found an unnamed sitting alderman violated their fiduciary duty and misused city property when that alderman hatched a plan with two staffers to issue citations to the “home of a constituent who had been publicly critical of the alderperson.”
The city’s watchdog has only successfully pursued a probable cause finding in 13 ethics investigations and Gardiner was the first who was a sitting City Council member. While the report didn’t identify the alderman, sources confirmed to the Tribune Gardiner was the subject of that OIG finding.
“This is the first time an OIG investigation has resulted in a punishment for a sitting elected official” for breaking the city’s ethics ordinance, city Inspector General Deborah Witzburg said Monday. “That’s a big deal. I have made a commitment that we will more rigorously investigate violations of the ethics ordinance … this is us making good on that.”
Gardiner, 45th, did not immediately return a message seeking comment.
“The violations at issue here had to do with an elected official using the power of a public office for their own political good. They don’t get to do that,” Witzburg said. “The power of a public office belongs to the people of the city of Chicago, not to the person sitting in the seat.”
The inspector general’s office requested the city’s Board of Ethics issue a finding that the alderman violated the ethics ordinance. In June, the board voted unanimously to do so. Gardiner and his attorney “met with the board at its August and September 2023 meetings to attempt to rebut the board’s finding,” but on Monday, the board issued a fine of $20,000 for five violations related to Gardiner’s fiduciary duty and five for unauthorized use of city property.
Pete Czosnyka was the constituent who was cited for those garden violations.
He received a $675 ticket for excessive weeds that led to a rodent infestation, but the case was dropped after a long municipal court battle. Czosnyka also runs the NWS Examiner that has been critical of Gardiner. He previously told the Tribune he’d been interviewed multiple times by the city’s watchdog.
In an email Monday, Czosnyka said Monday’s decision “provides a satisfaction that (Gardiner’s) aberrant behaviors have been formally recognized” and gives him hope that the investigation “will make other (aldermen) think twice before doing the same or similar things. The $20K will make it harder for Gardiner to explain his bad behavior to his political contributors.”
Czosnyka notched a win in a separate battle over Gardiner’s use of Facebook in federal court last month.
U.S. District Judge Sharon Johnson Coleman enjoined Gardiner “from blocking any users from his official Facebook Page or restricting any comments or posts on his Facebook Page until he develops a content moderation policy that comports with the First Amendment’s requirements.”
Those are two of several scandals that have engulfed the alderman since his election in 2019 and reelection in 2023. In 2021, he took the highly unusual step of apologizing on the council floor after leaked texts showed him using profane and offensive language to describe a gay colleague, a female city staffer and a female political consultant.
And last January, a sworn deposition was made public in a federal lawsuit against Gardiner that detailed how a former aide last autumn said the alderman obsessed over Facebook criticism and pledged to rid the ward of his detractors, who he referred to as “rats.”
Gardiner was also the subject of an investigation into whether he accepted a $5,000 payment from a developer in exchange for stalling a housing development in his ward. He has not been charged.
Asked about the four years it took for the case to be adjudicated, Witzburg said: “Investigations are better when they happen faster, there are lots of reasons for which that’s not always possible. What matters is that we get it right. That’s what happened here.”
Chicago Tribune’s Alice Yin and Gregory Royal Pratt contributed.