City Treasurer Melissa Conyears-Ervin acknowledged asking BMO Harris about providing a loan to her husband’s landlord, a key allegation contained in a recently released 2020 letter from two former treasurer employees who accused Conyears-Ervin of repeatedly misusing taxpayer resources and abusing the powers of her office.

In an interview with WLS-Ch. 7 that aired Thursday, Conyears-Ervin said she didn’t think she did anything wrong by talking with officials at BMO Harris about the mortgage, even though as treasurer she oversees deposits of city funds with BMO and other banks. The two ex-employees said Conyears-Ervin was leveraging the city’s banking relationship with BMO to “force” the bank to issue a mortgage on a building that houses the aldermanic office for her husband, Ald. Jason Ervin, 28th.

Asked if it was her responsibility to avoid even an appearance of impropriety or conflicts-of-interest, Conyears-Ervin said, “My office has the responsibility to advocate for all Chicagoans. That is our responsibility.”

Conyears-Ervin also acknowledged that computers from the treasurer’s City Hall offices were recently seized by investigators from Chicago Inspector General Deborah Witzburg’s office, but added, “There is nothing to hide.”

The treasurer’s comments came three weeks after the city of Chicago released the letter from the pair of former high-ranking staffers. The letter was first reported by the Tribune after a legal battle in which the city kept the letter secret for more than two years. In addition to the allegations about BMO Harris, the former staffers said Conyears-Ervin used government workers for her own personal benefit, including to plan her daughter’s birthday party and to be her bodyguard, in addition to broad claims Conyears-Ervin repeatedly misused taxpayer resources and pressured public employees to help her political allies.

Conyears-Ervin denied having public employees run personal errands for her while they were on duty. She declined, however, to address whether they did work for her on their personal time.

“According to the allegations, employees were doing personal errands on city’s time,” she told WLS-Ch. 7. “That did not occur.”

[ Chicago treasurer accused of misconduct and ethical violations in letter city kept secret for years ]

Conyears-Ervin has repeatedly declined Tribune interview requests and did so again on Friday following her interview with WLS-Ch. 7. Instead, she issued a statement that said the allegations from former staffers “misrepresent the culture” of her office.

In the statement, Conyears-Ervin reiterated that her office did reach out to BMO Harris about the mortgage but said “it is my understanding” the loan that was requested did not go through.

“Our role was simply to make the connection to aid the organization in finding out its options,” she said in the statement. “My office certainly doesn’t have the unilateral power to eliminate a relationship with a major bank if they didn’t give someone a loan — nor would I do so, even if I did have that power.”

On public employees doing personal work for her, Conyears-Ervin said in the statement she has “issued a revised human resources/employee handbook, including an updated and clarified ethics policy.”

Alisa Kaplan, executive director of Reform for Illinois, said Conyears-Ervin’s comments do not settle the questions.

“If the treasurer used her position to pressure the bank to provide a mortgage or more favorable loan terms for her family’s personal gain, that is a clear violation of ethics rules and a deeply troubling abuse of her office. But we just don’t know enough yet to say whether that’s what occurred,” she said. “Certainly the circumstances — that the bank does business with the city and that the loan would have gone to her husband’s landlord — raise serious questions that need to be answered.”

Kaplan also said more information is needed about workers doing errands for her.

“In most circumstances it’s illegal for employers to require employees to work for them for free,” Kaplan said. “Even if she just asked her staff to do her some favors … how would you feel if your boss asked you to work for them in your free time? You’d feel like you had to do it.”

The treasurer’s decision to speak in more detail about the allegations in the letter comes as she continues to ponder a planned congressional run against U.S. Rep. Danny Davis and seeks to do damage control amid the ongoing controversy. She had planned to announce her run earlier this month.

To help Conyears-Ervin manage the fallout, Conyears-Ervin has enlisted former Mayor Lori Lightfoot adviser Joanna Klonsky to address questions. Conyears-Ervin also recently hired Matt McGrath, a former Mayor Rahm Emanuel spokesman and Aviation department official, to be her chief of staff. Conyears-Ervin didn’t have a chief of staff for many months but had several people functioning in that role.

The treasurer’s team also told Politico that her longtime general counsel is now an ethics officer as well.

The Tribune first reported in 2020 that Conyears-Ervin fired four top aides and said it was part of her decision to take the office in a new direction.

Following the firings, a lawyer for two of the women who were fired sent the head of the city’s Law Department and the Board of Ethics the four-page letter in December 2020. It said Conyears-Ervin threatened retaliation against employees who raised concerns about the conduct and other alleged misdeeds and told employees they “should not care if her plans are illegal since the only way they could lose their jobs is if she fires them.”

Under Lightfoot, the city paid $100,000 to settle the claims by Tiffany Harper, who had worked as Conyears-Ervin’s chief of staff, and Ashley Evans, the treasurer’s former chief impact officer.

But Lightfoot’s administration refused to release the letter despite numerous requests by the Tribune and a binding opinion by the attorney general’s office that it should be released. Mayor Brandon Johnson dropped the city’s legal fight and released the letter.

[ Chicago inspector general’s office seizes computers from city treasurer’s office ]

The head of the Chicago Board of Ethics said recently that the board referred the case to the city’s inspector general’s office. The IG’s office hasn’t released any reports about the case and it is unclear if the recent moves to seize computers from the treasurer’s office relate to the accusations laid out in the letter or a different set of issues.

Conyears-Ervin dismissed Harper, Evans and two other workers as part of what she called an office shake-up. Harper and Evans alleged their firings “violated the Illinois whistleblower act, federal laws, and a city ordinance,” and sent the letter to the city demanding reinstatement.

The demand letter disputed Conyears-Ervin’s claim she fired the workers because she had a different vision for the treasurer’s office.

One of the complaints detailed in the letter was staffers’ concern about Conyears-Ervin’s decision to hire an ex-Chicago police officer as her private security guard and driver, stating the ex-cop didn’t provide any services to the office and served more as Conyears-Ervin’s private armed security guard and driver.

In the statement, Conyears-Ervin characterized the security detail dispute from 2019 as stemming from Lightfoot making a “budgetary decision” to remove her police detail. In fact, the police department did a security assessment that found it wasn’t necessary.

The letter also took issue with Conyears-Ervin for hiring Gina Zuccaro to be an administrative assistant, a post Zuccaro was not qualified for, according to the letter. Zuccaro is a political ally of both Conyears-Ervin and her husband, and she has filed objections to block rival candidates from appearing on the ballot against Jason Ervin. Zuccaro also ran for state representative in 2020, losing to Jawaharial Williams, who is the son of Ald. Walter Burnett Jr., 27th.

In the letter, the two former employees alleged that rather than fulfilling the duties of that role full time, the treasurer used Zuccaro “for personal services like running errands, planning her daughter’s birthday party, grocery shopping and the like.”

Conyears-Ervin also used city resources “to advance the agenda of several churches” that politically supported her and her husband and spent city money to promote religion. Events included a “panel and praise” series, where she hand-picked pastors to highlight, and a “Back to School Citywide Prayer.”

When staffers questioned the spending, Conyears-Ervin said she “could handpick the prayer leaders (including her political supporters) rather than open the opportunity to all faiths, justifying it by saying that she wanted religious leaders who preached consistently with the Christian Bible,” according to the letter.

In her statement, Conyears-Ervin acknowledged she “didn’t go far enough to make sure that the Back to School prayer event was representative of a range of faiths, and that was a mistake.”

“My religion is extremely important to me, but I would never want to do anything to offend or exclude anyone from another faith,” she said.

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