Tangled Web

It's going to take the feds years to untangle this crap. And by that point, most of our readers will be retired and living on what used to be a pension.

• Chicago water officials wanted a place to park dozens of dump trucks they'd been leasing since the collapse of the city's scandalous Hired Truck Program.

  They found the spot in October 2006 -- a massive industrial property on Pulaski Road, just north of the Stevenson Expy.

  For a year, they parked dump trucks outside. Then, city officials decided they wanted to move the trucks indoors to a warehouse on the 15-acre site.

  As they negotiated a lease for that building, it changed hands, city officials say. And they say they had no idea the new owners included an investment company co-owned by Mayor Daley's nephew, whose firm manages $68 million for five city pension funds.

So "Pension-gate" has now joined with "Hired Truck." Fusco and Novak (with Spielman hitching a ride) have connected the dots that started almost 4 years ago with the City hiring connected trucks to sit around and do nothing at the cost of some $40 million.

Can you imagine if these guys worked as federal prosecutors? Daley would have been gone two elections ago.