Daley Kills Two Birds

Amazing how he plays this town for chumps:

• Thirty-two times in the last 20 years, Mayor Daley has appointed aldermen to fill City Council vacancies.

  Unless the outgoing alderman was convicted and headed off to prison, the mayor followed the departing alderman’s recommendation on a successor.

  Today, Daley broke the mold — by appointing 57-year-old Cook County Commissioner Roberto Maldonado to replace Billy Ocasio as 26th Ward alderman.

And who is Roberto Maldonado? Clean and pure as the driven snow?

• In 2005, the Chicago Sun-Times reported that Maldonado’s top aides maintained a secret “clout list” with the names of 100 people in line for government jobs and promotions as payback for political work they had done.

  Maldonado admitted he knew many of the people on the list and that some had been heavily involved in his 26th Ward Regular Democratic Organization. But, he insisted that he never saw the list until the Sun-Times showed it to him.

  At around that same time, Maldonado’s records were subpoenaed by a federal grand jury probing medical supply giant Siemens. The company was subsequently accused of lying to the FBI and a federal judge to cover up a scheme in which Siemens paid a minority business to be its phony partner on a $49 million Cook County contract.

  Siemens and Faustech gave Maldonado $3,000 in campaign contributions before the bids were submitted. Maldonado also received thousands in contributions from convicted businessman Tony Rezko, a former fund-raiser and chief adviser to indicted former Gov. Rod Blagojevich.

And he apparently was the 14th vote that would have overridden Stroger's veto of the tax hike roll back - meaning that Daley, in effect, bolstered Stroger's position in keeping the Cook County sales tax as the highest in the nation.