Fish in a Barrel

Fusco, Novak and McKinney must feel like big game hunters coming across a pristine wilderness where the animals don't even know enough to fear the humans and their loud guns:

• Even as convention business has plummeted, the number of people on the payroll of the government agency that runs McCormick Place and Navy Pier who are paid more than $100,000 a year has grown.

  A Chicago Sun-Times analysis of payroll records shows 54 employees of the Metropolitan Pier and Exposition Authority were making at least $100,000 as of September 2009. That's eight more than the agency, familiarly known as McPier, had in 2006, the records show -- a 17 percent increase.

And how do these big salaries come about?

• They made one of the "clout hiring lists" that have come to light in recent years showing they had someone with political connections recommend them for a job at some point with Mayor Daley's administration or that of ousted former Gov. Rod Blagojevich.

• The name of Nonda Harris' brother might be familiar: John Harris, a former Blagojevich chief of staff who has pleaded guilty in the ex-governor's corruption case.

• Sheahan, who once headed Daley's Office of Special Events, recommended 37 applicants for city jobs

• Ochoa -- a onetime Blagojevich campaign fund-raiser appointed by the then-governor as McPier's CEO in January 2007 -- recommended more than 70 people for positions

• Michael R. Degnan, son of former top Daley aide Tim Degnan...

• Marasso, a son-in-law of late Chicago Ald. Fred Roti (1st), took an unpaid leave of absence from his night job guarding the old domestic violence courthouse at 13th and Michigan in July 2001 before resigning that post in August 2003. He now makes $129,280 a year as McPier's facilities director for Navy Pier and McCormick Place.

Follow the money. Follow the money.