To get elected, Alsip Mayor John Ryan bragged of cutting predecessor’s pay. Three years later, he wants a big raise.
The south suburban mayor’s push for the $10,000 raise, to $85,000 — with 2.5% yearly increases — also comes a year after federal agents paid him a visit.
:format(webp)/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_image/image/67569525/Alsip.0.png)
When John Ryan ran for mayor of Alsip in 2017, his campaign fliers struck a strong populist tone.
“Representation Not Compensation,” one declared, referring to his successful push as a village trustee in 2012 to cut the pay and benefits of the mayor and other members of the village board.
“John Ryan approved the reduction of pay for elected officials by 25% and reduced the mayor’s salary from $100,000 to $75,000,” it said. “John Ryan will be a full-time mayor, receiving a salary of $75,000.”
Ryan won. Now, more than three years into his term and planning to run again in April, he wants a raise — to $85,000 after the next election, with yearly 2.5% raises after that.
:format(webp):no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/21925661/Screen_Shot_2020_09_30_at_5.49.24_PM.png)
That would be worth an additional $52,000 over four years and may ultimately mean a bigger government pension for Ryan, who was a village trustee for six years before being elected mayor.
His proposed raise was set for a vote this past week by the village board but was delayed until Monday at the request of two trustees.
“Now, you think it’s a good time to bring this up?” Trustee Mike Zielinski said at this past Monday’s village board meeting. “For this type of raise during a pandemic, when we’ve reduced our budget by millions of dollars, we have less sales taxes coming in, we have a lot of the village out of work, people that have been furloughed?
:format(webp):no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/19338870/Screen_Shot_2019_11_01_at_12.44.23_PM.png)
“These are the taxpayers that are going to be paying the salary,” Zielinski said. “This is a good time to do this?”
Ryan said he deserves more money because he works hard, and many of his suburban counterparts get paid more.
Besides, Ryan said, the village board raised the pay for other municipal employees, so he thinks it’s only fair that he get more money, too.
“You approved salary increases for” more than 100 municipal workers “this year, with the exception of one office, being mine,” he told the board.
Last year, Ryan was among a number of suburban Chicago mayors and other political figures interviewed by federal agents as part of an ongoing corruption investigation. Ryan, who hasn’t been charged with any crime, was questioned about his push to hire red-light-camera contractor SafeSpeed LLC.
After he was questioned, Ryan said neither he nor the village were targets of the investigation.
SafeSpeed’s efforts to do business with Alsip were put on hold.
Former state Sen. Martin Sandoval, a Chicago Democrat, has pleaded guilty to bribery and tax charges involving SafeSpeed, admitting he took payoffs to shield the red-light-camera operator from legislation that would hurt its business.
Two political operatives who also were SafeSpeed salesmen — Patrick Doherty and John O’Sullivan — helped run Ryan’s mayoral campaign in 2017.
Doherty, who had been chief of staff for former Cook County Commissioner Jeff Tobolski, was charged earlier this year with conspiring to pay bribes to win approval for red-light camera deals in the suburbs.
As part of the same case, Omar Maani, a former partner in SafeSpeed, signed a deferred-prosecution agreement to resolve a bribery conspiracy charge. Maani is cooperating with authorities under a deal in which he acknowledged he provided “benefits, including campaign contributions, meals, money, and sporting-event tickets” to public officials to get business.
SafeSpeed has denied any wrongdoing and said Maani acted on his own and long ago left the company.
Tobolski, who also was the mayor of McCook until resigning, has pleaded guilty in the same wide-ranging federal corruption investigation to participating in extortion and bribery schemes and agreed to cooperate with federal investigators.
Ryan runs a pretty tight ship in Alsip. I think the job is worth $85K.
ReplyDeleteWhy are all the crooks Irish? Second, a 2.5% yearly increase in pay tells me that this person doesn't have a clue how to earn a dollar. In the private sector, your raise depended on what you did the previous year along with the economic climate. Try working for a living instead of being a leech.
ReplyDeleteUm... wouldn’t “chaos in Alsip” entail a ban on motorcycles and double-wide trailers?
ReplyDeleteThe biggest scam out there is part time village trustees and alderman being enrolled in the IMRF pension. They are able to accrue years of credit through part time employment, but can switch over to a full time position, or elected position at the twilight of their working years. This enables them to collect a huge government pension based on their final salary. Oak Lawn and Orland Park stopped allowing their Village Board members to participate for this reason. The previous Village President of Orland Park was all set to collect a 6 figure pension until the residents got wise and voted him out of office. In addition the taxpayers of these municipalities are on the hook for hundreds of thousands of dollars to make these scam pensions whole. Working a 5 or 6 thousand dollar a year part time job and contributing a few hundred a year to the pension doesn't work when the final 4 or 5 years are paid at a high 5 or 6 figure salary. The employer needs to contribute the required funds to IMRF to enable the huge pension to be funded. I suspect Alsip is on the hook for many hundreds of thousands due to the fact many years of pension credit were established as a part time trustee, followed by a high 5 figure, low 6 figure mayoral salary. There may even be additional dollars earned as Liquor Commissioner.....
ReplyDeleteTry retiring on a 401scam I will be working until the day I die! You government workers are so out of touch and dont understand the huge resentment people working in the private sector have against you. I haven't had a raise in over a decade but prices and cost of everything keep going up to pay your salaries and pensions.
DeleteGIBS ME DAT!!
ReplyDelete