James Laski: White knight or opportunist?
When Jim Laski was deputy Democratic committeeman of the Southwest Side's 23rd Ward in the early 1990s, Joe Novak remembers the advice Laski gave precinct captains going out to sell tickets for fund-raisers and advertisements for the ward's ad book.
"He encouraged bringing in cash," said Novak, who was then an aide to U.S. Rep. William Lipinski, the ward committeeman. "It was, 'Wink, wink. That way we can pay it out [for campaign expenses] on Election Day.' "
Novak said he never saw Laski pocket a dime of the money, but the advice always raised his suspicions.
"I personally thought he had sticky fingers when I was around him," Novak said.
But community leader Mary Ann Dybala, who has worked with Laski on everything from keeping Midway Airport open to improving neighborhood postal service, said she never saw any hint of corruption or evidence that Laski was on the take.
"No. Never," said Dybala, president of the Garfield Ridge Chamber of Commerce. "That would be the last person on my list -- the last person. I had true confidence in him."
Unfortunately for Laski, he just rose to the top of another list.
City clerk for 10 years and 23rd Ward alderman for five before that, Laski is now the highest ranking city official -- and the first elected official -- caught up in the federal government's Hired Truck probe.
Beyond the bribery and obstruction of justice charges revealed Friday, Jim Laski is indeed a man of contradictions.
He craved the spotlight, but he held one of the most obscure city offices. He came from a political stronghold of Mayor Daley, but he made his name bucking the mayor. He constantly flirted with running for higher offices, but he never took the plunge.
And perhaps strangest of all, he styled himself a white knight who came in and cleaned up an office disgraced by one of his predecessors, Walter Kozubowski, only to find his own armor tarnished by scandals that could drive him out of office as well.
"He has blown a good gig," said state Rep. Daniel J. Burke (D-Chicago), a former deputy clerk under Laski and Kozubowski.
"How many people have four police officers assigned to drive them and their families around?" Burke said. "Very unfortunate. It's just like Kozubowski in terms of someone who did not appreciate the privilege that they were offered in that office. To think they would abuse their authority is very unfortunate."
Laski, 52, is a creature of the bungalow belt.
He lives in a simple ranch-style home with a second-floor addition -- a common improvement in the Clearing neighborhood, a haven for firefighters, police officers and other city workers on the southwest edge of the city.
A statue of the Virgin Mary sits out front, and a half dozen Marlboros are stubbed out in an empty flower box hanging from a porch railing.
Neighbors say he is the typical neighborhood guy, occasionally borrowing an extension ladder to clean out his gutters, regularly attending mass at St. Symphorosa Roman Catholic Church and always stoping to chat when shopping on 63rd Street.
"He was just plain Jim," said Ann Miller, 75, his next-door neighbor. "We always called him Jimmy."
But politics was always part of his life.
Laski met his wife of 14 years, Kathy, working on a political campaign. They named two of their children, twin boys, Bobby and Jack.
"They are named after the Kennedys," said state Rep. Robert S. Molaro (D-Chicago). "He is a political animal. That is how much he enjoyed politics."
Laski grew up in the adjacent Garfield Ridge neighborhood, graduating from St. Laurence High School in suburban Burbank in 1971 and Lewis University in Lockport four years later.
Shortly after he received his law degree from Northern Illinois University in 1978, Laski got a job with Lipinski, who was then 23rd Ward alderman.
"He was a young kid," said William Krystyniak, 55, who took over as alderman in 1983 when Lipinski went to Congress. "He just came out of law school, was studying for the bar. He was upfront, honest. . . . He was there every day, never goofed off, came to work every day."
Sources say it took Laski a few times to pass the bar exam. But that did not hurt him politically.
He started as Lipinski's press secretary, rose to chief of staff to Lipinski and Krystyniak and was appointed alderman in late 1990 when Krystyniak took a job with Cook County.
Laski made early headlines by championing an ordinance to require carbon monoxide detectors in homes, schools, nursing homes and hospitals.
Burke, the state representative and brother of Ald. Edward M. Burke (14th), insisted Laski did little to distinguish himself from the other 49 aldermen, only latching on to the ideas of others.
"I couldn't even suggest there was anything remarkable or important about him," Burke said. "One of the 50. . . . He's not a remarkable character in energy or commitment or force or whatever. Leave it at that."
But others disagree.
"Responsive, sincere, conscientious -- those are the three things that come to my mind," said Anita M. Cummings, 62, chairwoman of the Southwest Home Equity Assurance Commission and executive director of the United Business Association of Midway.
"From the very beginning of the ward office, he was the guy you could call, and he would give you the answers that were available to him."
Few disagree that Laski showed a willingness to buck the mayor, fighting Daley's 1992 threat to close Midway Airport and leading a 1993 City Council rebellion against the mayor's proposed property tax increase.
"That was a very, very courageous thing back in the '90s," Molaro said. "No one did that.
"And the people responded to that. . . . There are people who think even though they like Daley and think he does a great job, there should be someone there who stands up and tells it like it is. And Jim did that."
The property tax battle cost him with Lipinski.
Laski left the Archer Avenue office they shared Feb. 8, 1993, saying the ward committeeman ordered him out when he refused to support Daley's proposal. Lipinski insists Laski went on his own.
Either way, it was a tense time. Political soldiers in the 23rd Ward still remember the date.
"That split was like gut-wrenching to these guys," said Eric Adelstein, a political consultant who has worked for Laski. "It was definitely an old-style system where the committeeman was king, and you never questioned him. . . . It was definitely like being kicked out of a family."
Novak disputes the portrayal of Laski as a champion of the taxpayers. He said Laski had other motives when he went on the old radio talk show of former Ald. Edward R. Vrdolyak (10th) to talk about the property tax fight.
"He became an opportunity that Vrdolyak was able to use," said Novak, a former political operative who earlier worked for Vrdolyak. "Laski was using Vrdolyak to promote himself. Vrdolyak was using Laski to jab the mayor. But it was not a 'white knight' thing."
Opportunist or white knight, Laski made the most of the situation.
Rather than face certain defeat against Lipinski's aldermanic candidate, Michael Zalewski, in 1995, he ran for city clerk. The office was vacant because Kozubowski went off to prison for a ghost-payrolling scheme, and his appointed successor, Ernest Wish, declined to seek a full term.
And in a move typical of the strange world of Southwest Side politics, Lipinski supported Laski for the higher office and Laski won easily.
The clerk's office is charged with a variety of ministerial functions, including selling city vehicle stickers and dog licenses and publishing a record of City Council proceedings.
Despite that mundane job description, Laski still managed to remain a thorn in Daley's side. In 1997, he embarrassed the mayor by revealing that city employees owed $2.36 million in unpaid parking tickets and water bills, much to the delight of Laski's supporters.
"We were happy when he nailed those city workers," said Rich Zilka, 77, president of the Clearing Civic League. "You and I were paying, but they weren't. And he got them to do it."
Along the way, Laski has earned the reputation as a microphone chaser.
"That was Jim Laski," said one member of the 23rd Ward organization who spoke on condition of anonymity. "But he was good at it. He knew how to make it work for him."
Lipinski, 68, declined to discuss Laski for this article other than to insist Laski left the organization on his own and to dispute the contention of Lipinski's former chief of staff, Novak, that Laski told precinct captains to bring in cash.
"I certainly never heard anything about that," Lipinski said. "I don't know why Joe would say that. Jim had nothing to do with raising money or collecting money. Joe never did like Jim, but no, I never saw that as a problem."
Lipinski said Laski left the fold because "he was having problems with others in the organization."
"He wanted to leave and go on his own, and he used the property tax as a vehicle to say that I threw him out of the office," Lipinski said. "But he left because he wanted to leave."
Laski has not responded to requests for interviews, but his lawyer also questioned Novak's remarks.
"That's the first time I ever heard anything like that," said Anthony Pinelli, Laski's defense lawyer. "I talked to a lot of people recently, and I never heard that allegation from anybody else."
Laski has made his missteps along the way.
As alderman in 1994, he proposed mandatory annual HIV testing of police officers, firefighters, health and welfare employees and hundreds of thousands of restaurant, hospital and other private sector workers -- an idea gay rights activists blasted as "homophobic."
But leaders in the community say Laski has long since mended fences, supporting their issues in the Council and marching in the annual Pride Parade.
"He got on board, and he never looked back," said Rick Garcia, political director of Equality Illinois.
Garcia remembers about six or eight years ago when Laski noticed a guy in drag at an event before the parade stepped off and told Garcia he wanted someone like that for his own float.
"He said, 'We should really have one of those,' " Garcia said. "We found a 7-foot-tall drag queen dressed as the Statue of Liberty [to ride on Laski's float]."
Garcia believes Laski's change of position was prompted by his desire to move beyond his socially conservative Southwest Side base and run statewide.
"I think there was also a genuine change of heart, because then he started to know gay folk, and he changed," Garcia said. "He genuinely changed."
Despite the Mr. Clean image he has cultivated, Laski has not been scandal-free.
Five years ago, a television news crew filmed some of his employees golfing with Laski, shooting pool and running personal errands on paid sick days, forcing Laski to accept his chief of staff's resignation, fire two high-ranking employees and demote or suspend several others.
Still, Molaro said he was surprised at Laski's current troubles.
"There was no tinge of impropriety ever," Molaro said. "All right, he went out golfing with one of his guys that did not sign out. These allegations are night and day from that."
Laski was indicted Friday on charges he took bribes from his close friend and employee, Michael "Mick" Jones, in return for helping steer city business to Jones' trucking firm, Get Plowed, Inc., and then obstructed the federal investigation.
If convicted, Laski could face 10 years in prison and up to $250,000 in fines.
"I just think he is overwhelmingly embarrassed," Molaro said. "He fought Daley. It was like, 'I did it because I'm a man of integrity.'
"And when this happens, it's doubly embarrassing. . . . It's just so devastating. It rocks you to the core. It's emotional. It's physical."
Perhaps the final irony is that rather than a political enemy, it is some of Laski's closest friends who are now cooperating with the feds -- Jones and Randy Aderman, a clerk employee who was fired last year in a scandal over having friends swipe workers in when they weren't on the job.
Laski, Jones and Aderman all played softball together on the Bulldogs, a local team that played at Hale Park and other area diamonds.
"That was his best friends," Krystyniak said. "It is hard to believe."
His next-door neighbors were shocked by the week's developments. "I could just cry," Ann Miller said. "It's just a nightmare, a shame."
"A nightmare," added her husband Bob, 76, a retired milkman and usher at St. Symphorosa. "Like they said about 'Shoeless' Joe Jackson, 'Say it ain't so.'
"But if they have wires on him, and he incriminated himself, so be it."