Troutman was known to strut when others kept low profile
Arenda Troutman is a throwback to a bygone era when politicians paraded around in fur coats, drove fancy cars, packed the city payroll with relatives and allowed other family members to cash in on government contracts.
At a time when federal investigators are swarming all over City Hall, most aldermen prefer to keep their heads down.
Not Troutman, who is fond of wearing fur coats and once was accused of allowing a fugitive gang kingpin to drive her Cadillac Escalade.
A protege of the late Cook County State's Attorney Cecil Partee and retired Aldermen William Beavers (7th) and Robert Shaw (9th), she's been a center of controversy for 17 years, from the moment she was appointed to fill the vacancy caused by the death of Ald. Ernest Jones (20th).
"Somebody's out to get me. They want to ruin me. . . . They're knifing me in the back with lies," Troutman said in 1990, after political opponents circulated police reports detailing her 1978 arrest for shoplifting, a crime she admitted.
Over the years, she's also been on the defensive about the squad car parked outside her home on weekends after a pair of burglaries, about her family's decision to create and run a firm that raked in more than $1.1 million from the scandal-ridden Hired Truck Program, and about her personal relationship with fugitive gang kingpin Donnell "Scandalous" Jehan.
"Deserve it? Damn right. I should receive the protection I am receiving. I am an elected official," Troutman told the Chicago Sun-Times after the bodyguard controversy in 2004.
After Monday's arrest, Troutman's colleagues were tight-lipped.
"I know women who've been tricked by men before. . . . She is a very trusting person," said Ald. Freddrenna Lyle (6th), referring to allegations Troutman had a romantic relationship with Jehan.
Another City Council colleague, who asked to remain unnamed, called the shakedown allegations "sad, but not surprising." The alderman noted that Troutman is raising three boys, including a nephew whose father, the alderman's brother, has had drug problems.
Troutman's sister and mother serve on her aldermanic staff. Another sister who has since died was the 20th Ward sanitation superintendent. Other family members hold other government jobs.
Daley stuck with Troutman after the 1990 arrest record flap, but the loyalty was not always returned.
She joined the mayor in opposing the big box minimum wage ordinance, but Troutman hasn't hesitated to challenge and embarrass Daley. The issues ranged from affordable housing, the appointment of women to City Council leadership posts and the city's legal defense of former Chicago Police Lt. Jon Burge to a minority contracting demand that delayed construction of the new Kennedy-King College.
Two months ago, her rebellion reached a crescendo. She spoiled unanimous approval of the mayor's re-election budget by calling Chicago a corrupt "tale of two cities" where the rich get richer and the poor get the shaft.
Daley blamed Troutman's tale of two cities remark on a "complex" ward with Hispanics on one end and blacks on the other that pulls its alderman in opposite directions.