Editorial: Cicero and nepotism: Just human nature?

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Updated: March 1, 2012 8:43AM

When Joe Berrios was running for Cook County assessor two years ago, we gave him grief for his habit of hiring relatives. When a man puts his own daughter in a top job, we complained, it’s hard to believe he has picked the most qualified person.

But Berrios always insisted we had it backward. He was smart to hire family members, he said, because he could hold them to a higher standard, and he really couldn’t see our point.

Well, Joe, meet Larry.

As Cicero Town President Larry Dominick keeps showing the world, the danger of nepotism in government is the temptation to fix a family problem on the taxpayers’ dime. A son or nephew or wife’s cousin may not make the best clerk or accountant or truck driver, but set him up in the job and, lord knows, Sunday dinner at home sure goes smoother.

It’s only human nature.

Last Thursday, Dominick’s nephew, Joseph M. Terrana, who works part time for the Town of Cicero as a driver, was arrested in nearby Stickney and accused of stealing hundreds of dollars in beer from a Jewel. He wore an official Town of Cicero jacket, police say, and loaded the beer into a Town of Cicero car.

Question: Was Joe Terrana the very best man or woman Cicero could find to drive senior citizens around town?

From what Sun-Times reporter Steve Warmbir tells us, probably not.

Terrana, who is 41, had been arrested at least four times before and convicted three times, including twice for theft.

The Town of Cicero hired him as a garbage man in April 2007 but forced him to resign in September 2009 for alleged improprieties, though nobody’s saying exactly what those improprieties were. Soon after that, the local public high school hired him as a janitor, upon Uncle Larry’s recommendation, but quickly fired him after he tested positive for five illegal substances in his body.

So maybe Terrana wasn’t the best bet for Future Employee of the Month when the Town of Cicero hired him back a year ago as a part-time driver.

Question: Do we blame Dominick?

Sure, but not with great self-righteousness.

Working against Dominick on our Sympathy Meter is the fact that he has hired relatives by the bunch, as if he got a Groupon deal. Since he married his wife, Elizabeth, five years ago, the Town of Cicero has hired her and at least eight members of her family.

Working in Dominick’s favor is this: A lot of us have been there.

Dominick’s not the only guy with a screwy relative. And he’s not the only guy to roll the dice against the odds to fix the problem.

As we say, it’s human nature.

This is why many Chicagoans cheered when the late Mayor Richard J. Daley, criticized for lining up jobs for his sons, told the critics they could kiss his mistletoe. Daley’s defenders knew they might do the same.

This is also why the most ethical public officials have always favored the strongest possible anti-nepotism practices, with independent employment boards and transparent procedures — “Stop me before I hire my son again.”

Because for every brilliant Joe Berrios daughter — let’s assume she’s brilliant — there’s a Larry Dominick nephew named Joe.