It looked as though Patrick McDonough had scored a victory in his war against the Daley administration. Fired from his $80,000-a-year water department plumbing job for violating the city’s employee residency requirement, McDonough won a favorable ruling on January 17 from a hearing officer for the city’s human relations board, who ordered the city to hire him back. The city appealed, and one week later the board upheld the decision.
McDonough says he complained to Donald Tomczak, then a high-ranking water department official (he would later resign and plead guilty to bribery charges in the hired truck scandal). “I told him we’re wasting time and money–it costs a fortune in gas to drive these trucks all over town. He said people are leaving work early–this way we make them stay all day. I thought, great, let’s stop one problem by making a new problem.”
Best of Chicago voting is live now. Vote for your favorites »
On April 1 the city fired him. McDonough hired a lawyer, political gadfly Frank Avila, and his case came before hearing officer Carl McCormick, a former appellate judge. At the hearing, held last fall, Avila counterattacked, arguing that the city had fired McDonough to punish him for blowing the whistle on hired trucks. He called city workers to testify how water department supervisors had harassed them for even talking to McDonough.
Actually, it’s three months and counting. Law department spokesman Jennifer Hoyle says the city intends to rehire McDonough while they decide whether to appeal the human relation board’s ruling to the Cook County Circuit Court. But “it takes time to work out the details,” she says. “We may have him back [soon.]”
Art accompanying story in printed newspaper (not available in this archive): photo/A. Jackson.
