Policy

Question: What proves, beyond any reasonable doubt, that Chicago aldermen need a financial watchdog to help them analyze an administration’s mega-buck spending, borrowing and contracting proposals?

Question: What proves, beyond any reasonable doubt, that Chicago aldermen need a financial watchdog to help them analyze an administration’s mega-buck spending, borrowing and contracting proposals?

Here’s the inherent dilemma that keeps me up at night as the head of a full-service anti-corruption watchdog organization: How to hold elected officials accountable, and critique their policies, and still get them to support our legislative agenda.

Here’s the inherent dilemma that keeps me up at night as the head of a full-service anti-corruption watchdog organization: How to hold elected officials accountable, and critique their policies, and still get them to support our legislative agenda.

Students of the Cold War remember the “domino theory,” the prevailing argument for American military involvement in Vietnam.

I’ve been thinking about falling dominos in a different context lately — government here in Illinois — where the danger is an erosion of transparency and accountability in public agencies funded with our tax dollars.

Money talks, but apparently not to the watchdogs who face greater workloads but not additional funding in 2014 City of Chicago spending plan.

Money talks, but apparently not to the watchdogs who face greater workloads but not additional funding in 2014 City of Chicago spending plan.

Dear Mike: We haven’t talked in months, so I was surprised to learn that, in your capacity as Illinois Democratic chairman, you recently sent a letter to party leaders condemning the Better Government Association and my tenure as its CEO.