There may not yet be an outright ethics fire in the office of City Treasurer Melissa Conyears-Ervin, but her alleged activities are surrounded by enough smoke to warrant sounding an alarm.
On Monday, the city’s Board of Ethics is expected to take up the matter at its regular monthly meeting, according to the Chicago Tribune, which first reported on the ethics concerns arising from the complaint accusing Conyears-Ervin of making her staff plan her daughter’s birthday party and handle her grocery shopping.
Even more troubling, the complaint, filed by two former employees of the treasurers office, also accused Conyears-Ervin of attempting to arm-twist a bank that does business with the city to issue a mortgage on her husband’s aldermanic office.
Ald. Jason Ervin (28th) is the treasurer’s husband.
The mortgage accusation and the city’s settlement of the employees’ complaint for $100,000 look like smoke to us. The city’s Inspector General should take up the matter, if the office has not yet done so, and do a deep dive on Conyears-Ervin’s activities as boss of the treasurer’s office, to make sure there’s not a larger fire.
The 2020 complaint filed by the former employees accused Conyears-Ervin of abusing her power by demanding her staff perform personal tasks for the treasurer. The complaint was finally released recently under Mayor Brandon Johnson’s administration.
The Board of Ethics closed the case after the city’s law department privately settled the complaint. The terms of the agreement are confidential because the $100,000 settlement cost is below the legal threshold that would have required the City Council to take up the matter — and publicly disclose its details.
All the more reason for the IG’s office to get involved, to determine whether, and if so to what extent, the treasurer used her taxpayer-funded employees as personal servants.
And Chicagoans also need to know more about Conyears-Ervin allegedly trying to use her position — and the $9 billion investment purse she controls — to get a bank to grant a mortgage on the building that houses her husband’s aldermanic offices.
Board of Ethics Executive Director Steve Berlin wouldn’t confirm if the case was referred to the inspector general. And Inspector General Deborah Witzburg wouldn’t say if her office is in the process of conducting an investigation.
But it all has the whiff of the kind of old school, wink-and-nod, totally improper stuff that Chicago can do without.
Taxpayers deserve a treasurer’s office that’s run fairly and properly. An inspector general’s probe would be a key step to ensure that’s the case.
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