Are these documents the reason Gery Chico won't answer questions about the Save-A-Life Foundation?

Gery Chico accepts award from SALF founder/president Carol J. Spizzirri, reportedly a twice-convicted shoplifter who claimed non-existent medical credentials and a bogus college degree. (Source document here.)

At the end of last year, political writer Lee Cary asked Gery Chico a few non-confrontational questions about the Save-A-Life Foundation (SALF), the Chicago-area nonprofit reportedly under investigation by the IL Attorney General and, according to this letter, also by the feds.

Lee wanted to know what the man who wants to be Chicago's next mayor had to say about investigations of an organization with which Chico and his wife were affiliated. Click here and here for Lee's letters, in which he asked Chico these questions: 

1. Have you or has anyone you know been contacted by anyone connected with the Attorney General’s investigation of the Save-A-Life Foundation? If so, please provide details.

2. In federal reports, Save-A-Life claimed it had used a portion of $3.33 million it received from the US Centers for Disease Control & Prevention to train thousands of Chicago Public Schools (CPS) students. However, in response to a federal subpoena and FOIA requests, CPS apparently has no supporting records. Do you recommend that the Inspector General of the Department of Health and Human Services initiate an investigation to determine if those federal millions were properly administered?

3. CPS paid Save-A-Life approximately $62,000 in public funds to provide first aid training to thousands of students, however CPS records indicate that at best a few hundred may have received training.  Do you recommend that CPS Inspector General James M. Sullivan initiate an investigation to determine if the $62,000 paid by CPS to Save-A-Life was properly administered?

Not exactly tough, in-your-face questions for a guy who's campaigning on a pledge to "bring more openness, transparency and accountability (to) city government." Nevertheless, despite multiple inquiries to his law firm and to his campaign office, Chico has not responded.

Since then, other documents have surfaced that may indicate why Chico seems to be playing dodge 'em. Yesterday, Lee sent Chico some new questions centering around those documents (inserted below).

From: Lee Cary <lee.cary@att.net>
Subject: media inquiry
To: gchico@chiconunes.com, gery@gerychicoformayor.com
Cc: brooke@gerychicoformayor.com
Date: Wednesday, January 26, 2011, 5:37 PM

Sent via e-mail and faxed to (312)463-1001

Gery Chico
Chico & Nunes, P.C.
333 West Wacker Drive Suite 1800
Chicago, IL 60606

Dear Mr. Chico,

I recently sent inquiries to you and to your associates Paul Vallas and Carlos Azcoitia PhD regarding your affiliations and promotion of the Save-A-Life Foundation (SALF), a Chicago-area nonprofit reportedly under investigation by the IL Attorney General's Charitable Trust Bureau.

Despite multiple attempts, to date I've only received a response from Dr. Azcoitia. If your lack of response was an oversight, I'd appreciate receiving your answers to the three questions I asked you. I'd also appreciate your answers to these questions:

1) According to SALF, you served as a member of their organization's Board of Directors. Is that accurate? If so, please provide details.

Click here for source document, 2002 SALF Annual Report

2) According to SALF, in a speech you presented at their organization's annual conference (at which your wife Sunny also appeared as a participant), you stated that you “will fight for the SALF programs and that their training is not a luxury, it’s a necessity.” Is this accurate?

Click here for source document, September 2003 SALF "Bridge the Gap" Conference

A SALF press release quoted your wife as saying, "My husband Gery was instrumental in bringing SALF to the Chicago Public Schools."

Click here for source document, April 24, 2003 SALF press release

3) Would you please ask your wife if she was accurately quoted and let me know what she says?

4) Do you consider the quote to be accurate or inaccurate? Please explain.

Thanks for your continued attention and I look forward to your reply. In the event I don't receive a reply from you in the next few days, I'll follow-up with Mrs. Chico.

Sincerely,

Lee Cary
Little Elm, TX

Cc: Brooke Anderson, Gery Chico for Mayor

But wait, there's more. According to SALF, Chico (and Arne Duncan, now US Secretary of Education) helped draft the organization's 2002 "Pre-EMS White Paper":

Click here for source document (undated but file creation date is 12/26/02)

It's obvious that Chico is under no obligation to answer questions about his relationship with SALF and presumably he doesn't want to open the door to the subject by responding to inquiries from Lee Cary, a blogger from the Lone Star State.

But the Chicago mayoral derby has at least another month to play out. Will one of Chico's competitors or a MSM reporter raise the subject of his ties to an organization that may have ripped-off million$ from Illinois and US taxpayers?

The answer to that question is also obvious. It's up to them.
1/26/11 questions to Gery Chico re: whether he was a member of Save-A-Life Foundation corporate board; his ...

Chicago mayoral candidate Gery Chico says he wants "more openness, transparency and accountability." But will he walk the talk by answering questions about the "shady non-profit"* he was "instrumental in bringing to the Chicago Schools"?

Save-A-Life Foundation press release, April 24, 2003

December 13, 2010

Sent via e-mail to gchico@chiconunes.com, gery@gerychicoformayor.com
Faxed to (312)463-1001

Gery ChicoChico & Nunes, P.C.
333 West Wacker Drive Suite 1800
Chicago, IL 60606

Dear Mr. Chico,

I haven’t received a reply to my November 30 inquiry to you in which I asked three quick questions about investigations re: the Save-A-Life Foundation (SALF), a Chicago-area nonprofit with which you and your wife Sunny were associated.

According to a SALF press release, Mrs. Chico said you “were instrumental in bringing SALF into the Chicago Schools.” Based on a video of a 1999 presentation to the Chicago School Board by SALF founder/president Carol Jean Spizzirri and SALF board member Carlos Azcoitia, that statement appears accurate.

In a 2006 WLS-TV I-Team story, Chuck Goudie reported:

One of Illinois' highest profile charities teaches the Heimlich maneuver to children while maneuvering the truth to get money from government and big business. It's called the Save-A-Life Foundation and is known across Illinois as an organization that teaches schoolchildren how to respond in emergencies. For the past few years, Save-A-Life has received millions of dollars in government funds and corporate donations. An ABC7 I-Team investigation has uncovered a series of misleading claims and deceptive credentials that raise doubts about Save-A-Life's integrity, funding and training.

Since then, dozens of critical media reports about SALF have appeared around the country. Reportedly the IL Attorney General’s office is now investigating the organization. Last week I learned that the US Department of Health & Human Services has asked the Centers for Disease Control & Prevention (CDC) to review concerns about a CDC Deputy Director who simultaneously worked as SALF’s corporate treasurer while the CDC was funding SALF. As I informed you in my November 30 letter, last month a San Diego newspaper story by veteran reporter Don Bauder entitled Where Did the Save-A-Life Money Go? included troubling details about Ms. Spizzirri’s criminal and personal background.

Since my previous letter, a number of news stories have reported your call for higher standards of conduct by public officials, such as this December 2 Sun-Times column by Lynn Sweet:

"We don't have to wait for the Illinois Legislature or the federal government to create more openness, transparency and accountability in city government," Gery Chico said. "Let's do it now, let's do it ourselves and let's give our Inspector General the necessary tools to make government better at all levels."

In that spirit, I’m re-submitting my three questions.

1. Have you or has anyone you know been contacted by anyone connected with the Attorney General’s investigation of the Save-A-Life Foundation? If so, please provide details.

2. In federal reports, Save-A-Life claimed it had used a portion of $3.33 million it received from the US Centers for Disease Control & Prevention to train thousands of Chicago Public Schools (CPS) students. However, in response to a federal subpoena and FOIA requests, CPS apparently has no supporting records. Do you recommend that the Inspector General of the Department of Health & Human Services initiate an investigation to determine if those federal millions were properly administered?

3. CPS paid Save-A-Life approximately $62,000 in public funds to provide first aid training to thousands of students, however CPS records indicate that at best a few hundred may have received training.  Do you recommend that CPS Inspector General James M. Sullivan initiate an investigation to determine if the $62,000 paid by CPS to Save-A-Life was properly administered?

Please feel free to add additional related comments of any length.

I’m copying your media representative Brooke Anderson on this e-mail as I did on my November 30 letter. If I don’t receive a response from you or Ms. Anderson in the next few days, my understanding will be that you don’t intend to respond.

Thanks for your continued attention and I hope to hear from you and/or Ms. Anderson.

Sincerely,

Lee Cary
Writer, Andrew Breitbart's Big Government, the American ThinkerLittle Elm, TX
lee.cary@att.net

Cc:

Brooke Anderson, Gery Chico for Mayor
Tim Bagwell PhD
Chuck Goudie/WLS-TV
Don Bauder/San Diego ReaderLynn Sweet/Chicago Sun-Times

* In Case You Missed It: (Sen. Norm) Coleman Connection to Shady Non-Profit Highlighted, MN Democratic Farmer Labor Party press release, September 26, 2008

1999 presentation by Save-A-Life Foundation founder/president Carol J. Spizzirri to the Chicago Board of Education

(1:20) Carol J. Spizzirri: "We've trained over 5000 children since October in schools throughout the city. We have an additional one to 43,000 children to train by the end of June." (Chicago Public Schools cannot produce any substantiating records.)

(7:35) School board president Gery Chico: "How many schools have you said that you've been in with this program?"
Spizzirri: "I think we've been in a dozen we've completed."
Chico: "What's it cost?"
Spizzirri: "It's at 75 cents a child. Except it's a dollar for the instructor."
(9:00) "I don't think we can afford to do anything but do this (SALF program). I don't know what your capacity is. We may have to partner up with the Red Cross."
Spizzirri: "Oh, we have the...we're self sufficient."
Chico: "No, but I mean to do 580 schools, 430,000 students."
Spizzirri: "We still can handle it."

Arne Duncan, Gery & Sunny Chico appear at 2003 Save-A-Life Foundation annual conference

Political writer Lee Cary asks educator/Northeastern IL University chairman/former Save-A-Life Foundation director Carlos Azcoitia about investigation(s) of SALF

Carlos M. Azcoitia PhD

Presentation by Save-A-Life Foundation (SALF) founder/president Carol Spizzirri and Carlos Azcoitia at a 1999 Chicago School Board meeting with Paul Vallas & Gery Chico. Azcoitia, who according to IRS records was SALF's Director for three years (page down), appears in the video at timestamp 8:30. Dr. Azcoitia is now Chairman of the Board of Trustees for Northeastern Illinois University and an assistant professor at Chicago's National-Louis University. 

E-mailed to carlos.azcoitia@nl.edu  and faxed to (312)261-3121

December 10, 2010

Carlos M. Azcoitia PhD

Assistant Professor

National-Louis University
122 S. Michigan Avenue
Chicago, Illinois 60603    

Dear Dr. Azcoitia,

I’m reporting about the Save-A-Life Foundation (SALF), a Chicago-area nonprofit. In November 2006, ABC7 Chicago reported a variety of false claims associated with the organization and its founder/president Carol J. Spizzirri. Since then, dozens of media reports have raised additional related concerns, such as a San Diego newspaper article last month that reported Ms. Spizzirri’s criminal record.

Since you’re identified as Corporate Director on several years of SALF’s tax returns and you helped the organization gain entrée to the Chicago Public Schools, I’d appreciate your answers to the following quick questions.

1. SALF is reportedly under investigation by the Illinois Attorney General. Have you or has anyone you know been contacted by anyone connected with that investigation? If so, please provide details.

The US Centers for Disease Control & Prevention (CDC) awarded $3.33 million in federal grants to SALF. In financial reports submitted to the CDC, SALF stated that the money was used to provide first aid training classes to thousands of Chicago Public School (CPS) students. Last year, SALF’s founder/president Carol J. Spizzirri told the Chicago Tribune that her organization trained hundreds of thousands, if not millions of Chicago Schools students. Here’s a list of hundreds of Chicago schools in which SALF allegedly provided the training. (The list also highlights Chicago schools at which SALF allegedly trained thousands of students in a program funded by Ronald McDonald House Charities.)

However, in response to a federal subpoena and FOIA requests, CPS records fail to support these claims. In fact, CPS’s entire records re: SALF apparently consist of 22 invoices dating from 2000-2007 indicating that at best a few hundred people may have received training.

As described in a Bagwell for Congress press release last month, a public letter was sent by Tim Bagwell to the Inspector General of the Department of Health & Human Services (HHS) requesting an investigation to determine if the CDC millions were properly administered.

2. Do you recommend that the HHS Inspector General initiate such an investigation?

At a 1999 Chicago School Board meeting, in response to a question by board president Gery Chico asking how much her organization’s first aid training program costs, Ms. Spizzirri stated, "It's at 75 cents a child. Except it's a dollar for the instructor." The 22 invoices show CPS paid SALF about $62,000 from 2000-2007. Again, however, CPS records indicate that at best a few hundred people may have received training.

3. Do you think that CPS Inspector General James M. Sullivan should initiate an investigation to determine if the $62,000 in public funds paid by CPS to SALF was properly administered?

Please feel free to add any related comments of any length. Thanks for your consideration and I look forward to receiving your answers, preferably by Wednesday, December 15. If you require more time, please let me know and I’ll do my best to accommodate your schedule.

Sincerely,

Lee Cary

Writer, Andrew Breitbart's Big Government, the American Thinker

lee.cary@att.net

Cc:

Gery Chico, Chico & Nunes P.C.

Tim Bagwell

Of related interest:

11/30/10: Chicago mayoral candidate Gery Chico asked about Save-A-Life Foundation investigation(s) 

12/6/10: Schools CEO Paul Vallas asked about his 10-year association, promotion of the Save-A-Life Foundation

Carlos Azcoitia listed as Corporate Director on Save-A-Life Foundation IRS returns, 2000-02

2/1/01 Save-A-Life Foundation letter listing corporate officers