As Gery Chico distances himself from tainted Save-A-Life Foundation, past/present IL pols & a TV journalist send Facebook birthday greetings to SALF's founder/president

Yesterday and the day before, a batch of Illinois news stories reported that Gery Chico's nomination as superintendent of the Illinois State Board of Education had been stalled. Here's the skinny via the Chicago Sun-Times:

Former Chicago mayoral candidate Gery Chico’s appointment as chairman of the state Board of Education hit a snag Wednesday amid GOP questions over his ties to a now-defunct non-profit organization.

...Senate Republicans put the brakes on Quinn’s appointment, asking that Chico personally appear before a Senate panel to explain his relationship with Save A Life Foundation, a charity that is undergoing a probe within Attorney General Lisa Madigan’s office.

...Chico noted that “most of Illinois’ political establishment” embraced the group, which received government grants to teach the Heimlich maneuver and CPR. Questions have surfaced in published reports about whether the millions of taxpayer dollars to train children in emergency response were spent properly.

“As far as any kind of allegation of wrongdoing, if they committed any wrongdoing, they should be held accountable,” he said.

Chico might be distancing himself because of revelations like these from Where Did the Save-A-Life Money Go? by Don Bauder, published last November in the San Diego Reader:

(Carol) Spizzirri was a darling of politicians and bureaucrats, although it was a matter of record that she had been convicted twice for shoplifting. Save-A-Life began raking in money from government grants. 

...But it wasn’t until November of 2006 that ABC 7 News in Chicago, in the first of several broadcasts, exposed more of Spizzirri’s untruthful statements. She had told the station that she was a registered nurse. But the station reported that the institution from which she had claimed to receive her nursing degree had never given her one. A hospital in which she had claimed to be a transplant nurse said she had been a patient care assistant, which is akin to a candy striper.

...(Spizzirri's daughter) Christina filed for an order of protection against her mother. A neighbor who lives four houses away was willing to be Christina’s primary caretaker. The complaint stated that Spizzirri had struck Christina “on several occasions and threatened her on many occasions.” The order of protection, granted the same month, barred Spizzirri from seeing her daughter at several locations such as school and work. Christina “fears her mother will attempt to harass her or retaliate,” said the complaint.

But, along with scores of personal friends who sent Facebook birthday wishes to Spizzirri yesterday, these past and present members of Illinois's political establishment remain loyal.

Illinois State Comptroller Judy Baar Topinka

 

Illinois State Rep Richard Morthland (R), 71st District

 Illinois Farm Bureau Manager, Blake E. Roderick 

Former Illinois State Rep. Debbie Halvorson

Former Illinois State Rep. Walter Dudycz (who helped SALF buy a building in Springfield with a $200,000 state grant) even sang her a song.

Here's Bill Sarto, ex-mayor of Carpentersville, IL, whose fire chief threatened Spizzirri with legal action after Sarto initiated a partnership with SALF that left the city holding the bag for thousands of dollars.

Stephanie Kifowit, Alderman, City of Aurora, IL

Spizzirri also still has friends in the media like Terry Martin, Executive Director of the Illinois Channel (the Prairie State's version of C-SPAN).

Here's a curious interview Martin did with Spizzirri in May 2009, in which she says she's working on pending legislation with Il Attorney General Lisa Madigan and Cook County State's Attorney Anita Alvarez (3:30)



It's not known if Spizzirri's business partner and second-in-command at SALF, former Palatine, IL mayor Rita Mullins, sent her birthday greetings. But from better days, before their organization was under state and federal investigation, here's a cheeky photo from Spizzirri's Facebook of Walter Dudycz with the leading ladies of the Save-A-Life Foundation.

6/23/11 Facebook birthday greetings to Carol Spizzirri

Clown time is over? Fraud whistleblower asks Ronald McDonald House Charities to investigate what happened to $125,000 awarded to Save-A-Life for phantom Chicago Schools program and why records were "prematurely destroyed"

Chicago Schools CEO Arne Duncan, unknown woman, SALF founder/president Carol J. Spizzirri, and Ronald McDonald, January 12, 2005. According to a recent San Diego Reader article, Duncan called Spizzirri - a twice-convicted shoplifter who fabricated medical and college credentials and whose late daughter took out a protective order against her - "one of my heroes."

In a January 5 letter to the Inspector General of the Chicago Public Schools (CPS), fraud whistleblower Peter Heimlich requested an investigation into what happened to $62,000 paid to the Save-A-Life Foundation (SALF) to provide first aid training to students.

The lion's share was $49,000 arranged and signed off by then Schools CEO Arne Duncan for a matching grants program with Ronald McDonald House Charities in which SALF was contracted to train 18,000 students over two school years. (For years, Duncan was close to SALF and even appeared as an animated pitchman on SALF's website.)

The problem - for CPS and for Duncan, now Secretary of Education - is that the training may never have happened.

Yesterday the problem landed on the desk of Martin J. "Marty" Coyne, president and CEO of Ronald McDonald House Charities via another investigations request letter from Heimlich. The opening paragraphs:

This letter is to request that your company initiate a review to determine if $125,000 awarded to the Save A Life Foundation Inc. by Ronald McDonald House Charities and by Ronald McDonald House Charities of Chicagoland & Northwest Indiana was properly administered.

Further, this is to request a review to determine if the destruction of related financial and other records, confirmed in an e-mail sent last year by Doug Porter, CEO of Ronald McDonald House Charities of Chicagoland & Northwest Indiana, was premature and constitutes a violation of Ronald McDonald House Charities’ Records Management Policy.

If such reviews are conducted by your company, this is to request that upon completion all relevant documents and findings be made available for public inspection.

Here's Heimlich's letter on Scribd. Click here to download a copy.
Heimlich asks McDonald's House to review $125K Save-A-Life grants, destroyed files (+receipt conf.)


Here's a highlight:

(In a) July 4, 2010 e-mail, Doug Porter, CEO of Ronald McDonald House Charities of Chicagoland and Northwest Indiana wrote:

I’m sorry to report that those records being 6+ years old have been destroyed. We do not have any files left on this grant and given that we had turned down any future requests, never in a million years did I think they would ever be relevant again. But again, the records that you had (we discussed) seemed to be accurate. That $37,500 from our local chapter (matched by global) in 2004 was the only one I recall.

This appears to be a clear violation of the records retention guidelines as stated in Ronald McDonald House Charities’ Records Management Policy

Grant Administration - Administration of donations made by RMHC to other organizations - including applications and agreements. While Active + 10 years thereafter

McDonalds Charities Chicagoland CEO confirms $37,500 payment to Save-A-Life Foundation; records destroyed

Ouch.

What about Mickey D customers debating whether or not they should drop the change from their Happy Meals into the donation can next to the cash register?

(Past) and potential future donors to Ronald McDonald House Charities may harbor concerns as to whether their donations have been or will be properly administered. Given the uncertainties associated with the administration of the $125,000 RMHC awarded to SALF and what appears to be the premature destruction of related financial records, donors may harbor concerns regarding whether RMHC employees properly administered those funds. Donors may also harbor concerns regarding RMHC employees' relationships with SALF.

So how to determine how many Chicago Schools students received SALF first aid training courtesy of the $125,000 from RMHC?

Heimlich's letter offers this helpful suggestion with names of some folks who may not be lovin' it:

Should your company wish to locate that information, you may wish to contact members of SALF's 2009 executive board; former SALF employees Sid Blustain and Dane Neal, both named in SALF's October 14, 2004 press release about the CPS training program; and Saquan Gholar who, according to CPS records, was SALF's “Education Training Coordinator” for the program. Please find attached a list with contact information for these individuals.

Did Save-A-Life rip off Carpentersville, Illinois? If so, maybe Rita Mullins can help locate the missing funds!

From 2009 Citizens for Mullins re-election campaign (click here for complete bio)

"I know (the Save-A-Life Foundation) to be a very well-run organization.”

That's what Rita Mullins, then-mayor of Palatine, Illinois and Save-A-Life's Director of Government Affairs, told the Daily Herald, according to a May 9, 2007 article.

Based on the following letters, city officials and business owners in the neighboring village of Carpentersville might disagree.

Here's a June 18, 2008 letter from Bill Sarto, then-mayor of Carpentersville, to Carrie Viehweg, Save-A-Life's Illinois State Director. Mayor Sarto's letter included $4,200 in donation checks from local businesses (payable to Save-A-Life), contracting the organization to provide first aid training classes to students in the Carpentersville schools.
Carpentersville Mayor Bill Sarto sends $4200 to Save-A-Life Foundation's Carrie Viehweg, 6/18/08

Was Mayor Sarto was aware that two years before, Save-A-Life had been the subject of four scorching exposes by ABC Chicago? Did Ms. Viehweg or any other Save-A-Life representatives inform him about those reports so that he could inform donors? If so, Mayor Sarto gave no indication in a June 16, 2008 blog in which he hyped the program: 

Through the generosity of several of our local businesses we now have the seed money to begin the program. We have raised over $5,000.00 toward this worthwhile endeavor.

Hey, wait a minute. If over $5,000 was raised for "this worthwhile endeavor," how come Mayor Sarto only sent $4,200 to Ms. Viewheg a couple of days later?

Dunno, but per this letter they both signed, Mayor Sarto and Ms. Viehweg then went shopping for more funding. Note their claim that "more than a million school-aged children and youth have" received first aid training from Save-A-Life. Does anyone have any records to back up that claim? (Hello, Ms. Viehweg? Ms. Mullins?):
$5000 grant request from Carpentersville Mayor Bill Sarto & SALF's Carrie Viehweg, 8/25/08

A year later, based on this October 22, 2009 financial reimbursement demand and seeming legal threat from Carpentersville Fire Chief John Schuldt to Save-A-Life's founder/president Carol Spizzirri, the deal had gone waaaay south:
Carpentersvile Fire Chief demands return of funds from Save-A-Life Foundation, 10/22/09

It's not known if Chief Schuldt recovered the money or if he asked Save-A-Life's second-in-command Rita Mullins to help him to reimburse the Carpentersville donors.

Six months before his letter, Mullins was defeated by a landslide in her 2009 re-election bid. On October 22, 2009, the Village of Palatine held a dedication ceremony to re-name a local landmark as "Rita L. Mullins Volunteer Plaza" for her 20 years of service as mayor.

Coincidentally, that's the same date as the chief's demand letter to Mullins's "very well run" organization.

According to the October 11, 2009 Chicago Tribune, Mullins is now partners in a new business venture with her "close friend" Carol Spizzirri (page down for photo gallery).

According to the November 17, 2010 San Diego Reader, Spizzirri - who now lives in a mobile home park in San Marcos, California - is a twice-convicted shoplifter whose daughter filed a protective order against her that included allegations of physical abuse.

According to recent reports in The Hill and other news outlets, the Save-A-Life Foundation is being investigated by the Illinois Attorney General's Charitable Trusts Bureau.

Save-A-Life founder/president Carol J. Spizzirri consoles Rita Mullins after losing her 20-year Palatine mayor, Election Night 2009

Business partners Rita Mullins & Carol Spizzirri, March 2010

Save-A-Life Director Dane Neal, Carol Spizzirri, ex-NYC Mayor Rudy Giuliani, Rita Mullins

Carol Spizzirri, NYC Mayor Michael Bloomberg, Rita Mullins

IL Secretary of State Jesse White & Rita Mullins (center), Carol Spizzirri (right)