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

HHS Inspector General: questions about CDC Deputy Director working as Save-A-Life's corporate treasurer sent to CDC for review, but no mention of the million$ CDC gave to Save-A-Life. (Still in play or MIA?)

HHS Inspector General: concerns re: Deputy Director Doug Browne referred to CDC for further review, 11/8/10


December 8, 2010

Daniel R. Levinson

Inspector General
Department of Health and Human Services

Room 5250 Cohen Building

330 Independence Ave. SW
Washington, DC 20201

Dear Inspector General Levinson:

This is to follow-up my October 11, 2010 letter requesting that your office determine whether $3,335,578 awarded by the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to the Save-A-Life Foundation (SALF) was properly administered and to review concerns regarding Atlanta-based CDC Deputy Director Douglas R. Browne, who served as SALF’s Corporate Treasurer from January 1, 2004 until September 17, 2009.

Please see attached a copy of an October 20, 2010 e-mail sent by your office’s Correspondence Control Specialist Sue Yee that includes this description of my letter:

The Control Number For this record is: EX-2010-01320

The Document Title is: Letter to Daniel R. Levinson -- request to review and determine whether monies awarded to CDC were properly administered - from Timothy C Bagwell, Ph.D.

Please also see attached a November 8, 2010 letter to me from your office’s Special Agent in Charge Elton Malone stating:

The United States Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), Office of Inspector General (OlG), Office of Investigations (OI), Special Investigations Branch (SIB), is in receipt of your letter dated October 11, 2010. In your letter, you allege potential misconduct on the part of Douglas Browne, an employee of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). Specifically you state that CDC may have improperly approved Browne's outside activities with the Save-A-Life-Foundation, and that Browne may have exceeded the scope of the approval which he received from CDC management.

HHS/OIG/OI/SIB has reviewed the information you provided, and has determined that there is not enough information presented to warrant an investigation for potential violation of criminal statutes. HHS/OIG/OI/SIB has referred this matter to CDC for further review, and appropriate administrative action as this matter appears to be more appropriately addressed through CDC's administrative review process.

Special Agent Malone’s letter includes no mention of what Ms. Yee accurately described as a “request to review and determine whether monies awarded to CDC were properly administered.” Therefore it’s my understanding that your office considers that request to be open and under review. If my understanding is incorrect, please clarify.

Thank you for your continued attention to this matter. Please note that my contact information has been updated since my previous letter.

Sincerely,

Tim Bagwell, Ph.D.
ADDRESS/PHONE REDACTED

Saint Louis, MO 63139
tim@timbagwell.com

Cc:

Thomas R. Frieden, MD, MPH
Director, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention

Barry Goldberg
Assistant IL Attorney General
Charitable Trusts Bureau

Donald White, Public Affairs Specialist
Office of the Inspector General
Department of Health and Human Services

Tim Bagwell's follow-up to HHS Inspector General re: $3.3m CDC funding of Save-A-Life Founation, 12/8/10

Tim Bagwell asks Health and Human Services Inspector General to investigate $3+ million CDC funding of Save-A-Life Foundation and to review role of CDC executive who worked as Save-A-Life’s treasurer

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE                                          
                                                             
Bagwell for Congress

Contact: Tim Bagwell
Phone: 812 607-0721
tim@bagwellforcongress.com

Today US House candidate Tim Bagwell sent an eight-page letter of concern to Daniel R. Levinson, Inspector General of the Department of Health and Human Services. In his letter, Bagwell requested an investigation to determine if over $3 million awarded to the Save-A-Life Foundation by the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) was spent properly.

Save-A-Life Foundation is a Chicago-area nonprofit that since 2006 has been the subject of TV and print exposes around the country, one of which “uncovered a series of misleading claims and deceptive credentials that raise doubts about Save-A-Life's integrity, funding and training.”

Along with supporting documentation regarding those concerns, Bagwell’s letter asked Inspector General Levinson to review the role of an Atlanta-based CDC executive who, since 2004, also worked as Save-A-Life’s Corporate Treasurer.

Bagwell, who holds a PhD in Public Administration and Policy Analysis, has conducted studies of abuse of consumer rights in the student loan program, voting irregularities in Illinois’ Sangamon and Rock Island Counties, and conducted Internal Control Reviews while employed at the Department of Defense.

Reportedly the Illinois Attorney General’s Charitable Trusts Bureau is investigating Save-A-Life.

“Presumably that investigation will be concerned with state issues,” says Bagwell. “My letter to Mr. Levinson is intended to address concerns about the millions in federal dollars Save-A-Life received from the CDC.”

Copied on Bagwell’s letter are Attorney General Eric Holder and Patrick J. Fitzgerald, US Attorney for the Northern District of Illinois, and CDC Director Dr. Thomas R. Frieden.

Bagwell’s opponent, Republican Congressman John Shimkus, reportedly steered at least $1.5 million of the CDC funding to Save-A-Life (Edwardsville Intelligencer, 1/15/05). In a letter last month, Bagwell asked Rep. Shimkus if he knew how the money had been spent and if the congressman intended to investigate.

“I got a two-sentence brush-off e-mail from a staffer who ignored my questions,” says Bagwell, a Democrat. “Is this the due diligence Congressman Shimkus applies to all his funding requests and appropriations?

“In any event, he made it clear he isn’t going to do his job, so I’m doing it for him.”        

Bagwell’s letter may be downloaded from http://bit.ly/dEMbm5 or http://scr.bi/dzqYzs

10/11/10 Tim Bagwell to HHS requesting investigation of $3m+ CDC funding of Save-A-Life Foundation