With his third mayoral term secured, Calumet City Mayor Jerry Genova has climbed one steep mountain only to find himself at the foot of another: a federal trial in three weeks.
“One down and one to go,” said a smiling Genova on Wednesday, dressed in his trademark black suit, gold cufflinks glittering.
“We’ve been living with this for two years now,” he said. “It’s hard to live with that cloud. But we weren’t willing to throw it all away.
“I could have gone anywhere and made triple the money, but this is our home, and we were not ready to concede to the government,” said Genova, who was first elected to office as a reformer in 1993.
Genova’s garnering 47 percent of the vote in a five-way race makes it hard to deny that local voters believe in his leadership, despite a nine-count federal indictment alleging he abused his powers as mayor.
In July, Genova was indicted on federal racketeering charges alleging he used city workers to do extensive work on his home and to campaign on city time. The indictment also alleges he took kickbacks on city legal services and tried to have a critic fired from her job.
After months of saying very little about the indictment during the campaign, Genova had a lot to say Wednesday.
Sipping coffee from a delicate cup and saucer, Genova predicted victory in the pending federal case, which he says is based on “circumstantial evidence.” He claimed a federal judge has thrown out at least one of the charges.
“It’s part of the process now where the government’s case is starting to unravel,” he said. “The government has unlimited resources, and they have targeted me. They probably have spent in excess of $2 million. It’s just not right.
“We know the facts … and every charge can be addressed reasonably and believably, so we have that solace,” Genova said.
Federal officials say the election victory has no bearing on the trial, which begins April 23.
“The charges originally filed in the indictment are still there,” said Executive Assistant U.S. Atty. Nancy Needles. “Nothing has been dropped since the indictment was filed.”
Political experts say the election victory speaks volumes about voter unpredictability. Indicted Stone Park Mayor Robert Natale lost his bid for re-election Tuesday while Genova won overwhelmingly.
“You can’t call it a fluke,” said Paul Green, a political science professor at Roosevelt University in Chicago who tracks south suburban politics. “This is a young fellow who clearly has a lot of potential, and voters identify with him on the local issues. The bottom line is it’s the voters who decide, not the media, not the federal government, not the pundits.”
Meanwhile, Genova said he would focus this term on healing the community, which he said was fractured by the five-way mayoral race. Another priority would be enforcing residency requirements for city employees, which were upheld in a referendum Tuesday.
He plans to have the City Council appoint a citizen from each ward to sit on an independent board that would oversee residency compliance and violation issues. The board also would hear all citizen resident complaints about the Police Department. He says such a board is an example of a new kind of leadership in which authority will be delegated to citizens.
