A former Chicago Park District official accepted cash, vacations to ski resorts, a pricey bicycle and even a manicure for steering millions of dollars in work at Millennium Park to a suburban landscaping company, federal authorities charged Thursday.
Shirley McMayon, the Park District’s former director of natural resources, pocketed more than $137,000 in financial benefits from two executives of James Michael Inc., the Mundelein-based landscaper, an indictment charged.
In return for the payoffs, McMayon, 47, now of Park City, Utah, improperly used her influence to steer about $8 million in Park District work to the firm between 2000 and 2004, authorities charged.
Michael Lowecki, the company owner, and Kevin Haas, its former chief operations officer, were also charged in the indictment.
“They used the Park District coffers as sort of their personal playground,” U.S. Atty. Patrick Fitzgerald said at a news conference announcing the charges.
Fitzgerald said that “one of the kickers in this case” was that the contractors didn’t pay for most of the bribes themselves, instead padding their invoices to pass the cost of about $60,000 in payoffs to taxpayers. Among the phony invoices was a bill for about $10,000 for a non-existent global positioning system, he said.
“This is the $10,000 GPS that can’t be found,” Fitzgerald quipped.
The indictment marked yet another public corruption probe launched by federal investigators. The U.S. investigation of City Hall for political influence in hiring and contracts has been heating up, and former Gov. George Ryan is set to go on trial soon on bribery-related charges.
It is the first federal investigation to reach into the Park District since a former contract-compliance officer was convicted in Operation Silver Shovel in 2000 of falsely certifying a government mole’s business as a woman-owned enterprise.
At the news conference, Robert Grant, the special agent in charge of the FBI in Chicago, said the case against McMayon “has led to other investigative leads that are aggressively under investigation.”
In a telephone interview, Tim Mitchell, the Park District’s general superintendent and chief executive officer, said his office learned of the investigation when it was subpoenaed for records by federal prosecutors in January.
McMayon, known as “Shirl,” had resigned her $92,700-a-year post in November, citing personal reasons, Mitchell said.
Jacquelyn Heard, a spokeswoman for Mayor Richard Daley, said that McMayon expressed interest in a job at City Hall “but never saw the mayor on it” and wasn’t offered a position.
McMayon pocketed cash and checks totaling about $123,800 and took vacations worth about $7,300 with her family to Wisconsin Dells, Wis., Galena, Ill., and ski resorts in Michigan and Utah–all paid for by Lowecki and Haas, the government alleged. She also was given tickets to a Green Bay Packers football game during a paid vacation to a resort in Elkhart Lake, Wis., authorities said.
Vacations at the Dells
McMayon vacationed for free at one resort at the Dells in May 2000, complained about the accommodations to Lowecki and Haas, and was placed in a more expensive lodge for another Dells vacation two months later, according to the charges and sources.
The landscapers also spent more than $22,000 to pay off McMayon’s loan on her 1999 Dodge Durango and paid $250 for her massage, manicure and haircut at a Mario Tricoci salon, about $1,500 for a LeMond Buenos Aires bicycle and more than $4,000 for two computers.
The charges disappointed Roger Post, general manager of Christy Webber Landscapes, which has done limited work for the Park District in recent years.
“We play by the rules, and obviously others were not,” Post said. “If people were winning contracts for reasons other than the best bid, it makes you angry.”
Outside James Michael’s offices Thursday, a handful of former employees picketed, complaining they had been retaliated against for joining a union.
McMayon and Lowecki were each charged with nine counts of fraud and bribery. Haas was charged with two counts of fraud.
McMayon’s lawyer, Donald Young, said he expects that McMayon will resolve the charges before trial. “She has been cooperating with the government,” Young said.
A lawyer for Lowecki, 45, of Libertyville didn’t return telephone calls seeking comment. Attorney Michael Ettinger, who represents Haas, 56, of Gurnee said his client is cooperating in the investigation and expects to plead guilty. Haas left the landscaping firm in November 2001, well before the alleged kickback scheme ended.
Prosecutors Scott Levine and Nancy Miller said McMayon supervised an evaluation committee that made recommendations to the Park District board as to which companies should get contracts. “She was then able to direct more work to James Michael than to other contractors,” Levine said at the news conference.
According to a civil lawsuit in Lake County, an attorney for James Michael indicated the firm first obtained “very large” contracts from the Park District in 1999 and 2000 and went through “almost an explosion” in its business. Its business quickly grew about fivefold to $10 million, the lawyer said.
A stray check
In a deposition in that lawsuit, Carleen Haake, a bookkeeper for James Michael, testified she discovered that the firm had paid off McMayon’s car loan when she found the check on a copying machine at the office. “They left their original on the glass,” she said.
The firm primarily worked at Millennium Park, planting trees and shrubs and mowing lawns, and it also installed Christmas lights at the park, Buckingham Fountain and other locations, authorities said.
Millennium Park has become a major Chicago tourist attraction, but during construction, it was mired in controversy as its cost ballooned to about $490 million, more than half to be paid by taxpayers.
Before working at the Park District, McMayon was horticulture manager for the Golden Nugget Mirage Resorts in Las Vegas, according to a biography of her in a 2001 issue of Illinois Parks and Recreation magazine. A graduate of the University of Southwest Louisiana with a degree in horticulture, she also had been director of horticulture for a foundation in Louisiana and had owned a landscaping business.
Her attorney said she is now working at a golf course in Utah.
McMayon was hired by the Chicago Park District in July 1999 as deputy director of landscaping and was promoted to head the new Department of Natural Resources in early 2001.
McMayon was often the public face for beautification efforts in Chicago parks, traveling to conferences across the country and abroad.
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mo’connor@tribune.com
lford@tribune.com
