Pat McDonough joins me in the latest podcast.
Pat was working on the City of Chicago’s Water Department when he blew the whistle on the “Hired Truck Scandal”, a $40 million per year program, as he noted in the podcast.
That was 2003; so what has he been up to since?
As he described, following the Hired Truck Scandal he became a repository for other whistleblowers with other Chicago city employees regularly coming to him.
Most recently, he’s discovered a dirty deal between Chicago and Joliet.
“Joliet and the City of Chicago just did a super quiet $1 billion deal to supply water to Joliet. It’s the dirtiest deal since the Hired Trucks.” Pat said. “Mayor Lightfoot is all part of it. They’re going to run a pipeline all the way from the south side of Chicago and the south side pumping station all the way to Joliet, and they’re going to tear up the earth, tear up the roads, tear up flood plains.”
Pat also noted that since he first the blew the whistle, he’s had a target on his back with constant retaliation and harassment for nearly twenty years.
“Two decades of court, two decades of harassment, two decades of retaliation.” Pat told me. “That’s just the way the water department works.”
In 2011, Pat ran for alderman, or for Chicago’s city council.
When interviewed then, he stated, "The greatest problem we have in Chicago is corruption and the corruption tax.”
I asked him what he meant by that. He explained that all city services come with several people in positions which are unnecessary; this individual got the job because they knew someone of influence.
Pat also explained the uphill battle that someone like him faced when running for Alderman.
One of his opponents was Harry Osterman, whose mother once held the same seat.
Osterman was the favored candidate of the Chicago political machine which means, as Pat explained, the local Democratic party made sure Osterman’s campaign was funded and organized, two keys in politics.
Pat’s advice to other whistleblowers is to go to the Federal Bureau of Investigation; if they aren’t interested, to think long and hard before deciding to be a whistleblower.
Michael Volpe Investigates Podcast The Impromptu: Episode 25 an Interview with Pat McDonough