No, not with comic book conventions, but with CITY GOVERNANCE. It seems both towns have severe malfeasance at the top.

In addition to pension scandals, general econmoic turmoil and much more, San Diego is getting stunk up by a growing sewer scandal!:

Representatives from Kroll Inc., who’ve been paid $20.3 million to sort out a decade’s worth of mismanagement of the city’s employee-retirement and sewer-fee systems, concluded that the City Council was negligent in its duty to provide accurate financial information to bond investors (a determination that could lead to civil penalties); was responsible for rubberstamping a scheme that shortchanged the retirement system and violated city and state laws; and, worst of all, broke federal and state laws and violated terms of city loans and grants by devising a sewer-fee structure that unfairly burdened homeowners and benefited large businesses.


In Rosemont it’s even worse. Did you ever wonder who the Donald E. Stephens that the convention center is named after is? We might have thought an old timer, but when it’s the STANDING MAYOR, especially one whom the FBI caught meeting with people known as “The Clown” and “No Nose” you know it’s bad

Rosemont Mayor Donald E. Stephens met with five members and two associates of organized crime in May 1999 regarding the mob’s control of construction and operations contracts at a proposed casino in the northwest suburb, an FBI agent testified Monday.

[snip]Mallul, an FBI supervisory special agent of an organized crime squad in Chicago, testified that the May 29, 1999, meeting he said Stephens attended included the following people whom Mallul identified as members of organized crime: Peter DiFronzo, John “No Nose” DiFronzo, Joey “The Clown” Lombardo, Rudy Fratto and Joe “The Builder” Andriacchi.


[Thanks to Beat Spy Archimedes for link.]

1 COMMENT

  1. Now with the former president of Cicero (Betty Loren Maltese) in jail, Rosemont — and Stephens specifically — has become the most corrupt town in the greater Chicago area. While Stephens had the foresight to build up Rosemont as the place to stay/be when flying into/out of O’Hare, he’s done it with graft, kickbacks, and every type of shady deal possible.

    But, as long as Rosemont continues to get all that tax money from the hotels, businesses, and convention centers, nobody really seems to mind.

    It’s a shame.

  2. San Diego government has been a huge mess for the last handful of years (although the malfeasance goes back much farther of course). I think we had 3 or 4 different mayors last year? Maybe not as bad as Al Capone’s old town of Cicero, but still pretty bad.

    Back on topic though, it’s no coincidence that the current Mayor was the first to appear on Comic Con, maybe ever. I suspect that San Diego is going to be very, very hospitable to the CCI for the next few years, they just can’t afford to do differently.