Newspaper says it was offered envelope of cash p. 11

By: Mark Fitzgerald

IN A BIZZARRE proposal that recalls the city's Al Capone era, a Chicago official offered the Chicago Jewish Star $1,600 cash in an envelope to settle newsbox damage claims, the paper says.
"That's how he put it: '$1,600 cash in an envelope,' said Paul Wertheimer, vice president of the Skokie, Ill.-based twice-monthly newspaper.
The Star has been seeking $1,600 for what it calls damages done to its downtown Chicago newsboxes by city workers over the past two years.
A growing feud between the Star and the city came to a head in July when the paper photographed a city worker cutting anchoring chains and moving a newsbox without permission of the paper (E&P, Aug. 6, p. 16).
Wertheimer said the city representative explained the unusual cash settlement by saying that actions taken against the paper's newsboxes were done by city employees acting without authority. The employees did not want to be associated formally with the settlement, the representative told Wertheimer.
However, Wertheimer said, the official did insist that in return for the cash the Star sign a waiver holding the city harmless from any future litigation.
"That's not our intention, to keep this thing going, to file a lawsuit. But we cannot accept a settlement of cash in an envelope," Wertheimer said.
Wertheimer did not identify the city official who made the cash offer.
Chicago Streets and Sanitation spokesman Terry Levin said he had serious doubts about the Star's allegations. "Cash in an envelope? I refuse to believe that," said Levin.
He said the city's law department and Streets and Sanitation are still researching the Star's claims and have made no offer of any kind.
"Assuming the worst-case scenario ? that this [allegation] was true ? it was made without any authorization by the only two city departments involved," Levin said.
But the spokesman said, "I have serious doubts about the methods of journalism they practice."