Chicago Cronyism: Powerful Alderman Got Subsidies for Wrigley, Legal Work From Company

Politics as parasitism

Ten years ago, Chicago's most powerful alderman, Edward M. Burke, and the rest of the City Council signed off on a deal that promised $16 million in taxpayer subsidies to the Wm. Wrigley Jr. Co. to help it build a new corporate campus on Goose Island rather than move to the suburbs.

Three years later, Burke's law firm, retained by Wrigley, persuaded Cook County officials to lower the property assessments for two buildings the chewing gum giant had bought down the street from the new campus.