The Illinois attorney general is looking into a $100,000 state grant for a never-built botanic garden that then-state Sen. Barack Obama gave to a group led by a former campaign volunteer, officials said yesterday.
The inquiry by Attorney General Lisa Madigan came after a Chicago Sun-Times story about the $100,000 member-item grant that Obama steered toward a group run by campaign volunteer Kenny Smith to help a blighted neighborhood.
The garden was never built, and the AG’s Office is looking into how the Chicago Better Housing Association, a nonprofit run by Smith, spent its money.
Among the paper’s findings was that $65,000 of the member-item cash went to Smith’s wife, who created a now-defunct construction company five months after the project was supposed to begin. Smith wrote his wife another $20,000 worth of checks from grant-related funds, the paper said.
“We’re exclusively looking at the charity itself and how they used the charitable funds they received,” said Madigan’s spokes- woman, Robyn Ziegler.
Officials in Madigan’s office said Obama’s actions in giving out the member item aren’t under investigation. “Sen. Obama’s staff has been in touch with the state agencies that have oversight over the CBHA and that in 2004 certified that the grant funds had been properly spent,” said Obama’s spokesman, Ben LaBolt.
“They encouraged state officials to revisit their review, determine whether any taxpayer funds had been improperly spent and recoup them if so.”
But the six-block Englewood area that was supposed to get rehabbed is a haven for weeds, cracked pavement and trash. The only thing that reportedly was ever built was a gazebo, which has vanished.
Obama and Smith unveiled the project in 2000. The state pol said he would “work tirelessly” to raise the more-than-$1 million Smith’s group needed.
Smith – who has donated $550 to Obama’s various campaigns – told the Sun-Times the project was dropped because other government funds never arrived.