Life in "Progress" City - Chicago edition

Two days ago, For the Good of Illinois added another tranche of data to our online transparency portal at openthebooks.com. This installment includes every check written by the City of Chicago from FY 2002 to 2011.

It contains $74 billion in vendor payments. Last year alone, over 69,000 entities received checks, and you can see it all at openthebooks.com. The data contains numerous details: vendor code, transaction id, PO number, fund, department, amount, check number, and date.

Here’s a curious item found while digging though the data…

The Admiral Theatre, Inc., is a strip club on the northwest side of the city. Obama for America is the President’s campaign fund.

The City of Chicago approved payouts to each of them, using the same catch-all “vendor code” or expense classification. Further review found that neither vendor exists in the Chicago’s current on-line transparency portal.

The Admiral Theatre strip club received $5,197.78 from the City of Chicago between the dates 2006 through 2011. The sixteen checks ranges from $1.00 to $1,900. A buck? Is some one tipping dancers using City of Chicago checks?

See a list of City payments to The Admiral Theatre here.

The last time we checked, strip clubs aren’t required to disclose their sources of income, but that’s isn’t the case for presidential campaigns. Obama for America Campaign received a $1,000 check from the city on August 28th, 2007.

More........