The tragedy of Juan Rangel, who built up a system of charter schools in Chicago serving thousands of lower-income Hispanic kids, is that he has failed to hold himself to the highest ethical standards.
Rangel is a man of smarts and personal charm. He has done good work. He was destined, we once thought, to do so much more.
And maybe, for all we know, he will yet.
But somewhere along the line — or was it from the start? — Rangel fell in love with the old Chicago way of doing things, steering contracts and favoring friends and relatives for jobs. Whatever good he was doing, he threw mud all over it.
Rangel, former leader of the United Neighborhood Organization, on Tuesday agreed to pay a $10,000 fine without admitting any wrongdoing to settle securities fraud charges. In announcing the settlement, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission said Rangel broke the law in 2011 when he OKd a document related to an UNO bond sale that didn’t disclose “conflicted transactions.” The conflicts, uncovered by the Sun-Times, were that UNO paid millions of dollars from a state grant to companies owned by brothers of a top UNO executive.
Rangel says he never read the bond sale document and relied on others to brief him. At minimum, if we accept that explanation, he failed to do his job. And, even then, that doesn’t explain the grubby matter of throwing big contracts to the relatives of an UNO insider.
EDITORIAL
Rangel, who grew up in Little Village, became CEO of the UNO community organization in 1996 and built up a charter network of 16 privately run, government-funded schools. These were schools that needed to be built, serving kids too long stuck in crummy neighborhood schools.
Along the way Rangel became a leading civic figure. Mayor Daley appointed him to the Park District board. He co-chaired the 2011 election campaign of Mayor Rahm Emanuel, who later appointed him to the Public Building Commission. He also had strong ties to Ald. Edward M. Burke (14th) and Illinois House Speaker Michael Madigan (D-Chicago). At one point, he was arguably the most influential Latino in Chicago politics.
But Rangel, like some of those pals and mentors, also revealed no particular objection to self-serving cronyism, backroom deals and nepotism.
There was more than the contract conflict that led to the SEC action. One nephew was his deputy chief of staff. Another nephew was on the payroll as an information technology manager. His niece Araceli Estrada was paid more than $49,000 a year as an apprentice kindergarten teacher. And, as the Sun-Times reported, Rangel and other UNO officials piled up big bills for restaurant meals and travel at taxpayers’ expense.
If Rangel had taken a peek at CPS’ ethics policy, he would have seen that no public school official is allowed to hire or appoint a relative or help a relative get a contract that the official manages. He failed to put those same rules in place at UNO. In 2013, under pressure, he resigned as UNO’s chief executive.
Today, at age 50, Rangel keeps a lower profile, but you can bet he’ll be back in the game soon enough. He likes being a player.
Here’s hoping he plays by the rules.
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