From the Chicago Tribune

Blagojevich defends hospital panel picks
Appointees gave funds to campaign
By John Chase, Tribune staff reporter. Tribune staff reporter Ray Long
contributed to this report
Published July 13, 2004
Gov. Rod Blagojevich on Monday defended his naming of two medical
specialists to the beleaguered panel that oversees hospital construction,
saying the two were "highly qualified" for the posts and large campaign
donations they made to him had nothing to do with the appointments.
The governor said he had been "unaware" that Kankakee neurosurgeon Michel
Malek and Winnetka podiatrist Fortunee Massuda each gave his campaign
account $25,000 just 18 days before he named them to the Illinois Health
Facilities Planning Board last year.
Malek's contribution was in his own name, while Massuda's came from the Foot
& Ankle Clinics of America, which she runs.
"All I can tell you is ... the decision to make appointments is always based
on qualifications and on merit and never based on political considerations,"
Blagojevich said. "I don't want to know about those things; I don't ask
those questions; our vetting system purposely does not look into that,
because we don't want that to be a criteria."
Blagojevich overhauled the nine-member panel last year, appointing Malek and
Massuda among others to the non-paying posts. He also reappointed a handful
of existing members to new terms, including Stuart Levine, who has been
named as a figure in a federal probe that links the board to extortion
allegations.
Earlier this year, an executive at Edward Hospital in Naperville secretly
tape-recorded a meeting with Deerfield contractor Jacob Kiferbaum as part of
the federal investigation into allegations the board pushed hospital
expansion work to favored companies, sources have said. Edward Hospital
officials in May filed a sealed whistle-blower lawsuit in federal court
saying they were told the planning board would reject their expansion plans
unless they used Bear Stearns & Co. to finance the project and Kiferbaum
Construction Corp. to build it, sources said.
Levine, a major political donor to Republican and Democratic politicians,
including the governor, recently resigned from the health board. Levine and
Kiferbaum, who heads the construction company that bears his name, also have
resigned from a North Chicago medical school that has acknowledged receiving
a federal grand jury subpoena.
With the board under growing scrutiny, the Illinois House on Monday approved
legislation to purge all the members Blagojevich appointed last year and
replace them with a trimmed down panel consisting of only five members.
The controversy prompted the City of Chicago last week to eliminate Bear
Stearns from participation in a coming bond sale, and Blagojevich said
Monday the firm will not receive any more state business until those
questions are answered.
Last year, the Blagojevich administration picked Bear Stearns as a senior
underwriter for a $10 billion sale of state bonds, a designation that earned
the investment house more than $8 million, according to state records.
"They're not going to get anything until things are resolved with their
situation," he said. "There's nothing new for them."
Copyright © 2004, Chicago Tribune