From the Chicago Tribune

School ousts GOP insider
Consultant linked to 2 in U.S. suit
By Robert Becker and Rick Pearson, Tribune staff reporters. Tribune staff
reporter Ray Long contributed to this report
Published July 2, 2004
Officials at a North Chicago medical university said Thursday they fired an
influential Republican real estate consultant linked to two former trustees
of the school who are at the center of extortion allegations involving a
state agency that oversees hospital expansion.
The dismissal of John Glennon, a lobbyist who also was a top adviser to
former Gov. George Ryan, comes only days after the Rosalind Franklin
University of Medicine and Science received a federal subpoena seeking a
variety of records, including real estate and construction contracts, a
school spokesman said.
Two former trustees at the school, Stuart Levine and Jacob Kiferbaum, were
recently mentioned in a federal whistleblower lawsuit that alleged Edward
Hospital of Naperville had been pressured to use Kiferbaum's Deerfield-based
construction firm as a condition for winning state approval for a new
hospital in Plainfield.
Levine resigned last month as chairman of the Illinois Health Facilities
Planning Board, the agency that approves such projects, amid state and
federal investigations into the board's decision-making on pending
health-care facility expansions.
Glennon was unavailable for comment.
Glennon and Levine are longtime Republican insiders and, until recently,
both men served as members of the Teachers' Retirement System, the state
agency in charge of pension funding and investments for educators outside
Chicago. While Levine remains on the pension board, Glennon stepped down
last fall when a governmental prohibition on lobbyists serving on state
boards and commissions took effect.
Until Wednesday, Glennon served as a contractual real estate consultant for
Rosalind Franklin University. In light of the federal probe, the school's
president, Michael Welch, has launched his own review of university
contracts, a school spokesman said.
That review includes the attempted sale of a university-owned parcel located
within the Illinois Medical District on Chicago's Near West Side, in which
Glennon was involved, university sources said.
Shortly after Welch became Rosalind Franklin president in December 2002, he
moved to sell the parcel, which the school owned for more than 30 years,
university sources said. While some trustees argued it should be developed,
Welch said the school needed funds to ease the burden on students, who pay
among the highest medical school costs in the U.S.
Sources said that in recent weeks, the school received a single bid, but
Welch rejected it as too low. Glennon served as the intermediary in the
proposed deal and brought the offer to the administration. The university
continues to try to sell the property.
University officials declined to discuss the details of Welch's review or
elaborate on the federal subpoena delivered to the school this week. Welch,
however, has said that federal agents have told him the school is possibly
the victim of fraud.
Glennon's termination comes during a week of turmoil and controversy at the
university.
In addition to the federal investigation, the school announced the
resignation of Levine, who had been serving as chairman of the university's
board of trustees, and of Kiferbaum, who also was a board member. While
serving on the board, Kiferbaum's firm did $57.5 million worth of
construction at the school. Levine and Kiferbaum had been trustees at the
school since 1999.
The school's board of trustees also includes a law-school classmate of
Levine, Lester McKeever Jr. McKeever was a minority investor in the Emerald
Casino, which was seeking to open in Rosemont while Levine served on the
Illinois Gaming Board. In addition, McKeever served on the board of Photogen
Technologies, in which Levine was an investor.
Earlier this year, Glennon helped Kiferbaum and Levine pitch a plan to
develop a small portion of the 800-acre DuPage Technology Park in West
Chicago to park officials. Glennon was hired as a lobbyist for DuPage
County, shortly after serving as the architect of Ryan's controversial
Illinois FIRST public works program. He also traveled on Ryan's historic
1999 trip to Cuba as governor.
The federal investigation surrounding the Health Facilities Planning Board
has prompted legislative calls to remake the board. In Springfield on
Thursday, House Speaker Michael Madigan won committee approval for a
proposal to scrap the board's current membership.
"Somebody or all of them, I think, should have been aware of what was going
on," Madigan said.
Copyright © 2004, Chicago Tribune