As I've reported in a string of items, since last year Illinois State Senator Tim Bivins (R-Dixon) has been asking tough questions about what happened to millions of tax dollars awarded to the Save-A-Life Foundation.
SALF was the scandal-ridden Chicago nonprofit that's reportedly under investigation by the Illinois Attorney General.
According to the author of an anonymous poison pen letter to the senator and copied to the AG, it's all a misunderstanding.
And it's all my fault.
As Sidebar readers know, SALF was a high-flying Chicago nonprofit that used to be the darling of Illinois media with connections up and down the Prairie State's political food chain -- Dick Durbin, Jan Schakowsky, Arne Duncan, John Shimkus, Emil Jones Jr., Paul Vallas, Gery Chico, and other worthies.
Here's Rita Mullins, former mayor of Palatine, IL, and Carol J. Spizzirri -- the gal pals who helmed the organization -- and my father at a Washington, DC conference that was supposed to move their organization into the big leagues:
Instead, a year later the SALF hit the fan when ABC7 aired the first of four scorching exposes. Since then, there have been dozens more print and broadcast reports, including a March interview I did with an Illinois paper.
Per a San Diego newsweekly article about her sordid history, Spizzirri hightailed it to a mobile home park near Carlsbad a couple years ago.
Sen. Bivins tagged Spizzirri and Mullins in this acerbic letter he sent to the IL Attorney General:
Turns out the senator's letter really got under somebody's skin.
Check out this anonymous screed he received that portrays me as slightly worse than Charlie Manson. (I've redacted a paragraph consisting of crapulous allegations about a third party.)
For fun, I'll try and fact-check the claims in the letter. It shouldn't require much effort.
For example:
To enlighten you, the students of Dixon schools were taught/saved lives with SALF's life saving curriculum instructed by off-duty Dixon City Fire Department EMS professionals, which operated through a Branch at St. John's Hospital, Springfield.Sen. Bivins -- misspelled "Bevins" by the cluck who wrote the letter -- lives in Dixon and was Lee County Sheriff for 20 years. Here's what he wrote me:
I did talk to one of the longest serving fireman in my town and he doesn't recall any such program (SALF) ever being offered here.As for my motives, I'll leave it to others to decide whether this page of media reports that resulted from my whistleblowing efforts constitutes a "hit list" -- and what may have compelled me to take a closer look at Spizzirri's organization.
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| Carol Spizzirri and my father (then 85 years old) at SALF's US Conference of Mayors presentation, January 19, 2005 |
One last question.
Why is the skank who wrote the anonymous letter to Sen. Bivins giving me grief about my father? Per this ABC7 report, it was Spizzirri and her organization that kicked him to the curb:
