Is Ald. Isaac Carothers following his father's footsteps?

Yeah I posted this in an earlier post today, but the Sun-Times offers a little more than two paragraphs on both father and son on the wrong side of the law as Aldermen:

In the history of City Council corruption that has seen 30 aldermen convicted since 1972, there has never been a son who has followed his father to prison.

Ald. Isaac Carothers (29th) could be the first.

His father, former Ald. William Carothers (28th), went to prison in 1983 for extorting up to $32,500 in remodeling work for his ward office from the builders of Bethany Hospital.

 

Now, Ike Carothers stands accused of accepting $40,000 in home improvements, meals and sports tickets from a West Side developer in exchange for zoning changes that netted the developer millions.

"It's sad. I'm stunned. It would surprise me even if his father hadn't [gone] to prison," said Ald. Emma Mitts (37th), an Ike Carothers protege who used her mentor's muscle to bring Chicago's first and only Wal-Mart to her West Side ward.

A longtime Carothers ally, who asked to remain anonymous, said he's "heard the rumors" about the Carothers investigation for months, but "didn't believe it because he had the example of his dad."

"I always thought him to be much smarter than that. But, maybe he didn't make the leap from the past to the present," the source said.

The article continunes to discuss his general background before he became an Alderman in 1999. Even a role in political intimidation on the West Side (29th Ward is on Chicago's west side). This was over 20 years ago and at that time "Ike" was pointed out by a federal judge as a ring leader in a campaign that was led by his father William who was himself in prison.

As promised here's a link to a CBS2 story about how his neighbors are reacting to this story. You've got a few who can't believe it and of course a few who don't like him. I'll just highlight the one guy who stood out from in this piece:

Daryl Walker says it doesn't surprise him.

"It should have happened a long time ago. I was in his office about six months ago. He never does anything for the community as far as the black people," Walker said.

Walker added Carothers looks after some of his powerful neighbors at the expense of the rest of the neighborhood. He says this is especially noticeable in the dead of winter when the former streets and sanitation man's block is always quickly cleared of snow.

"This block looks like the summertime in the winter. You go a block south or a block north it looks like Alaska," Walker said.

The part where he says he doesn't do anything as far as the black people. I think I understand the sentiment where either he doesn't like the Alderman or he feels Carothers hasn't been doing a very dutiful job for his constituents. I just found this first statement to be incoherent (well that may not be the right word for that) although I can understand he's in front of a TV camera and perhaps you may not always say the right thing especially if you have no idea whether or not it'll be shown on TV. Although to be sure they wanted both negative and positive points of view so he probably knew it would be on TV.