45th Ward alderman Gardiner sues city for more than $1 million; says he was wrongly accused, blames IG office for withholding evidence in ethics case 

Alderman Gardiner has said that the city of Chicago spent around $200,000 to flight his appeal of the ethics board’s decision to fine him $20,000. Gardiner won his appeal.

by BRIAN NADIG

It seems no amount of political pesticide can make these “weeds” go away.

Alderman James Gardiner (45^th) is suing the city of Chicago for more than a million dollars, claiming he was wrongly accused of having false overgrown weed tickets issued in 2019 as retribution to a ward resident who is a frequent critic of his.

The lawsuit alleges that city agencies drummed up false charges against him to damage his reputation with voters and “drive him out of elected office.” It also claims that evidence which cleared him of wrongdoing was withheld by the city Office of Inspector General.

The Chicago Board of Ethics eventually reversed course and dropped fines against the alderman last year and accepted an appeals hearings officer’s conclusion that he did not commit ethics violations regarding the weed tickets.

The lawsuit claims the defendants, listed as the city, the ethics board, the IG office and former inspector general Deborah Witzburg “conspired to prosecute Alderman Gardiner maliciously, knowing that their accusation that Gardiner had knowingly cited a ‘political critic’ with an improper citation for overgrown weeds lacked any factual or evidentiary basis.”

“No reasonable man could be expected to endure the distress inflicted by the defendants,” the lawsuit states.

“The defendants violated due process, withheld exculpatory evidence and relied on demonstrably false testimony to create illegitimate probable cause charges against Alderman Gardiner and litigated those charges to harass, punish and drive him out of elected office,” the lawsuit states.

“Defendants knew that using their power and authority over the plaintiff afforded to them by their office and the municipal code to spread falsehoods about Alderman Gardiner’s integrity and litigate a case based on false pretenses while withholding exculpatory evidence would inflict severe emotional distress upon plaintiff Alderman James Gardiner,” the suit states.

Gardiner, who is seeking a third as alderman, is no stranger to controversy. He has been sued several times and once apologized on the City Council floor for derogatory remarks against a few women and an alderperson.

The lawsuit claims that in 2019 Gardiner did not instruct a city worker to issue violations for overgrown weeds to Pete Czosnyka, a ward resident whose yard had an array of native plantings. Czosnyka received a warning regarding the weeds in 2018, prior to Gardiner taking office. Gardiner defeated two-term Alderman John Arena.

Czosnyka claimed several years ago that Gardiner appeared to be stuck in his “high school bullying days,” in reference to the weed tickets. https://nadignewspapers.com/into-the-weeds-the-ethics-board-an-alderman-and-his-frequent-critic.

The tickets were issued for weeds longer than 10 inches and for causing a rodent problem. Czosnyka got the tickets dismissed, arguing that the vegetation was native plants and not “overgrown weeds.”

In 2023, Witzburg sent Gardiner a letter informing him that her office would seek a probable cause finding by the ethics board that he violated his fiduciary duty and misused city property by knowingly having false weed tickets written to a ward resident.

The board found nine violations against Gardiner and fined him $20,000, exceeding the maximum allowed under city code by $2,000, according to the lawsuit. A hearing officer later said it was “unclear how the [City] arrived at the $20,000 amount for the fine recommendation.”

The lawsuit alleges Witzburg’s office did not provide the board with exculpatory evidence which would have exonerated Gardiner and relied heavily on unverified testimony of Tanya King, described in the lawsuit as a “disgruntled” former ward staffer whom Gardiner had obtained a restraining order against. King left her position from Gardiner’s office in late 2019.

“The OIG failed to verify the accuracy of information provided by its witnesses and used said information to pursue a bad-faith and improper finding of probable cause against the plaintiff,” the lawsuit states.

That evidence included claims that Gardiner asked King to take pictures of Czosnyka’s house and asked staffers to make anonymous 311 calls reporting the alleged weeds, according to the lawsuit. Those pictures were provided to the IG office, but the lawsuit claims the photos were taken not by a staffer, but by a resident who was upset with the condition of Czosnyka’s lawn and urged residents to call 311 and file complaints.

The IG office had “metadata” evidence showing whose phone the pictures were taken on, and the office “intentionally failed” to verify important information and accusations, according to the lawsuit.

Former 39th Ward superintendent Andrew Szorc, who issued the tickets, said that Gardiner did not ask him to do so. 

There were reports that 45th Ward superintendent did not issue the ticket because he had not yet been officially hired or was still in training, although Czosnyka told Nadig Newspapers several years ago that “using” a worker from a different ward could have been a ploy to distance Gardiner from the tickets.

The lawsuit states that Szorc issued the tickets as part of his regular duties, noting there was no registry of native plant gardens in 2019. It wasn’t until 2021 when Alderman Brian Hopkins (2^nd) introduced a registry ordinance to help superintendents differentiate between weeds and native plantings, according to the lawsuit. That registry has yet to be implemented, though the Native and Pollinator Garden Registry Advisory Board has been meeting since 2024.

“The city claimed that Szorc was not on duty that day and issued the citation solely for the benefit of the alderman (and) … used his personal vehicle to issue these citations,” the lawsuit states.

However, the lawsuit claims “the GPS tracking information, which had been in the city’s exclusive possession, contradicted the allegations and testimony that the OIG and CBOE had alleged and relied upon to charge Gardiner for violations.”

Gardiner ended up appealing the fines issued by the ethics board, and the appeals hearing officer ruled Gardiner was “not liable” for the violations. The hearing officer said exculpatory evidence had been withheld during the ethics board proceedings.

The ethics board later dropped the fines against Gardiner. A board representative said at the time that the board was unaware of what evidence was withheld by the IG office and the reason for it.

Gardiner said the city spent around $200,000 to hire a law firm to fight his appeal.

Czosnyka and five other ward residents successfully sued the alderman in federal court for blocking them from his ward aldermanic Facebook page or for removing their comments. Gardiner had been accused of violating their First Amendment rights.

Gardiner claims that the ethics board incorrectly advised him that he could block an individual and that under Mayor Lightfoot the city refused to indemnify him in the lawsuit despite the ethics board’s mistake.

A former member of the city’s Corporate Counsel later told Gardiner that “Mayor Lightfoot, apparently, had some sort of grudge against you,” the lawsuit states. 

The lawsuit adds that the Lightfoot administration maneuvered to deny Gardiner, who is on a leave of absence as a city firefighter, a promotion to lieutenant. He was told he’d have to resign as alderman, despite the precedent of an alderman receiving a police promotion, according to the lawsuit.

Under Mayor Brandon Johnson, the city later agreed to pay about half of the $157,500 Gardiner had to pay to settle the Facebook lawsuit. Each defendant received $4,000, and the remainder went toward their attorney fees.

The “bad advice” from the ethics board, the lawsuit alleges, demonstrates the malice which the board had toward Gardiner.

The lawsuit also charges that the board or IG office “leaked” Gardiner’s name to the media as the subject of the probable cause finding prior to its vote, breaching confidential requirements, and tarnishing his name in public.

Witzburg left her IG post in April and now serves as the chief of staff for Illinois Attorney General Kwame Raoul, whose office in 2022 took former 45th Ward superintendent Charles Sikanich to court.

Sikanich was accused of trying to sell a World War II-era machine gun, which has been described by his attorney as an inoperable family heirloom, to undercover federal agents, but the case was dismissed as part a deferred prosecution agreement that required him to complete community service work.

In recent years, Gardiner has taken issue with the “hypocrisy” in how some alderpersons are treated versus how he has been treated.

“We pick and choose who we forgive and who we don’t,” he said last year at a special meeting to approve County Commissioner Anthony Quezada as the replacement for outgoing 35^th Ward Alderman Carlos Ramirez-Rosa, who was appointed the superintendent of the Chicago Park District by Mayor Johnson.

Gardiner voted against the appointment. Quezada was in the hot seat for using the N-word in an exchange with friends in a social media post more than 10 years ago. Quezada apologized.

Ramirez-Rosa was also not immune to controversy. In 2023 he was accused of blocking Alderwoman Emma Mitts from entering the Council chambers regarding the city’s sanctuary city status and tried to get several other alderpersons from not attending the meeting. He later had to step down from his positions as Chicago City Council floor leader and chairman of the Committee on Zoning, Landmarks, and Building Standards. Rosa apologized.

“The last 5 years have been challenging for me and my family. I’ve had a lot of allegations thrown at me … many false,” Gardiner said at that meeting last year. “I’ve had protests outside of my office calling me every name, racist, homophobic, transphobic, every phobic you can imagine.”

The lawsuit was filed by the Tobin and Munoz law firm.

Cyryl Jakubowski contributed.

This is just part of today’s coverage. Get the full story - every article, every ad, every page. Subscribe now.

The Latest From Our Community