The City of Chicago Office of Inspector General (OIG) has released an advisory with recommendations that the Mayor’s Office take appropriate steps to ensure that City premises are made available to OIG, as required by law, including issuing guidance to City departments to clarify OIG’s legal authority to access City premises.
“Unannounced inspections are an important tool in oversight work, allowing for unmanipulated assessment of practices, behaviors, and conditions,” said Deborah Witzburg, Inspector General for the City of Chicago.
On two occasions over the past year, OIG investigators have been denied access to City premises for the purpose of conducting an unannounced inspection, despite the Municipal Code of Chicago’s (MCC) providing that “[e]ach department’s premises, equipment, personnel, books, records, and papers shall be made available as soon as practicable to the inspector general.”
The first was an unannounced inspection of the Mayor’s so-called “Gift Room,” as described in OIG’s January 2025 Advisory on Gifts Accepted on Behalf of the City.[1] Following the publication of that Advisory, the Mayor’s Office published a 21-second video of the Gift Room to the Mayor’s YouTube page. The Mayor’s Office announced new rules concerning gifts accepted by the Mayor “on behalf of the City” and that the Gift Room would be opened to members of the press and the public. City records reveal, however, that the Gift Room depicted in the Mayor’s Office’s video, and which is open for public inspection was in fact not constructed until February 2025—after OIG attempted to conduct an unannounced inspection of gifts received by the Mayor’s Office. Because OIG was denied access to a City premise during its original inspection attempt, OIG was unable to independently confirm whether and where City property—including cufflinks, designer handbags, and men’s shoes—was being stored prior to the construction of the new Gift Room..
The second thwarted unannounced inspection attempt occurred in July 2025. OIG attempted to inspect a City office to search for items which OIG believed were being stored there in violation of City policy. An attorney with the City’s Department of Law (DOL) instructed a City employee using that office to not admit OIG during OIG’s initial visit. Several weeks later, OIG inspected the office with DOL present and confirmed the presence of those items in the office, underscoring the necessity and appropriateness of the inspection. However, obstruction of OIG’s attempt to conduct an unannounced inspection precluded the immediate gathering of complete and reliable evidence of then-current conditions bearing directly upon the alleged violation of City policy.
In its response, the Mayor’s Office apparently declined to implement OIG’s recommendation, cited to a provision of OIG’s rules which governs investigative interviews but is unrelated to premise inspections, and described “evolving interpretations of the City’s Governmental Ethics Ordinance.”
“Time and time again, we have observed that the City of Chicago operates at a deficit of legitimacy with its residents. For generations, government in this City has given people every reason to mistrust things that happen behind closed doors in City Hall,” said Witzburg. “The Mayor’s Office has taken the position here that it must open those doors to oversight only when it suits them to do so, and that position does little to chip away at mistrust or to pay down the deficit of legitimacy.”
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