Millions "Found"

Is this Conehead's Magikal Money Tree?

• Following an advisory by the Chicago inspector general’s office, the city treasurer has asked the city council to dissolve the Community Catalyst Fund and return its more than $57 million in assets to general funds.

  The fund was set up 10 years ago to increase access to public and private investment capital for businesses and organizations in economically underserved areas.

  Inspector General David Glockner said the city provided half of the $100 million initially proposed by Mayor Rahm Emanuel, but the fund has been been effectively dormant since 2020.

Fifty-seven million, just lying around in an account, doing nothing, earning nothing, benefiting no one?

Oh....not exactly:

• Glockner said there is no indication that the money was misused.

  The inspector said the fund only invested about $21 million of the $50 million that it received. No private dollars were ever invested in the fund.

  Glockner said the fund’s investments were all made in 2020 and the money was repaid.

If we're reading that correctly, $21 million was used for some unstated purpose....and then paid back?

For what? Who used it? What benefit was reaped from what appears to be a $21 million loan? Was there an investment? A buy-in to something? A stock market speculation where someone bought low, sold high, paid back the "loan" and kept the difference?

And guess who was nominally in charge of this untapped source of money?

• Chicago Treasurer Melissa Conyears-Ervin is the ex officio chair of the catalyst fund’s board of directors. The fund failed to submit annual reports from 2022 to 2025.

And now, suddenly, she's asking for the fund to be dissolved and the money returned to the General Fund. Why now? Has the account served it's purpose? Are the feds sniffing around this (and other unknown) accounts? How much more is out there benefiting the selected few?

So many questions that no one seems to know - or want - the answers to.