LAKE FOREST, Ill. — The former city manager of Lake Forest has been indicted on felony charges stemming from unauthorized payments for a lobbying effort to bring an Amtrak stop to the North Shore Chicago suburb.
Bob Keily, who retired in 2018 after three decades in public positions, was indicted by a grand jury on Oct. 23, Illinois Policy reports. He allegedly made illegal payments totaling nearly $200,000 to a Washington-based lobbying firm between January 2016 and 2017.
The charge came after the Lake Forest City Council appointed a special counsel to investigate Keily’s fund transfers. In March 2018, that counsel found he had violated city codes by laundering public funds through the city attorney’s private law firm for the lobbying effort.
At the time of his retirement, Keily was the second-highest-paid city manager of the state and out-earned all 50 U.S. governors, earning nearly $250,000 in total compensation.
The lobbying effort had sought to add an Amtrak stop and accompanying pedestrian underpass in Lake Forest, an effort originally estimated in 2012 to cost between $1.8 million and $2.5 million. That estimate had soared to $13 million by 2016.
The cause to create an Amtrak stop was noble. But, the funding method was criminal.
Charles – Hiawatha has baggage service only because of the use of the “Cabbage” (de-engined locos) units that are paired with regular locos on opposite ends of the Hiawatha trainsets. Luggage is placed where the engine was. WisDOT is looking to phase out these units and when that happens Hiawatha trains will likely lose their checked baggage. Lake Forest is looking to replace Glenview as the Hiawatha stop. That effort hasn’t stopped.
I live in this area and read papers and watch tv news and I didn’t hear of this till now. Maybe misuse of $200,000 isn’t newsworthy around here.
WALTER and RONALD thanks for the updates. It’s an arbitrary question which towns are suburban and which are exurban. Be that as it may, Lake Forest and Glenview are too close for Amtrak to consider stopping at both.
For sure this is a big country with lots of rail routes — at least in my own mind I trace suburban stops for intercity trains to the 1950’s building of Route 128 Station in a swamp in Westwood, Massachusetts.
RONALD – I can’t make any sense of the checked baggage rules – which station or even which route. The Hiawatha has checked baggage but not the Michigan trains.
Charles Landey: Chicago has 2 suburban stops on both the BNSF (Lagrange and Naperville) and the Heritage Corridor (Summit and Joliet.)
Charles, the long distance trains haven’t stopped at LaGrange for several years – they now stop further west at Naperville, however checked baggage is not handled there which sort of defeats the purpose. We live in the burbs and have had to go to Union Station in order to check baggage on the CZ. Would have been nice (and less expensive) to leave directly from Naperville and go west.
Wasn’t Lake Forest along with Glenview oppose railroad expansion?
https://trn.trains.com/news/news-wire/2019/05/13-illinois-dot-bows-to-opposition-on-sidings-for-hiawatha-expansion
Not that hard of a name to spell correctly — it’s Bob Kiley. See the actual indictment linked from the Illinois Policy article. Illinois Policy spelled it Kiely in their article, and this piece spells it Keily.
Having said that, thank you for publishing this; I had not seen it anywhere else.
I can’t comment on the politics or the lobbying or the criminal charge, just the railroad issue. Typically Amtrak has only one suburban stop, leaving all the rest to connecting commuter trains. Glenview on this line, New Rochelle north of NYC, MKA toward the Milwaukee end of this line, Route 128 south of Boston, Homewood south of Chicago, or LaGrange west of Chicago.
Lobbying or not, political support or not, the chances of Amtrak adding Lake Forest would have been pretty slim.
Having said this, I totally agree with M SINGER. M SINGER is correct in saying the CNW was a lost opportunity along the heavily populated Lakeshore.
The real concern here is why such convoluting action was required for what actually makes sense?
Amtrak service at Lake Forest would open-up the North Shore region for many auto travelers required to drive far west to pick-up I-94 north to MKE, just to be caught in the truck conga lines dominating that tollway.Historically, the CNW route was more popular for that reason, as it directly served the North Shore suburbs at Evanston, Wilmette, Highland Park, and Waukegan, with differently scheduled inter-regional and commuter “400s.”
Given the clout heavy Northeast, we can surmise had this been a tony town along the NEC, you can bet that between Senators Schumer and Blumenthal, the pedestrian underpass and depot rehabilitation would have already been completed–with mostly federal funds. Contrary to that expedited political process, we have to wonder why the senators from Illinois could not embrace this concept with equal vigor.
I wouldn’t grieve too much for this crook. This is Illinois after all. He’ll go before a judge who was probably in on the deal and he’ll get probation at most.