The Watchdogs: New county finance chief joined firm’s board after awarding it city pension deals

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Updated: August 4, 2011 4:20PM

Cook County’s new chief financial officer, Tariq Malhance, wants to make something clear.

Yes, he served for 24 years in various positions at Chicago City Hall and was Mayor Daley’s city comptroller, serving on the boards of city pension funds where he voted with others to put millions of dollars in city retirement money in the hands of an inexperienced real estate investment firm run by the mayor’s nephew Robert Vanecko and Daley’s longtime ally Allison Davis.

But, no, says Malhance, he wasn’t aware of the ongoing federal investigation — prompted by reports in the Sun-Times and the subject of news reports since 2009 — into how the well-connected firm, called DV Urban Realty, was picked to oversee the investment of $68 million in city pension money.

“I didn’t know that,” Malhance says.

He also says he was unaware that the city inspector general’s office also has been investigating the pension investments.

Malhance, 66, was appointed to his new, $176,000-a-year job by Cook County Board President Toni Preckwinkle and confirmed last month by the full board.

Over the past few years, Sun-Times reporters have tried but been unable to reach him to talk about the Vanecko and Davis deals.

Malhance, who retired from City Hall in 2005, says he never felt any pressure to put the city pension investments in the hands of Vanecko and Davis.

“I never really knew, until later, until I was gone, that he was related to him,” Malhance says of Vanecko and the mayor. “I did not know at all who he was related to because the name is different from [Daley], and he doesn’t look like him.”

The pension deals were risky, Vanecko and Davis acknowledged in their successful pitches to the city pension fund boards.

To help oversee them, Vanecko and Davis created an advisory board. After retiring from City Hall, Malhance joined the board in 2007. He says he was on it until last fall and was paid a total of $25,000 over three years by DV Urban Realty for his service: attending quarterly meetings and offering advice.

Malhance says he thinks someone from City Hall recommended him for the DV Urban Realty board.

Lisa Donovan and Tim Novak