For those who don't know James Banks, here's a quick backgrounder:
A lawyer for local developers, James Banks spends a great deal of time in front of the City of Chicago's Committee on Zoning. As the Reader's Ben Joravsky and Mick Dumke wrote, the philosophy of this powerful committee "is that what the local alderman wants, the local alderman gets." And when it comes to the 36th Ward, where the local alderman is William J.P. Banks -- James' uncle and the chairman of the zoning committee -- things move pretty smoothly. (Ald. Banks does recuse himself when his nephew appears before the body).
It's no surprise then that the Tribune called him the "busiest zoning lawyer in the city," adding: "It's not uncommon for him and other lawyers at his firm to push for more than a dozen zoning changes in a single meeting." Many of the developments he supports before the committee are located within his uncle's ward. And even as the housing market has tanked, Banks has "has continued to win aldermanic backing for dozens of new proposals." After all, even when he works outside the 36th Ward, he knows well how to ram a zoning change past an unwilling alderman.
But Banks isn't just cashing in via his legal practice. He also runs a real estate company with his wife and has repeatedly brought zoning changes before the committee related to properties that his company planned to sell, or in which he had a personal stake -- in some cases both. In addition, he is the founder and chairman of Belmont Bank & Trust, which has leant considerable sums of money to his wife, as well as his developer clients. From an October 14, 2008 Sun-Times article:
Of $155 million in loans the bank has made, nearly a third has gone to people connected to Banks.
One of Belmont Bank's favorite customers has been Banks' wife, Grace Sergio. She and her companies have gotten seven mortgages totalling $7.3 million, records show. Like many of the bank's customers, she used the money to develop condos marketed by Sergio & Banks, the real estate agency she co-owns with her husband.
Bart Przyjemski -- a partner with Sergio on some of those developments -- has gotten six other loans, totalling $12.2 million, from Belmont Bank.
At the edge of this swirling nexus of money, power, and real estate are several federal investigations. Last year, developer Beny Garneata was arrested as part of the probe into systematic bribery and corruption in the city's Zoning and Building Departments. Banks was registered as a lobbyist for Garneata as of March 2008 (all zoning lawyers are identified as lobbyists by the City of Chicago municipal code). Meanwhile, two of the building inspectors also arrested at the time were described by the Tribune as having "roots in [Ald.] Banks’ Democratic organization in his Northwest Side ward."
More recently, federal authorities have been investigating "how developers overcame city planners' objections to convert the West Side industrial site [known as Galewood Yards] into a more profitable residential and commercial development." Calvin Boender is the developer in question. And guess who represented him before the Planning Department? James Banks.
Finally, Banks also sits on the board of the Illinois Tollway. He was appointed (PDF) to a four-year term on the board in October 2007 by none other than former Gov. Rod Blagojevich.
- Josh Kalven
