ICYMI: Rauner Admin’s Handling of Quincy Slammed as a “Downward Spiral of Malfeasance”

The Ottawa Times: Rauner Admin Put More Focus on Reputations than Caring for Veterans

Yesterday, The Ottawa Times took Governor Bruce Rauner’s administration to task for showing more concern for their reputations than caring for residents of the Quincy Veterans’ Home. Three years of Legionnaires’ outbreaks at the state-run facility killed 13 and sickened dozens more.
The Ottawa Times editorial comes a few days after Chicago public radio station WBEZ published emailsshowing Rauner’s administration putting great focus into spinning the news coverage of a 2015 outbreak when 12 died. The Times wrote:

“Yet the emails reveal the opposite was true: Rauner and many agency officials took very seriously the importance of protecting their own reputations. Caring for our nation’s heroes may have been a priority, but it was quite obviously not at the top of the list.”

Following a legislative hearing on Monday, one of Rauner’s agency directors refused to answer questions from a WBEZ reporter and accused him of lacking “journalistic integrity.” WBEZ broke the original story into the state’s botched response at Quincy.
Read the editorial here.