Meet the Windy City sleazebags.

Many of you probably know that I grew up in Chicago. Even though I moved away 23 years ago I still love to follow their local news, exposés and scandals because nobody does sleaze quite like the Windy City. Although a lot of this stuff may seem funny from a distance, I’d be a nervous wreck if I still lived in Chicago and my tax dollars were funding any of this corruption.

The latest hoo-hah involves Cook County Board President Todd Stroger, a short-timer/lame duck since losing the February primary. With less than six months left to serve, Stroger has been on a spending spree ... adding aides and assistants (most with six-figure salaries) to his staff despite a county-wide hiring freeze. One new hire was Carla Oglesby as Stroger’s deputy chief of staff at $120,000 a year. Oglesby is highly qualified for a job in county government based on prior experience as a promoter for hip-hop artists.

Immediately after joining Stroger’s staff she weasled 11 lucrative contracts for friends and former co-workers, each in an amount just under $25,000 — the level at which County Board approval is required. One contract for $24,995 went to her own public relations agency. Others were deals for ridiculous projects that were never completed, including $24,995 to a professional basketball promoter for a “composting awareness program” and $24,995 to Wallace “Gator” Bradley, who refers to himself as an “urban translator.”

But the latest fraud is Carla Oglesby’s $150,000 expenditure to various local bogus companies for “census outreach contracts.” The deals were all awarded to cronies recommended by Oglesby and Eugene Mullins, one of Stroger’s boyhood friends. Two of the census contracts were given to the Chicago rap duo Dude ’N Nem, best known for their single “We Are Going to McDonald’s.” (Stop laughing.) A website for one of Oglesby’s other recommended companies asks job applicants for their modeling experience, measurements and four photographs. The contact for another takes you to nearly-nude photos on a MySpace page.

I need to know why these gangsters are not in jail. I mean, I watch “Cops” all the time and see people getting chased and tackled and arrested on $200 warrants when they forget to pay a TRAFFIC TICKET. How can crooks like Todd Stroger and Carla Oglesby steal from taxpayers and get away with it? THE PEOPLE OF ILLINOIS NEED ANSWERS. Thank you. I’m going to bed now.