GPS catches Chicago official out on the golf course

The Chicago Sun-Times reports:

It takes an unhealthy mix of dishonesty and daring for a city employee to drive to a suburban golf course to play 18 holes on the taxpayers' dime.

You've got to be a fool to do it when you're carrying a cell phone with a GPS tracking device.

That's apparently what happened this week, landing the city's $106,115-a-year superintendent of sewers in the disciplinary equivalent of a sand trap.

Winston Cole has been placed on administrative leave with pay after he was tracked to an unidentified suburban golf course when he was supposed to be on the clock at the Water Management Department's South District headquarters, 1054 W. 95th St.

"It's under investigation, and he's on administrative leave with pay" pending disciplinary proceedings, said Tom LaPorte, Water Management spokesman.

When GPS-equipped cell phones were distributed to city employees and tracking devices were installed on city trucks, the stated goal was to increase employee productivity.

Little did anyone know that GPS would be used to catch someone playing golf.

It's not the first time that golf has landed a city employee in hot water.

In 2000, eight employees of the city clerk's office were suspended and the clerk's chief of staff resigned after a TV news crew caught employees playing golf with then-City Clerk Jim Laski, shooting pool and doing personal errands when they had taken paid sick days.

Laski would go on to become the highest-ranking city employee to be snared by the Hired Truck scandal. He spent 11 months in a West Virginia federal prison and six months at a Chicago halfway house after pleading guilty to accepting $48,000 in bribes.

Cole could not be reached for comment.