Obama grant being probed ($100K for garden that was never built)

RK


Chicago Sun-Times September 25, 2008 CHRIS FUSCO AND DAVE MCKINNEY

A $100,000 state grant for a botanic garden in Englewood that then-state Sen. Obama awarded in 2001 to a group headed by a onetime campaign volunteer is now under investigation by the Illinois attorney general amid new questions, prompted by Chicago Sun-Times reports, about whether the money might have been misspent.

The garden was never built. And now state records obtained by the Sun-Times show $65,000 of the grant money went to the wife of Kenny B. Smith, the Obama 2000 congressional campaign volunteer who heads the Chicago Better Housing Association, which was in charge of the project for the blighted South Side neighborhood.