Four years after giving back a $500 campaign contribution from Deborah Quazzo, a former Chicago Board of Education member, Paul Vallas’s mayoral bid has accepted a much bigger sum — $7,500 — from Quazzo ahead of the February election, records show.
Then-Mayor Rahm Emanuel appointed Quazzo to the school board in 2013, but the wealthy investment banker left after the Chicago Sun-Times reported she had ownership stakes in companies doing business with Chicago Public Schools. The CPS inspector general later found that Quazzo had engaged in “horrible” ethical violations.
