It’s time for another round of quick takes on the people, places and events that were being talked about in the news this week: RIP, one of the good guys Illinoisans — indeed, Americans — who like to know how tax money is spent lost their best friend with the recent, sudden death of 55-year-old Adam Andrzejewski (pronounced Angie-F-ski). The leader of openthebooks.com was well known as a dogged investigator of government spending whose reports frequently made local and national news and attracted congressional attention.
He was the scourge of free spending federal, state and local bureaucrats across the country. Andrzejewski, an athlete who ran marathons, was preparing for another big race when he died Aug. 17.
He leaves a wife and three daughters. Dynamic and well spoken — he was a college debater — Andrzejewski represented the best of citizen involvement in government. He made his fortune early in life as an entrepreneur who founded a hugely successful publishing firm that became the nation’s largest publisher of hometown telephone directories.
His fortune made, he left that business after seven years to pursue public life, briefly as a political candidate and later as a nonpartisan watchdog of government spending. His watchdog theme was “Every Dime, Online, In Real Time,” and he and his workers were dogged in pursuit of state spending records. They frequently filed lawsuits to gain access to government checkbooks and published their reports online.
As a con.