| Notes |
"As a boy, Alvarez romped around Ald. Mell’s ward office as his father did volunteer work for Mell’s 33rd Ward Regular Democratic Organization.
“I’ve known him since he was knee high to a duck,” Mell says of Michael Alvarez. “He’s a bright young guy. I think he works hard.”
In the late 1990s, Alvarez worked two summers at the Water Reclamation District and began attending Northwestern University. In 2000, he landed an unpaid internship in the Washington congressional office of then-U.S. Rep. Blagojevich, Mell’s son-in-law. [...]
By that time, Blagojevich had been elected governor, and Alvarez went to work for the state as a deputy director of the Illinois Department of Employment Security — a job that Mell helped him get, according to a database that Blagojevich’s office kept. |