Demo story creation for Composer issue

Two years ago, Aurora Mayor Richard Irvin quietly co-founded a consulting firm with a top city aide, who’s also a lifelong friend, and two men from Virginia.

The arrangement has raised several potential conflict of interest issues for Irvin: There’s a mayor going into

business with a city employee who is so close to Irvin that the mayor calls him a stepbrother. There’s the employee skirting through a process requiring city approval for side jobs. And there’s the two Virginia men, who went on to get a $15,000 city contract without their ties to Irvin being disclosed.

As Irvin seeks to become Illinois’ next governor while running for the GOP nomination on June 28, the episode joins other previously disclosed arrangements in raising questions about where Irvin draws the line between public duties and private ventures.

Irvin has blanketed the airwaves portraying himself as a relative outsider who would clean up a state government but he has come under increased scrutiny especially over the five years he has run Illinois’ second-largest city.