Former Quinn aide turns over emails that tie 2010 election to NRI

For the first time, proof emerged that Gov. Pat Quinn’s 2010 Neighborhood Recovery Initiative factored into his election strategy that year in personal emails from the governor’s former top aide that were released Wednesday by a legislative panel investigating the program.

The emails from ex-Quinn chief of staff Jack Lavin represented a key highlight from the opening of two more days of hearings on the $54.5 million anti-violence grant program that is now under federal investigation. The former head of the now abolished agency that Quinn put in charge of implementing the program, Barbara Shaw, was at the witness table all morning. Dave McKinney has the story in the Chicago SunTimes.