An audit ordered by the Illinois Medical District board has dinged the University Village Association, leading the director of that organization to cry foul.

At the last medical district board meeting, on Jan. 26, an auditor told members of the medical district board he couldn’t specifically ascertain how UVA used medical district funds.

In an e-mail sent out the next day, UVA executive director Dennis O’Neill characterized the review of their practices as a reprisal for comments he made to the Gazette newspaper criticizing the cleanliness of the medical district.

The e-mail, which O’Neill wrote, was sent to hundred of neighbors, as well as executives at Rush University Medical Center and UIC, reads, “The IMD, run by Executive Director Sam Pruett was, I believe, responding to an article published and some letters sent a few months before I started at UVA sent noting how filthy much of the IMD has been over the years.”

Pruett denied the audit was a response to O’Neill’s public statements.

He said members of the medical district board commissioned the audit to gain more clarity on how UVA was spending medical district funds, noting prior, contractually obligated reports provided to the district said extensive cleaning was undertaken by UVA. Then, the district was critiqued by the group for not being clean.

Last March, the medical district board entered into a contract worth $18,000 with UVA for a range of services.

UVA was required to join the district’s security group, provide “community and economic development projects,” conduct surveys, process service request and help clean up the medical district, the contract says, a copy of which was provided to Chicago Journal by O’Neill.

The medical district has not released payments to UVA for the last two quarters of 2009.

At last week’s meeting, John Partelow, the president of the medical district board, compared the group’s performance cleaning the streets of the district to an unreliable mechanic.

“The question for the staff is in light of these findings do we release the quarterly payments for the contract. I’ll give you $500 to fix my car and you don’t fix my car, do I pay you the $500?” he asked.

Partelow noted that UVA “has made persistent and public complaints about the cleanliness of the portions of the district they’re supposed to be cleaning up.”

In the follow-up interview, Partelow said the board wouldn’t be paying UVA the 2009 funds.

O’Neill, who began his position last September, said his organization maximized funds from the medical district, cleaning up the area during broader sweeps that covered both the district and other parts of the Near West Side that fall within UVA’s purview.

“We cannot remove physically that much garbage,” he said. “It’s an extraordinary amount of work to keep the IMD clean.”

O’Neill said he is now paying a worker out of his pocket to conduct clean-ups elsewhere around the University Village neighborhood.

He vowed to continue pushing the district on cleanliness.

“I will make sure they do it,” O’Neill said. “They’re going to have to start stepping up and working.”

Partelow said UVA constituted a small part of the medical district board’s agenda.

“We’re not paying much attention to those guys over there,” he said.

Pruett noted the medical district has contracted with the social enterprise business CleanSlate to clean major thoroughfares.

It is unlikely UVA will be hired to clean the medical district again.

“The commission is going to have to look for other ways to be supportive of the UVA outside of a cleaning contract,” Pruett said.

The medical district was created by state law to center medically related business, research and institutions between I-290, Ashland, Oakley and a train viaduct near 16th Street.

Contact: mmaidenberg@chicagojournal.com