Bill Kennedy, an attorney who served as chief public defender in Hennepin County for 25 years, passed away last night at the age of 69. Kennedy started part-time as the sole Hennepin county public defender in 1972, and served until allegations surfaced in 1997 that he used his office to dig up dirt about a political challenger. Bill Kennedy was also active in the DFL and longtime Minnesota Public Radio listeners may remember him as one of our regular political commentators in the 1980s. In 1983, Minnesota businesses had complained in newspaper ads that Minnesota was losing jobs to South Dakota because of high taxes. During an MPR call-in program hosted by then MPR political reporter Pat Kessler, Kennedy criticized those ads.