Yesterday, the half-million undocumented immigrants of Illinois had a big day.
Aldermen and activists held a morning press conference revealing the details of a new City Council resolution, and in the evening several hundred demonstrators gathered peacefully outside Cook County Jail. Both events focused on immigration reform, a defiant gesture in the face of Arizona's controversial new law that took effect yesterday. Those who don't already know about the SB 1070 debate will likely want to read up, as the Supreme Court is expected to take sides soon.
Protesters gathered around 4pm yesterday on the grassy lawn that divides California Boulevard from the stoic gray buildings housing the Cook County Criminal Courts, the Correction Department and jail just beyond. The crowd was a colorful mix of liberal focus groups, from a rainbow-clad LGBTQ coalition called Join the Impact and local antiwar contingents to the International Socialist Organization (ISO), which was selling merchandise from a fold-up table.
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— Timna Axel /
The Chicago Metropolitan Agency for Planning recently came out with an exhaustive blueprint for moving the region forward to the year 2040. The 416-pg manual for Chicagoland's tomorrow entitled GO TO 2040: Comprehensive Regional Plan nobly proffers an outline for greater Chicago to prosper in the years to come, and presents a view of 2040 as developed in the best of all possible worlds. Riding the waves of last year's 100th anniversary of Daniel Burnham's Plan of Chicago, CMAP
has unveiled a multi-pronged approach to dealing with the issues the region must address to build the most beneficial environment -- in all respects -- by that time. Focusing broadly on Livable Communities, Regional Mobility, Human Capital and Efficient Governance, the report breaks down each of those headings and gives them their fair due with hefty analysis.
From now till August 6, members of the public are encouraged to download the plan and comment on the ideas CMAP has offered. After the public review, CMAP will make changes as needed before presenting the plan as final to the overseeing CMAP Board. Then, acting as the designated Metropolitan Planning Organization for Chicagoland, CMAP will in turn use the Go To 2040 platform to engage the State of Illinois and the US Government for funds, approvals, and the green light on implementing projects according to the plan.
While the entirety of the report proves too exhaustive to outline in detail here, there is one sub-section of the Efficient Governance chapter that deserves a closer peek. Reforming state and local tax policies is an absolute must if Chicago intends to grow, and seeing how Springfield seems to operate in a state of permanent stasis, it will take the grit, gumption and initiative of local civic leaders to push the debate forward on this issue. CMAP encourages an almost wholesale restructuring of our current taxing system, including broadening the tax base by creating a tax on the service sector (currently exempt although it makes up nearly 70 percent of expenditures), instituting a graduated state income tax based on income levels, and in general, standardizing the tax policy across municipalities so as to avoid the large and varied discrepancies that render some communities unable to provide basic services.
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— Ben Schulman
I'm going to relate a story to you for the sole reason of awareness. I know I'm not the only person that this sort of thing has happened to, but I happen to have access to an outlet through which my story can be heard by a larger audience than most.
I was laid off from my job in February of this year. The money had run out, they told me, and in a month they'd have more contracts and I'd be able to come back to work. So I laid low, kept the spending down, and waited until the furlough was over. I returned to work promptly in March, happy to be back. It wasn't always the most enjoyable job, but having been laid off a year before from another job, I was well aware that to have is better than to have not.
At the end of the week the business manager pulled me aside. Bad news. The contracts they had anticipated fell through. It had nothing to do with me or my performance, he said. It was just a lack of money. They were going to have to lay me off indefinitely.
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— Conor McCarthy /
With arms linked and voices raised, some 200 sitting protesters lined a short run of hot pavement along Wacker Drive yesterday afternoon. A police officer used his megaphone to blast the crowd, which was illegally blocking the traffic usually bustling directly in front of the Hyatt Regency Hotel. The demonstrators were taking part in a massive civil disobedience action which occurred simultaneously in fifteen cities across North America. Their purpose was to draw attention to the Hyatt Hotels chain for allegedly forcing layoffs, cutbacks and unfair labor agreements on its employees.
But in a uniquely Chicagoan twist, the demonstration's organizers, a national union called Unite Here that represents over 15,000 hotel and food service workers in Chicago, decided that only 25 protesters would take arrest on Wacker Drive.
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— Timna Axel /
I grew up in what is referred to as "extreme" or "deep" South Texas, in a city called McAllen, right on the border with Mexico. For me, illegal immigration is an issue that hits, quite literally, close to home. Having lived in Chicago-land for the past six years, I have been made painfully aware of the ignorance and misunderstanding that people in the North can have regarding this contentious subject. It makes sense; Chicago is roughly 1500 miles away from my home town and, other than time zones, the similarities between both places are pretty non-existent. That is why it is frustrating to hear the incessant barking from both sides about Arizona's recently-passed immigration legislation.
Talking heads are yapping away about "racial profiling," Facebook groups are blowing up with hipsters that are eager to slap on the badge of the downtrodden, and racist bigots are yelling even more about all those Mexicans stealing our jobs. Along with most of the population and Congress, I haven't read the legislation. It sounds controversial, which makes for some sexy television; but is it really equitable to Nazi Fascism, as some have said? Call me a skeptic, but I just don't believe that cops will be running around the street asking every brown person that they see for their green card. That sounds good on MSNBC, but it's just not reality. Arizona may be far away from the pontifications of the Northeastern literati, but it is still a reasonable place and a state in the Union.
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— Conor McCarthy /
Update Wed 07/21: The Blagojevich team decides to rest its case. According to the former governor himself, he always intended to testify and still was prepared to take the stand, before acting on the advice of his counsel that the prosecution "proved I did nothing illegal and that there was nothing further for us to add."
See Blagojevich speak on his behalf in the below video courtesy of the Chicago Tribune:
For the first time since his arrest in December of 2008, Rod Blagojevich has shut up. From his initial Kipling-quoting protestations, Blagojevich has maintained all along that his innocence has been as solid as his lustrous mane. Since that infamous press conference, when he stood up and stated "I intend to answer every allegation that comes my way. However I intend to answer them in the appropriate forum," Blagojevich has been using his whirlwind media tour as a set-up for what would be the absolving nature of having "all the tapes" and his court testimony heard. And now that the day has finally come to shed light on the ultimate truth via his own mouth, Blagojevich, much like his idol Elvis, has seemingly left the building.
Coming as a bit of a shock, not only will Blagojevich not take the stand, but it looks as if the defense may rest its case. (Although, the father-and-son defense team of Sam Adam Jr. and Adam Sr. seem at odds as to what their next move may actually be.) If this development remains true, and if indeed the defense decides not to call any further witnesses, it would appear that Blagojevich's team has either recognized their current defense strategy would fail to establish innocence against the prosecution's burden of proof or believes that resting with Robert Blagojevich's testimony as the freshest thing in the jury's mind puts them at an advantage. More likely, the defense believes that at this point in time, a less is more approach could augment any forceful closing arguments in illustrating any loopholes the prosecution may have opened.
It is interesting to note that all of this activity coincides with the news that disgraced publisher Conrad Black has been granted bail due to the recent US Supreme Court ruling that significantly tempered the "honest services" law. The same law was applied heavily to Blagojevich in the original indictment against him. How this may be used by Blagojevich and his team, if at all, remains to be seen.
— Ben Schulman
The hotel and restaurant workers' union UNITE HERE will be taking to the streets tomorrow, planning a massive civil disobedience in conjunction with other locals from around the country to pressure the Hyatt Hotels to budge on their contract negotiations.
Workers from Local 1, the Chicago branch of the union, and community supporters will be sitting down in traffic at Michigan and Wacker near the Hyatt Hotels corporation's national headquarters at the height of rush hour to protest what they say is unfair treatment of workers in the recession. They will join workers in Vancouver, Honolulu, San Francisco, San Diego, Santa Clara, Miami, Pittsburgh, Long Beach, Indianapolis, San Antonio, Los Angeles, Toronto, Monterey, Boston and Sacramento.
Hotel workers in Chicago have been without a contract since August, 2009, and recent relations have been tense--particularly at the Hyatt. In May, workers at the Hyatt Regency Chicago on Wacker walked off the job in protest of what they say was unfair treatment, including increased workloads and denial of access to union staff by management.
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— Micah Uetricht
Daley Mon Jul 19 2010
Scott Waguespack, the 32nd Ward Alderman who took on and beat the fading remnants of the Rostenkowski/Gabinski machine in the Bucktown/Ukrainian Village/Lakeview ward in 2007, told the Sun-Times that he is considering taking a run at the Fifth Floor whether or not Mayor Daley still resides there. (He lives there right?)
Give the man credit. Waguespack has been a City Council pest, voting against the Mayor's budgets, embarrassing the Mayor's staff by doing the actual math on the parking meter lease, and hectoring the Mayor in public about tax increment financing, or TIFs. Management of his ward is another issue; Waguespack has faced on-and-off criticism by his constituents for perceived slips in service in the ward. Still, by announcing a potential campaign to call attention specifically to the Mayor's failings, he's going out on a limb. Plenty of politicians have been ready to criticize the way the city has been run and the "Chicago Way" but rarely call the Mayor out by name. Mayoral pretenders almost universally qualify their interest by adding that those interests are post-Daley.
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— Ramsin Canon /
Daley Mon Jul 19 2010
This is an Op-Ed by UIC Professor and former Lakeview Alderman Dick Simpson, courtesy of the Chicago Journal
Reading the tea leaves suggests Mayor Richard M. Daley will run for reelection this fall, asking for a seventh term from Chicago voters.
He hasn't announced his intentions yet, but the mayor is unlikely to decline taking another shot to sit in the big chair on the fifth floor of city hall for a simple reason: getting out now means leaving the city's top job and leaving Chicago in the lurch.
Getting out now means finishing his tenure scarred by the Olympic collapse. Getting out now means leaving while some of Daley's biggest projects -- the transformation of public housing perhaps most prominently -- remain incomplete, stalled out like a car with a shot carburetor.
Despite his demurrals and recent above-the-fray attitude toward the grit of electoral politics, politics courses through the mayor's bloodstream. He won't leave, at least not yet.
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— Mechanics /
This article was submitted by Chris Didato.
On Thursday, two national environmental groups, the Sierra Club and Greenpeace, joined Alderman Toni Preckwinkle and the Chicago Clean Power Coalition in their effort to pass an ordinance that would limit the emissions of two South Side coal-fired power plants by 90%. At the press conference, held in Pilsen's Dvorak Park, with Midwest Generation's Fisk plant looming in the background, included several aldermen and community supporters, Sierra Club Executive Director Michael Brune, and Global Warming Campaign Director Damon Moglen. All gave the Chicago Clean Power Ordinance their support.
The proposed ordinance, introduced by Alderman Joe Moore (49th Ward), would have the two coal-fired power plants in Chicago limit their emissions of "particulate matter" (or soot) and carbon dioxide.
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— Mechanics
Media Fri Jul 16 2010
[This is Part Three and the last in a series. Read Part 1 and Part 2]
The floating head of Julius Genachowski echoed throughout the Northwestern auditorium, his smiling digital image projected onto a large white screen. The effect was humorous. After all, not only was he addressing a forum which had been convened in part to discuss the future of online video, but one convened by the Federal Communications Committee, the federal agency to which, as its leader, Chairman Genachowski was now blatantly flaunting his absence.
That left Michael Copps in charge, the only FCC Commissioner to show up at Tuesday's hearing. Copps has long been a sharp proponent of government regulation over the telecommunications industry, and he didn't hold back as he addressed the issue at hand; a $30 billion joint venture proposed by Comcast and GE whereby the largest cable and broadband provider in America would acquire the fourth-largest producer of news and entertainment media.
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— Timna Axel /
But it's gonna take money
A whole lotta spending money
Its gonna take plenty of money
To do it right child
Its gonna take time
A whole lot of precious time
Its gonna take patience and time, ummm
To do it, to do it, to do it, to do it, to do it,
To do it right child
Yes, the above lyrics reference James Ray's 1962 soul hit "Got My Mind Set on You." (Or if you prefer, George Harrison's 1987 cover version. Regardless, both are great.) But when read on paper, could these stanzas not be the prescription for transportation in Chicago, and the nation as a whole?
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— Ben Schulman /
Reverend Jose Landaverde stopped speaking mid-sentence as a cook placed a steaming plate of vegetables and beef with a side of homemade potato chips in front of him.
The table fell silent for a moment, as Eduardo Piña watched him, clutching his mug of water--the only thing he had consumed for two days. He paused, smelling the pastor's food. Smiling, he feigned a motion towards Landaverde's dinner, pretending to steal a floret of broccoli and pop it in his mouth, then laughed and sipped his water. He wouldn't be eating for another two days.
It was a moment of humor in the middle of a discussion in a Little Village cafe on a topic taken very seriously by both men: immigration reform, and the hunger strike completed by Landaverde, then taken up by Piña in an attempt to achieve it.
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— Micah Uetricht /
While this was a law that was recently signed isn't a constitutional amendment necessary to change this?
Gov. Pat Quinn signed legislation on Saturday that requires candidates of the same party to be nominated jointly instead of letting voters pick each nominee separately.
Under the new law, a gubernatorial candidate would select a running mate for the primary election. Voters would either support the pair or reject them over a different team.
The change comes after Illinois Democrats were embarrassed in this year's primary election. Scott Lee Cohen was the nominee for lieutenant governor who had been arrested previously for domestic violence. He was soon pressured into dropping out of the race.
The new law will go into effect on Jan. 1.
I wonder how it even came to be that voters individually selected both the gubernatorial nominee and lieutenant governor nominee? If I recall correctly, once upon a time the governor and lieutenant governor candidates were elected separately in a general election. Then at some point the the candidates were nominated separately in a primary, then forced to run as a ticket in the general election. I'm sure the point of this was to insure that both the top two executive officers of Illinois were of the same party, but I'll bet money that this wasn't thought out very well for some reason.
I wonder how that legislation (or amendment) to eliminate the lieutenant governor position is going. To be sure, I still don't support its elimination.
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— Levois
Back in June 2008, when Milwaukee's Miller Brewing Co. (an arm of London-based SABMiller) and Molson Coors Brewing Co. of Golden, CO, merged their US operations to become MillerCoors, Chicago was chosen as the location for the new company's headquarters. The newly formed venture was provided with $6 million in TIF funds to help cover the construction costs of approximately 150,000 sq ft of office space at 250 S. Wacker Dr. In turn, MillerCoors agreed to ensure that at least 325 jobs would be brought to the city within 5 years. When the company finally took possession of their new offices in late June of last year, Mayor Daley, 2nd Ward Alderman Robert Fioretti and MillerCoors CEO Leo Kiely feted the company's bright prospects in their adopted hometown.
A year removed from all those hokey jokes from Mr Kiely (check 2:20 in the vid) and co., it seems that trouble may be brewing between the corporate parent and about 400 workers from the Milwaukee brewing facility still in operation. The workers, represented by United Automobile, Aerospace and Agricultural Implement Workers of America Local 9, are beginning talks with MillerCoors as the current labor contract is set to expire on August 7th. Katie Drews, of Chicago Union News, notes in a recent article that "both sides have kept a tight lip about the process," but that current economic conditions and unaddressed budgetary issues from the merger could affect the outcome of talks.
While mainly all of the jobs brought to Chicago were white-collar positions, MillerCoors continues to operate its breweries all over the country. This is the first labor contract up for renewal since the merger of the two companies.
— Ben Schulman
Housing Mon Jul 12 2010
This September 22-24, architects, affordable housing activists, developers, educators and government officials will be gathering at the University of Illinois at Chicago for the Architecture for Change Summit. Aimed at addressing the affordable housing crisis, the summit will be linking together affordable housing design advocacy with the affordable housing movement.
I discussed some of the pressing issues to be addressed at the Architecture for Change Summit and how they relate to Chicago with Roberta Feldman, an architectural activist, educator, co-author of The Dignity of Resistance: Women Residents Activism in Chicago Public Housing, and one of the summit's main organizers.
Your background is in architecture and you teach in the architecture school at the University of Illinois at Chicago, and you also have a rich background in activist architectural practice. But architects usually aren't viewed as activist. What attracted you to the idea of activist architectural practice?
Most people aren't activists, architects included.
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— Bob Quellos /
The American Federation of Teachers had its national convention this weekend. You can follow their proceedings here; it's a critical time for teachers nationally, as the one place liberals and conservatives seem to be agreeing on (if the Obama administration's posture is any guide) is that teachers are the problem and mass firings of experienced teachers is the best solution.
According to the Chicago Teachers Union twitter feed, newly elected President Karen Lewis was elected to sit on the national body's Executive Board, which is only natural given the size and prestige of the Chicago local (the CTU is considered the first teacher's union in the country, and is designated as "Local 1" inside the union).
— Ramsin Canon
Media Fri Jul 09 2010
[This is Part 2 of a series. Click here to read Part 1]
"I want you to know you have failed miserably."
Rep. Maxine Waters (D-Calif.) looked squarely at the two executives sitting in the central Loop courthouse, punctuating an otherwise dry morning of testimony.
But Paula Madison of NBCU and Joseph Waz, Jr. of Comcast appeared unmoved in the face of their accuser and the congressional subcommittee that convened yesterday morning to discuss the consequences of a proposed $28 billion mega-merger between their two companies. The deal would give the nation's largest cable and broadband provider control over the country's fourth-largest media and entertainment company.
Officially, the congressmen were supposed to examine the merger's benefits, but the indisputable focus of the hearing was diversity. Several public interest and minority media groups have been ringing an alarm on the deal, fearing what might follow the consolidation of two media companies with bad records of diversity both behind and in front of the camera.
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— Timna Axel
Media Wed Jul 07 2010
[This is Part 1 of a series. Click here to read Part 2]
Tomorrow morning there will be a congressional hearing on Comcast and NBC Universal, and it will be smack in the center of the Loop. As I was rifling through last-minute research, it was obvious I hadn't been quite thorough enough.
So I googled, "Comcast sucks."
The litter of angry articles, Facebook pages, and dedicated web sites (not to mention niche porn) is impressive but boring - mostly people complaining about broken cable boxes or lazy technicians.
But dig a little deeper and you'll reach truly nefarious bloggings. The journalists, labor activists, techies, and musicians clamoring for Comcast's blood aren't just peeved; they're scared out of their wits. That's because Comcast, the nation's largest cable TV company and second-largest Internet service provider, is perched to gobble up the majority share of NBC Universal in a $28 billion deal that may lay off workers, kill local news, monopolize Chicago's telecom market, herald the destruction of broadcast television and prefigure the corporate hijacking of fair and open Internet - indeed, the end of the World Wide Web as we know it.
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— Timna Axel /
Back in 2008, The Nation magazine's John Nichols named Alderman Joe Moore of the 49th Ward the country's most valuable progressive local official. The bestowing of this distinction upon Moore sent some Rogers Park residents into a tizzy. (Although the extent to which residents were actually upset is difficult to gauge--in the 21st century one yahoo's pissed-off blog post can become fodder for reports of residents foaming at the mouth, ready to march up Sheridan Avenue with pitchforks to Moore's office.)
Moore has always been a somewhat polarizing figure--folks tend to really, really like him, or really, really hate him. (Granted, this could be more of a reflection of Ward 49 residents than Moore himself.) Whatever your opinion on the man, though, it seems illogical to accuse him of not being a progressive.
But the MVP alderman took to the Huffington Post today to defend a vote for a company whose name makes most progressives recoil in disgust: Walmart.
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— Micah Uetricht
Crime Thu Jul 01 2010
[This article was submitted by freelance journalist Michael Volpe.]
"Nigger boy, you gonna cooperate?" a 220lb. Chicago police officer screamed as he pounded on the chest of 16-year-old, 120lb. Mark Clements. As the beating continued, pain shot out from Clements' chest and exploded into the rest of his body. He gasped for air, struggling to breathe, in excruciating pain. Clements say the officer, whom he identifies as John McCann, had a way of getting his knuckles to the tenderest part of the bone.
Clements could barely read. He hadn't even finished seventh grade but he was smart enough to know what the cops wanted. They wanted Clements to confess to an arson that occurred at 6600 S. Wentworth six days earlier. The beating went on like this for nearly 30 minutes, but still Clements remained stubborn. He'd gotten into enough fights in the neighborhood to be able to withstand a beating.
Clements remained quiet and refused to give in even as welts grew in his chest from the officer's fists cracking his bones. Then, they stopped hitting Clements. Instead, Clements says, McCann grabbed his balls and squeezed. This was a pain he'd never experienced before. There was only one thing that would stop it.
"Yeah, yeah, I'll cooperate," Clements said, in unbearable pain. That's how Mark Clements remembers and recounted that night nearly 30 years after it occurred (neither the Chicago Police Department nor the Cook County State's Attorney's office would respond to requests for comment for this article). A few hours later, at about 2am on the morning of June 26th 1981, Mark Clements would sign a confession to an arson at 6600 S. Wentworth six days earlier that killed four people. A year and a half later he'd get four life sentences and become the youngest person in the history of the state of Illinois to receive a life sentence without the possibility of parole.
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— Mechanics /
