I came across this bit on a blog about transport project finance:
In separate news reports, Daley indicated that his administration is prepared to fast-track the Chicago Midway long-term lease without another auction process. The mayor would, instead, negotiation [sic] directly with the pool of potential bidders attracted to the airport in the previous process. Since the first quarter, traffic at Chicago Midway has rebounded with sequential gains in each month since March and positive year-over-year results from July. The improving passenger volume and newfound cargo flows bode well for the bidding process.
We own Midway Airport. The process should be open, with citizen review and real deliberation. After the parking meter debacle, that this type of "fast-tracking" could be discussed among these finance professionals in regards to Chicago's municipal assets is appalling.
Aldermen criticize Daley for his use of financial reserves. In this Sun-Times piece, Aldermen Tom Allen, Anthony Beale, and Joe Moore are all quoted essentially accusing the Mayor of being financially irresponsible--and politically cowardly. The Mayor has designed much of his administration around the premise that as long as you don't yourself raise taxes and provide the basic services Chicagoans demand (snow plowing, garbage) you can reign forever. I don't know if these budget hearings will necessarily lead to some sort of Aldermanic revolt (not likely) but exposing the fiscal house of cards the Mayor has designed to avoid a tax outrage will harm his image as a shrewd "city manager," the image he's spent now two decades cultivating.
Mayor Daley will be dipping into the city's reserves, specifically the $1bn+ fund created by the leasing of the city's parking meters to a private operator, to cover the enormous budget deficit of half a billion dollars that the city projects for next year.
The Mayor is holding to his pledge not to raise taxes and fees, saying that it isn't the time to ask families to pay more.
"I think this is what reserve are made for," said Ald. Howard Brookins Jr., 21st. "Clearly, it's raining. While we don't know when this economic recovery will come, it's not going to be for a couple of years."
But Ald. Manuel Flores, 1st, said he was "very concerned" about dipping into the reserve fund. "That was intended for us to generate additional revenue through interest," Flores said. "You are selling off that asset. You are throwing that asset away."
"If the parking meter money is depleted within five years, then what happens for the next 70 years of that contract?" asked Ald. Scott Waguespack, 32nd, one of five aldermen who voted against the meter lease.
It's the oldest story in city politics. Tom Wolfe probably has about nine or ten 100 page short story sketches about it. Young firebrand activist organizes the neighborhood to fight city hall. Eventually professional activist gets to the point where his organization is powerful enough to challenge City Hall. City Hall grants community activist his/her demands; lures them in with job security and speeches about how being a grown up means learning that you have to work with the powerful to get anything done, and everything else is just naive youthful idealism.
Without commentary on the content of the rest of the piece, the Sun-Times editorial board wins line of the day:
Mayor Daley said he wants the local cut of video poker money and will devise ways to regulate the devices.
No offense to the mayor, but given his parking meter debacle, our faith in the city's ability to regulate anything shaped like a box that takes your money is not exactly high.
...but given the International Olympic Committee's pending decision, this is arguably the biggest public policy issue facing the city for the near future.
Here's No Games Chicago Co-Founder and GB contributor Bob Quellos on Chicago Tonight debating Lori Healy, respected Daley deputy and attack dog, and Alderman Manny Flores (1st).
Disclosure: I was among the other co-founders of No Games Chicago.
Good ol' Gentle Ben Joravsky over at the Reader reports on what a bunch of us got in our inboxes this morning: an oversight ordinance introduced by Ald. Manny Flores, and a "substitute" ordinance backed by Mayor Daley. Alderman Flores' staff sent out a side-by-side comparison a few hours later. Guess what? The Mayor's version sucks.
Manny Flores is a professional politician. It's not his, or any Alderman's job to be right all the time. It's our job to argue forcefully--or yell at the top of our lungs--to get them to do the right thing. Keep in mind that every sentient moment (evaporation of sentience is common in Zoning Committee meetings) of an Alderman's professional life he is hearing from lobbyists, deal-cutting colleagues, and a high-pitched voice from the Fifth Floor. So when Ald. Flores withdrew his Olympic spending cap--a bill that wouldn't have forestalled disaster had we been granted the Olympics, but which would likely have killed the possibility that we'd get it in the first place--we were justified in our booing and hissing.
Good on Alderman Flores for at least making a peep. Unfortunately, the only reasonable option, based on all the available evidence, is that we should not seek or accept the 2016 Olympic Games. Any other position on this issue is not nuanced, or pragmatic, or anything but wrong.
As we said over and over again during the budget fight, politics eventually ends up on the streets. The activists, professionals, and politicians who duke it out in the halls of power are usually fairly insulated from the actual effects of their policies. We feel those out on the streets. We, the public.
So when Mayor Daley makes a move to close down mental health centers, some will celebrate "cutting waste", where waste = any social spending. Others will attack the Mayor's callousness, in the abstract. The local media will pick one of those tunes, typically, and sing in that chord. Meanwhile, the Chicago Justice Projectmakes the connection between the streets and politics that we rarely see anywhere else:
Anyone who pays even a minimal amount of attention to the Chicago media is constantly bombarded with evidence of our society's failures. This week is different in that we have proof of the fallout of a past failure (the shooting of a mentally disturbed homeless man in the loop) mixed with a forecast of what is to come based on decisions currently made by our political leaders (the closing of numerous area mental health clinics). Confused? Allow me to explain with examples drawn from the last seven days of Chicago's history.
To the speculator, "saturation" is the filthiest word. When a market is robust and investments see steady and steep returns, all is good. When too many of his cohort are vying for the same investments, the rate of return diminishes.This situation forces these investors to get creative.
The "edupreneur"- a creature that is one part philanthropist and a thousand parts venture capitalist- is the paving the way for the newest, untapped market; our schools.
That former Inspector General David Hoffman is working with AKPD Media, the political consulting shop of David Axelrod, which counts the Mayor as a client, in his bid for the Democratic Senate nomination raised questions about just why he chose now to leave the IG's office and run for the US Senate. Such speculation is going to happen--"promote him out of here" is a perceived modus operandi of the Cook County Democrats. The last thing the Daleys and Madigans and Strogers of the world want is a local politician with a wide base outside of party auspices. There is rarely much evidence to prove that such "promote them out" schemes were intended or orchestrated.
Let's wish him well and appreciate the fact that he raised the stature and importance of a critical government office. And look to the future.
The sensitivity many may feel to Hoffman's departure is that, given his public disputes with powerful City Council factions and the Mayor himself, attacks on his budget or independence would have been politically risky. Hoffman seemed uniquely positioned to take on the powerful precisely because he had so publicly taken them on. This makes accusations of limelight-seeking easy, though perhaps paradoxical. High-level criticisms are what was needed, and would earn high-level attention. That very attention is what would have protected his office. Undermining his office would have been seen, quite rightly, as political retribution and would have outed those undermining him as being opposed to good and ethical government.
That is why it's up to "us"--the media, new and old, and the activists, left and right, and the people--to make sure that the Office of Inspector General, which clearly has enormous potential to be a force for local democracy and transparency, doesn't lose its increasing relevance simply because it lost its temporary caretaker.
So let's take a look at some of the potential replacements:
The Sun-Times and the Chicago Teachers Union conducted a joint survey of Chicago Public School teachers that revealed that a shocking percentage--among High School teachers, more than half--have felt pressure to change a student's grade. Given the high stakes of the "percent graduating" statistics as a metric of public schools, it makes sense that the heaviest percentage would be among High School teachers. Still, more than a quarter of middle school teachers also reported feeling pressured to change a student's grade.
Of seven thousand teachers in CPS, fourteen hundred responded to the survey; while that provides more than enough for a statistically valid survey, it should also be considered or understood that the fact that it was self-selected to some degree could have altered the results.
With that in mind, this is still absolutely shocking, and adds yet another piece of evidence to the (well, my) on-going case that Arne Duncan was hardly qualified to be named Secretary of Education.
Obviously it was not Duncan pressuring teachers. According to the survey, the pressure came primarily from principals. But as the "CEO" of the schools, the buck must stop with him. And if principals felt the need to put the arm on teachers, that did not come from nowhere. There must have been in-turn pressure on them to meet statistical standards no matter what the cost.
While that pressure may have gotten Mr. Duncan the press needed to ascend in his career, it has done nothing for students.
Of course, this is not Duncan's school district. Many of these teachers had been teaching well before Duncan came on the scene--but the vast majority (64%) of teachers reporting have been teaching less than ten years, which puts them under either Duncan or Vallas, and certainly inside the Amendatory Act, Daley-control era.
Have our schools made progress since William Bennett described them as the worst in the nation in 1987? Perhaps; but with each new revelation and report, we seem to be getting further away from being able to actually answer that question.
City Inspector-General David Hoffman, hired away from the US Attorney's office in the wake of the Hired Truck scandal, has tendered his resignation and will be entering the Democratic primary for the U.S. Senate race.
During the Homero Tristan affair, IG Hoffman earned the scorn of Juan Rangel, CEO of a public education privatizing outfit called UNO, and Mayor Daley for being a political aspirant more concerned with making headlines to advance his career than being a fair dealer. Now the Mayor is saying he's not not sad (ie, glad) to see Hoffman go:
"No, I'm not," Daley said. "You want a headline that 'Daley's happy, smiling,' and all that. The sanctity of taxpayers' money -- people work hard, they want their money protected."
Hoffman's June report on the handling of the parking meter fiasco and his recommendations for how such asset sales/leases should be handled in the future helped keep the issue alive in the press and in voters mind and kept Mayor Daley on the ropes, just as the "transition" was beginning to infuriate residents. Hoffman's decision may come from the fact that with his current record of fighting the Mayor, and with the issues that are currently on the table, he'll never have a better chance. I have to wonder who was whispering in his ear, as well, goading him to get into a primary where he stands a considerably less than good chance of winning. He's going to have to raise a lot of money from lawyers, because the party apparatus, I imagine, will put the word out on him.
We could have used him at the city; hopefully his replacement is as independent and committed as he is (though hopefully a bit less ambitious).
Inhabitat posts on the Mayor's initiative to "green" our 1,900 miles (over 3,500 acres) of alleyways, thus improving storm water run off and retention issues, remove impermeably services and urban heat island effects, among other potential advantages.
The inititative is a refinement of Chicago DOT's existing alley program which focused on creating more permeable surfaces. Chicago alleyways, which outnumber those of any other city in the world, are lacking in proper sewer connections causing serious flooding issues. Rather than simply opting for expensive sewer hookups, the city started retrofitting alleys with permeable pavements and pavers.
Our alleyways are one of my favorite things about Chicago. I have some very fond memories of running through and playing in alleys as a very little kid, and partying and otherwise escaping through alleyways as a man-child. Our alleys are a great asset and a great urban space; it's good to not just take them for granted, but always be thinking about what all that space--3,500 acres is a lot of acres--can be used for.
The first two paragraphs of a recent Crain's Chicago Business piece by John Pletz are so juicily wonderful, so delicious, so perfect, that before I quote them for you, I want to give you the opportunity to go to the page itself and look at the picture next to the paragraphs, with local soulless plutocrat civic-minded booster Patrick Ryan and Mayor Daley, one filthy with lucre and the other filthy with power, staring at the words like accusations. Seriously, go there first and read them, then come back. While you're doing that, I'm going to continue working on this Freedom of Information Act request the city's aviation department (more on that later).
Are you back? Okay. For those of you that couldn't tear yourselves away, here's those paragraphs:
Mayor Richard M. Daley's prediction that the 2016 Olympics would give Chicago's economy a $22.5-billion boost vastly overstates the likely benefits of hosting the games, experts say.
"That's crazy," says Victor Matheson, a professor of economics at College of the Holy Cross in Massachusetts who has studied the economic impact of the Olympics. "Anyone using this $22.5-billion number as justification to vote for the Olympics is being led down the garden path."
Games skeptics like myself have been saying this for years, literally years. There's no solid evidence that hosting the Olympics leads to any long-term economic benefit that is unique to having an Olympics. Particularly when you adjust for the massive costs overruns that have accompanied nearly all of the modern games, and certainly all the games in the new millennium.
Let's sum up the Bid Committee's case: there will be no structural improvements to infrastructure; the city has to promise to cover all debt with taxpayer money; there will be thousands of private paramilitary security on the streets of Chicago for months; certain beaches on the Lakefront, including 31st Street, will be privatized, thousands of luxury condos will be built subsidized by taxpayer money and introduced into a glutted market; and temporary service sector jobs that may just be replacing displaced jobs from business avoiding the city due to Olympic markups.
Watch Mick Dumke of the Chicago Reader take on Berny Stone (50th) over the Parking Meter Privatization deal. By "take on" I mean "throw confetti from a bucket on," or "pretend to throw a basketball to with a string attached to the ball and the hand". (Via Whet Moser at the Reader.)
CHICAGO - The Independent Voters of Illinois-Independent Precinct Organization and board member Aviva Patt filed suit in Cook County Court Wednesday in an attempt to overturn the city's privatization of parking meters.
The suit, docket # 09CH28993, asks the court to declare the contract between the city and Chicago Parking Meters, LLC, illegal and void. The deal between the city and CPM violates state law because: the city did not have authority to lease city streets; the city cannot delegate police functions (parking enforcement) to a private company; the city cannot, through the 75-year lease, deprive future City Councils from the chance to exercise control over city streets; and the city cannot ask the Illinois Secretary of State to suspend driving privileges for violations at privately-held meters.
Kids getting preferential admission because of who their parents are is wrong--although, of course, it happens in higher education all the time and basically creates America's version of a ruling class--but I'm not fully convinced that what Alderman Munoz did, in placing a call to request admission of his daughter to Whitney Young despite her grades, was wrong.
He is a parent. And parents call schools and ask for reconsideration all the time, particularly in cases where they want to keep siblings together (and I imagine for a dad, keeping his young daughter with her older brothers would be a particularly strong motivator). Should he not do what any other parent would do simply because he is an alderman?
Perhaps that is something you sacrifice when you enter public service. But if you put, "sacrificing basic parental prerogatives" on the list of things you sacrifice when you become a public servant, I'm not sure you'll ever get any quality public servants.
Ald. Ricardo Munoz (22nd) acknowledged Wednesday that his daughter was admitted to Whitney Young Magnet High School for the upcoming school year after he called the principal to ask that his daughter be allowed to follow in her brother's footsteps.
Perhaps the most interesting thing to come out of the follow-up was this bit of candid talk from the Mayor, who apparently has abandoned any pretension that the City Council's statutory powers are anything but a formality:
"As a parent, he is speaking for not only his family, but his own constitutents," Daley said. "They don't have to accept the child. They can refuse the child because [aldermen] have no power over the Board of Education. They don't fund them. They don't review their budgets or anything else."
The City Council does approve the Board of Education's property-tax levy and ratifies the mayor's appointment of school board members.
No offense to my print journalism friends (may your Victrolas play joyous tunes) but reporting like this from the Chi-Town Daily News, who are covering the discrimination lawsuit at the City Colleges that implicates the administration in intimidation over personnel decisions, leads me to believe that democracy could potentially survive the death of ink. (Don't get me wrong--I love ink).
Here is staff writer Peter Sachs:
Last week, we reported that there was a culture of retaliation inside the City Colleges, citing the deposition of the district's former general counsel, now a circuit court judge. There's more to it.
Now that we've had time to go through yet more of the depositions, we find this:
"Non-African-Americans were easy to promote and were not punished as severely if they made a mistake, or if they did something that was not within procedures or the rules of the City Colleges."
That's Marnell Love, a former vice chancellor (read: high-level manager) inside the district's HR department, in his deposition in the Shaw lawsuit.
Speaking of promotions:
"I wanted to promote my employees who had outstanding records, and we had documented their performance ... and that they deserved to be promoted. And I had to promote other people that did not deserve it in order to get my promotions through, which, basically, I promoted everybody in the department."
Love goes on to talk about the tense work environment, festering upset over pay inequities, and infighting and feuding among some people in the HR department.
Outgoing Alderman Billy Ocasio, who left to work for Governor Quinn, originally wanted accused homophobe Wilfredo de Jesus to replace him; he reneged on that and then the word was he wanted his wife to replace him. Mayor Daley decided to appoint popular Cook County Commissioner Roberto Maldonado to replace him, meaning now there will be a vacancy on the Cook County Board. Yay!
Here's an endearing little video of Roberto Maldonado, so that we can like him a little bit before he votes for the Mayor's plan to privatize Lake Michigan or smiles or whatever:
Chicago schools reporter and publisher of Substance News George Schmidt documents the utter failure of Mayor Daley's public schools to serve special needs kids. The Mayor's hostile takeover of the Chicago Public Schools with the 1995 Amendatory Act made him a hero with Mayors around the country and his "taming" of the Teachers Union an idol to education reformers who think privatizing education is the only way to improve it. Arne Duncan's tenure at the schools earned him a promotion to be the nation's top education bureaucrat. Why? Because they fired teachers. The only discernible record of the Daley administration is this: performance is little or no better, and the most experienced teachers, particularly if they're Black, have been fired. Congratulations, Team Daley!
Principals, parents, teachers and students across Chicago are growing in the awareness that the Chicago Board of Education, for the past seven years under the leadership of Mayor Richard M. Daley and Michael Scott, has been systematically (and illegally) depriving the city's most deserving children of the public special education services both the law and common decency say they deserve.
The recent revelations that the principal of Prescott Elementary School, Erin Roche, had dumped as many special education programs as possible from his school in his drive to create an "elite" school for the children of a wealthy handful who have been moving into the area is not singular.
The closing of schools with programs for the neediest children, along with massive cuts in special education services and the sabotaging of the IEP process (so that teachers cannot prescribe one-on-one services for children) was a long-term policy of the Duncan administration (2001 - 2009).
The big widely-known secret about the city's financial situation is that revenues are down and there are budget shortfalls, but the Mayor does have access to reserves built up through privatization over the last few years.
The Mayor has made efforts to balance the budget by cutting services--although this is couched as asking for givebacks from city workers--with disastrous results (e.g., the unplowed side streets). I think its important to always remind people that when you ask workers to take unpaid days off, or cut their pay, you are cutting the services that we often take for granted, and that make our city work efficiently, and better. The Reagan-era stereotype of the lazy public employee needs to die, because it's inaccurate. The reality is that your average public employee works in understaffed situations and is overworked. The reason your DMV lines are long is not because the DMV workers are moving in slow motion but because there aren't enough of them.
Here's AFSCME Council 31 Executive Director Henry Bayer talking about city workers' negotiations with the Mayor.
Volpe* was supposed to appear at 2:45. But he didn't show up until 3:18. Hey, what's the fun of being the mayor's right-hand man if you can't make reporters sit around?
But let me tell you, it was worth the wait. What a performance! Volpe deserved a standing ovation when it was over, and it was all I could do not to stand up and cheer. He kind of reminded me of Jimmy Cagney, with his spunky, pugnacious defense of his man (the mayor) and their parking-meter deal. Lips quivering, voice occasionally cracking, he expressed outrage bordering on disgust that Hoffman--or anyone for that matter--could even remotely suggest that things didn't work as well as they should in Chicago.
As for defending the deal, it's pretty clear that the mayor's central argument is that $1 billion in the bank today is worth more than anything 75 years down the road. He and his aides may need a new one--fewer and fewer people seem to be buying that line.
*Former CFO, Daley Chief-of-Staff Paul Volpe
As I stated earlier, we shouldn't let this become an issue of whether the amount of money was exactly right. The lack of a reasonable process--and the bidders' rational expectation that there would be no meaningful public scrutiny, given our Mayor's reputation as the CEO Mayor--means that there was no way we got the best possible price. There's no one magic number that is exactly what we could have sold ("leased") our publicly-built-and-maintained-for-generations parking meters for. That negotiations happened behind closed doors and a final product produced for an up-and-down vote means that the bidder was dealing with a handful of negotiators rather than contending with an inquisitive if not hostile City Council and the large constituency organizations and stakeholders who would have participated in a review process.
Here's what I wrote in December '07:
The mixed reaction to the auctioning of the Skyway has emboldened the mayor, who seems to think that selling things you and I own is the best way to guarantee a city that works for you and me. Who knows how much the mayor is willing to prostitute the public trust? Who knows when our legislators will realize that the myth of privatization efficiency is just that, and stand up for us when the mayor tries to auction off our property?
It's not that we left $1bn on the table; it's that we never had a shot.
UPDATE: Whet Moser at the Reader is following the debate on the numbers--what a luxury now. Whatever valuations the former city CFO, Paul Volpe, can throw out now are residing comfortably next to meaningless. This is a debate to be had before the decision is final. In most Public Private Partnership frameworks--believe it or not, most parts of the country have statutes that lay out exactly how PPPs can be entered into--there is a stage for negotiation after the best offer is accepted. Having this public debate about valuation THEN almost certainly would have gotten the city a better deal. Instead the bidder knew there was going to be a railroaded process because Chicago has the "CEO Mayor" who "gets things done". It misses the point to debate what the valuation "honestly" is because that number doesn't exist. The value is whatever we the public could have gotten out of the bidder for the deal, and without a period of debate and discussion, we'll never know. A request goes out; bids come in; agencies, committees, and panels review the proposals and make recommendations to legislative bodies; legislative bodies hold hearings and solicit public comment; then bids are accepted but opened for negotiation based on the aforementioned process. That's what a reasonable PPP process looks like.
So the Inspector-General's office has released their report on the parking meter deal, and guess what? Mayor Daley's incompetence may have cost us $1bn.
That's one billion dollars. If you want to wrap your mind around what that means, it could pay the salary of 1,000 cops for a decade; or 3,000 teachers for ten years. If the city had gotten a one-time shot of $2bn, we could have added an additional 500 hybrid buses to the city's fleet for 10 years and paid their drivers. Oh, the things we could do. Because of the Mayor's action, we don't have that money.
Maybe it isn't fair to call it incompetence; but the other option would be stupidity, so it would be better to go with that.
And of course it wasn't just Mayor Daley's incompetence, it was the City Council's cowardice, too, their maddeningly comical terror of the Fifth Floor.
And this has nothing to do with Democrats and Republicans--in this instance we have Democrats rubberstamping an essentially conservative policy. It has to do with a lack of democracy. People who argue for more transparency, more democracy, deliberation, public participation, are shrugged off by the professional political class as being unrealistic, idealistic, wild-eyed haters who are just sore because they aren't in the cool kids club.
But the policies democracy creates are almost always better--particularly over the long term--than the policies dictated by elites. Why? Because the policies dictated by elites will, over time, trend towards favoring those elites over everybody else.
So what a surprise, that the parking meter deal has proven to benefit Morgan Stanley and the Mayor over the people of Chicago.
The Inspector-General's report (via wbez.org) takes no position on Public Private Partnerships per se, but includes this:
Because the deal was presented to the City Council with very limited information and because the Council scheduled its vote a very short time later, there was no meaningful public review of the decision to lease the parking-meter system. What is standard in the PPP "best practices" model - informed deliberation, transparency, and full analysis of the public interest considerations - was not present here.
Of course not! Our aldermen are so scawed of da big scawy mayor. They tremble in fear that he'll send his scattered and demoralized "army" of geriatric precinct workers after them. Who knows; if they stand on principle, maybe they'll lose reelection and have to get a job. I can't believe its come to taunting our elected officials for being scaredy cats, but what else is left? What else do we have to do? They obviously don't respond to reason. So maybe taunts will work better.
I understand it's scary to have your job be threatened, but its not like the Mayor is going to kill you if you vote against his public private partnership proposal. He'll just get comically red-faced and blustery and call you a coward in a way that makes everybody in the city laugh at him.
(comme ca:
)
Mayor Daley the efficient city manager is an apparition; his years of consolidating control gave the appearance of an efficient bureaucrat making things run smoothly; but all things now controlled, we find that the "efficiency" of amalgamation is just a shift of decision making from a slow public process to a quick private one. Democracy maybe chaotic, scary, and sometimes even ugly, but besides being theoretically right, it is often practically right, too.
Richard Daley has a mixed record in office. He has a right to defend that record, and we shouldn't give in to the temptation to turn him into an always-bad caricature. But this is a fantastic blunder, and one that is a direct result of the lack of leadership in Chicago.
These types of things are destined to happen again and again if we don't soon form a real, on-going effort to identify and encourage new leadership in the city.
Meetings, summits, conferences. These are where catastrophic problems are discussed and noble solutions are alluded to. That tradition was upheld on Monday at the UIC-hosted and city-sponsored Fifth Annual Richard J. Daley Urban Forum cautiously entitled "Global Economic Recovery: Cities Lead the Way."
The three-hour event boasted 30 mayors from cities around the world contributing their hard-knocks experiences amidst the global recession. Much of the dialogue revolved around such big ideas as bureaucratic reform, infrastructure investment, and educational improvement -- all with very little specificity attached.
While Mayor Richard M. Daley, who Bruce Katz of the Brookings Institution affectionately referred to as the "dean of American mayors," may have presided over markedly higher budgets each year, he confidently assured the forum that urban success will be rooted in "cutting government spending," and "looking at outsourcing." Yet it was Mayor Hanna Birna Kristjansdottir of Reykjavik, Iceland, who described how she and the city council agreed to a pay cut as a measure of demonstrating what needed to be done across the board. From the back of the room, it was hard to see if the 50 aldermen in the front row were stroking their chins in a eureka moment.
Vice President Joe Biden topped off the chorus of international voices in support of significant federal reinvestment in the urban landscape by using stimulus spending items as bullet points. After rattling off a stump speech of spending measures (all of which could be reviewed at recovery.gov), he expressed his belief that American cities will soon gain a technological edge in the global economy by trading in "smokestacks for stethoscopes."
From the bowels of the predictable rhetoric and the guaranteed applause lines about wanting Chicago to host the Olympics in 2016, a few general themes did emerge. Tourism dollars wind up finding their ways to places that spend money on beautification projects and big box infrastructure improvements, making it clear that such expenditures go beyond short-term patronage.
Secondly, business partnerships must guide the educational development in this country through secondary school grants and product development in the universities. Norbert Riedel, a spokesperson for the Baxter International, discussed how partnering with several Chicago universities allowed it to make headway in adult stem cell research, anti-counterfeiting, and product safety. These relationships went onto to produce high-paying jobs in which companies groomed the work force to suit its needs. Gone are the days about worrying how corporate influence in the educational marketplace could corrupt the schooling process. As the Beatles once said, "All the money's gone, nowhere to go."
It's hard not to guffaw like a frat boy every time I come across news or analysis of yesterday's "Tea Parties" (Rachel Maddow=genius). It is particularly hard to hear clips of protestors talking about how "it's time for us to wake up those folks in Washington to what people really think," as I heard over and over again on NPR last night, as if Obama wasn't just elected by fairly comfortable margins and doesn't enjoy 60% approval rating. (or even that a large percentage of Americans think the tax system is fair). Those of us who lived through the Clinton years had very few illusions about the ability of the "extra-chromosome right" as Al Gore called them to exist in loyal opposition. So we're now subjected to debates over Obama's role in promoting piracy, governors advocating secession, and whatever other outrages emerge from the miasma of the right-wing politics of victimhood.
Stepping away from the hypocrisy and potential danger of the inflamed rhetoric on the right, one can't help but be impressed with the fearlessness of conservative politicians, pundits, and activists. It doesn't matter that the last eight years are widely viewed as a series of exhibits on the failure of their essential ideology or that they were roundly repudiated at the polls in November. Even if their grievances are fuzzy and inchoate and their way out of the current situation is to apply the same medicine that got us here, only in higher does, they are so convinced of the dire consequences of not opposing the current president that they will engage in pretty ridiculous behavior to see him stopped.
It's becoming pretty obvious from the reporting of Ben Jovarsky, budget woes, and the three tires I've had to change in the last month that calling Chicago the city that works is a rhetorical stretch, to say the very least. A broke, pock-marked city that attempts to replace front line police officers with cameras, sell off all its assets to the highest bidder in return for slush funds for Mayoral fantasies of grandeur is not one headed down the right road. But yet we have a more or less completely compliant City Council that marches in lock-step with the flailing failing policies of our mayor while the media focuses on Todd Stroger's foibles while letting Daley's slide by. It's probably also true that the Mayor has done a great job of making himself, and not the tenant farmers of the City Council represent government in this city, so that voters and non-voters alike rarely hold alderman accountable. The situation is especially disappointing to those of us who worked hard to elect a slate of independent alderman, only for them to come back and say "you don't understand how scary the Mayor can be." Our city is crumbling and the most those who are charged with fixing it can say is that they can't speak out because of the hypothetical fear of losing city services in their wards
Maybe Chicago needs some disloyal opposition, some crazy "tea-baggers" who will throw caution to the wind and not be afraid of the retributive consequences, real or imagined. If right wing Republicans aren't scared of the President and Democratic Congress who just thumped them in elections, then why are we still electing alderman who defeat the machine candidate in their wards and remain afraid of the mayor?
Ben Jovarsky and Mick Dumke's dogged reporting has produced a fascinating, if predictable tale of Mayor Daley ramrodding questionable billion dollar privitization schemes through the City Council. It's no surprise that the Mayor and the pliant council are loath to engage in any sort of real public debate, but other news stories this week make the details Jovarsky and Dumke unearth much more troubling. Over and over again, the Mayor and his staff justify the quick and unexamined sell off of the city's assets for more funds for things like social services or neighborhood parks. But other stories this week seem to indicate that the Mayor has no intention of creating robust, quality city services. In other words, the Mayor and his staff are selling off revenue-generating city assets for no clear purpose.
I would like to take a moment from my current leave-of-absence to comment on Ben Joravsky and Mick Dumke's extraordinary piece from this week's Chicago Reader. Joravsky and Dumke's piece is in fact a perfect case study of much larger issues, namely, the utter failure of neoliberal public policy and the accelerating erosion of Mayor Daley's precarious political order. Both are implicated in an exhaustive piece that demonstrates how and why decisions that affect millions of human begins are made.
And I would like to direct this piece not just to our wonderfully loyal Mechanics readers, but also to the current under-class of political professionals, legislative and district staffers, public policy Masters students, and the rest of the "next generation" of leadership that think leadership means gripping the pant legs of today's elected officials and auctioning the public good off to private interests. And also to elements of the city's so-called "progressive leadership", which are, like Dorian Gray's portrait, at risk of transmogrifying themselves into the shakedown artists the hard-core right always accuses us of being.
I like this idea of gun safety education, but reading this story from Newsradio 78 it appears Daley doesn't even want that! Most of us already knows Daley's position. Guns are bad no matter what and I suppose one can conclude that if Daley had his way no one would even know what a gun is.
Well let's start with the legislation in question:
State Rep. Annazette Collins (D-Chicago) said she believes that education is the key to gun safety, and said a hands-on approach is the key to taking away the mystery and allure of guns.
"Downstate they teach you that guns are meant for hunting, for protection," she said. "Here in the urban cities, all they see are guns on TV and they gun down people."
...
Collins said she suggested gun education to help gain passage of House Bill 48, a measure that would require universal background checks prior to the purchase of guns and would ban private handgun sales.
Like was already stated Daley was opposed to it:
"It's the silliest position I've ever heard taken," Daley said.
Daley said putting guns in the hands of more children is the last thing the city of Chicago needs.
"It would be different if they have an interest and the family takes them so they're going out hunting," he said. "Don't you think we should concentrate on math, science, reading, attendance, keeping children in school, after-school programs? I think the representative should put her priorities in order."
Daley said there is already too much gun violence on Chicago's West Side, and said he believed Collins' proposal would only fuel it.
"If (she thinks) more guns on the West Side is going to help those people, she is greatly mistaken," Daley said.
I could agree, but Daley seems to assume that anyone with a gun=automatic criminal. That's not true, but it has been argued that gun control can only benefit those who choose not to obey them anyway. A person who is without a gun to protect themselves or their home might largely be defenseless against a criminal who would do great harm to them.
The Mayor doesn't appear to have great faith in this idea of a responsible gun owner. If Daley doesn't have faith in the citizen then does he have faith in his police? They carry guns and every now and again we hear stories that might cause people to lose faith in the police. Such as this story about the cop who loses it at a bar and he's about to go on trial.
Anyway, let's hear from you. Might it be beneficial to teach gun safety to young people? If we can educate them now, perhaps, they might be more reticent in pulling a gun on anyone. Hopefully they'll know that this isn't Hollywood and a gun is a very dangerous tool.
Let's not misunderstand guns are dangerous. They certainly don't belong in everyone's hands, but is it smart to not even allow some people an opportunity to understand gun safety?
Via 2nd City Cop who titles their entry "Common Sense Rejected".
Over at Merge Jasmine highlights this comparison between Admiral Adama in the show Battlestar Galactica and Mayor Daley at Decider Chicago. The comparison is mostly way off though. For instance, Hunter Clauss, who wrote the piece, says this:
"Adama and Daley both like keeping business in the family name. When Adama was charged with appointing a captain to Pegasus--the second battlestar--he didn't think twice before handing the keys to his only son, Apollo."
Actually he did. There was a whole episode about the first captain of the Pegasus called The Captain's Hand. Apollo was the second one Adama appointed.
Next there's this:
"When a splitter group of the Cylons joined the ever-diminishing human fleet of spaceships, Adama wasn't ready to give them anything unless they gave up something first."
Again, that's up for interpretation. When the human refugees came to Earth and then (spoiler ahead!) decided to move on, Adama offered for the rebel Cylons that Clauss is talking about to "come along."
As far as I know, I think this is the one apt parallel:
"Adama handles this civilian government in a similar fashion as Daley--by ignoring them. When Adama wants to get something done--like outfit ships in his fleet with Cylon technology--he does it regardless of what the suits have to say. When Daley wanted to tear down Meigs Field, he sent the bulldozers out in the dead of night to rip apart the runway."
But Clauss doesn't end on an accurate note. Instead he finishes with something that, again, I think is misinterpreted (more spoilers!):
"After all these years, the good ship Galactica is finally falling apart--and the same can be said about the Chicago Transit Authority. Like the bone-chilling winters, CTA doomsdays seem like a regular occurrence. Too bad we don't have any of that Cylon magic juice to paint the tracks with."
But the CTA is getting some much needed funds to help repair it. It surely won't solve every problem but while Galactica has nothing but bandaids at best, help is on the way for our transit system.
So what's all this prove? Why, that I spend too much time watching science fiction, that's what! But speaking of Battlestar Galactica, the series finale was on a little while ago. My thoughts: eh. One thing I can say is that most viewers will probably walk away from it liking Adama. I wouldn't necessarily say the same about any time spent with Mayor Daley.
Rep. Sara Feigenholtz, candidate for Rahm Emanuel's House seat, is a Chief Co-Sponsor. The bill has a Republican co-sponsor, Roger Eddy of Hutsonville.
The Board of Education has no standards for its school closures. It views our city as a "market" and is merely trying to increase the "market share" of the privatized schools so favored by the Mayor and the myopic mopes who purr in his lap on the Fifth Floor.
A few days ago I wrote a piece about the Mayor refusing to make public his "shovel-ready" projects that would be kick-started by the federal stimulus/recovery/whatever bill that is passing this week.
I sent emails to the leading candidates in the Fifth Congressional District race to get their take on the Mayor's lack of transparency. Here's what I got back.
Tom Geoghegan
Whether it's the bank bailout or the stimulus package, Chicagoans have a right to know where their tax dollars are being spent. The Mayor must release where the stimulus money is going, just as the Fed and Treasury must tell us where the bank bailout money has been going.
Charlie Wheelan
As for Mayor Daley, I don't blame him for not making the projects public BEFORE the money is allocated. It would set off a round of political battles that might ultimately be irrelevant. Obviously once the money is actually allocated by the federal government, the process for selecting projects should be transparent. Or, if projects have already been selected, those criteria should be made public. It's not a terrible thing if the city already has a list of projects. Many jurisdictions are being criticized for NOT having done such planning. Indeed, this is why there are so few "shovel ready" projects around the country.
(Wheelan also provided his take on the stimulus plan in general, which was interesting enough to merit its own post.)
Rep. John Fritchey
I received a message from Rep. Fritchey's campaign noting that transparency is one of Fritchey's most important issues, but I did not receive a statement from the candidate himself.
Rep. Sara Feigenholtz
Rep. Feigenholtz did not respond at all, but she held a press conference today discussing this very matter -- prompted by my question, perhaps? (No.)
(via Progress Illinois, which you should be reading every day, right after you've read Mechanics)
Commissioner Mike Quigley
I did not receive a reply from Commissioner Quigley's campaign, but I have a sneaking suspicion that the email never reached them, so chalk that up to me.
Why is the city closing down mental health clinics on the South Side?
Displacement? Gentrification? Making parts of the city superficially pretty for the International Olympic Committee?
My tendency is to think "all of the above" or, maybe, "six of one, half dozen of the other."
Southside Together Organizing for Power, a community group that does just what its name implies, came to that same conclusion when they began fighting the closures last year. Closing mental health clinics is a common way to attack a community's social safety net. Having grown up in and around Chicago, I remember the stories of the closures of mental health facilities in Uptown that led to an increase in homelessness for the most at-risk.
But more than that, it's just cruel. Providing this kind of health care benefits communities; it doesn't drain them. STOP intends to take that message directly to the Mayor on Tuesday, at 10am, at his City Hall office.
I read this at the time and meant to post on it, but I wanted to think of something grandiloquently clever. But then I realized that would just be annoying and distract from the fact that our mayor, a supposed big-city politics tough-guy, is, in fact, just a hothouse flower, ready to wilt at the first hint of scandal.
"Yes, we do, we have our list, we've been talking to people. We did not put that out publicly because once you start putting it out publicly, you know, the newspapers, the media is going to be ripping it apart," Daley said.
In other words, because the city's media is mean to him (which means, I guess, they only agree with him 70% of the time or so, unlike "his" -- our -- legislature, which agrees with him 100% of the time), he is not going to release to the public, the list of public works programs that are going to be funded by public money.
Our money, our programs, our city, but we don't get details because our mayor is taking our ball and going home.
Besides revealing the Mayor to be unbelievably thin-skinned, this is a profoundly anti-democratic act. This isn't your money, or your developer friends' money, or President Obama's money, or Dan Lipinski's money, or Ed Burke's money, or Rahm Emanuel's money, or Jesse Jackson, Jr.'s money, or anybody's money but ours, our money. And our programs, and our city.
After making Ron Huberman's first day on the job at CPS quite unpleasant (h/t to Progress Illinois), a large demonstration of hundreds -- inching into thousands -- of teachers, parents, and students will be demonstrating in front of the Chicago Public Schools building at 125 S. Clark Street, beginning at 3:30pm today. If you work downtown, you may want to head over there and check it out -- and send us pictures, while you're at it. We'll post 'em!
Mayor Daley's Board of Education is run by the business community and himself. It's enough already. How much longer are the people of Chicago just going to accept that "The Mayor gets his way?" Do you really think forever?
The tone seems to be pretty benign about Ron Huberman's appointment to lead the Chicago Public Schools, but really, is this anything but Daley-style machine politics?
Come on now, how exactly is education related to transportation? And beyond that, despite some serious improvements (slow zones, an ambitious digital tracking system), there's much work to be done. It's not the time for a leader to move on to something new and different.
I just want to take a moment to direct you to the Daily Daley, which has had a particularly good few days; it will take a much longer post to discuss this insane assertion by our Elective Majesty:
Mayor Daley is urging President Obama to "think outside the box" according to this Sun-Times story. [Insert joke here] Apparently our bold reformer and Democrat Mayor Daley is in total agreement on this one with the Wall Street Journal story we referenced in yesterday's post:
"If they start leasing public assets -- every city, every county, every state and the federal government -- you would not have to raise any taxes whatsoever. You would have more infrastructure money that way than any other way in the nation," Daley said.
"But, that is thinking outside the box and very few governments ever, ever think outside the box."
This is good news, reported by Fran Spielman in the Sun-Times, that the city is pursuing $2.1bn to fund 50,000 affordable housing units in the city by the year 2013.
Affordable housing is one of those foundational issues that, if addressed properly, can have a ripple effect that addresses many other problems. When housing is available and affordable, ghettoization stops. It slows gentrification and can encourage more mixed communities. We could ask why the Mayor waited until after twenty years of unmitigated gentrification completely changed the face of dozens of neighborhood, but here at Mechanics we're forward looking, so we won't. Here's a tidbit:
Arguing that affordable housing is "more important than ever" in an economic downturn, Mayor Daley on Wednesday committed $2.1 billion to create 50,022 units of rental and for-sale housing by 2013....The financing crucial to any deal will come from federal and state funding, low-income tax credits, bonds, loans and tax-increment financing subsidies.
Hey, who needs $153,000,000 in federal "anti-congestion" funds? Certainly not Chicago; it's not like we have a congestion problem. Via Crain's.
The administration this week quietly pulled back a pending ordinance that would have hiked fees and taxes for off-street parking in garages and on surface lots downtown by as much as $8 a day. The measure was supposed to be the stick for a big carrot: a $153-million federal grant announced last spring to begin a pilot express transportation system known as bus rapid transit....But the measure, which arrived in the wake of large hikes in parking-meter fess, drew strong opposition from business groups.
Thanks, "business groups." Every day, another crack in the foundation. The invincible Mayor Daley.
The city he has led for 20 years became the center of the political universe -- and the 2016 Olympic front-runner instead of a mere finalist -- after the favorite-son senator he backed was elected the nation's first African-American president.
A month later, Chicago was back to being ridiculed as corruption capital of the world when Gov. Blagojevich was dragged off in handcuffs.
I doubt the Mayor is worried, but some Park Ridge residents are determined to make 2009 not-so-pleasant:
A Park Ridge man is urging the International Olympic Committee to remove Chicago from consideration for the 2016 games.
Arguing the Olympics will only add to the heavy O'Hare air traffic above his neighborhood, Gene Spanos mailed a letter to the committee's headquarters in Switzerland, asking that members meet with Park Ridge residents and also reconsider their decision to list Chicago among the finalist cities.
...and, of course, for Chicagoans, our 2009 will definitely be more expensive:
But with 2009 now in progress, Chicagoans now have no choice but to spend more on certain conveniences.
As CBS 2's Mike Parker reports, the fates give - suddenly lower gasoline prices in the latter part of 2008. But they also take away, if you put your car in most downtown and Loop parking garages.
Perhaps while watching yesterday's breaking news regarding the arrest of Illinois Governor Rod Blagojevich you said to yourself, "Surely Chicago politics couldn't get more absurd." Well, try this one on for size.
As the U.S. housing market leads the global economy into its greatest crisis since the Great Depression, that whip-smart team over at the Mayor's Office has decided to bet our futures on yet another condo development. But this isn't just any condo development — this is an Olympic Village.
That's right. The deal to obtain the land underneath Michael Reese Hospital for Chicago's 2016 Olympic bid is back on. And the City of Chicago is about to take out an $86 million loan to acquire the land that is currently occupied by the functioning hospital.
Once they acquire that land, they plan to demolish the hospital and build housing for athletes who will participate in a two-week sporting event that may occur in Chicago eight years from now. How's that for absurd?
You should've been gone, Knowing how I made you feel; And I should've been gone, After all your words of steel. Oh I must've been a dreamer, And I must've been someone else, And we should've been over (by now).
Oh Daley, our love holds on, holds on! Oh Daley, our love holds on, holds on.
Good morning, Chicago! The tryptophan out of your system? Or for you vegetarians, is the tryptophurkey out your system? Groggy-headed and weighed down with calories, take a few minutes to follow our local political what's-for; Mayor Daley is just getting into the swing of things himself, but we can take a look around town anyway. So, like sands through the hour glass, this is the Daley of our lives.
Public Force, or Palace Guards? In the olden days, there were no municipal police forces -- creating an accountable "public force" for the purpose of protecting citizens was a post-Enlightenment development. Before then, what you basically had was an extension of palace guards whose main concern was watching for outsiders and quelling bread riots -- protecting the palace. Keep just enough peace that His Lordship isn't present, but these guys weren't investigating home, er, shack, invasions. So it should frustrate you when we read about an alderman and the City Treasurer (did you know that was even a thing? I bet you didn't) having CPD protection:
"If there's a credible recent threat, they should have it. If it's just a courtesy of the office, they don't need it," said Jay Stewart, executive director of the Better Government Association. "When you're talking about layoffs, a slowdown in police hiring and [400 sworn police officer] vacancies, any way you can get more bodies on the street protecting citizens, the better" off Chicago will be.
More, More, More Bad News. Just wanted to make my second Andrea True Connection in less than a week. Successful. The bad news? Chicago's ranks of jobless ticked up again last month, to 6.9%.
Analysis By Cliche. I'm just as happy to criticize our Mayor when he goes off track, but all this stuff about the Chicago Machine, particularly its supposed nefarious ties to the President-elect, are really annoying. Like this bit from the Southwest News Herald:
From David Axelrod, who was nurtured on the Daley Machine, to the political organizing, which Barack Obama so proudly claims a lineage, Chicago's brand of one Party politics may be a model for the Obama administration in Washington, D.C. It is no mistake the president-elect joined Rev. Jeremiah Wright's South Side Chicago church. Obama wanted to learn the ropes of power politics and how it was played in the Windy City. There were no better teachers than Mayor Daley and his cadre of obliging aldermen who responded to the cracking of the political whip.
I've been more than happy to note in the past that then-State Senator Obama's media advisor was a guy with long ties to Mayor Daley, but Axelrod is not a Machine hack. He also worked for Harold Washington (there's a famous picture of him awaiting results with Washington). And the connection between Wright and Daley is a complete non-sequitor. Mayor Daley keeps getting re-elected by astronomical margins; the people speak loudest at the ballot box.
Mayor, Mayor, Mayor -- how do you like it? How do you like it? Mayor, Mayor, Mayor -- how do you like it? How do you like it? But if you want to know how I really feel, just get the cameras rolling, get the action going. Daley, you know my vote for you is real. Take me where you want to, then my heart you'll steal.
Surprise! You're Homeless! Phil Hersh in the Tribune:
During the campaign to make their city an Olympic host, Chicago 2016 officials have dwelled on the idea that the city is a well-kept secret. So it is no surprise the only video the bid committee has shown in all its presentations to regional Olympic committees is called "Chicago Surprises."
Claire Mahnn is a human rights attorney who participated in the study, Fair Play for Housing Rights: Mega events, Olympic Games, and Housing Rights. Mahnn is with the Geneva Academy for International Humanitarian Law and Human Rights. According to her research, previous Olympic games have displaced more than two million people around the world.
Turnin' Up the Heat on TIFs. Angela Caputo at Progress Illinois has a great piece on Mayor Daley's half-a-billion-plus slush fund, the tax increment financing district moneys that are open to little transparency and aren't subject to an annoying legislative appropriation process.
TIF districts now cover half of the city's acreage, each capturing new property tax revenue in the name of economic development. However, keeping tabs on the millions in off-the-books tax revenue has become virtually impossible, even for folks with an eye for municipal finance. At a community forum organized by the Independent Voters of Illinois- Independent Precinct Organization (IVI-IPO) last night, some reform-minded Chicagoans--including Cook County Commissioner Mike Quigley--explored possible new game plans for bringing sorely needed oversight to the TIF system.
Pride Campus, Scuttled by Mayor's Buddies? The Chicago Journal's Jessica Pupovac gets into the details of just what suddenly happened to the city's planned "Pride Campus," a safe haven school for GLBT students. Mm, good reporting.
One week after the meeting, Mayor Daley voiced concerns, calling the proposal "controversial," despite overwhelming support at both public hearings. "There is this private meeting after the two public hearings and then-boom-all of the sudden, the thing is thrown into question," said Andy Thayer of the Gay Liberation Network. "What is the point of having these hearings if you can just scuttle the whole process with back door meetings with the mayor's buddies?"
Poor old Richard M. sounded sad upon the radio. He moved a dozen or so hearts, in mono. Our mothers cried, and sang along -- well, who'd blame them. You've grown. So grown. Now I must say more than ever:
Come on, Daley. I swear (oh, he means) at this moment, you mean everything!
So I said to the Mayor, "You promised me, Mayor, that if I followed you, you would walk with me always. But I have noticed that during the most trying periods of my life, there have only been one set of footprints in the sand. Why, when I needed you most, have you not been there for me?"
Mayor Daley replied, "Uhm, uhhhh....well...sure, yeah. B-b-b-but, the times when you have seen only one set of footprints in the sand -- is when I, well, carried you."
So is the Daley of our lives.
Budget, budget, budget! The economy is bad, and Mayor Daley can't be blamed for that. Hundreds of millions of dollars in developer givebacks in the form of TIFs we can blame him for. Also, why are our wealthiest corporate neighbors so happy to give millions for Millennium Park or to secure the Olympics, but so stingy when it comes to the city services so dear to their neighbors? Oh, that's right, because their "altruism" is really nothing of the sort, but an investment for a larger return. Mayor Daley's budget passed 49 to 1. Unbelievably, the only "nay" vote was Alderman Billy Ocasio (26th, Humboldt Park). The Mayor really hates votes against his budgets in particular; it's a "hang together or hang separately" kinda thing.
Ocasio didn't just vote against it. If there was such a thing as a "legislative dis track," it would look like this:
"Takes me and my community for granted. In my community, we are tired of receiving the false promises. Being told it is an 'ongoing process.'...[T]his administration believes that everyone and everything are expendable."
Dis!
When asked about criticism, Mayor Daley sounded like a little kid putting on a tough face when the recess monitor asks if the other kids are being mean:
It's alright. No, it's alright. Anything else? =sniff=
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I added the sniff. Break it down, Fran (I can call you Fran, right?):
But even with those concessions, the city still plans to shrink the size of 80 more garbage collection crews -- from two laborers on a truck to one. Aldermen from across the city have questioned whether smaller crews can keep pace with garbage collection and bulk pickups in densely populated wards. The tax package includes higher parking and amusement taxes and a laundry list of fees. But it's the mayor's $9 million plan to license garbage Dumpsters -- at an annual cost of $80 to $780 -- that has drawn drew the most fire. It comes on top of hundreds of thousands of dollars of façade repair and critical examination costs the city has already imposed on condominium residents. "They are being taxed up the yin-yang and it is bankrupting our taxpaying citizens. We cannot keep relying on the same population year after year after year," said Ald. Leslie Hairston (5th).
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I bolded some tense disagreement in there just to show it has happened happens to all of us.
Are there any sixty-ish political operator Irishmen out there who can tell us if this has some deeper meaning?:
When the budget was approved, Dennis Gannon, president of the Chicago Federation of Labor, repeatedly waved from across the council chambers to draw Daley's attention...From the podium, the mayor nodded and winked back.
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Some highlights from the budget? See if you can wrap your mind around this Chicago logic. First, the Nobel Laureates at the CPD shared this mind-blowing nugget with us two days ago:
Police: Bad economy may breed crime
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Last week, Mayor Daley said this:
"Huge layoffs are coming in November and December. And next year, there's going to be [even more] huge layoffs. All the corporation CEOs have come in to tell me. That's just the beginning. It's not their end result," Daley told reporters after a City Council meeting.
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Yet 49 of our 50 Aldermen agreed with this part of the budget:
• Slow police hiring to 200 in 2009, saving $10 million.
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Feel safer, Chicago?
I hope, of course, that the coming spike in criminal activity is focused completely on the people who for years have been accusing me of being a socialist (sound familiar?) for saying that constant tax givebacks to businesses do not make our economy stronger, but only structurally bankrupt government, destroy infrastructure, and harm everyday people.
Why don't you take a quick minute to email Alderman Ocasio thank him for his brave vote yesterday?
Who Will the Mayor Support? Whoever Rahm Asks Him To. Fran reports that Mayor Daley's longtime Council floor leader Ald. Patrick O'Connor (40th, Lincoln Square/Rosehill-ish) tried to get Mayor Daley's endorsement for Rahm Emanuel's soon-to-be-vacant Senate seat. In his understated style, Mayor Daley demurred:
"There's about 25 candidates. First of all, Rahm Emanuel has not resigned. So there could be more candidates any day. There's more candidates to come. People have even called me and talked to me about running. How can you say you're for a candidate and the field is not full yet?" the mayor said.
Mayor Daley, you came and you gave without takin'. But I sent you away, Mayor Daley! When you strong arm political opposition you stop me from shakin', and I need you today -- Mayor Daley.
City "Council" To "Vote" On "Budget" To"day." Wait, No, Actually Today. Our rubber stamp aldermen will offer some variety of hilarious token resistance to Mayor Daley's 2009 budget today. Included in this budget are the reduced layoffs, the insane Maxwell Street mark-up that pays for the bouncie houses, and a budget deficit that is so bad we have to cut city services, but not so bad that we will stop pursuing an unbelievably wasteful two-week event that will require billions of dollars of public money (cf., below). You can watch the proceedings live, here. Check out Progress Illinois' take.
Eyes On The Gold, Behind the Dream? Whose dream are CBS 2's "eyes on" in their insipid "behind the scenes" look at the Chicago 2016 committee's efforts to "win" the games for Chicago? Last I checked, nobody conferred with us about whether or not we wanted these things. Also, remember the good feeling and sense of community at Grant Park at the election night celebration? What a surprise: the unelected, unaccountable plutocrats that run the Chicago 2016 bid committee are using it against us. It's like when they used Martin Luther King, Jr.'s speech to sell insurance.
"We probably couldn't have paid for a much better commercial than the election night footage from Grant Park," Scherr said...In fact, it did so much that the bid committee is now cutting down a video with beauty shots of Chicago - and adding a second video featuring young people training for Olympic sports. It's a video designed to show the impact Chicago's Olympic dreams are already having on Olympic hopefuls. "We can create that sense to the IOC that we're not waiting for the games to come here, we're starting now," Ryan said.
No "Gay HS." Well, score one for...I'm not sure whom exactly. But the planned gay-friendly charter high school has been scrapped. Mayor Daley expressed his opposition to the school.
Why Won't He Come To My Party? When it was revealed in a profile before the 2007 elections that Mayor Daley kept a framed picture of himself with President W Bush (because remember, he has been Mayor since President HW Bush), I was at first confused...but then it made perfect sense. "Hey, your daddy helped you get the job too?" "Yeah!" "And you're often compared to him unfavorably?" "Omigod!" "And you have a lot of leftover hacks from his era that you deal with?" "This is freaking me out!"
Well, it looks like W won't be making it to the O'Hare runway reveal that is likely the cause of His Elective Majesty's crush on the worst president since James Buchanan. That's right, worse than Ulysses S. Grant.
This is just speculation, but something tells me that this president flying in for a reveal of a runway in the president-elect's hometown would be a little awkward, not to mention we'd all have to start quartering secret service agents, in clear violation of the oft-forgotten third amendment.
GLBT School Revote; Mayor To Get Sweaty, High-Pitched-y. Hat-tip to Chicagoist, who point out that the recently scuttled "gay high school" -- a safe harbor school for GLBT students -- is up for a revote after some retooling. The Mayor questioned the wisdom of the school, saying it amounted to segregation. While I don't necessarily agree with his argumentation (and who am I to argue with a man who has passed the bar, albeit on his seventeenth try), I think the Mayor was right to oppose this school on the grounds that it doesn't encourage understanding (or normality) of GLBT kids, but just whisks them away from real-life situations.
"You have to look at whether or not you isolate and segregate children. A holistic approach has always been to have children of all different backgrounds in schools. When you start isolating children and you say, 'Only 50 percent here, 40 percent here' -- same thing we went through with the disabled -- then you want to do that when they're adults," Daley said.
Status Quo Forms Alliance To Change Status Quo. Remember the insane argument that opponents of the Constitutional Convention -- an alliance of the most powerful interests in the state -- offered the people of Illinois? Namely that those nasty interests would take hold of the process?
The status quo powers of this state have been a roadblock to real reform of any type for a generation or more. So thankfully, they've decided to get together and pressure themselves for reform of Illinois' public schools. Wild-eyed idealists like Bill Daley, Dennis Hastert, and Jim Edgar are teaming up with King George III and The Nothing from The NeverEnding Story to create Advance Illinois.
Sigh. Like sands through the hour glass, this is the Daley of our lives...
Labor, Mayor May Reduce Layoffs. Americans are still getting over the many side effects that a generation-long Free Market Fundamentalist infection has caused, and one of them is the insanity of hostility to the unionized workforces that provide them services and raise the prevailing wage in a given community (not to mention spend those wages to raise aggregate demand). WBBM Reporting:
Union leaders have agreed to work-rule changes to reduce the city's overtime costs, the sources said. They have also agreed to drop their opposition to a partial shutdown of city government around the holidays.
In exchange, Daley has agreed to offer cash incentives -- at least $5,000 and as high as $15,000 -- for members of Laborers Local 1001 to induce retirements by eligible union members.
Chicago: The Murder Capital of the Big Three. How long will Mayor Daley's TIF slush fund stay inaccessible in the face of mounting murders? Of the nation's most populous cities, Chicago has suffered the most homicides. With an economic catastrophe around the corner, it will get worse. Much, much worse. It could make the crack wars of the late '80s and early '90s many of us remember very well look like childish horseplay.
Among the most populous cities in the United States, Chicago ranks at number three with a population of just under three million. New York City has approximately eight million citizens, while Los Angeles has fewer than four million.
Chicago made headlines in 1998, surpassing both New York and Los Angeles in homicides. Over the past decade, Chicago's murder rate declined with the exception of 2001 and 2006, when homicides were higher than the preceding year.
KassWatch: John Kass Actually Readable Today! So, phony tough guy John "Everyone's an Idiot but Me" Kass of the Chicago Tribune is usually unreadable through paragraphs of self-congratulatory and smug prose, but that doesn't mean he isn't often right, or isn't often turning in good reporting -- and he does both today. Read him -- here's a bonus: count how many times his mirror-gazing makes your eyes roll!
The Combine wants Fitzgerald promoted out of town. But President-elect Barack Obama has promised newspaper editorial boards he would keep Fitzgerald in Chicago to fight political corruption...That's the same President-elect Obama with Mayor Daley's guy Rahm Emanuel as his chief of staff, and another Daley guy, David Axelrod*, as Obama's chief strategist. The mayor's brother Billy is one of Obama's chief economic advisers. Whew!
*Hmm...why don't you think Kass chose to refer to Axelrod as "Harold Washington's guy," considering Axelrod was a key consultant for the people's Mayor, as well as for Daley?
Oh, Chicago. Don't worry. Nobody can tell you're hungover. But shake those cobwebs off, friend, and get in the game.
The Only Thing We Have To Fear Is a Terrifying Economy. Mayor Daley was kind enough to let us know yesterday that the city is facing an unbelievable amount of layoffs in the coming 14 months. Apparently business leaders are warning him that the economy is in the worst condition since the Great Depression. Are you employed by a Chicago-area employer? Well, you're screwed. Hopefully they'll deem fit to tell you and not just the Mayor.
How bad is it? Let our fearful leader instill the fear himself:
"This is going to be all year, so it's going to be a very frightening economy," Mayor Daley said. "Each one tells me what they're laying off, and they're going to double that next year. We're talking huge numbers of permanent layoffs for people in the economy. It's going to have a huge effect on all businesses."
The mayor said the gravity of the situation cannot be underestimated.
"We never experienced anything like this except people who came from the Depression," Mayor Daley said. "When you have that many layoffs early - and they're telling me this is only the beginning of their layoffs - that is very frightening."
Nobody is advocating sugarcoating anything, but seriously -- can't you use some inspiring language? Can't you promise to look into how the city can use its vast resources (and it is the third largest city in the country) to soften the blow of Chicagoans? I don't know, something?
On Wednesday, the mayor was asked if he was still intent on keeping his hands off that Skyway money.
"So far -- unless everything goes into the bottom. Unless everything hits a Depression. That word is dangerous to use. But this is going to be a very difficult economy. I keep saying it. It's very, very serious," he said.
At the moment, Daley's tough times, 2009 budget is precariously balanced with 929 layoffs, slow police hiring and $52.5 million worth of taxes, fines and fees.
A final vote on the $5.97 billion spending plan is scheduled for Nov. 19. But, aldermen are threatening to introduce a slew of ammendments to soften the mayor's plan to license garbage dumpsters -- at an annual cost of $80-to-$780.
"No one is happy with the budget," Daley said.
Mayor Daley has many fine points along with his many bad ones. I think realism is one of his strong points. We'll see how he handles the potential breakdown of our city's economic fabric.
On the day after Veterans Day, the mayor rose to lecture Smith about the need for war, painful as it may be, and about the young men and women who put their lives on the line to uphold the freedoms we hold dear.
"They represent the good of society. There's evil in society. Right in Chicago, there's evil....And men and women decide to stay on the side of good. They're out there serving and protecting us all over the world and right here in Chicago...They're doing that right now in dangerous conditions," Daley said.
"Just the last few weeks, we went to funerals for two police officers killed in the line of duty. They didn't serve in vain. They served with great pride. They dedicated their lives [to] serving and protecting...No one likes war. No one likes violence. But there are evil people out there. And all those who have joined the military understand what evil is all about."
Oh, hello. No, I wouldn't mind if you sat next to me. What's that? You wonder what our irascible mayor is up to? Why, funny you should ask!
For like sands through the hour glass, this is the Daley of our lives:
Please, You'll Infect Everybody Else.This "leaked" organizational chart -- highly speculative, we assume -- lists CPS CEO and Daley BFF Arne Duncan as a front-runner to head up the Department of Education. A national Renaissance 2010? Now that's change we can believe in, if by "believe in" we meant "be terrified by."
Those Charmed Solis'...s.s. Not sure how to pluralize Solis, but 25th Ward Alderman and President Pro Tempore Danny Solis' sister, Patty Solis-Doyle, is being drafted into an Obama Administration, which with the Duncan and Emanuel connection means the Mayor must be salivating at his unprecedented access to the White House. It's funny -- President-Elect Obama cuts his teeth on the Harold Washington campaigns in the 1980s, builds his base among the city's progressive advocacy community -- Citizen Action, ACORN, etc., etc. -- and when he sweeps into the White House, the big winner is--Mayor Daley? That's either luck, or, much more likely, some kind of 4th dimensional political skill. Well played, Mr. Mayor.
My Job Blocks Hulu -- What Now? Well, John and Jane Q. Public, maybe you should really get your head in the game and watch our little emperors in action, as the City Council will be convening at 10a.m. You can watch the live feed here. Bad news: Alderman Brendan Reilly is not nearly as hilarious as the man he defeated, Czar of the Nuisance Ordinance Burt Natarus.
Screw Digital. I Keep Things Analog. No problem. Mayor Daley has introduced a large, streamlining -- well, at first glance, anyway -- of the executive branch, including the consolidation of the Planning and Zoning departments into -- wait for it -- a Department of Planning and Zoning. Enjoy.
Good morning Chicago, and happy Veteran's Day! Please take a moment today to think about all the most terrifying war movies, like Saving Private Ryan or Full Metal Jacket, and then think about how awful war is and how grateful you should be that it wasn't you that had to save that ungrateful Matt Damon.
Like sands through the hour glass, this is the Daley of our lives:
Maybe We Won't Pass It--Psyche. When the budget gets really bad, the City Council suddenly has a reason to get "legislative-y", rather than acting like a coalition of ward executives. Why? Because they see the writing on the wall, which is that they are going to have to start competing for services in a threadbare budget. The result? Independence, or some reasonable facsimile. Or, what passes for independence in Chicago. From Fran Spielman:
"We are supposedly the legislative branch of government -- even though 99 percent of our job is out there catching spears for the administration," said Ald. Richard Mell (33rd), demanding "some respect" from the mayor.
Where City Council opposition exists*, a contested Mayoral election looms. Can the Olympics save you, Your Elective Majesty?
Escape From Chicago? When is the situation in a city seriously deteriorated? When key services disappear due to strikes. When is the situation really critical? When the people striking are usually impossible to organize. In our case, cabbies. Here's a pool of workers who speak a dozen different language, operate like independent contractors, and almost never see a "co-worker" except to honk at in passing. Drip, drip, drip.
Speaking of drip...Dan Mihalopolous and company report that the greeters that translate and direct traffic at O'Hare are on the chopping block. Goodbye, patronage jobs. Hello, increased confusion at O'Hare.
And finally today,
Richard M. is No Richard J., In a Good Way The Tribune's Washington political blog, the Swamp, makes the case that President-Elect Obama isn't the product of a Chicago Machine because there is no Chicago Machine. And while the Machine of Cermak-to-Daley has disappeared, the idea that there isn't a vaunted urban political organization in Chicago is ridiculous. Do they think the "Friends of Michael J. Madigan" are actually his friends? Please. The reason President-Elect Obama isn't the product of a Chicago Machine is that he didn't win the primary nomination or '04 general election on the strength of the Machine, and hasn't needed it for anything integral since--although its enormous fundraising apparatus surely helped him in early 2007.
*Why do I love writing about local politics? Because of quotes like this: "My goal is to try to exempt dumpsters on private property," said Ald. Tom Tunney (44th), who would pay the fee as the owner of Ann Sather's Restaurants.
Like Sands Through the Hour Glass--This is the Daley of our Lives. Wake up, Chicagoans! Get your head in the local game.
Is Somebody Gettin' Paid for Dat Satellite? Mayor Daley knows that only a combination of getting the 2016 Olympics and avoiding any tax increases can insure his easy reelection victory in 2011. Side effect? New and potentially illegal taxes:
The satellite industry is not going down without a fight. "We believe that federal law currently prohibits local taxation of satellite TV services while preserving the right of states to impose taxes," DISH spokesperson Robin Zimmerman wrote in an e-mail response to the Sun-Times.
I'm Not Going to Stand Here While You Go Negative on my Hero. The Mayor wants to make sure that President-Elect Obama's campaign pays for the extra security that was necessary for the Grant Park event last week, but he's not just going to stand there and talk in his normal voice while the media gets all negative about Chicago's favorite son.
Whither Patrick Fitzgerald? Speaking of the Mayor's newfound adoration of President-Elect Obama, one wonders about the fate of our federal prosecutor, Patrick Fitzgerald, who has been an equal-opportunity, non-partisan ball-breaker. Will President-Elect Obama keep Fitzgerald around to wreak havoc in one of the most corrupt states in the union? Thomas Roeser, in his annoying GOP-talking-pointy way ("pro-abort"? Really? Is this 1996?), raises the question.
Good Morning, Chicagoans! How was your night? Really? Interesting. Does it still hurt? No? I'm glad to hear that.
Oh hey! Clear those bleary eyes and get your head in the local game:
The 21st Century Commission Saves the Day The 21st Century Commission has solved all our problems, huzzah! It turns out, this is how we can make the city work better: privatize recycling, have a better website, and stop letting the city run elections. Daley likes the idea of a better website. Here's the Mayor's whole press conference, other topics included.
City Budget, Worker Lay-offs Remember that convenient story a month ago that scandalized us by pointing out that out thousands of workers, some are lazy? Well, thank goodness for that, because now we don't have to worry that the city is laying off nearly a 1,000 employees, and likely won't be able to fill cop vacancies.
Good morning, Chicagoans! Take a sip of that coffee, ignore the smell from the next cubicle over, and get your head in the local game with your Day by Daley.
Block 37's Problem? Not Enough Subsidy. If you're going to suggest pumping more public money into a city planning travesty like Block 37, what better news day to do that than the day after America elects its first black President? This is why the guy has been more for almost twenty years. Don't front. Mayor Daley is proposing granting a $12m subsidy to developers to get a hotel built at Block 37. Maybe this $12m will finally tip this project from "giant money pit" into "awesome revitalization project that is a testament to His Elective Majesty's wisdom". What do you think? Why are you laughing?
Spend It On Public Housing? GahahahhaTwo referenda in Lakefront communities dealt with the use of tax increment financing (TIF) money. One directed Aldermen to insist that 40% of TIF money go to public housing, the other that developers who receive money should be directed to hire locally and pay a living wage. Maybe these wild-eyed radicals didn't get the memo: asking businesses to do anything they don't want to equals socialism. Giving them public money is just public administration.
More Daley TIF Hijinks Check out Ben "TIFs! TIFs! TIFs!" Joravsky on municipal bondstax levies um, TIFs:
On occasion the mayor and the council will directly dip into TIF reserves to pay for a project, as they did in the case of Millennium Park and are currently doing with Block 37. But by and large they finance deals by borrowing against future TIF dollars, selling bonds that get repaid with revenues they expect to collect in years to come. Last year, for instance, the city sold about $356 million in bonds to be paid back over the next 20 years with money collected in various TIF districts. The money was earmarked for building new schools.
