With the Chicago Housing Authority's Plan for Transformation in full swing, it's hard to keep track of the location of new mixed income developments -- not to mention which of the old family developments haven't been demolished. Because the CHA website doesn't have the entire listings, I submitted a request for the full data and mapped it.
The family developments are indicated by blue markers, while the mixed income developments are indicated by targets. Additional information listed on the mixed income development tabs state which public housing project was the original development. Approximate addresses have been substituted where the exact addresses of developments were not listed by the CHA.
A vid by Marc Sims talking to Randy Evans discussing the Olympic bid. Of course this video had to have been filmed not too long after we found out that Chicago won't be hosting the games in 2016. Basically the discussion revolves around the impact of the games in a given city, especially the possible impact in the areas surrounding Washington Park. In other words they're arguing that the Olympics would cause a negative impact.
This leaflet was handed out at the recently held Chicago Football Classic
on Saturday. In fact they had children hand these leaflets out before game where two HBCU (Historically Black College/University) football teams Mississippi Valley State University had defeated Alabama State University 10-3 at Soldier Field. Of course this wasn't the only political activity there on that day as Congressman Danny Davis, Circuit Court Clerk Dorothy Brown, and a woman named Kari K. Steele (from Chicago's Sixth Ward) were seeking petition signatures respective for County Board President and Commissioner on the Water Reclamation District.
Anyway, here's the flier explaining the purpose of the Cook County sales tax it doesn't seem to advocate for a reduction of it. In fact it seems to want to qwell some of the bellyaching over the fact that Cook County has the highest sales tax in the county.
Today the Illinois Policy Institute is releasing a new short film about charter schools and their success in Chicago.
Entitled 'Charter Schools: Changing Lives,' the documentary profiles students, teachers and administrators in three Chicago charter schools: Chicago International Charter School's Ralph Ellison campus, Noble Street Charter School's Pritzker College Prep, and the Urban Prep Academy for Young Men.
Government transparency: realm of nerds? Or power politics?
America's post-war political tradition has been one of transactional politics. People measure their government less on ideology and more on "results", typically meaning, "what they provide". One of the side effects of this is that advocates for government transparency--who come from all points on the ideological spectrum, in equal degrees of vociferousness--are seen as process-oriented and, well, nerds. Transparency in government, however, isn't just something for good government hobbyists or hard-bitten cynical journalists. "Realists" on transparency argue that the desire to know everything the government does ignores the reality that in order to get things done, Serious People need to negotiate behind closed doors (Cf., privatizing parking meters; Chicago's stimulus list). Transparency--the state erring on the side of openness and making all of its institutional processes immediately available for public inspection--doesn't necessarily need to make government operations impossible. Quite the contrary, actually; foreknowledge of public scrutiny could act as a form of disarmament. Over time, the presumption of openness could disarm cynics and foster a mode of interaction between the state and private actors that eliminates the competitive pressure to hide things from the public.
Or, instead of using ridiculous jargon like I did in that last sentence, I can use a series of cliches; if Information is Power, then true and full transparency is an immediate way to give Power to the People.
Recently, two major government transparency issues have come (close to) the public eye: an amendment to the state Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) and the City of Chicago's new TIF transparency website. A look at these two issues below.
Lets say you are the second largest city in Illinois and a developer wants to put a new Hotel in the city...
By the way...
The land is zoned for that use.
The developer owns the land and two years ago modified the plans as requested by the city.
It's for a Hampton Inn, not some sort of 'funky' hotel.
They are not asking the city for a dime of money.
It's going to be next to a Meijer on Route 59, not much residential near by.
It's on the edge of town
Most people would think, new tax revenue, construction spending in this economy cool...
Well that would not be what the city of Aurora would think.....
Instead the City Council feels that they need to be the Hotel Facilities Board, here is some of the comments from the last committee of the whole meeting taken from the Beacon News
But Aurora's own studies show that demand for hotel rooms in the city has dwindled below zero, and some aldermen are concerned that any new hotel might mean trouble for those currently operating.
So they don't want to add a new hotel because the competition might be bad for existing hotels? Wow, what a benevolent government we have in Aurora that is willing to work to protect those businesses that are already in town by preventing competition. Is that the role of government? To protect existing business in town by preventing competition within town? Last time I checked we don't have a planned economy in Aurora. I am looking forward to the city preventing the addition of any more used car lots, tattoo parlors and Mexican restaurants since we have plenty of those and any new ones might take business away from the existing ones.
Oh yeah Tavern on the Fox closed shortly after Ballydoyle opened...
Alderman Rick Mervine, 8th Ward, said hotel buildings are notoriously difficult to repurpose, and his concern is creating more blight that the city would have to clean up. He said many hotels in Aurora have already gone out of business or been bought by lesser companies than they were approved under, and he doesn't want to see that happen again.
It's a clever new development policy; because you may not succeed we are just going to help you avoid the risk entirely. What a brilliant strategy, fortunately we have a downtown filled with buildings that we have been able to repurpose for city offices at street level as well as tattoo parlors.
We have a host of other buildings that we have been able to repurpose into used car lots!
