Column Wed Nov 04 2009
EDITOR'S NOTE: This story was submitted by journalist Christopher Gray.
The roof leaks and large, brown circles mar the ceiling where the panels aren't missing entirely. People for Community Recovery is used to shabby quarters in the Altgeld Gardens housing project at the southern end of Chicago.
The environmental justice group's small office is crammed with desks and cluttered with papers. People for Community Recovery shares a mostly vacant commercial strip with a liquor store and a fried chicken outlet, set in the middle of a labyrinth of the identical barracks-style row houses of the Chicago Housing Authority project.
But lately, the office has a new feature: electric space heaters — after People's Gas turned off the organization's heat for non-payment.
People for Community Recovery, along with other South Side non-profit organizations, is fighting for its survival as the recession continues to bear down.
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— Andrew Huff /
News Mon Oct 26 2009
In case you missed last week's front page Chicago Tribune story, it looks like Cook County State's Attorney Anita Alvarez and prosecutors are making it hard for a possibly wrongfully convicted man to receive another trial.
Anthony McKinney has spent 31 years in prison for the 1978 shooting and death of a Harvey security officer. He was 18 at the time of the crime. But after more than three years of investigations, students at Northwestern University say they found new evidence that proves his innocence, including a videotaped interview with a key witness recanting the story he told police.
The case was brought to the Center on Wrongful Convictions at the Northwestern Law School's Bluhm Legal Clinic in 2006. And, according to the Trib article, one year ago, the clinic filed a petition on McKinney's behalf so he could receive a new hearing in the Circuit Court of Cook County. The state's attorney agreed that a hearing should be held though no date has been set. But here's the catch--it's one year later, and what is the state's attorney focusing on? Students' grades.
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— Sheila Burt /
Chicago Mon Aug 17 2009
The following is a repost from Mike Fourcher's blog, Vouchification.
The increasingly desperate straits of Chicago's news outlets is already having an impact on what - and how much - news gets covered. More cuts are coming. In the next year we should expect a significant decrease in community and political news coverage in the Chicago area. Small start-up are trying to fill the gaps, but they lack resources and readership to make up the difference.
How is this happening?
Last week I reviewed the financial states of
Creative Loafing, Inc. and the
Sun Times Media Group. Although CLI is suffering, friends from the
Chicago Reader assure me their paper remains profitable - despite CLI's debt. But STMG regulatory and bankruptcy filings seem to show that the
Chicago Sun Times is the major money loser among STMG properties. It seems possible - even likely - that the
Sun Times may not exist in 2010.
Earlier this year the
Chicago Tribune's parent company, the Tribune Company, went into bankruptcy, burdened by $12 billion in debt created by Sam Zell's leveraged buyout of the company. Although
recent news suggests Zell will be muscled out and the company will become the property of creditors - especially Deutche Bank - it seems likely that the new owners will be looking for ways to increase cash, reduce expenses, prepare the company for sale, or dismember it into parts for individual sales.
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— Mike Fourcher /
News Sun Jun 14 2009
The Trib has continued it somewhat breathless coverage of legislative clout and admissions to U of I and at this point I kind of have to ask, where is the story here.
Basically as I understand it, legislators would ask about the status of this candidate or that candidate to the folks U or I had down in Springfield and those folks would follow up with the university. Some students who were asked about would get in, despite not having the credentials of other candidates who were rejected.
I haven't seen anything that said "You know State Senator XYZ said that if Timmy doesn't get into the dental program he was going to push to get our funding cut"...
When people have an issue or concern with an entity of government, who do they often call. Their elected representative, if you are trying to get Grandpa his medals from his military service do you call the VA or do you call your congressman?
Same thing with the state, if you need or are looking for something from the state you are just as likely to try and contact your state rep or state senator as the individual department (if you can figure out what department to contact).
Your elected official will want to help you out because if they can it fundamentally helps them out as well. You are more likely to speak positively of a state rep if they have done something to help you and in turn this will likely help the state rep get re-elected.
Good constituent service can go a long way toward re-election. Poor constituent service is something that gets around very quickly.
So looking at the why a state rep might call and ask about the status of an applicant at the U or I and maybe asking if something could be done. I have a simple question for the Trib.
Have any of your folks ever called U of I asking about the status of a candidate or tried using the clout of the states biggest paper to try to get something to happen?
OneMan
— OneMan /
News Fri Jun 12 2009
I love democracy, don't you? I've been following the Iranian election pitting (primarily) Ahmadinejad (Bush) versus Mousavi (Anybody But Ahmadinejad) pretty closely. It's funny--the conservative Iranian elements are saying similar things to what the most conservative American elements were saying in 2004--the enemy wants the challenger to win because it'll make us weaker and more rife for takeover. A vote for Mousavi (Kerry) is a vote for the Americans (terrorists)! (Please don't construe that as a defense of John Kerry's shitty campaign).
I hope Iranians don't fall prey to fear mongering.
The Guardian (UK) has the best coverage.
5.10pm:
President Obama said that his government was "excited" about the debate surrounding the elections, Reuters report. "Whoever ends up winning, the fact there has been a robust debate hopefully will advance our ability to engage them in new ways," he said.
4.50pm:
Update: Voting has been extended for a third time, Reuters reporters. Polls will now close at 9pm (5.30pmBST).
3.50pm:
Polling time has been extended until 8pm (4.30pmBST) AP confirmed, in another sign of the huge turnout.
3.35pm:
The Ahmadinejad camp claims their man is winning.
"Based on the evaluation of Ahmadinejad's position he is ahead ... with 60% of the votes and we are certain that the election will end in the first round in his favour," Ali Asghar Zarei told Mehr News Agency, according to Reuters.
— Ramsin Canon /
This is a short entry. The arguments about privatization, such as the Parking Meter Fail, often focus on the crumminess of a certain deal's price structure, as if it were some aberration from a basically sound concept.
Over at the IVI-IPO's website, Aviva Patt has posted, in the June 2009 newsletter (click this link to download a PDF; article is at p. 6), a more meta-argument, that privatization not making sense is the rule, not the exception. Patt argues,
Whatever amount of money a private company can earn by operating an airport, toll way, garage or parking meter concession, the government could earn as well. There is no magic creation of additional revenue through privatization.
Patt also suggests why such deals are made if they don't make economic sense for government and raise rates for citizens, saying, "Privatization is not being proposed to cut operational costs of service delivery, but to provide political cover for raising rates, which the Mayor and City Council don't have the courage and honesty to do on their own."
As the revenue crises governments face create more pressure for quick fixes, it's important to discuss the big-picture issues about privatization. As a general rule, I think public services should remain under public control, and that the community is the best guardian of the commons.
It's nice to see the newsletter online, although it would be better if it was in HTML format, and allowed comments. Still, after apparently a three-year gap, IVI-IPO under the chairmanship of Bob Bartell, and with some re-invigoration of boards and committees, continues to make strides toward rebounding as an important civic voice for reform.
Disclosure: I am a former board member and longtime/sometime member of the organization.
— Jeff Smith /
According to Tribune reporter Jeff Coen (author of the wonderful book on the Family Secrets Trial), US Attorney Patrick Fitzgerald's office will be announcing corruption charges against an elected official today at 2 pm. (The Capitol Fax Blog is on it, too, of course).
What kind of Fitzmas present will Fitzgerald be delivering to the public, brilliantly wrapped in indictment paper? We'll find out if it's something we wanted, or just another boring old sweater.
UPDATE: Wrong federal building. Oops. And as I'm sure you've heard by now, it is West Side political boss Ike Carothers (29th-Austin) who was indicted today by the feds, for allegedly accepting cash for a zoning change. Nice, old school Chicago corruption. Here's the indictment. I'll work on pulling out the juicy bits for ya.
UPDATE 2: I'm not an attorney, so I'll stick to the facts; these are the violations cited as the grounds for the indictment: (i) "theft or bribery concerning programs receiving federal funds"; (ii) perpetrating a "fraud or swindle" using an interstate mail service; (iii) perpetrating a "fraud or swindle" using the phone; (v) obstruction of justice by "Influencing or injuring officer or juror generally"; (vi) entering a fraudulent or false statement to the IRS; (vii) and violating congressional campaign contributions in three different ways (including entering a contribution under a different name). These are the things that made the case federal, but the indictment lists a number of state and local laws that were violated, too. The "fraud or swindle" was literally of the citizens of the city; under Section 1346 of the US Code, this definition is provided: "For the purposes of this chapter, the term 'scheme or artifice to defraud' includes a scheme or artifice to deprive another of the intangible right of honest services." This was used in the Blagojevich indictment as well. The argument is that we were defrauded of our intangible right of honest service by this scheming. At least that's my understanding of it. Lawyers?
— Ramsin Canon /
News Thu Apr 09 2009
Last month, we told you about a petition on Facebook that asked Iranian officials to free U.S.-Iranian journalist Roxana Saberi, who has been held in Tehran's Evin prison since January.
Saberi, 31, has ties to the Chicago area. She received a master's degree from Northwestern's Medill School in 1999 and has been reporting in Iran for several news outlets for six years.
Sadly, it looks like she might need more of our help.
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— Sheila Burt /
