Under the bus he goes
Thursday, May 8, 2014 - Posted by Rich Miller
* AP…
One of the people behind Gov. Pat Quinn’s troubled anti-violence program is now heading a new initiative to reduce Chicago violence that’s backed by major businesses and Mayor Rahm Emanuel.
The Chicago Sun-Times reports that Toni Irving was a deputy chief of staff for Quinn when his Neighborhood Recovery Initiative was formed in 2010. […]
She told the newspaper she had no role in implementing Quinn’s program, but the newspaper says she chose grant recipients.
The Sun-Times reports that Irving helped steer the choice of the Chicago Area Project as “the main conduit for state anti-violence grants in West Garfield Park.” CAP then hired Dorothy Brown’s husband.
* There’s an interesting little political development in the Sun-Times story as well. Mayor Emanuel kinda threw Gov. Quinn under the bus…
At an unrelated news conference Wednesday, Emanuel sought to distinguish Get In Chicago from Quinn’s troubled Neighborhood Recovery Initiative, which was launched during the governor’s closely contested campaign in 2010. Republican critics have blasted the Quinn initiative as a political “slush fund” created to generate support for Quinn.
“First of all, this is private money. Totally different,” Emanuel said.
“If you were doing it only one-year and around the campaign season, I understand why people would get cynical. But given that it’s also in the years that there is no campaign, but it’s about safety, I would say look at the consistency over the four-year time.”
- Just Me - Thursday, May 8, 14 @ 10:16 am:
(She goes…)
- Walker - Thursday, May 8, 14 @ 10:21 am:
Who cares who helped select Neighborhood Recovery for a grant? More distraction.
They aren’t the big eels in this slime, if slime is to be found.
Remember, they account for maybe $3K out of $54Million.
- Tom B. - Thursday, May 8, 14 @ 10:24 am:
No he didn’t. You didn’t hear the reporters question, which I’m POSITIVE, was cynical (It’s the chicago press corps after all). Rahm let himself slip into election analyst there for a moment, and it sounds like he just repeated back a “I get why you asked that question” and then talked about the differences between the two.
- Aldyth - Thursday, May 8, 14 @ 10:35 am:
There are an amazing number of buses and people to be thrown under them.
- Abe the Babe - Thursday, May 8, 14 @ 10:35 am:
==Rahm let himself slip into election analyst there for a moment, and it sounds like he just repeated back a “I get why you asked that question” and then talked about the differences between the two.==
He’s not a political neophyte. He knew what he was doing.
- MrJM - Thursday, May 8, 14 @ 10:37 am:
“You’re gonna need a bigger bus.”
– MrJM
- Soccermom - Thursday, May 8, 14 @ 11:17 am:
Yeah, I don’t think the “Rahm accidentally let something slip to a crafty reporter” scenario is likely.
- Walter Mitty - Thursday, May 8, 14 @ 11:36 am:
Rahm smells PQ’s blood in the water….I was wondering when the D’s would distance themselves from PQ…. If the trickles continue… Rahm will not be alone…
- courtclerk - Thursday, May 8, 14 @ 12:03 pm:
The cycle of abuse wont end til those in power have less power,with more checks and balances elephant or donkey! Amazing to me that it took this long to be exposed…
- roscoe tom - Thursday, May 8, 14 @ 1:35 pm:
Dorthy Brown and her husband Benton Cook III are on their way to being Gov. Quinn’s Mr. and Mrs. “Willie Horton”. Probably will not be marching in any parades together.
- Yellow Dog Democrat - Thursday, May 8, 14 @ 4:50 pm:
ouch.
- Yellow Dog Democrat - Thursday, May 8, 14 @ 7:42 pm:
Tom B.:
“I read the auditor’s report of the governor’s thing,…We have a much more highly focused, comprehensive, measurement-based approach. We’re trying to reduce violence. It’s the right way to allocate money. There is no political influence.”
- Tom Wilson, CEO, Allstate
- please - Thursday, May 8, 14 @ 11:03 pm:
Yellow Dog, please. Tom Wilson is a big Rauner donor and fellow member of billionaire’s club. Shockingly he doesn’t have kind things to say about Quinn. maybe he doesn’t realize that 10 of the 11 organizations that his own group just funded got $$ through NRI too. #irony