Latest Post | Last 10 Posts | Archives
Previous Post: Question of the day
Next Post: Joe Walsh’s support explained?
Posted in:
*** UPDATE *** I can’t believe I forgot to post Mark Brown’s column here. The whole idea for this post came to me when I read his piece about the new Starz series “Boss” starring Kelsey Grammer as a Chicago mayor…
The scene is shot in the actual City Council chambers, which unfortunately may be its only brush with reality.
At one point, Mayor Kane becomes so frustrated with the City Council refusing to go along with him on a particularly outlandish scheme that he clears the chambers of the press and public, shuts off the lights (and presumably the sound system) in the upstairs gallery and decrees:
“Hand over the hardware. Laptops, BlackBerries, phones, iPads. All of it. No word in, no word out. No Twitter. No Facebook. Nothing.”
Mayor Kane goes on to tell the aldermen they will stay there until they vote his way, and if they don’t, he’ll make their votes public. The aldermen grumble, then throw their electronic devices into a box as ordered, but still refuse to vote with the mayor.
Somebody has got to be kidding.
That could happen in the General Assembly, because the Legislature is exempt from the Open Meetings Act. Something similar has actually happened, although it wasn’t done to strongarm members. But there’s no way a Chicago mayor could get away with pulling a stunt like that. And, as Brown points out in his column, there’s almost no way a Chicago mayor would ever need to do something like that.
* Gov. Pat Quinn’s administration has found an interesting way of getting around Freedom of Information Requests: Don’t keep records in the first place…
Hundreds of people saw Lady Antebellum, M.C. Hammer, Jason Aldean and other recording artists at the Illinois State Fair this year for free, courtesy of the governor’s office and the Department of Agriculture. But those agencies did not keep records of who received the tickets.
The state gave out 1,997 tickets, valued at from about $10 to $40, with the majority of them going to television and radio stations for promotional purposes to dole out to listeners and viewers. The governor’s office, the Department of Agriculture and the state fair received their own allotment of 654 tickets. The State Journal-Register filed a Freedom of Information Act request for information on who received the tickets.
* What’s next, a dispute over the shape of the table? Sheesh…
With every passing hour, the meeting between Chicago Public Schools officials and the Chicago Teachers Union to discuss longer school days appears less likely.
Last week, CTU President Karen Lewis had said she and her union officers were ready to talk about the district’s controversial plan, but suggested union headquarters as a meeting location.
CPS countered by suggesting the two parties meet at a school that has chosen to add 90 minutes to its school day.
And since then, the talks have stalled.
* Bad timing all around? Steve Stevlic has resigned as Chicago Tea Party director after it came out that he’d been busted last year for soliciting a prostitute. But according to a rival tea party group, Stevlic ought to also resign from the IPI…
Mr. Stevlic, of the 6800 block of West Cermak Rd in Berwyn, was removed from our tea party two years ago for inappropriate behavior towards a female tea party member. We never worked with him or his group and never will.
We also strongly suggest to all affiliated groups and organizations that support Steve Stevlic to stand him down. In particular, we suggest that John Tillman of the Illinois Policy Institute, where Stevan Stevlic, 36, was hired as an employee last week, fire him. We also demand, as tea partiers, that Steve Stevlic resign from his position and resign today. We just cannot afford him!
Actually, Stevlic is already gone. He resigned from IPI right after the revelations hit the media.
* An errant fax provides some insight into how things are done in St. Clair County…
St. Clair County Sheriff’s Department records clerk Joann Reed wanted a speeding ticket for the son of a deputy dismissed, but she didn’t go to a judge or jury in traffic court.
Instead, Reed faxed a copy of the Centreville Police Department’s ticket from the Sheriff’s Department’s fax machine to Centreville village attorney Carmen Durso, with a handwritten message: “Dismiss this case.”
The problem is, she didn’t fax the ticket to Durso. Reed accidentally faxed it to the News-Democrat’s newsroom.
Oops.
* This is just way too much power concentrated in one alderman’s hands…
Mayor Rahm Emanuel and Ald. Edward M. Burke (14th), chairman of the City Council’s Finance Committee, have agreed to work together to wring $15 million in savings out of the city’s $100-a-year million tab for workers compensation. […]
Burke, who has sole authority to process and settle workers compensation claims and handpick attorneys when claims are challenged, has agreed to more aggressively investigate and manage individual cases.
* Some of us wondered why Chicago’s Census effort was so mangled…
Illinois Secretary of State Jesse White’s Securities Department temporarily has revoked the securities license of Alvin Boutte Jr. after concluding that the Chicago municipal finance banker acted improperly in advising the agency that runs the state’s prepaid tuition program to invest $12.8 million in now-failed community lender ShoreBank Corp.
Mr. Boutte — a board member of the Illinois Sports Facilities Authority and recent co-chairman of a committee appointed by then-Mayor Richard M. Daley to provide a total count of the city’s population for the U.S. census — performed the “due diligence” review on behalf of the Illinois Student Assistance Commission for its investment in ShoreBank in late 2008. That investment was wiped out when ShoreBank failed in August 2010.
In its Oct. 3 order barring Mr. Boutte from offering or selling securities or providing investment advice, the Securities Department said Mr. Boutte misrepresented facts ISAC should have known before agreeing to invest and acted both as an adviser to ISAC and as a representative for ShoreBank in soliciting investors.
* This is such a typical Daley move…
In March 2004, then-Mayor Richard M. Daley announced a deal that promised to save taxpayer money, reduce natural gas consumption and bring “green” jobs to Chicago.
But taxpayers might see red when they learn how the deal turned out. More than seven years later, the initiative has been quietly suspended amid problems with some of the equipment — and acknowledgements by city officials that taxpayers will probably lose money on the deal and never realize the energy savings that Daley touted, the Better Government Association has learned. […]
In the end, the BGA found that one of the few beneficiaries of the deal appears to be a businessman with close ties to Daley: United Service Cos. President and CEO Rick Simon, the former chairman of the Chicago Convention & Tourism Bureau and a South Loop neighbor of the ex-mayor.
* And, of course, so is this…
Former Mayor Richard M. Daley on Monday denounced as “disgraceful” and a “personal insult to my wife” an internal audit concluding that recipients of city subsidies were told to donate to Maggie Daley’s After School Matters program.
The former mayor insisted that no arms were ever twisted to produce donations to the charity that his wife founded to occupy and educate Chicago teenagers. […]
Last week, Ferguson charged that After School Matters received $915,000 in contributions over a ten-year period from companies that received tax-increment-financing subsidies from the city.
TIF recipients interviewed by Ferguson’s investigators reported that, in the vast majority of cases, the charities were “unilaterally chosen” by the city with no specific standards for making those decisions.
* Related…
* Double-dipping in the teachers’ pension system: Michael Johnson didn’t wait until he retired as executive director of the Illinois Association of School Boards to start cashing in on his public pension. Johnson earned $324,785 in compensation from the Illinois Association of School Boards, or IASB, while simultaneously collecting $209,379.43 from the Illinois Teachers’ Retirement System between July 1, 2007, and July 1, 2008, according to documents obtained by Illinois Statehouse News.
* Union leaders pull down millions in public pensions: Former employees of the National Education Association, or NEA, Illinois Education Association, or IEA, Illinois Federation of Teachers, or IFT, and Illinois Association of School Boards, or IASB, drawing pensions have collected more than $47 million from the Illinois Teachers’ Retirement System, or TRS, to date.
* Feds investigating Cicero personnel practices: Federal authorities have interviewed dozens of current and former employees of the Town of Cicero, some under subpoena, as part of a wide-ranging investigation into the town’s personnel practices, the Chicago Sun-Times has learned. The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, along with the U.S. Department of Justice, is conducting the investigation to determine whether to file a federal lawsuit against Cicero. Over the last three decades, the federal government has sued the town repeatedly over its hiring practices and alleged discrimination, but this investigation specifically targets practices under Town President Larry Dominick.
* Evans steps down as Country Club Hills police chief
* County commissioners violated Open Meetings Act
posted by Rich Miller
Tuesday, Oct 11, 11 @ 1:56 pm
Sorry, comments are closed at this time.
Previous Post: Question of the day
Next Post: Joe Walsh’s support explained?
WordPress Mobile Edition available at alexking.org.
powered by WordPress.
After School Matters is a wonderful program and Mrs. Daley has done a wonderful job promoting it. OTOH, someone strong-armed those TIF Recipients. It just wasn’t her.
Comment by Cheryl44 Tuesday, Oct 11, 11 @ 2:26 pm
–In the end, the BGA found that one of the few beneficiaries of the deal appears to be a businessman with close ties to Daley: United Service Cos. President and CEO Rick Simon, the former chairman of the Chicago Convention & Tourism Bureau and a South Loop neighbor of the ex-mayor.–
Interesting friends, Daley has.
Simon’s an interesting character, to say the least. Former cop, former Chief Inspector at the Cook County Sheriff’s Department under O’Grady, also had or has a piece of Harry Caray’s on Dearborn.
Google “Richard Simon, Bill Hogan, Teamsters” and you’ll find loads of articles on his involvement in a hinky deal in Las Vegas that got Hogan banned from the Teamsters for life.
Google “Richard Simon, Ben Stein” and you’ll run across a couple of articles that will curl your toes.
Comment by wordslinger Tuesday, Oct 11, 11 @ 2:35 pm
Cheryl44 — Nobody said it was her. Classic red herring approach by the former Mayor Daley. Try to distract people from the point by changing the subject and going on the offensive. And suggest that the honest IG bringing the bad news to light did something unfair by misstating what he did.
The key questions here are which City employees insisted on the inclusion of ASM, did they expect or receive any benefit for it, and did the former Mayor know about it? My guess is that it may well have been the idea of folks who were doing what they thought the Boss wanted, without his knowledge. I’m curious to see if there will be more coming out about this topic.
Comment by Anonymour Tuesday, Oct 11, 11 @ 2:36 pm
I notice Emanuel has used some of these tricks as well what with the “I dunno nuttin bout no Solyndra” stuff. Wow, we sure do pick ‘em here in Illinois, don’t we?
Attack the story if the source is legit, Attack the source if the story is legit. If the story and the source are legit - attack, attack, attack.
Comment by dupage dan Tuesday, Oct 11, 11 @ 2:41 pm
There are so many anomalies in all of the above items Rich has pointed out, it makes my head swim…
Comment by Cincinnatus Tuesday, Oct 11, 11 @ 2:42 pm
Really? We care about free tickets to the Grandstand at the State Fair because? Do newspapers have nothing better to do with their time than looking for these “gotcha” moments in government. Please.
Comment by Demoralized Tuesday, Oct 11, 11 @ 3:06 pm
Daley claims a legitimate investigation that meticulously avoided mentioning Maggie Daley personally is a personal insult to her. Who couldn’t see that coming!
Comment by Chicago Cynic Tuesday, Oct 11, 11 @ 3:31 pm
well, at least that Playboy Club show is done for. they actually had a bribe delivered to RJDaley, and then showed Sis driving the bribe, a car, and both she and the Mayor going to the Playboy club. the show was totally silly.
Comment by amalia Tuesday, Oct 11, 11 @ 3:33 pm
I think it will be interesting to see what happens with the level of personal contributions to ASM now that Daley isn’t mayor anymore. You have to assume that lobbyists, etc. were making contributions to the organization to get around pesky campaign finance laws…Again, not to say that ASM isn’t a good program. It is nationally known and duplicated throughout the country. But that doesn’t change the fact that there may have been some shady dealings going on. In fact, that is what may end up hurting this valuable program.
Comment by Seriously??? Tuesday, Oct 11, 11 @ 4:08 pm
Really? We care about free tickets to the Grandstand at the State Fair because? Do Demoralized, “newspapers have nothing better to do with their time than looking for these “gotcha” moments in government.”
The reason papers do these stories is because that’s what people want to read. If they don’t care about gotcha journalism they’d stop buying the newspaper — oh, wait a minute…
Comment by ready, set, go Tuesday, Oct 11, 11 @ 4:19 pm
At least it is journalism… Beacon ran a story about how casino revenues were down at most casinos vs a year ago but they were up a bit a Hollywood Joliet, failing to point out that in Sep 2010 Hollywood was dealing with fire aftermath so it would have been likely attendance was just down due to that.
Also don’t forget sometimes people ask for information and find nothing, but it is still good to ask. If for example they gave out thousands of tickets to boost numbers for specific shows that would be news.
However the lack of detail on data can in fact be news in and off it’s self.
Comment by OneMan Tuesday, Oct 11, 11 @ 4:25 pm
While I agree that the state fair freebie thing isn’t the biggest story in the world, it is a bit disconcerting to me that the administration would not keep records. This is a break from the past.
Comment by Rich Miller Tuesday, Oct 11, 11 @ 4:26 pm
Wait Rich, that can’t be right — not keeping public records? I can’t imagine Jay Stewart (he of the BGA) would stand for that in this administration.
Much easier to throw the bombs then catch ‘em, boys.
Comment by ready, set, go Tuesday, Oct 11, 11 @ 4:34 pm
Anonymour, I was just trying to point out that Ritchie Daley is a wordRichwouldn’tlike to try to drag Maggie into this.
And I really do hope this doesn’t end up compromising the work ASM does.
Comment by Cheryl44 Tuesday, Oct 11, 11 @ 5:00 pm
Point taken, Rich.
Comment by Demoralized Tuesday, Oct 11, 11 @ 5:28 pm