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* Kristen McQueary has a must-read column today on new congressional candidate Martin Ozinga III. She includes his bigtime contributions to Gov. Blagojevich’s campaign fund and details even more…
Ozinga has opened his checkbook for gubernatorial candidates, Chicago aldermen, Mayor Richard Daley, Metropolitan Water Reclamation District officials and city ward organizations.
His company, Ozinga Bros., holds a lucrative and powerful position as the sole provider of concrete for city of Chicago projects. He’s handled the big kahunas: Sox park, Soldier Field and the reconstruction of the Dan Ryan, sending his red-and-white striped trucks to pour ready-made cement wherever needed.
* McQueary then asks whether someone who plays in that sandbox can stay clean. Ozinga replied that he and his family have longtime personal associations with Mayor Daley, and adds…
“He knows we’re Republicans from the south suburbs. Maybe because he knows that, our experience with the city of Chicago has always been straightforward, very professional, regulated and aboveboard. That’s the simple story.”
* Kristen concludes…
After 40 minutes, I wasn’t entirely convinced. For railing against the system, Ozinga is doing pretty well within it, running a multimillion-dollar company and befriending politicians on the charity and fundraising circuit.
But she also looks at the positive side. Go read the whole thing.
posted by Rich Miller
Friday, May 2, 08 @ 9:22 am
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Pingback by Southtown paper covers Ozinga’s close ties to Chicago Machine « Illinois Reason Friday, May 2, 08 @ 10:03 am
Something tells me that, with Illinois’ junior Senator at the top of the ticket, the DCCC will be hesitant to imply that simply having ties to Chicago’s political establishment is reason enough to suspect someone of not being “clean.”
Comment by grand old partisan Friday, May 2, 08 @ 10:28 am
It is a generational thing, isn’t it?
If you were part of the WWII crowd, you valued businesspeople and were usually a part of the civic fabric. You were a Mason, or an active church member, or the Lions, Elks, Moose and worked within civic groups. These folks didn’t question having businesspeople in governments.
But the Boomer generation seems to view businesspeople differently. I don’t know why but a lot of folks in this generation are cynical. Although they surround themselves in material wealth derived from businesses, Boomers often see businesspeople as selfish greedy heartless profit mongers. For some reason many voters oppose allowing businesspeople in government.
This is still the case today. Ozinga is a successful businessman and this causes some to automatically suspect that he is only interested in Office because he will get rich doing it. The idea that Ozinga may wish to continue the voluntary and charitable work he and his family has been doing by serving in Congress isn’t recognized. It is all class focused.
It is healthy to be skeptical, but unhealthy to be cynical. It is good to investigate as to whether Ozinga abused minority business mandates. This was done and any flagrant violations were not found. Yet the political discrimination against businesspeople still causes the DCCC to raise unproven charges as ‘questions’. Bull!
Look at today’s governments. They are gridlocked. It is common sense to put people in office with experience in getting things done instead of keeping the gridlockers in office. Rewarding the current officeholders with salary increases and job security will not fix our problems.
It is time to stop bashing businesspeople willing to run for office. I wouldn’t bash pastors, lawyers or anyone else willing to endure a campaign, so lets open our minds and start thinking differently. Our problems are with the current group of politicians gridlocking our state. One of the biggest is Ozinga’s opponent who will play on the prejudices against businesspeople. We can’t let her get away with it.
Comment by VanillaMan Friday, May 2, 08 @ 10:32 am
This paragraph from the story says it all to me.
=====Ozinga organized Metro Mix as a corporate not-for-profit group with his church friends holding a 51 percent share and Ozinga Bros. holding a 49 percent share in order to meet the city’s requirements. At the time, Ozinga Bros. was doing well financially but was missing out on certain jobs. Although he rejects philosophically the premise of minority set-asides, he wanted to play ball.=======
In order to meet the city requirments?? Because he wanted to play ball?? If he was that alturistic(sp?)he wouldn’t be setting up a company that he ends up owning 49% of. Those types of companies are obviously set up to advantage of the system. Maybe a 10% stake or just doing business with a 100% minority owned business would make me believe him. Doing it get your portion of the work that is set aside for minorities is a sham. He wanted his cake and eat it too.
Comment by Been There Friday, May 2, 08 @ 10:54 am
So you believe businesspeople have to prove that they are willing to run not-for-profit organizations in order to believe that they care about people, right?
You obviously never ran a business.
Comment by VanillaMan Friday, May 2, 08 @ 11:09 am
VM,
I’ve not yet read one article about Ozinga that criticizes him for being a businessman. He’s mainly being criticized for political donations. Now whether those donations were out of friendship or there was a business angle to the donations no one knows except Ozinga.
Comment by cermak_rd Friday, May 2, 08 @ 11:13 am
Those are some pretty sweet contracts. The dude’s a player.
I don’t live in the district, and I have no ax to grind with either Ozinga or Halvorsen. They both strike me as establishment players claiming to run against the establishment. Oldest game plan in the book.
Comment by wordslinger Friday, May 2, 08 @ 12:03 pm
What’s the deal, couldn’t the IL GOP find a guy with bigger contributions to Blago to slate? I guess Rezko was unavailable. What a joke.
Add another rich puffy white guy to the list of GOP Cong. candidates going down in flames in six months.
Comment by GOP'er Friday, May 2, 08 @ 12:47 pm
No one has criticized Ozinga for getting or being rich. And no one has suggested he’s running for Congress to get rich (he’s plenty rich now).
But come on. He made the choice to play the game and to get rich by playing the game. And now that he’s made the choice to be a candidate for public office, that’s fair game.
And he may well be right that the minority set-aside program doesn’t work, but it is an ironic statement, given that part of the reason it doesn’t work is because non-minority front businesses manipulate it -legally or not.
Comment by JonShibleyFan Friday, May 2, 08 @ 5:05 pm
VM,
You don’t need to run a not for profit to care about people. But to say you are doing something because you care about people but then you are also going to profit handsomely from the business is bs. I have run a business before. As a matter of fact I had clients that participated as minority enterprises. I made money off of them but I am not running around saying I did it because I was such a great guy. But the clients I had actually had total control of their businesses. Which is the point of the programs.
Comment by Been There Friday, May 2, 08 @ 5:20 pm