Never a dull moment
Tuesday, Mar 4, 2008 - Posted by Rich Miller
* Yesterday, the Sun-Times reported that the governor’s 2006 promise to help rebuild the fire-ravaged Pilgrim Baptist Church with $1 million in state money was never fulfilled. Instead, the cash went to a private school that took the money and moved somewhere else.
Oops.
Here’s the initial response…
Blagojevich’s administration said last week the allotment to Loop Lab School fulfilled the governor’s pledge to help the church.
But by late Sunday, aware of criticism from lawmakers and church leaders, the administration changed its tune and was scrambling to figure out what exactly had been negotiated between the state and church.
* Then, after the story broke, the governor threw a couple of former staffers under the bus and promised more money…
Blagojevich attributed the $1 million “bureaucratic mix-up” to the work of a couple of ex-staffers and pledged another $1 million –on top of what was erroneously spent — to help the Bronzeville architectural gem recover from a devastating 2006 fire.
* The guv canceled other plans and rushed to a church property to hold a quickie press conference…
‘’I'm as frustrated as you are,” he told reporters at Pilgrim’s satellite worship space at 33rd and Indiana. “I’m angry about those who work for me who allowed this to happen. We’ve identified a couple of people involved, and they no longer work for us, but I think they made an honest mistake.”
Actually, it was the governor who made the mistake. You’d think he’d want to check up on that church, but the promise he made was so 2006. On to the next press pop. Don’t look back or you’ll risk seeing the wreckage.
* Blagojevich said he has no plans to ask that the other million dollars be repaid…
“We have no indication this is not a real program,” Blagojevich said. “They went elsewhere, used the money elsewhere.”
* Yet, nobody even knows whether the school is still functioning…
But aides admit they’re still trying to reach the school’s director. They sent a letter to 318 W. Adams, but when CBS 2 went there, the doorman said the school uses this address, but it’s not open, nor is it operating. We couldn’t find a working number.
So where is the school, and where is the money?
* And the plot thickens…
Public records show the school used the money to buy space on the second floor of a building at 318 W. Adams St.. The seller—who also lent the school $305,000—was Card LLC, a company controlled by John Thomas.
Convicted of federal fraud and money-laundering charges in New York in 2004, Thomas became an undercover FBI mole as part of federal investigations into political corruption and real estate crimes. His role as an informant was revealed six days before the Lab School signed the papers to buy a floor of the 18-story building.
His name, “John Thomas,” was a pseudonym. Thomas, named Bernard Barton, moved to Chicago in 2000. He ran a billboard company and several firms that invested in downtown high-rises or helped other developers obtain bank loans.
His partner in Card LLC, developer Robert Horner, said he and Thomas are selling floors as office condos, and have sold about half the units in the Adams building. Horner confirmed the school bought the entire second floor for roughly $1.3 million in May 2007.
* From last month’s Sun-Times interview of Thomas…
Thomas provided a fly-on-the-wall look inside Rezko’s real estate operations and his desperate attempts to keep his projects afloat.
Sources said Thomas also logged frequent visits to Rezko from Gov. Blagojevich and U.S. Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.). Blagojevich and Obama were among the many politicians for whom Rezko raised campaign cash. Neither has been charged with any wrongdoing.
* One more thing. John Thomas’ lawyer is Jeffrey Steinbeck. Steinbeck is also Stu Levine’s lawyer. Steinbeck is the go-to guy if you want to cut a deal with the feds. He also represented former city treasurer Jim Laski.
You may think Chicago is a big city, but in many ways it’s really a small town.
- Got money? - Tuesday, Mar 4, 08 @ 5:21 am:
Unbelievable, the clowns are running the circus. “We have no indication this is not a real program,” Blagojevich said. “They went elsewhere, used the money elsewhere.”
The way it sounds there is no proof that it is a real program - No one can find them. Where is the accountability. So now we are giving a second million dollars away without asking for the first million dollars back.
- mika - Tuesday, Mar 4, 08 @ 6:31 am:
Rich,
can you tell us who messed this up so badly? who are these former administration people?
- Rich Miller - Tuesday, Mar 4, 08 @ 6:36 am:
mika, the governor messed up. All show and no follow-through. You’d think it might occur to him to check up on the progress of that church. But the election was over and it was out of sight, out of mind.
- David - Tuesday, Mar 4, 08 @ 7:02 am:
Rod is so perfect. Everyone else is terribly flawed, but Rod is perfect.
- Friend of Paula - Tuesday, Mar 4, 08 @ 7:04 am:
Not sure if this is known, but the person we knew as “Paula” passed away last week.
- Macbeth - Tuesday, Mar 4, 08 @ 7:17 am:
It might have been a mistake on the part of state employees, but surely the mistake was prompted by paperwork submitted by the Loop Center. I’ve been around state govt enough to know that you simply don’t fund entities blind. Paperwork is always submitted. It should be a relatively straightforward process to audit the paperwork and see what happened.
My guess is that the workers did make a mistake — but the mistake was made because the state workers were *deliberately* misled (not because the workers simply made bad assumptions or guesses).
- plutocrat03 - Tuesday, Mar 4, 08 @ 7:50 am:
It will be interesting to see the paperwork unwind on this one.
First we have a gift made to a religious organization by the state. Secondly we have a million bucks go to ? by mistake. We now find another unused million bucks in the kitty for the original recipient? I thought the state was broke! Oh well, my bad.
Eerily similar to the Gov’s NIU debacle. How many other cases of using the State’s pocketbook to provide for political needs/cover have we missed?
Who will the connected beneficiaries be in the defunct school? We are smart enough to recognize good old vote buying when we see it as far as the original cash transfer is concerned…..
- Macbeth - Tuesday, Mar 4, 08 @ 8:10 am:
What’s odd is that Blagojevich isn’t demanding the money back. And what’s even odder is that he’s firing staff members (instead of asking for the money back.)
The fact that he’s not asking for the cash back is a huge — huge — red flag. Agencies make mistakes. Funding disbursements are occasionally incorrect. Fine. But why *not* ask for the money back?
The only reason you’d be willing to *not* ask for the refund is because you want the original place to keep it. Even Blagojevich understands that a million dollars is a million dollars.
This one seems very strange.
- Cassandra - Tuesday, Mar 4, 08 @ 8:18 am:
I hope someone follows up on this one until we get the full story.
Again, although the sums are much smaller, we see that state government has money to burn when the
guv wants to wave his money wand. Again, suggesting that the state is awash in money and
most certainly does not need any more of ours.
The Democrats have always been casual about the
nexus between corruption and pervasive waste of taxpayer dollars, such as we see daily in both
Cook County government and Illinois state government. Dems think it’s the way things are done and it’s all in the service of a worthier cause. Plus, they think most of us are too stupid to protest. And, given recent events at both the state and county level, they may be right. Plus, the Republicans are so defunct (except for collecting “campaign contributions” from the truly clueless, that they pose no threat to rampant
government corruption.
- The 'Broken Heart' of Rogers Park - Tuesday, Mar 4, 08 @ 8:28 am:
> You may think Chicago is a big city, but in many ways it’s really a small town.
50 small towns to be exact.
- What can I say? - Tuesday, Mar 4, 08 @ 8:34 am:
With all of the fighting over not having enough money to fund existing programs, how is there 1M just sitting around? I realize to the gov 1M isn’t much, but 1M here and 1M there and pretty soon you’re talking about some real money.
- Truth - Tuesday, Mar 4, 08 @ 8:48 am:
Am I reading this right, Rich? A company owned by the guy who wore a wire for the feds in the Rezko investigation, and claimed to have seen a Rezmar employee hand over cash to a Blagojevich official ultimately ended up with the $1 million in state funds that was supposed to go to that burned out church?
Is that what I’m reading? I hope this doesn’t get me banned, but is it crazy to ask if this was a state sponsored pay-off to a trial witness?
- NimROD - Tuesday, Mar 4, 08 @ 8:49 am:
Does anyone else here think that if the head of a private sector corporation ‘misplaced’ a million dollars that he WOULDN’T be fired? Any CFO or CEO that made such a blunder with less money than this would be formally investigated and, if evidence of malfeasance or fraud was presented, likely prosecuted. Is this just because the expectations are so much lower of our publicly elected officials than of the private sector? I guarantee throwing a couple of subordinates under the bus doesn’t wash in the corporate world - eventually they go directly after the person at the top and make them responsible.
This is the guy we put in charge to determine how we spend 50+ billion dollars each year?
One final thought: Having the General Assembly hold hearings and ‘investigate’ the governor is like having Tony Rezko investigate illegal land deals in Chicago.
- OneYearAgoToday - Tuesday, Mar 4, 08 @ 8:52 am:
Rich, if you google Loop Lab School, you can find it pretty easy. Some of the listings are their old address and phone number. But the new info is there.
I don’t know what the mystery is.
- Ghost - Tuesday, Mar 4, 08 @ 8:59 am:
Does he actually identify the employees names? without naming who actually just threw imaginary staffers under the bus
Best quote of the year === Don’t look back or you’ll risk seeing the wreckage ===
Perhapos before we spend another mill on a hostoric project, wrigelkyt field etc, we should release the already promised but never produced money for the school thorugh illinois that have been waiting for their promised capital money for years.
- Macbeth - Tuesday, Mar 4, 08 @ 9:04 am:
And you find this bit of extreme weirdness:
http://64.233.167.104/search?q=cache:NBuxodd
A1usJ:www.state.il.us/ihrc/Decisions/2006_Q3/PDF/
hill_latoya_11707.pdf+loop+lab+school&hl=en&a
mp;ct=clnk&cd=3&gl=us&lr=lang_en&
amp;client=firefox-a
- Wumpus - Tuesday, Mar 4, 08 @ 9:10 am:
Wow, this is amazing! So you are telling me that they simply don’t care about the money? They must have pandered too hard and tripped a little.
Could a $1mil pander blunder help sink/damage Obama’s hopes?
- ex state employee - Tuesday, Mar 4, 08 @ 9:26 am:
This administration is laughable. They can’t do anything right.
- He makes Ryan Look like a Saint - Tuesday, Mar 4, 08 @ 10:09 am:
How can they just have this money laying around? I thought the budget was shot to heck? Someone is losing thier funding so the Gov can hand it out like a birthday present.
How many other things can be tied one way or another to Rezko?
- wordslinger - Tuesday, Mar 4, 08 @ 10:11 am:
You couldn’t make this stuff up. Judging by his recent TV appearances, Rod’s starting to feel the heat. Can you imagine living every day, knowing what Rod knows, that the Justice Department is using your 8×10 glossy as a dart board?
- central illinois - Tuesday, Mar 4, 08 @ 10:39 am:
who in the Blago admin was fired for this?
- Team Sleep - Tuesday, Mar 4, 08 @ 10:44 am:
As a wise old man once told me, “Never promise anything you can’t do.” Government officials and employees who promise the sun and the moon typically rarely - if ever - come through. The governor should stop making promises and start back slowly, such as merely assuring staff he should show up at the office.
- DOWNSTATE - Tuesday, Mar 4, 08 @ 10:46 am:
This gov. and his people is the reason you have the saying “you can’t fix stupid”.Now you see why our state agencies are crumbling at the top tier.
- puzzler - Tuesday, Mar 4, 08 @ 11:13 am:
I work for local government, and in order to get a $25,000 member initiative grant, we had to provide the state with proof that we were a “not-for-profit” entity (because as an Illinois municipality our not-for-profit status was in doubt, I guess), that we didn’t owe the IRS any money (even though we are tax exempt), and provide a, in my opinion, ridiculous amount of paperwork about our organization (remember, we are an Illinois municipality and have been for more than 150 years) and information about the project. We were given half the funding upfront, but were not given the other half until the project was complete and we provided proof of completion. Where’s the paperwork? Where’s the accountability? The only consolation I have is that it could be worse - I could be a STATE employee.
- Sang-anon - Tuesday, Mar 4, 08 @ 11:19 am:
Has anyone asked if the comptroller will issue the check? Grants to religious groups always go to their secular operations like daycare, social services, after school programs.
- North of I-80 - Tuesday, Mar 4, 08 @ 11:28 am:
Which fund/budget did the original $1mill come from?
Which fund/budget will the NEXT $1mill come from?
Legislature approve any of this?
Maybe we should all start up pre-schools…
- Kevin Bacon - Tuesday, Mar 4, 08 @ 12:22 pm:
I think I’m about the only person NOT connected to this web of intrigue ensnaring the Gov, Levine, Rezko, et al somehow.
- Macbeth - Tuesday, Mar 4, 08 @ 1:01 pm:
Is there anything in the state that’s *not* connected to Rezko?
- IncrediblyDumberThanYouThink - Tuesday, Mar 4, 08 @ 2:12 pm:
And you wonder why the Administration uses our nickname as the motto for the 2nd term.
BTW can someone explain why an FBI mole needs a top drawer criminal defense lawyer?
Are the taxpayers paying for this dude too?
- The Mad Hatter - Tuesday, Mar 4, 08 @ 3:08 pm:
Unindicted Official A-Rod may be in over his head on this one, as WBBM Radio reported this morning that well-known atheist Rob Sherman is looking at filing suit against the state for giving taxpayer money to a church. I love a good fight!
Also, Rich, why does the name Chandra Gill, executive director of the Lab School, ring such a bell in my head? Where have I hear that name before?
- FedUp2 - Tuesday, Mar 4, 08 @ 3:42 pm:
Gov Rod granted her clemency for an incident she was involved in at the Uof I in Champaign. Surely he would have remembered that and the fact he gave her $1 mil - oops! You can google and read the article -
You have granted clemency to Ms. Chandra Gill. Ms. Gill and I interviewed with the clemency board at the same time on October 16, 2006.
- Wisdom from the library of PR - Tuesday, Mar 4, 08 @ 6:38 pm:
This is part of an elaborate misinformation plan by the Governor. I have uncovered a secret memo that details the strategy.
His method is to keep making statements and operating government so incredibly stupid and baffling that any reasonable person cannot catch their breath to criticize or condemn his actions. Finally, when the idiotic ideas reach a crescendo all his detractors’ heads will explode and he will be left with a small group of followers. He believes this group will resemble the group left to Flag from the book and movie by Stephen King named the Stand. He is not really as dumb as people believe.
- Rich Miller - Tuesday, Mar 4, 08 @ 6:40 pm:
Huh. Sounds like the Scanners Gambit. lol
- Bookworm - Tuesday, Mar 4, 08 @ 9:26 pm:
Wisdom… I always thought the Stephen King character Blago most resembled was Greg Stillson, the politician in “The Dead Zone,” but maybe he IS closer to Randall Flagg…
- plutocrat03 - Tuesday, Mar 4, 08 @ 9:59 pm:
A quick look at some web sites suggests that this school has 156 students.
1M accidental dollars for a private(!!) school is a lot of money when the public schools are always running short.
Where is the money and who has/spent it will make a good story
- North of I-80 - Tuesday, Mar 4, 08 @ 10:05 pm:
“can someone explain why an FBI mole needs a top drawer criminal defense lawyer”
Don’t know specifics of this case but “moles” or Confidential Informants [or Confidential sources] do their deeds because
1) they are cops & vol or assigned to task,
2) they are working for $$$ + have connection or
3) they are working off charges + have connection.
You might find it hard to believe but frequently, these folks don’t follow instructions correctly, do wrong or “extra” things or do something illegal on the side. Most common in drug cases, they do something very wrong all on their own, putting them in the odd position of being arrested by the cops they’re working for, in the middle of a case.
Could also simply be that the defense atty worked out the agreement between the feds and the mole eg; you get a confession from A, hand us 3 of the conspirators in exchange for 3 of your tax-evasion/fraud charges BY April 1, 2008. You SHALL testify against all charged. If you hand us 1 conspirator, 1 of your felony fraud charges will be reduced to misd etc etc. Def attys work terms out for defendant and serve as go-betweens for cops when defendant vanishes.
- Disgusted - Wednesday, Mar 5, 08 @ 12:17 am:
Truth, what you indicated was the first thing that popped into my head when I read this posting.
It all comes down to Rezko. And the guv was making pilgrimages to his office. What is this Rezko guy anyway, a hypnotist. And why isn’t anyone questioning the number of easterners he put into state government? Betty Davis was probably talking about Illinois when she said, “What a dump!”