Capitol Fax.com - Your Illinois News Radar » 2011

Thursday, Feb 3, 2011 - Posted by Rich Miller

* Former Streets and San boss Al Sanchez was looking at 12-15 years in prison, but got 30 months instead. And he wasn’t exactly silent today…

His lawyer also pointed to “the white elephant in the room,” which was that the hiring scheme was set up by other people at City Hall, not his client.

When Sanchez was later asked to whom his lawyer was referring, he said: “probably Mayor Daley.”

Just one more knock on Daley in a week of hard knocks.

* Sanchez also claimed the problems on Lake Shore Drive Tuesday night wouldn’t have happened under his watch…

Sanchez’s lawyers had argued a sentence of no time in prison was appropriate.

“I asked Al this morning: ‘Did you ever shut down Outer Drive?’ He said: ‘No,’” attorney Thomas Breen said of Sanchez’s tenure as Streets and Sanitation chief. “He had a plan that kept the Outer Drive open all the time.”

An agitated Sanchez spoke to the judge, saying he had to get things off his chest. He said his goal wasn’t to amass a political army by leveraging city jobs.

“I’m going to have to be able to keep Lake Shore Drive open” and keep the side streets clear of snow. “That was my goal,” not a political organization, he said.

* Meanwhile, Mayor Daley was back to his usual nonsensical self…

Mayor Richard Daley today said he didn’t speak publicly Wednesday during the blizzard because he trusted his aides to inform the public.

“This is not a Daley show,” the mayor said at a news conference. “Each one of these people speak for me.”

Pressed later why he allowed staff to be front-and-center, Daley offered an apology of sorts while laughing.

“One day. I’m sorry, I love you. [But not all of you were here, either.] Let’s be realistic,” Daley said.

…Adding… Daley Q&A with reporters…

14 Comments

Caption Contest!

Thursday, Feb 3, 2011 - Posted by Rich Miller

* Yes, that would be Rahm Emanuel pushing a police car…

69 Comments

Question of the day

Thursday, Feb 3, 2011 - Posted by Rich Miller

* Let’s go the post-blizzard route: What does your neighborhood and drive to work look like today? Any big problems? Explain.

78 Comments

Wacky legislators

Thursday, Feb 3, 2011 - Posted by Rich Miller

* State Sen. Shane Cultra was interviewed by the East Peoria Times Courier the other day…

[Last] Thursday the Illinois Department of employment Security announced the unemployment rate dropped in the Peoria metro area in December. That continued a trend of declining jobless numbers through 2010.

December unemployment rates fell in every Illinois county for the first time since 1974, according to the state.

Cultra said he was unaware of that news. He said he found that hard to believe

Reality is reality, Senator. Try it sometime. You might like it.

* US Sen. Mark Kirk has gone completely political…

Another Republican blasted from both sides of the spectrum for his record on emissions, Sen. Mark Kirk of Illinois, said he is “not terribly concerned” about taking heat from green groups for his criticism of EPA action on carbon emissions.

“The consensus behind the climate change bill collapsed and then further deteriorated with the personal and political collapse of Vice President [Al] Gore,” Kirk said in a brief interview last week.

So, apparently, the merits of the issue don’t matter to Kirk because Al Gore got in trouble with a “massage therapist.” Thoughtful guy, that.

* State Rep. Mary Flowers wants to create a new state agency…

Flowers has introduced House Bill 104, which would create the Department of Minority and Women Inclusion. The new agency would be in charge of equal employment opportunity in the executive branch, as well as ensuring against racial or gender disparities in state contract awards.

Flowers said the bill will help cut state spending even though a new agency would be created.

Um, OK. I don’t get how this cuts state spending at all.

* Related…

* Reagan day in Illinois proposed: A resolution recently introduced in the state House would have designated Sunday as Ronald Reagan day in Illinois. But state Rep. Jerry Mitchell, R-Sterling, who sponsored the resolution, said it probably won’t go anywhere because the House session was canceled this week due to the blizzard hitting the Midwest. The resolution would have been a “one-time thing,” he said.

* New Beginning for 20 Illinois Representatives: State Rep. Kelly Burke (D-Evergreen Park) has experience as an attorney and also in higher education. What’s more, “I was the president of our local library board, so I have a little local government experience – experience with literacy, things like that.”

* More legislators agree to suspend scholarships

* State Representative Cole Offers General Assembly Scholarships

* Maloney wants home schoolers to register with the State

* Brewer licensing on tap for Illinois legislature

* DeKalb County looks for new treasurer after Johnson heads to Ill. Senate: “The county cannot be without a treasurer, even for a second,” Anderson said.

47 Comments

Not much of a visionary

Thursday, Feb 3, 2011 - Posted by Rich Miller

* Banking analyst Meredith Whitney boldly predicted “50 to 100 sizable defaults” by states and municipalities amounting to “hundreds of billions of dollars” when she was on 60 Minutes in December. The prediction set off a firestorm, with billions withdrawn from muni funds since then. But as I told subscribers yesterday, Bloomberg News has completely undercut Whitney’s claims by using her own research.

The news service got ahold of a copy of Meredith’s publication (annual subscription rate: $100,000) upon which her claims to 60 Minutes were based…

A copy of the 43-page report obtained since then doesn’t mention sizable defaults amounting to hundreds of billions of dollars. A person who has seen a long addendum that profiles the 15 top states said that the longer portion doesn’t, either.

“We are not calling for any specific defaults within the scope of this report,” the document says on page 42. An opening summary says there will “invariably” be local defaults, without elaborating. […]

Her report, on page 2, says “debt service at the state level is not something we believe is at risk” [Emphasis added]

* 60 Minutes billed Whitney as a visionary, but her record is unimpressive…

Bloomberg News reported in October that about two-thirds of her stock picks since starting her company in 2009 had fared worse than market indexes. Visa Inc. fell 14 percent after she called it her “single best buy,” and Capital One Financial Corp. tripled after she urged clients to sell.

She was also far from the first bank analyst to predict doom for Citigroup, contrary to the 60 Minutes profile.

In other words, move along, nothing to see here.

31 Comments

Snowpocalypse Roundup

Thursday, Feb 3, 2011 - Posted by Rich Miller

* This little-discussed factoid is getting lost in the mega-uproar about the thousand or so cars stranded on Lake Shore Drive Tuesday night…

Though some people were stuck in their cars as late as 3:30 a.m., officials said most of those people were drivers reluctant to abandon their cars until firefighters ordered them to do so.

One can only wonder how many times those stubborn dolts were offered assistance before they had to be ordered out of their precious automobiles by cold, exhausted firefighters. That’s time which could’ve been far better spent helping others truly in need.

Only a fraction of the thousands of cars on LSD Tuesday night actually got stuck, and nobody was seriously hurt. Closing the Drive early would have undoubtedly caused nightmarish problems on arterial roads. We don’t know if the situation would’ve been worse, but those same cars would’ve been much more spread out than they were Tuesday, and, therefore, more difficult to reach…

“The question was do we eliminate Lake Shore Drive as an option, which would’ve essentially diverted thousands of drivers onto other roads”, [Mayor Daley’s chief of staff Raymond Orozco] pointed out. He says that would’ve created even more traffic and dangerous travel conditions on other city streets.

* Apparently, the guy in charge Tuesday was not Mayor Daley but hizzoner’s chief of staff, who was quickly fed to the angry hordes yesterday…

Aware of the complaints, Orozco took full responsibility for the timing of the Drive shutdown and apologized to the hundreds of motorists who were inconvenienced.

Still, Orozco said he made “the right decision” in waiting until nearly 8 p.m. to close the road. He said he weighed the effect of diverting traffic off Lake Shore Drive sooner and concluded the city would be safer without thousands of cars spilling onto local roads.

“In a storm of this magnitude there is no way to predict from minute to minute what problems may arise,” Orozco said. “But what we know at this time is no serious injuries or loss of life [happened] based upon the option that I chose during what was called a life-threatening storm.

“What we believe is we obtained the best possible outcome.”

But that won’t stop the political recriminations…

“If reports that Mayor Daley was not involved in the actual decision making on the city’s response are true, that’s a disappointment, ”Carol Moseley Braun said through a spokeswoman.

A spokeswoman for Gery Chico said he believed there would be time later to play the role of “Monday morning quarterback.” Instead, Chico saluted the courage of city workers who responded to the weather emergency, especially police, paramedics and firefighters. Their unions, by coincidence, have all endorsed Chico. […]

Referring to the now internationally-notorious traffic mess along the lakefront, Emanuel said in a written statement: “We need to get to the bottom of what happened last night on Lake Shore Drive — with hundreds of passengers stranded for hours, it’s clear that there were mistakes made that we can never let happen again. And we need a comprehensive review to determine what went wrong and what went right throughout the city.”

Lake Shore Drive has been reopened, by the way

* The cost to the city’s budget is going to be astronomical. $100 million is the number being tossed around…

The last time the city implemented Phase 4 of its snow plan — by calling out private contractors to assist with snow removal — it boosted the total storm tab to a whopping $77 million.

For that 1999 storm, Daley requested federal disaster assistance, as he did again this week. Back then, he was ultimately forced to raise an array of taxes, blaming at least some of it on the snow.

This time, the tab is likely to approach $100 million. The next mayor is already facing a structural deficit in the $1 billion range when pension obligations are factored in. Daley managed to hold the line on taxes in his final budget, only after draining all but $76 million from the 75-year, $1.15 billion lease that privatized Chicago parking meters.

And that’s just for Chicago. Lots of suburban and Downstate communities are gonna be in much worse fiscal shape by the time this thing is over.

* More stuff…

* Next problem: Where to put all that snow - Municipalities scramble to find acceptable dumping sites

* How about the side streets? City officials say “as soon as possible”

* Airports dig out; CPS to close 2nd day

* Snow prevents area’s mail delivery

* National Guard mobilized to help stranded motorists

* Counties declare state of emergency

* Video: Chopper footage of Lake Shore Drive

* Blizzard’s gone, bitter cold is in

* Plowing ahead: Road crews weary after massive storm effort

* Editor’s snow hero: CTA bus driver

* VIDEO: Mary Ann Ahern describes her experience of being on Lake Shore Drive when Mother Nature got angry.

* Hospitals low on blood: ‘We just need people to give if they can give’

* Riding along
with Illinois National Guard

* Tips from Ameren on electricity, gas and weather

* Brown: Still, I get tired of the scapegoating. Maybe this one time we could just figure out what went wrong and how to avoid the same problem in the future without insisting that somebody take the fall. This was clearly a unique weather situation.

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