* 3:38 pm - Country Club Hills Mayor Dwight Welch is expected to make some announcements about the Chris Kelly case at 4 o’clock. If you can bear to watch it click here for the live CBS2 feed.
* 4:03 pm - And here we go. The mayor is making an opening statement. He mentioned that a talk show host spent 30 minutes on his show last night speculating that Kelly’s death was a homicide. He claims that the death was an apparent suicide.
Thankfully, the mayor is not making the same mistake as Sunday and is turning over the presser to his police chief.
Chief: There appears to be no evidence of foul play. No evidence of involvement by other persons.
Kelly attempted to commit suicide earlier in the week, Tuesday, but once Kelly arrived at Oak Forest Hospital, he convinced his friend that he didn’t need help.
Police believe that Ms. Flores was truthful in her account. Michael Allen removed items from the scene, but turned them over to detectives.
Q: Rat poison ingested? A: Can’t comment on what Kelly ingested. Police did recover an unopened box of rat poison.
The note which was ostensibly written by Kelly was “rambling.”
Kelly took over-the-counter medication during the Tuesday suicide attempt. He was not treated for that attempt.
No indication that Kelly changed his mind about committing suicide after the second attempt.
No signs of any type of surgery to Kelly’s “private parts.”
Kelly told officer at the hospital that he was taking Tylenol for pain.
Q: Is it possible that anybody got drugs or other things to Kelly at either hospital? A: Didn’t look at any type of foul play at the hospital. Investigation dealt with activities leading up to being taken to the hospital. Q: [Reporters are getting weird now] Is there any reason that should be looked into?
Another reporter says “You have to be bothered” by the fact that Kelly seemed OK and then died. This reporter must be reading the Tribune editorial page. Bad move.
“Allegedly the note was written for the Tuesday suicide [attempt].”
Mayor is asked about Terry Gillespie’s comments regarding the mayor’s goofy comments. Mayor won’t apologize. Points to his previous police work.
Looked at several security videos from several businesses. He did, in fact, go to a store in town and purchase some items so that helped our timeline.
Mike Allen didn’t come to Oak Forest hospital until Saturday. The other man “does not wish to be identified,” because he was “only there to help his friend… And I’m going to respect that.” [Once again, if the mayor had just kept his mouth shut and refrained from sowing so much unnecessary speculation and suspicion, this wouldn’t even be an issue.]
No indication that pills were prescriptions. But, pills were turned over to State Police Crime Lab. Multiple pills, different sizes different colors that we couldn’t identify.
One of the Kelly texts: Come and get me, I need help.
I wish I could believe you when you promise “things will be better,” but I don’t. Then again, could they get much worse?
* Dear 19 members of the Cook County Democratic Central Committee,
Did voting “Present” on the roll call to slate Pat Quinn during Friday’s meeting mean you supported nobody or that you supported Dan Hynes’ request that nobody be slated? I only ask because nine voted to slate Hynes. Please, clear that up.
* Dear Rod Blagojevich,
Does everything have to be about you? Do you not realize how absolutely self-centered and moronic it is to issue a press release telling the world you’ll be attending Chris Kelly’s funeral?
* Dear Todd Stroger,
Does this story [fixed link] mean you’ve reached the “anger” phase? Please, speed up your grief phases and get to the “acceptance” level so we can be done with you.
* Dear Congresscritter Mike Quigley,
Actually, the “arch conservatives” I know don’t argue that government should always “stay out of people’s lives.” So, calling yourself one as you announce your support for gay marriage really isn’t all that logical.
* Dear Belleville police spokesman Don Sax,
Announcing to the media that a fight between teenagers on a school bus was “racially motivated” after simply reviewing a videotape was obviously a stupid thing to do. Didn’t you notice that it was black kids who broke it up? Drudge, thankfully, took down the gigantic, blaring headline after you corrected yourself.
Norb Andy’s Tabarin, a storied Springfield watering hole that has been shuttered for three years, will reopen with new owners in October.
Norb Andy’s, 518 E. Capitol Ave., will launch as a bar. Food service will be added early in 2010.
“We’re doing a complete overhaul. We’re ripping out the guts and rebuilding it with the same decor it used to have,” said Jeremy Thomas, who ran Marly’s Pub for five years. His business partner is Nathan Mihelich, a former WICS-TV newsman.
* The Question: What’s your favorite memory from the old Norb’s?
* Gov. Pat Quinn halted legislative movement this summer on a bill pushed by Comptroller Dan Hynes to reform the way cemeteries are regulated. Instead, Quinn said, he wanted to appoint a blue ribbon panel to look into the Burr Oak Cemetery scandal and make its own recommentations. Turns out, the recommendations look a whole lot like Hynes’ bill…
At a minimum, task force members said their recommendations are likely to include a requirement that all cemetery workers be licensed by the state, that cemetery grounds and maintenance be subject to minimum standards and random inspections, and that records and maps showing who is buried where be filed with the state.
Also likely to be included are recommendations that bereaved families visit cemeteries before buying a burial plot, that cemeteries provide itemized bills clearly explaining consumer rights, and that payment methods other than cash be accepted.
I hope that the Tribune erred on the “all cemetery workers ought to be licensed” stuff. That would be a bit much and a huge overreaction.
Whatever the case, if these recommendations do turn out to mirror Hynes’ plan, then Quinn has some explaining to do. More than a few of us thought Quinn was trying to trump Hynes politically by stalling that bill.
This blatant use of government by both men to one-up each other really needs to stop.
*** UPDATE *** The recommendations are in, and it appears that one of the biggest is enacting much of Hynes’ proposal. Quinn audio is here.
[ *** End of Update *** ]
* But if the governor and the comptroller insist upon blatantly using their offices to damage their political opponents, perhaps they could look into this…
Wagner, who suffered a minor stroke in December, uses Medicare as her primary health insurance. The state’s plan provides secondary coverage, which is administered by Cigna.
Medicare paid its portion of the bills quickly. But the state still hasn’t paid its share, which totals more than $1,400 and continues to grow as bills for Wagner’s treatment are processed. Included in the total is $54.03 for a physical therapy session in January, which Advocate Lutheran General Hospital in Park Ridge sent to a collection agency last month.
“I just got so shook,” said Wagner, describing how she felt when she opened the letter from ICS Collection Service. “I quick made out a check because I got so scared.”
“Obviously, this is not our preference,” [Annie Thompson, a spokeswoman for the Illinois Department of Healthcare and Family Services] said. “But the state is facing an unprecedented budget gap and really difficult decisions need to be made.”
Christopher Kelly placed a mattress in a rented trailer at a suburban lumber yard Friday night, set up photographs of his children around it, then ingested pills and possibly rat poison, according to a source with specific knowledge of the investigation into Kelly’s death.
For some reason, he then left the trailer and attempted to drive away from the area. He made it only about 100 feet in the parking lot of the Forest Lumber yard before contacting his girlfriend, touching off a chain of events that saw Kelly taken to two hospitals before he died.
Just days before he died of an apparent overdose, a defiant Christopher Kelly was resolved to fight a corruption trial he faced, if only to thumb his nose at federal authorities.
Former Gov. Rod Blagojevich’s fund-raiser and adviser suddenly flip-flopped, however, after faced with another point of pressure. On the eve of trial, the government asked a judge to revoke Kelly’s bond, the Chicago Sun-Times has learned.
“The motion pushed him over the edge,” leading him to plead guilty, said a confidant, who asked not to be named. […]
The government’s request came after Kelly got into what one source described as a shouting match with an owner of VLive Club. Kelly had demanded to see the club’s books. He had invested hundreds of thousands of dollars in the business through his girlfriend, Clarissa Flores, sources familiar with the exchange said.
Something that’s key to questions about his treatment: Kelly was lucid enough to speak to police and was stabilized at one point early Saturday. Later that morning, his condition apparently deteriorated and hospital officials sent him to Stroger Hospital, about 25 miles away. […]
But acute aspirin overdoses are generally treatable. It’s surprising for a person to die of an aspirin overdose today. It’s also very unusual if you reach the hospital and are able to receive treatment. A majority of people who die of drug overdoses expire before they reach a hospital, experts say.
It may seem strange that Christopher Kelly would be talking coherently, then die several hours later, but Oak Forest Hospital physician Srinivas Jolepalem said it’s rather common in overdose cases.
“You can’t say someone’s stable just because they’re sitting up. That’s not the criteria they would use to figure out his condition,” said Jolepalem, who was not on duty the night of the incident. “Once a toxin is absorbed, and it goes to the kidney and brain, many things might start happening. The person would have difficulty breathing and can become comatose then die from kidney failure or brain damage.”
Depending how much of the substance the person ingested and how strong their body is, it can take up to several hours for this to happen.
Dr. Michael O’Mara, chairman of the emergency department at Little Company of Mary Hospital in Evergreen Park, said some drugs work quickly while others might take several days to kill a person.
When Kelly appeared stable and calm, Dr. Basava Ancha, who treated Kelly, decided it was best to transfer him to Stroger Hospital, where the county’s top toxicologist was on duty. [emphasis added]
One can’t help but wonder if Kelly just didn’t tell the docs about any poisons he may have taken. The Tribune editorial board, as usual, probably should’ve waited for more facts before blundering into this topic.
* Meanwhile, the key witness in the case, Clarissa Flores-Buhelos, was interviewed by Country Club Hills police, and the local chief of police said she was “cooperating.” AP…
[Defense attorney Terrence Gillespie] had said earlier Monday that Flores-Buhelos called him Friday night and told him that police wanted to question her. He said he agreed to meet with her and the police in his office on Saturday morning. But when she called police back to set up the appointment, they said Saturday morning would be inconvenient and suggested meeting on Monday.
[Country Club Hills Mayor Dwight Welch] told reporters on Sunday that Flores-Buhelos had “lawyered up” and was no longer cooperating with the police — something Gillespie challenged. She was always willing to cooperate, Gillespie said, but merely wanted to be accompanied by her lawyer when questioned.
Gillespie also criticized Welch for holding up Flores-Buhelos’ driver’s license at a news conference over the weekend and suggesting she was unwilling to cooperate.
“It’s outrageous — I’ve never seen anything like this in 30 years,” Gillespie said.
He’s right about that.
…Adding…Patterson has posted the video of Kelly’s speech during Rod Blagojevich’s first inauguration.
* US Senate candidate Mark Kirk faced some pretty loud booing and heckling at a recent DuPage County Republican event, which amply showed that he still has problems with the far right. However, Kirk also demonstrated how good he is on his feet by twice turning the boos into applause.
Parts of the Republican crowd booed Kirk’s introduction and some angrily yelled chants about his “Yes” vote on the so-called “cap and trade” bill Thinking quickly, Kirk then asked for a moment of silence for a fallen soldier. It worked. He quieted the hall and eventually got them to cheer.
The loud boos cranked up again (at about 3:16 into the video) when he brought up the touchy cap and trade subject. But then Kirk said he voted “Yes” on cap and trade because he was representing the “narrow interests” of his congressional district and vowed to vote “No” on the bill if he represented the entire state.
And the crowd cheered.
This just proves a point about perceptions. It’s only a “flip-flop” when a politician flips away from your ideology. It’s “statesmanship” if a politico flips toward you. He’s either got no backbone or he’s a smart politician, depending on which way you see things.
* Anyway, Kirk kept “right” on hitting the hot buttons and smoothly firing out the ready-made applause lines with an ideological bullet-point tour through oil drilling, Nancy Pelosi, Hugo Chavez, his military service (quite a few times), the public option (he got the crowd to boo Alexi Giannoulias on that one) etc.
This is one slick candidate, campers. The Democrats should definitely fear him.
* Other campaign stories…
* Daily Herald: Time for Stroger to bow out gracefully - It’s time he pulls out of the race for county board president and clears the way for other candidates.
* Press Release: Jason Plummer, a small businessman from downstate Edwardsville, will enter the Republican primary for Lt. Governor during a statewide tour of Illinois beginning in his hometown and continuing on to Springfield and Chicago. Plummer currently works in the family business, R.P. Lumber, headquartered in Edwardsville, as well as subsidiary companies focusing on property development and technology investments.
* Democratic gubernatorial hopeful Dan Hynes has suspended state payments on some advertising and consulting contracts…
Hynes said he had informed Quinn by letter today that his office was suspending payment on $53 million in advertising and management consulting contracts, including more than $26 million to lottery ad agencies, $16 million for tourism and economic development promotion and $9.7 million for a timekeeping system.
“Surely you must believe, as I do, that ‘business as usual’ should not continue while healthcare providers suspend or curtail services and state financial support to schools is jeopardized by an imbalanced(sic) state budget,” Hynes wrote. “I have directed my staff to suspend payment on these contracts until your office communicates your intentions regarding these transactions.”
It’s not clear what authority Hynes is using to suspend the payments. The state law involving the comptroller’s duties gives him the power to refuse to issue a check if he believes a transaction is “not in accordance with the law,” but that is not what Hynes is alleging. A 36-year-old attorney general’s opinion also notes that the comptroller has “ample authority” to hold up payment if “an expenditure of public funds is contrary to law or unauthorized.”
That’s taking things a bit far.
Or not. From the comptroller’s office…
The Comptroller’s Act authorizes the office to preaudit and review all expenditures prior to payment. We are simply asking the the Governor to reconsider these spending priorities in light of the state’s fiscal crisis.
From the governor’s office…
No one in Illinois—especially the Comptroller—should doubt Governor Quinn’s zeal for making significant budget cuts and belt-tightening. Already, Governor Quinn has committed to cutting over $2.0 billion from the state budget in Fiscal 2010. […]
The Comptroller is also late in suggesting a cutback in outside contracts. On February 20, 2009, the Quinn Administration ordered agency directors, chief financial officers and purchasing officers to limit contracts and defer all major purchases unless absolutely necessary.
While Governor Quinn is being smart about making such cuts, the Comptroller wants to hack away at legitimate revenue generators such as the lottery and tourism. The Illinois Lottery spent $16.4 million on advertising and marketing last fiscal year and got back $648.5 million—money that goes to help pay for our children’s education. Governor Quinn believes that’s a good return on investment.
Remember this is the 200th anniversary of Lincoln’s birth and Governor Quinn wants to encourage people, from all over the world, to come here and celebrate our greatest President’s Illinois roots.
Instead of supporting these engines of economic recovery and growth, the Comptroller is threatening to suspend payment on contracts even though he has no statutory basis to refuse payment on lawfully-entered contracts that have appropriated funding…
Hynes also said he would not ask AFSCME to reopen the union contract. AFSCME has not yet endorsed in the gubernatorial campaign, of course.
* And speaking of AFSCME, Quinn is seeking a venue change in the union’s layoffs lawsuit…
Illinois state agencies being sued by a union hoping to block Gov. Pat Quinn’s plan to lay off about 2,600 state employees want the case shifted to Springfield instead of southern Illinois.
Quinn called AFSCME “my good friends” yesterday when he accepted SEIU’s endorsement. “I like all the leaders and members of AFSCME,” Quinn said. “I want to work with them on solving a tough problem.” Watch it all…
* Several commenters were rightly upset today at the way Country Club Hills Mayor Dwight Welch handled himself at a press conference announcing some of the details of Chris Kelly’s death. Well, they didn’t know the half of it. The Tribune has the unedited video from the presser. Yeesh.
You should really watch the whole thing. But if you don’t have a lot of time, I’ve put a few of the choicest excerpts into a video, with particular attention to his grandstanding about the key witness in the case and his “in jokes” with reporters. It ain’t pretty. Take a look…
There’s also an update in the case. Read it for context on how bogus some of the mayor’s claims were.
* But if for whatever reason you really want to be disgusted today, go find Rod Blagojevich’s interview with Howard Stern today. Profanity and off-color jokes galore. Classy. Real classy.
* I’ve been informed that JB Pritzker has definitely decided not to run for state treasurer. So, for now at least, Robin Kelly still has a free ride through the Democratic primary.
* Republican gubernatorial candidate Kirk Dillard laid out his ethics reform plan today. At the top of his list was a pledge not to raise any campaign money during the first two years of his term in office.
I guess that’s OK, but it could just mean that a Gov. Dillard would have to focus that much more on fundraising in the second half of his term.
Also, Dillard reported raising just over $50,000 during the first six months of the year, while claiming privately that he’d file with a million bucks. So this new “no fundraising” pledge leaves him wide open to severe snark.
But, besides all that, take a look at Dillard’s blog. Dude, not even a link to your campaign site? Huh?
* Speaking of snark and the Internet, somebody has created fake Twitter accounts for several US Senate candidates.
I know I can be stuffy & wooden sometimes, but no, I’m not a ventriloquist and no, I didn’t throw my voice in Rep. Wilson’s direction.
* And speaking of Twitter, Congressman Don Manzullo is using the site to ask for help circulating his nominating petitions. He added several hashtags to attract notice, including #sgp, which, I’m told means “Smart Girl Politics.”
I don’t get it.
* And whilst we’re on the subject of the Intertubes, I was searching Google News for stories on Mark Kirk’s US Senate race this morning and noticed these Google ads on the right side of the page…
The NRSC Google ad has been up for a while now, but Giannoulias is now countering with his own. That “Voice of the New Right” ad appears to be new.
So, then I searched Google News for Alexi Giannoulias…
Just one ad there, for now.
Cheryle Robinson Jackson? Not much…
Conservative US Senate candidate Patrick Hughes? Nothing much of note there, either…
However, new Democratic US Senate entrant David Hoffman is spending a bit more on Google ads. Search for his name and his ad appears above the actual results…
One of my Hoffman searches produced a Giannoulias ad on the right, so he’s doing some counter-programming on Hoffman as well.
Keep in mind that not all searches will yield the same ad results since the Google ad program is a bit weird and complicated. But I did a few searches for each name and got essentially the same results, except for Hoffman.
* I’m starting to get lots of campaign press releases that consist of pdf attachments again. I hate that. We’ve discussed this before. Please just paste your release into the body of the e-mail. Why should I have to download this, for instance?…
Robert Dold will formally announce his candidacy for the Republican nomination for Congress in the 10th District on Monday, September 14th. Dold will make the announcement at Rose Pest Solutions, a family-owned business he runs.
* And, finally, after announcing that huge SEIU endorsement with a strictly embargoed and breathless e-mail late last night, Gov. Pat Quinn’s campaign sent out another embargoed press release this morning announcing a long list of liberal endorsees headed by Congresscritter Jan Schakowsky. Others include Sens. Iris Martinez and Heather Steans, Reps. Will Burns and Harry Osterman, Commissioner Larry Suffreding and Alds. Joe Moore, Mary and Smith and Tom Tunney, and William Marovitz.
The strict embargo ended at 10 o’clock. It’s now 11:30 as I write this and nobody has picked up the story yet. I wonder why.
Greg Boltz, a Downers Grove GOP committeeman, noted that many Republicans are skeptical of health-care reform and said he has seen polls that show “83 [percent] or 84 percent of people are happy with what they have.”
* The Question: Are you happy with your and your family’s current health insurance situation, including cost, covered items, deductibles etc.?
Please, make sure to disclose whether you have a government health insurance plan, a private employer-provided or subsidized plan, or you buy your own insurance.
Also, this is not intended to be a debate about the DC health insurance proposals. I’ve seen the above talking point a lot, and just want to see how it’ll play out here. If you get into that national debate in comments I’ll just delete you. Stick to the question, and only the question, please.
* Yesterday’s Tribune editorial noted something about its statewide poll that the paper’s reporters had completely ignored…
Recent Tribune polling statewide finds 45 percent of respondents identify themselves as Democrats, and 28 percent as Independents. Republicans, dodging extinction, lurch in third, at 23 percent.
So, even after all the craziness that this state has gone through in the past two years, there are now fewer Republicans than independents? Well, that may be a surprise to the Trib, but we’ve talked about this very issue before.
And, of course, that horrific result doesn’t mean the Republicans are completely doomed. Plenty of “Blue” states have or have had Republican governors. And, as I pointed out in my newspaper column this week…
Illinois voters simply stopped listening to Republicans in this state several years ago. But after years of watching Rod Blagojevich and the perpetual Springfield circus, the GOP message of no tax hikes, budget cuts and ethics reform probably will get a fair hearing next fall.
Whether that fair hearing is enough to actually win an election is anyone’s guess.
* Right now, though, the best thing the Republicans have going for them is the Democratic Party. For instance…
A bomb that blew out the window of a Prospect Heights home may have been planted in the wrong location, authorities said.
An explosive that went off about 3 a.m. Aug. 25 in the 200 block of Gail Court South likely was intended instead for the home of an area political activist who lives on the same block, Prospect Heights Police Cmdr. Al Steffen said.
The intended target of the bomb “was a whistle-blower in a political campaign,” Steffen said. “We were aware that there was an investigation going on involving that person.”
If that police speculation is correct, then the cops apparently believe the bomb was intended for the woman who blew the whistle on Democratic state Rep. Paul Froehlich.
For the first time since he became mayor two decades ago, Daley’s critics outnumber his fans, a Tribune/WGN poll found. The mayor’s approval rating is at an all-time low of 35 percent in Tribune polls, according to the new survey. […]
Nine out of 10 people disapprove of the parking meter deal, according to the Tribune/WGN poll, which surveyed 380 Chicago voters from Aug. 27 to Aug. 31. The poll has an error margin of 5 percentage points.
When Daley is in trouble, everybody with a “D” behind their name in the Chicago media market is in trouble. People may or may not like him, but they always thought he got the job done. That’s not the case these days.
* And of course there’s the outside chance that the Democrats might nominate Rod Blagojevich’s former spokesperson as their US Senate candidate. From Lynn Sweet…
Democratic Senate hopeful Cheryle Jackson and I talked Sunday about why she went to work for Gov. Rod Blagojevich as his spokeswoman — and why she left his administration during his first term when she realized Blagojevich was making decisions “based on personal benefit.”
Some Democratic leaders had hoped to prevent a direct vote on an endorsement of Stroger by first proposing a vote to hold an open primary. But Stroger’s supporters sought an endorsement vote, and those backing other candidates then asked for a roll call.
What protects Illinois Democrats from the abyss? Their unwitting friends the Republicans, who have a disgraced former governor in prison. They have some excellent officeholders, some interesting candidates, but no cohesive message: Quick now, how does the Republican Party of Illinois propose to fix all that’s so wrong with this state? What does the GOP believe?
Well, let’s see. Hmmm. Hey, they’ve got a guy who walked out in a huff during a presidential address to Congress because the president wasn’t bipartisan enough. This was the same guy who told his fellow Republicans at the State Fair that the GOP mantra ought to be “Just say ‘No!’” to the Democrats on everything. So, there’s that.
* Orlando Jones’ suicide clearly showed the stress that can be caused when the federal walls move in. Chris Kelly, facing imprisonment this Friday and enormous pressure to spill his guts on his friend Rod Blagojevich, had reportedly talked about killing himself for several days. He followed through with his threats over the weekend…
His girlfriend, identified by [Country Club Hills Mayor Dwight Welch] as Clarissa I. Flores-Buhelos, drove Kelly to Oak Forest Hospital in his black Cadillac Escalade after he sent a text message asking her for help from the parking lot of Forest Lumber in the 17200 block of Cicero Avenue in Country Club Hills.
A Country Club Hills police officer spoke to Kelly, who was sitting up and alert in his room at Oak Forest Hospital. “Kelly was very hesitant,” Welch said. “He was very ill and not feeling well. And he was defensive.”
Oak Forest Hospital does not have a trauma unit, but doctors were able to stabilize Kelly. Doctors later decided Kelly could be better treated at Stroger Hospital in Chicago, where Kelly was taken about 5:15 a.m. Saturday and died at 10:46 a.m., Cook County hospitals officials said.
The police officer also interviewed an unidentified “male white with grey hair” who claimed to be Kelly’s friend. He told the officer who Kelly was, Welch said.
Later Saturday morning, a white man with grey hair — police are unsure if it was the same man interviewed at the hospital earlier — came to the hospital with keys to the Escalade and tried to remove it from the parking lot but was turned away by police, Welch said.
“We’re trying to determine who that is, too,” Welch said. “It could be the same white male or it could be two separate people we don’t know.”
At the scene, officers found vomit in the parking lot, as they did on the Escalade. Kelly’s clothing, now in evidence, was also “soaked in vomit,” according to Welch. The Escalade had been in the parking lot of the lumber yard, outside an area secured by a locked gate, and adjacent to a storage facility. Welch said police are looking into whether Kellly had a vehicle - possibly a boat - or other belongings stored at the site.
Police in Country Club Hills — where Tylenol wrappers and a large container of pills were found in Kelly’s SUV in the parking lot of a lumber yard — said their main witness, Clarissa Flores-Buhelos, became uncooperative with police after dropping off Kelly at Oak Forest Hospital late Friday. Her attorney vehemently denied that Flores-Buhelos is not cooperating.
What is known is that Kelly arrived at the hospital about 11:15 p.m. Friday, suffering from what appeared to be an overdose, officials said.
The police officer who interviewed Kelly in the hospital said he told him that he took Tylenol for pain because of recent surgery, said Country Club Hills Police Chief Regina Evans. On Saturday, the medical examiner’s office said Stroger Hospital officials told it that Kelly apparently had an intoxication of salicylate, a drug used in anti-inflammatory and pain relief medications such as aspirin.
Later, Kelly became “very defensive,” Welch said. He told an officer: “I know what you are trying to do. You are trying to trick me,” according to Evans. The officer said Kelly did not admit to trying to kill himself, she added.
Last week, a federal judge placed Kelly on a midnight to 6 a.m. curfew until his jail surrender. The unusual step came, sources say, after Kelly displayed recent erratic behavior.
He paid an agitated visit to a nightclub at 2047 N. Milwaukee. As a condition of his curfew, he was told not to go near the business.
Clarissa Flores-Buhelos manages the same nightclub where Kelly became “agitated” and was subsequently banned from.
* Blagojevich says Kelly killed himself because he was being pressured to tell lies. Nobody really knows what goes through the mind of someone who does such a thing. But his attitude when being questioned by local police (refusing to answer questions, cracking that he’d just had surgery on his private parts - likely another way of describing how he’d pled guilty) suggests defiance until the bitter, bitter end.
Either way, Blagojevich will benefit from this, and that’s really too bad.
* Related…
* Scott Fawell’s Take on Kelly’s Apparent Suicide: “You wanna indict Chris Kelly, you want to send him away, you know what? Do it. But this, I’ll indict him a second time, lets indict him a third time, that’s strictly for pressure. I mean, I’d be rather surprised if Rod Blagojevich is exonerated, but no, they want one more piece, so let’s put some heat on Chris Kelly. It never stops.”
* Carol Marin: Did pressure from feds help kill Chris Kelly?
* This is big, and it’s very good news for Gov. Pat Quinn’s primary chances…
The state’s largest union, the Service Employees International Union, will announce today it is teaming up with the Teamsters in an effort unprecedented in statewide elections to campaign for Gov. Quinn.
That means working together in the same phone banks, coordinating spending — it will be similar to what the unions did in the last round of aldermanic elections, working together for candidates who supported them over Wal-Mart, said Jerry Morrison, executive director for SEIU.
Huge bucks, lots of workers. From the governor’s press release…
Further expanding Governor Pat Quinn’s broad, diverse base of support, SEIU Illinois Council today announced its endorsement of Governor Quinn’s campaign, recognizing his decades-long record of
standing up for working families in Illinois. […]
“Governor Quinn has been a fighter for working families all of his life,” said Tom Balanoff, President of the SEIU Illinois Council, which represents 170,000 union members. “Pat Quinn is the right person to lead Illinois out of this recession.
“Pat Quinn is a governor who consistently listens to the issues affecting working families,” said John T. Coli, president of Teamsters Joint Council 25 [100,000 members], which announced its endorsement of Governor Quinn on Sept. 4. “We look forward to working with SEIU to support Governor Quinn and his strong, common-sense leadership.”
The SEIU endorsement of Quinn comes just days after he won the support of Cook County Democratic slatemakers for election next year. Hynes, the product of a longtime county Democratic family, had urged Democratic leaders to make no endorsement in the governor’s race.
* Dan Hynes was endorsed over the weekend by a couple of Democratic township committeepersons, which may cause some trouble since their party slated Quinn on Friday.
* My weekly syndicated newspaper column was written before the slating on Friday and before I learned late that afternoon about the SEIU/Teamsters deal. Still, I’d say it’s mostly correct. Hynes has some good ideas for the primary and a major flaw that he has not yet fully addressed…
There were no spectacular backdrops in place when Illinois Comptroller Dan Hynes officially announced his campaign for governor the other day.
No pretty pictures for the TV cameras. No gathering of his adoring family who could not keep their enraptured eyes off him. No flowery rhetoric. No huge crowd. No brass band. No rows of oversized American flags. No razzle dazzle at all, in fact.
Instead, Hynes stood in front of a blue curtain, a single flag and a campaign poster and calmly laid out a plan to cut the state’s budget, raise taxes on annual personal income above the first $200,000, tag certain “luxury” purchases with a new service tax, hike cigarette taxes by a dollar a pack and expand gaming.
That’s not a bad strategy for a Democratic primary.
Hynes can blast Gov. Pat Quinn’s proposed 50 percent income tax rate hike on everybody - including the working poor - by pointing to his own, far more “progressive” revenue-generating tax hikes. He can placate Democratic interest groups by showing he’s for new revenues.
Hynes’ message of quiet, honest competence versus the loud, bungling dishonesty of the past eleven years might also be a refreshing change for voters.
The budget cuts Hynes proposes (rolling back the state’s operating budget to fiscal year 2005 levels, for instance) won’t go over well with state employee unions such as the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees, among other Democratic constituency groups.
But considering the way Quinn has treated AFSCME this year - demanding contract givebacks and threatening massive layoffs - the union probably has no place else to go in the Democratic primary unless another strong candidate steps into the race.
As for the general election, Hynes said during a conversation after his announcement that his proposal was similar to Barack Obama’s own tax plan during the 2008 campaign and Bill Clinton’s tax proposal from his first presidential bid. As Hynes rightly pointed out, both those guys won.
Even if President Obama’s recent speech on health care manages to turn his listing ship around, the midterm 2010 campaign won’t be like 2008 or 1992.
Illinois voters simply stopped listening to Republicans in this state several years ago. But after years of watching Rod Blagojevich and the perpetual Springfield circus, the GOP message of no tax hikes, budget cuts and ethics reform probably will get a fair hearing next fall.
One couldn’t help but think during Hynes’ announcement about the then-hapless Democrats’ 1994 disaster, when their gubernatorial candidate was constantly whacked for supporting a “42 percent tax hike.” Like that proposal, Hynes’ plan does have real merit, but it’s a big risk for the fall campaign - albeit far less of a risk than Quinn’s own “50 percent tax hike on everybody” plan.
For now, though, Job One for Hynes is winning the primary. And he does appear to have rattled Quinn. The mere mention of Hynes’ name almost never fails to prompt a flash of anger from the governor. You’d think a guy who released a poll recently showing him leading Hynes 54 percent to 26 percent among likely Democratic primary voters could afford to be more magnanimous. You’d be wrong.
All this means absolutely nothing, however, until Hynes can resolve an issue that threatens his entire candidacy.
While Hynes has always carefully burnished his reputation as a competent administrator, he hasn’t yet been able to shake the allegations that he fell down on the job during one of the most sensational scandals to hit the Chicago-area media market in years.
Comptroller Hynes’ office regulates aspects of the cemetery industry, mainly trust funds. Lately, Hynes has been accused by some of gross negligence for not noticing and stopping problems at the infamous and decrepit Burr Oak Cemetery in Alsip, which Cook County Sheriff Tom Dart claims was the scene of a massive scheme to resell already occupied burial plots and stack bodies on top of each other.
The harsh bottom line is Hynes has not yet found a way to effectively address this cemetery issue other than to point out the fact that he wasn’t really responsible for the problem.
Facts supporting inaction in an alleged massive failure like this just never are enough in the heat of a campaign.
His competency is in serious doubt. Without an effective, legitimate counter-spin, this cemetery issue easily could be Hynes’ undoing in a close election.
Three men who once ran Laborers’ International Union Local 1001 — a union with a history of mob ties that represents Chicago garbage collectors — are now getting city pensions based on the salaries they got from the union.
All three once worked for the city. All three moved on to work for the union. But even after leaving their city jobs, they remained in a city pension plan but got credit for their time with the union — and, thanks to an obscure state law that allows all of this, were able to have their city pensions calculated based on their union salaries. In each case, the result was a higher pension.
Plezbert was just 49, a few weeks shy of his 50th birthday, when he retired in June 2006 as Mayor Daley’s first deputy commissioner of general services — a job that paid $124,944.
Three days later, he started a new job — as the $155,324-a-year first deputy director of the mayor’s Public Building Commission.
Between his city pension and his city job, Plezbert now makes $246,721 a year.
Picket lines formed Friday in front of three hotels in downtown Chicago. A union representing 6,000 hospitality workers says hotels are trying to roll back health coverage.
The CHA has promised to build or rehab 25,000 apartments by 2015, with just one-third in mixed-income communities.
The rest will be in traditional public housing developments, including 5,000 units — or 20 percent of all apartments — in smaller rehabbed public housing family projects. (The balance will be in senior developments and at scattered sites.) More than half of those 5,000 units already have been rehabbed.
This means the public housing of yesteryear– families concentrated in high-poverty enclaves — remains part of the landscape today and for the foreseeable future.
Does that mean the CHA is doomed to repeat its past failures? The risk is clearly there.
Chicago Police Supt. Jody Weis on Friday denounced as “reprehensible” — and demanded severe punishment against those responsible for — a 911 dispatch delay that left an off-duty police officer to fend for himself while being shot at from a car filled with alleged gang members.
“This incident is just reprehensible. We had an officer [who] needed assistance, and he didn’t get it. … He was pretty much on his own for quite a few minutes. … He had to go to [a police] station, and that’s where he received assistance,” Weis said.
