[Updated and bumped to the top]

*** UPDATE *** The federal government’s recordings of Stu Levine’s phone calls are proving to be quite damaging already…

In another recording played for the jury after lunch, Thomas Beck, then-chairman of the state Health Facilities Planning Board, and Stuart Levine, the board’s vice chairman, can be heard discussing the Mercy Health System’s plan before the controversial vote on April 21, 2004.

Levine told Beck he thought Mercy would be able to address the shortcomings in its plan at the meeting, but Beck still had some concerns about appearances.

Beck told Levine that their “good friend,” a reference to Rezko, advocated covering their tracks as a voting bloc.

“I’d like everybody to vote ‘no’ now and then, so it doesn’t look like there’s the five, the clique,” Beck quoted Rezko as telling him.

Rezko’s attorneys have argued in previous filings that there was no voting bloc.

* Also…

Acting on “marching orders” from Tony Rezko, former state health planning board chairman Tom Beck testified today he called Rezko associate Stuart Levine and laid out the plan.

“I got the marching orders . . . there’s one . . . Mercy Hospital,” Beck can be heard telling Levine in a secretly made recording of an April 19, 2004, phone call that was played in federal court today at Rezko’s corruption trial. “Our boy wants to help them.”

“Our boy” meant Rezko, said Beck, who chaired the Illinois Hospital Facilities Planning Board, which Levine served as co-chair.

Beck testified today that he often called Levine just before a board meeting to relay Rezko’s wishes about how votes should go. Then, at board meetings, Beck told jurors he would hand out Rezko’s directions on votes to other Rezko “friends” on the board. In all, those five board members comprised a bloc with enough votes to approve projects.

Ouch.

***********

* My syndicated newspaper column takes a look at yet another unkept promise by Gov. Blagojevich…

In early 2006, Gov. Rod Blagojevich faced a firestorm of criticism from Jewish leaders for his appointment of Louis Farrakhan’s “minister of protocol” to the Illinois Hate Crimes Commission. Several Jewish members resigned from the commission in protest of Sister Claudette Marie Muhammad’s appointment, but Blagojevich refused to back down and claimed he didn’t know who she was when he put her on the commission.

A small handful of Jewish leaders opposed the mass resignations from the Hate Crimes Commission. One of those was Rabbi Philip Lefkowitz, of the Agudas Achim-North Shore Congregation. Lefkowitz claims he was sharply and repeatedly criticized by other Jewish leaders for opposing the resignations.

The situation had indeed created a gigantic firestorm in Chicago at the time and tensions were high. Blagojevich, who had just kicked off his re-election campaign, began desperately seeking allies as he tried to walk a fine line between angering African-American allies (several black legislators wanted him to stand firm on the appointment) and the Jewish community. So, he asked some of the more sympathetic clergy to a meeting in his Chicago office.

Lefkowitz attended that meeting with the governor and other religious leaders to discuss how to deal with the Hate Crime Commission resignations. Before the meeting started, Lefkowitz claims he was told by Blagojevich’s Senate floor leader, Carol Ronen, that the governor was interested in helping with his work and offered to free up $400,000 in grant money to help him build a nonsectarian community center in Uptown. Lefkowitz asked for $500,000, and was allegedly told Ronen would see what she could do.

After the meeting, Blagojevich helped Rabbi Lefkowitz with his coat and allegedly said he wanted to assist with the center project. Later, Blagojevich attended a Passover Seder at the Rabbi’s synagogue and once again promised him and the synagogue president, Steve Tuck, that he was committed to the community center grant.

As you might have guessed by now, Lefkowitz never got the money. The furor over the Hate Crimes Commission eventually died down, the media moved on to other things, and Lefkowitz received a letter last May from the governor’s deputy chief of staff informing him the state simply didn’t have enough money to help build the facility.

Last week, Lefkowitz sent a snarky letter to various Chicago newspapers asking whether it’s possible “that as with Pilgrim Baptist Church, the check was sent to ‘the wrong place.’ “

* Meanwhile, the Tony Rezko trial basically went over a lot of old ground yesterday. Rep. Jack Franks’ name came up, but regardless of what you might have read this was not new news…

The Illinois public got its first look Tuesday at a series of letters state administrators wrote under pressure from state Rep. Jack Franks, who urged them to back the private interests of his client, Mercy Hospital, in its 2003 quest to build a Crystal Lake facility.

* The Blagojevich administration released some of those letters a couple of years ago in an attempt to deflect criticism onto Franks. At the time, they accused Franks of using his position as a state legislator to lobby the administration. Franks denied it, but he did send at least one letter on his official letterhead. Not a good move.

However, this is quite misleading…

But one of the letters admitted into evidence Tuesday, written by Illinois Department of Revenue Director Brian Hamer said, “I am writing at the request of Representative Jack Franks.” That use of Franks’ title as a legislator would reflect the feeling of several department heads, who said in previous published interviews they felt Franks was putting the strong-arm on them as a state representative, not a private lawyer.

The mention of his title means nothing. Period. It’s his title. And the agency heads were following the governor’s lead by dumping on Franks. Nothing can be determined by what they said. Plus…

In an interview later, Franks downplayed the work he did and noted that four months had passed between the time he quit representing the hospital and the state board approved the project.

* More reform and renewal…

* Curious hospital vote arises in Rezko trial

* Witness: Levine whisper changed board vote

* Rezko letters hint at ‘pressure’ by lawmaker over hospital expansion

* complete coverage

* Rezko’s office

* Tuesday Rezko Update: A Whisper Was All It Took

* Rezko gavel-to-gavel: Hospital project vote flipped

* Whispering at Health Board meeting stunned crowd, former board lawyer testifies

* Crowd gasped when panel OKd hospital, witness says