* I think I’m gonna play hookie on Monday and call in well. Talk with you soon.
Back in the day, the Bruce’s Tavernacle Choir would gather at the popular Springfield venue on 11th and South Grand to joyfully and loudly sing this song together almost every Sunday night. Too many (Brian, Raoul, Grant, Hose, Jason - to name just a few) of our choir members are now gone, but their memory lives on. I think Ringo and Robbie would’ve approved…
A U.S. Army veteran who was fighting to stay in the country after being deported to Mexico has officially become an American citizen.
Miguel Perez Jr., a 39-year-old veteran of the war in Afghanistan, was sworn in at a naturalization ceremony Friday in Chicago. Perez had recently returned to Chicago on a two-week permit to attend a citizenship hearing. […]
Perez was deported to Mexico roughly 18 months ago, after his original petition for citizenship was denied due to a 2010 drug conviction.
He served over 7 1/2 years in prison. His green card status was revoked and he went from state prison into the custody of immigration officials.
In August, Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker pardoned Perez, allowing him to appeal his case, and return home to his parents and two children.
Pritzker took a big chance on pardoning Perez. The war vet had been battling PTSD when he was busted for handing a large amount of cocaine to an undercover cop. But the governor has said he believes in second chances and thought Perez should have an opportunity to prove himself. So far, so good.
Billionaire Gov. J.B. Pritzker — the richest sitting politician in America — is shelling out another $850,000 from his own pockets to renovate the Illinois Governor’s Mansion in Springfield.
That cranks up the tally of personal funds he has used to cover government expenses — including doubling some salaries and paying for other renovations — to at least $3.45 million, according to a Sun-Times analysis.
* But this post isn’t really about the Pritzker money. It’s about a bot publication called Moose Gazette which lifted Tina’s story in its entirety, but appeared to run it through a translation program…
Billionaire Gov. J.B. Pritzker — the richest sitting politician in The usa — is shelling out an additional $850,000 from his very own pockets to renovate the Illinois Governor’s Mansion in Springfield.
That cranks up the tally of individual funds he has applied to cover federal government expenditures — which includes doubling some salaries and shelling out for other renovations — to at the very least $3.45 million, in accordance to a Solar-Periods investigation.
“Solar-Periods” is apparently bot speak for “Sun-Times.” Also, check out this photo caption…
Democrat J.B. Pritzker hugs his spouse M.K. Pritzker and celebrates at an election night rally at the Marriott Marquis Chicago after beating incumbent Republican Gov. Bruce Rauner in the Illinois gubernatorial election, Tuesday night time, Nov. six, 2018. |
Ashlee Rezin Garcia/Sunshine-Situations
That bot needs to settle on its translations. Sunshine-Situations?
Gov. J.B. Pritzker acknowledges the group soon after being sworn in as the state’s 43rd governor in January. File Image.
Abundant Saal/The Point out Journal-Register by way of AP
Um, that would be Rich Saal at the State Journal-Register.
* And…
It appears as "the reporter" who lifted your story, "Laura Neilson," has a twin, an actual reporter, who works for the Telegraph in London. So they not only steal stories from reporters, they steal their photos as well. pic.twitter.com/hYe4ir4VYP
* I called the number on the Moose Gazette’s contact page and spoke to a very nice lady who said I was the third or fourth person to call about this. She insisted that she has no idea what the Moose Gazette is or why they’re using her phone number, which she said she’s had for 47 years and doesn’t want to change. I gave her the website address and wished her luck. The address listed on the page didn’t turn up anything, either. I suppose I could go to Boise and knock on some doors, but I kinda have better things to do with my time.
According to the Idaho Secretary of State’s website, MG LLC is a Foreign Limited Liability Company that cancelled its registration in 2004. I did find the name of a registered agent at the time the company cancelled its registration, looked up his number and left a voicemail.
OK, I think I’ve wasted far too much time on this today.
* The New York Times has a long, but very insightful story about how Chicago taxi drivers were fleeced by New Yorkers…
Over the next decade, New York taxi industry leaders — fleet owners, brokers and financiers — steadily seized control of Chicago’s medallion market and squeezed it for huge profits. Using tactics honed in New York, they made millions of dollars, but they ultimately helped to leave the industry in tatters and the lives of immigrant drivers on the edge of ruin.
New Yorkers used a similar playbook in several cities across the United States: They inflated medallion prices, provided high-risk loans to buyers and collected interest and fees before the bubbles burst and the markets collapsed. Medallion prices rose sevenfold in some places, soaring to $700,000 in Boston, $550,000 in Philadelphia, $400,000 in Miami and $250,000 in San Francisco.
But the most ambitious expansion targeted Chicago, home of the nation’s second-largest cab industry, a New York Times investigation found. New Yorkers eventually bought almost half the city’s medallions, records show.
There’s lots more, so go read the whole thing. There’s a Daley family nexus via a Patrick Daley meeting in Moscow, Gery Chico’s involvement, a big investment by Michael Cohen, and a city government far more interested in revenue than regulation…
Under Mr. Daley, the former mayor, the officials who regulated the Chicago taxi industry were focused on raising revenue through medallion sales, according to four former city employees. Officials sent memos praising the price increases, some of those employees said.
* Serious money was made and lost before Uber came along and tanked the market…
Records show that before the market collapsed in late 2013 and 2014, Mr. Levine’s companies sold most of the Chicago medallions they had bought a few years earlier. The companies paid $30 million to buy 543 medallions between 2006 and 2008. They sold 529 medallions between 2012 and 2014, for a total of $185 million. … Mr. Levine said he did not see a conflict in his lending company providing loans to drivers, which in turn helped him sell off medallions. […]
Only about 4,300 of the city’s 7,000 cabs are currently in operation, according to the city, and the ones on the road are generating at least 20 percent less than before there was ride-hailing, according to an analysis of city data by The Times.
A venture capitalist who bankrolled City Hall deals that secretly benefited Patrick Daley while his father Richard M. Daley was mayor has agreed to a court settlement that will see him repay less than 10% of the $290,596 he owes the U.S. Small Business Administration. […]
Under a settlement approved by a federal judge in Chicago, McInerney agreed to repay $36,000 over the next three years, to cooperate in an ongoing investigation of Cardinal Growth and to give a sworn deposition if asked.
The SBA had accused McInerney of failing to put up all of the money he promised as a condition of Cardinal Growth obtaining more than $51 million in loans from the federal agency. […]
Patrick Daley got more than $1.2 million from Cardinal Growth between 2002 and 2009, the Chicago Sun-Times previously has reported. He got $708,999 after Cardinal Growth sold Concourse Communications, a company that got a contract from the Daley administration to install wireless Internet service at O’Hare Airport and Midway Airport.
Officials of a private facility in Harvey that houses and educates severely disabled children will soon be forced to choose between laying off staff or discontinuing education to 11 students if they can’t find a district willing to enroll them, according to a lawsuit filed last week.
The Children’s Habilitation Center, which provides education and other services to students with intellectual disabilities, orthopedic impairments, traumatic brain injuries and other severe mental and physical limitations, claimed several Illinois school districts have refused to enroll their students, in violation of state and federal law.
“This case is about how several Illinois School Districts have put their desire to save money over their legal obligation to provide a free and appropriate public education to 11 severely disabled and medically fragile children who live and go to school at (Children’s Habilitation Center),” the suit said. “Despite every party acknowledging that the children are entitled to a free and appropriate education under the law and that some Illinois school district must enroll them, each School District is passing the buck, and the children remain without a home district and without the legally required public funding for their schooling.”
The suit, filed Thursday in Cook County Circuit Court, requested that the superintendent of the Illinois State Board of Education make a district determination for the 11 students and demands a $622,527 judgment against West Harvey-Dixmoor School District 147, which previously had enrolled the majority of the students.
Nobody wants to claim these children. No school district wants to foot the bill for the education they are entitled to by law. And nobody at the Illinois State Board of Education seems willing to step in and straighten out the mess.
The students reside at Children’s Habilitation Center, a private facility in Harvey that houses, cares for and educates children with medically complex developmental disabilities. Most of the infants and children require feeding tubes and are on around-the-clock ventilators. Many of the roughly 60 residents of the center were born into families already dealing with physical or intellectual disabilities of their own, drug abuse or incarceration.
So they often have parents who can’t be found, parents who are sometimes reachable, but unwilling to engage, or parents who have simply moved out of state, leaving their children in the center’s care.
Earlier this year, that lack of parental connection led West Harvey-Dixmoor School District 147 to unenroll eight children, claiming that since there was no proof of parents living in the district, the district shouldn’t have to pay to educate the kids. That district also refused to enroll two younger children from the center who had just reached school age. […]
I spoke with Pamela Markle, the chief executive officer of Children’s Habilitation Center. She figures that without payment from District 147 — per the lawsuit, it already owes the center more than $600,000 dating back to February — she’ll soon have to lay off educators and cut back on classes.
Press Secretary Jordan Abudayyeh emailed this statement late Thursday: “The administration is monitoring the situation to ensure the children are being educated and cared for, and we will work with families, educational institutions and other stakeholders to deliver the services they deserve.”
Also on Thursday, ISBE spokeswoman Jackie Matthews emailed me this statement: “ISBE’s most critical priority is to ensure that children are being educated and cared for. We have ensured that the children at CHC have been and are receiving education and services with no interruption. We are urgently attending to the matter of responsibility for the payment of services and are working toward a swift resolution.”
The Anti-Harassment, Equality and Access panel set up by the Democratic Party earlier this year released its final recommendations last week. […]
The panel’s report included “paraphrased comments” from participants of the listening sessions like this: “Expecting campaigns or parties to handle harassment internally during a campaign may be unrealistic because everyone, including the victims of harassment, is trying to win the election. This desire to win may be a deterrent to reporting because victims may worry it would hurt the campaign.”
I think that’s why House Republican Leader Jim Durkin’s recent decision to abandon Rep. Jerry Long’s (R-Streator) re-election campaign was so important and so underappreciated by the media and other political observers.
Durkin has said that his best hope in a year like this is to focus lots of resources on picking up and/or holding on to Downstate seats. Long’s Downstate seat was once in Democratic hands, but pro-Trump, anti-Madigan sentiment helped propel him into the General Assembly two years ago.
Yet when a campaign worker reported allegations of harassment, Durkin ordered an outside investigation and then publicly walked away from the candidate. There was no attempt to sweep it under the rug until after the election, which is pretty much what you’d expect in other times.
What Durkin clearly demonstrated by abandoning Long’s campaign is that some things have to be more important than winning. That’s an all-too-rare concept in politics.
It was also prudent in the long term. Covering up the Long situation could’ve seriously endangered his leadership position if the truth emerged.
However you look at it, this was absolutely the right move by Durkin and it took guts, particularly since some House members on his far-right flank are still not condemning Long and the state’s leading newspaper editorial boards have remained silent.
* The Tribune endorsement in that district last October…
76th District: We had high hopes for Rep. Jerry Lee Long, R-Streator, when he took this seat in 2016. A pro-union Republican, his win helped erode Speaker Michael Madigan’s supermajority in the House. But GOP officials withdrew their support after a colleague accused Long of inappropriate behavior. He has admitted he touched the neck of an associate who was complaining of a headache. A third-party investigator hired by the GOP prepared a report damaging enough that prominent Republicans called for him to resign. We don’t know enough to make a determination. But Long stayed in the race and insists the party abandoned him over a minor misunderstanding. His opponent, Democrat Lance Yednock of Ottawa, is an engineer with International Union of Operating Engineers Local 150. We fear he would be yet another voice in Springfield promoting anti-business policies and pitting rank-and-file taxpayers against union interests. No endorsement.
“We don’t know enough to make a determination.” The House Republican Leader walked away from a candidate in an all-important swing district and yet the Trib took a pass.
The only silver lining to be extracted from yet another report outlining sexual harassment in Springfield is the potential for further reform. When lawmakers return to the Capitol this month for the fall veto session — their first gathering following two investigations into House Speaker Michael Madigan’s operations — will things be different?
The latest report on sexual harassment, released Wednesday from the office of Legislative Inspector General Carol Pope, largely mirrors the findings of an August report from an outside attorney who examined the speaker’s government and political offices. Both reports concluded that top Madigan lieutenants perpetuated a work environment of harassment and bullying. Madigan, by his own admission, didn’t do enough to stop it. Women got fed up.
Let’s emphasize that point: Women involved in state government came forward as whistleblowers. At great personal and professional risk, they joined the #MeToo movement that swept across the nation. They outed powerful people. If change comes to Springfield with a zero tolerance policy on harassment, and a culture shift from the often-sleazy culture of inappropriate behavior, the credit will belong to them. […]
On the Republican side of the aisle, two lawmakers — Nick Sauer and Jerry Lee Long — faced ouster following accusations of harassmentlike conduct involving women.
Among other topics, federal agents questioned Summit Mayor Sergio Rodriguez about whether another political figure tried to pressure village officials into giving a local bar a license to operate later into the night. Rodriquez hasn’t returned numerous calls from a reporter. The bar operator said he’d consult with his attorney and call back a reporter but didn’t.
I have no way of knowing whether this is related or not, but if you look at the heavily redacted federal warrant served on Sen. Martin Sandoval’s Statehouse office, you’ll see these two mentions…
A source with knowledge of the probe told the Chicago Tribune that one focus of the investigation is Safespeed LLC, a clout-heavy red light camera company that does millions of dollars in business in Chicago’s suburbs, including Summit. One of the company’s paid consultants, Patrick Doherty, also is chief of staff in Tobolski’s County Board office. Doherty has not responded to requests for comment.
But is this about SafeSpeed itself or is it about the activities of one of the company’s investors, or is it maybe both? No idea yet…
Doherty told the Sun-Times he was interviewed by FBI and IRS agents at his home last week but he insisted it was not about SafeSpeed. Rather, he said agents asked about another company — run by SafeSpeed investor Omar Maani — that’s been involved in low-income housing projects in Cicero and Summit.
I’m told Tobolski was very involved with that Maani project in Summit.
* This thing is going in a large number of directions. WBEZ…
The search warrant also indicates that the FBI was looking for “items related to any official action taken in exchange for a benefit,” the records show.
And agents sought “items related to Latino Night at the Max, Chicago Cubs spring training trips, benefits provided by Law Firm 1 and/or Law Firm 1 Attorney A, Esq., and/or air conditioning and/or heating at [redacted] residence,” according to the documents provided by McCook officials. The Max is a sports complex in McCook.
Agents left with records related to a “Pub Max project,” a 2017 roof repair, Department of Labor safety violations, invoices, emails, hard drives, a Max monthly meeting reports folder and other documents. […]
Tobolski has also been subject of criticism for putting many family members on the village payroll, including good-paying jobs at the Max.
Even as calls to ban vaping have intensified after at least 18 people have died and over 1,000 more have been sickened, Illinois’ new pot czar says the state should take a more measured approach to the outbreak but should not prohibit certain products.
State Sen. Toi Hutchinson, who was tapped for the role last week by Gov. J. B. Pritzker, warned against an all-out ban of the pot-laden vaping products believed to be at the center of the nationwide public health scare she acknowledges is a “crisis.”
If you scroll down in that Sun-Times piece, you’ll see the ban is already in place…
On Friday, the Centers for Disease Control issued a report singling out black market THC vaping products tied to illnesses in Illinois and Wisconsin.
Hutchinson, an Olympia Fields Democrat, claimed “illicit entrants into this market are creating havoc.”
The problem is not THC, as the Sun-Times appears to want you to believe. The problem is with harmful additives that criminals put into currently illegal vaping juice. The best way to deal with this problem is to legalize and regulate. And that’s already in the pipeline.
WeWork leases more than 1 million square feet in Chicago. It is the largest office tenant in the city, a statistic that does not include companies or government agencies that own their space rather than renting. WeWork is also the largest tenant in other markets, including Manhattan, London and Washington, D.C.
The brand appeals to small businesses, start-ups and freelancers who can’t afford permanent office space. And a growing part of its customer base includes larger corporations looking for cost-efficient ways to enter new markets.
But critics say WeWork has given little indication of how it can eventually become profitable.
To put this into some perspective, downtown business district tenants leased nearly 13 million square feet of office space last year. So, WeWork represents a significant chunk of the total.
But perhaps what made WeWork different is the apparent problems with the company’s business model. It was on the hook for $47 billion in future lease payments to building owners while having committed revenue of only $4 billion. Last year’s loss jumped to $1.9 billion on revenue of $1.8 billion — for every dollar it made, it was spending two. For the first half of this year, losses climbed to $904 million even as revenue doubled to $1.54 billion.
Whew.
By the end of last month, WeWork’s parent company “We” had withdrawn its initial public offering.
Jamie Dimon’s bank, along with UBS and Credit Suisse, helped [co-founder Adam Neumann] with a $500 million personal line of credit that allowed him to buy buildings that he then leased back to WeWork.
Neumann took out more than $700 million before the IPO was filed.
WeWork was forced to pull its IPO—despite bankers at Goldman pitching valuations as high as $90 billion—after investors began studying its high debt levels, massive losses and that it burned through mountains of cash, issues that were glossed over by the company’s marketing pitches and Neumann’s savvy promotion.
A truly insane $90 billion market cap estimate and just weeks later the company is scrambling everywhere to find cash to avoid burning through the rest of its borrowed and invested money by the end of the first quarter. Sheesh.
* But let’s get back to what matters on this blog: Illinois…
What happens to the New York and Chicago commercial-real-estate markets where WeWork was the biggest and the second-biggest tenants?
Good question. Its departure would definitely be disruptive, but could its formerly leased space be absorbed? We could be about to find out…
In a potential bankruptcy, WeWork’s $47 billion in lease obligations could be frozen, and commercial real estate in cities where WeWork is very active – like New York and London – could be paralyzed, deflating one of the strongest markets since the financial crisis.
“All of these things help a company like ours,” [Nick Clark, founder of Dallas-based coworking firm Common Desk] said. “There was never a coworking bubble, but we’re about to see a big WeWork bubble pop.”
Essentially what happened is that the employees of We who didn’t get a chance to sell, SoftBank, and some other institutional investors have lost $47 billion. Had this consensual hallucination gone on for 60 more days, retail investors would have experienced that loss. So this is a good thing! This is the [regulated public] markets working. Whereas Uber, the consensual hallucination continues. They have to maintain the illusion of growth. They have to maintain the growth story. Without the growth story, they’re worth 20 percent of what they’re worth now. I think that chops off 50 to 80 percent in the next 25 months. WeWork can start from zero. If they act crisply enough, it can still be a nice, cute office-sharing company. Uber has to maintain the hallucination. Uber has to keep chasing that eight ball.
* And with that bit about Uber needing to maintain the appearance of growth in mind…
* Uber launches staffing business in Chicago: Uber Works will be led by Andrey Liscovich. He declined to specify how many employees the unit will have but said, “We plan to grow rapidly.”
