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* A “protest” organized by WMAY radio in Springfield attracted a handful of ralliers. Ben Yount of Metro Networks had some pics, even though he’s a radio guy…
* Background on the rally can be found at this link.
“We have lost to the lower chamber the last few years. No fault of our own. The umpires were clearly paid off by the speaker of the House. Every call went against us.
“This year, my brothers and sisters in the Senate. … We’re going to show those minions in the lower chamber that we are the House of Lords, they are the House of Commons. We will be victorious tonight.
“We will crush the House. We in the Senate will prove once and for all that we deserve the title of House of Lords, king of kings, rulers of the world!”
Heh.
*** UPDATE 1 *** Rep. John Fritchey responds…
“It’s going to be hard for [Hendon] to run the bases while carrying all of Emil’s water!”
* 11:11 am - Former state Rep. Larry McKeon (D-Chicago) passed away last night after suffering a stroke, according to an announcement on the House floor a few minutes ago.
…Adding… Bernie profiled Larry just last Sunday. Read it here.
And before the governor sends out his press release lauding McKeon’s memory, perhaps he should first commit to fixing this problem as a fitting tribute to the former legislator…
McKeon also called it a “tragedy” that, after pushing his first years in the General Assembly to reduce a backlog of discrimination cases before the Illinois Department of Human Rights, he believes there is a backlog now, partly because of lack of needed staff.
“I seriously question the competence at the senior level” of the department, he added, including “the director’s ability to effectively manage.”
An Army veteran and former lieutenant with the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department, McKeon came to Chicago in the 1980s to pursue a degree in social service administration.
He worked as a director at United Charities and became involved with gay activist groups, leading to his run for political office. In 1992, he was hired as executive director of the Chicago Commission on Human Relations, serving as Mayor Richard Daley’s liaison to gay and lesbian leaders in the city.
McKeon was elected to the House in 1996 by voters in the North Side’s 34th District. During that campaign, he acknowledged being HIV-positive.
One of his major legislative priorities was to expand gay rights. In 2005, Gov. Rod Blagojevich signed into law a measure that added sexual orientation to the state’s human rights act banning discrimination against gays and lesbians by landlords, real estate agents, employers and lenders.
A month before opening arguments were made in Antoin Rezko’s federal corruption trial, Gov. Rod Blagojevich’s top lawyer issued a memo to the governor’s senior aides.
The Feb. 8 directive called on staff members to search their computers, calendars and files for any information relating to Rezko and eight other notable people whose names have found their way into allegations of corruption within state government.
“If you find any documents or information relating to these individuals, you must notify the Office of the General Counsel in accordance with the directions set out below,” wrote William Quinlan, the governor’s senior legal advisor.
The memo appears to show the governor’s office was attempting to determine the extent of information in its own files about Rezko, whose trial is now nearing its end.
Among the names listed in the memo were Chris Kelly, David Wilhelm, Milan Petrovic, William Cellini, Robert Kjellander, Amrish Mahajan and Melvyn Weiss.
You may not recognize those last two names. Here’s a bit of background…
A Chicago banker whose wife is accused of bilking millions from a no-bid state contract has helped raise more than a half million dollars for Gov. Rod Blagojevich’s campaigns since 2001. […]
Mahajan’s ties to Blagojevich run deep–including hiring the Democratic governor’s wife last year as a real estate agent on $5.7 million in private land deals. […]
At one political event last year, the governor’s 10-year-old daughter, Amy, was overheard by at least two Blagojevich supporters interviewed by the Tribune referring to Mahajan as “Uncle Amrish.” […]
Mahajan’s wife, Anita, was arrested [in March of 2007] on charges of overbilling millions of dollars on her state contract to provide drug screenings to clients of the Illinois Department of Children & Family Services. Her downtown Chicago company, K.K. Bio-Science Inc., has held the no-bid state contract since the early 1990s.
Melvyn Weiss paid $5,000 toward lodging, meals and entertainment for Blagojevich’s entourage during its December 2003 trip to New York.
Weiss, his law firm and its attorneys also donated $45,000 to the Blagojevich campaign, including $10,000 on May 13, 2004. Twelve days later, the TRS board voted to place Weiss’ law firm on its list of outside litigators.
[In May of 2006], Weiss’ law firm and two of his partners were indicted by a federal grand jury in a kickback scheme. Weiss did not return a message left at his New York office.
[DuPage County’s] three-member electoral board voted 2-1 Tuesday to remove a state Senate hopeful from the ballot, but the candidate vows to fight the decision.
GOP officials charge Tom Cullerton is an elephant in donkey’s clothing. They say he voted Republican in the February primary but was then slated as a Democrat two months later to run against Republican state Sen. Carole Pankau. The board ruled he couldn’t do that. […]
Cullerton’s attorneys argue the electoral board’s interpretation of state law on party switching doesn’t apply to their client because he wasn’t a candidate when he voted in February.
But the board agreed with Republicans who cited a 1974 Illinois Supreme Court decision on party switching that declares “standards governing party changes by candidates may and should be more restrictive than those relating to voters.”
“I am totally convinced that you cannot participate in both parties in Illinois during the same election cycle,” said attorney Burt Odelson, who is handling the Republicans’ objection to Cullerton’s candidacy. […]
Odelson argues that because Cullerton declared himself a Republican voter for this “election cycle,” he can’t become a Democratic candidate.
[Cullerton’s attorney, Michael Dorf] counters that the election code makes no mention of the term “election cycle” when dealing with party switching.
“The only thing it says is if you lost a primary you can’t run in the general on the other side,” Dorf said. “My client only voted in the Republican primary.”
* That last point is a good one. The Republicans’ own brief quotes a recent Illinois appellate court ruling…
In addition, this court must interpret the Election Code as written and we may not depart from the plain language of the statute by reading into it exceptions, limitations, or conditions that conflict with the express legislative intent.
The General Assembly never specifically banned candidates from running who voted in one primary and are then appointed to the ballot as a member of a different party.
Also, if local Democratic, Republican or Green Party leaders decide to place a candidate onto the ballot after the primary, then those parties have decided that their candidates are legit party members.
I do think there’s a problem with Cullerton’s vote in the February GOP primary, but that’s a political issue (flip-flopping, trust, etc.) that he should have to deal with this fall. There are also some questions about the way he was appointed. Fair enough. But this ruling doesn’t sit well with me, and calls into question the Republican-dominated board’s judgement.
Over the shouted objections of Ald. Joe Moore (49th), the ban’s sponsor, the council used a parliamentary manuever to put the ordinance on the floor for a vote.
The council voted 37-6 to repeal the two-year-old ban, which critics argued had made Chicago–and the City Council–a national laughingstock. […]
Moore, whose pleas for a debate were ignored by Daley, warned fellow aldermen “tomorrow it could happen to you.”
Aldermen opposed to Chicago’s controversial restaurant ban on foie gras said they will try to force a vote Wednesday to repeal the measure, which gained the City Council widespread notoriety since its approval two years ago. […]
The ban was passed in April 2006 by a 48-1 vote. But Tunney noted Tuesday that there was no discussion of the measure on the council floor before the vote. The ban was passed in an “omnibus” vote at the end of a meeting, packaged together with other ordinances considered to be routine.
I don’t eat veal, unless it’s free range (the conditions for veal calves are truly appalling), but I don’t want to see it banned. I’d like to see some tougher standards for raising the calves and transporting them, but I’m not much into banning things.
The “Event Promoters” ordinance requires any event promoter to have a license from the city of Chicago and liability insurance of $300,000, but that’s just the start:
* The definition of “event promoter” is so loosely defined it could apply to a band that books its own shows or a theater company that’s in town for a one-week run.
* “Event Promoter” must be licensed and will pay $500 - $2000 depending on expected audience size.
* To get the license, applicant must be over 21, get fingerprinted, submit to a background check, and jump over several other hurdles.
* This ordinance seems targeted towards smaller venues, since those with 500+ permanent seats are exempt.
* Police must be notified at least 7 days in advance of event.
Two days before a pivotal Plan Commission showdown, Mayor Daley said today he’s not afraid of a protracted court battle over his plan to build a $100 million Children’s Museum in Grant Park. […]
“Everything is gonna be tied up in court. … Meigs Field would have never been changed if you were worried about lawyers. I don’t know why everybody is always worried about lawyers. This is ridiculous. You could never function at all — both in the public and private sector — if you were worried about lawyers. You could never make a decision,” he said. […]
[Daley also rejected] demands that a half-finished soccer field in Lincoln Park built with $2 million in funding from the elite Latin School be restored to a grassy meadow.
“This a recreation field. This is adjacent to all of the baseball and softball diamonds as well as soccer and everything else. You want people to use the park. Parks are for people. You need soccer. You need all of these things. We have enough meadows. We want people to come and use the parks, the mayor said.
“If you were worried about lawyers you could never make a decision.”
- Tell that to Sorich.
“Parks are for people.”
- Yeah, public parks are there to give the scions of rich people exclusive access.
1.) CTA decides to suspend service in the State Street subway and on the Loop ‘L’ along Lake and Wabash most hours outside of business hours for the rest of 2008;
2.) CTA personnel posted at shuttered stops to help riders themselves have no clue how to figure out the diversions; and
3.) In the span of 24 hours, a simple, weekly bridge lift and a small fire force Loop elevated service to be suspended for almost seven and a half hours. […]
Eliminating your back-up plan is a rotten way to try and accelerate capital work. I’d rather have track work take longer than have skeleton ‘L’ service–and the threat of no service if one small thing goes wrong.
* One legitimate criticism of Gov. Blagojevich’s endless quest to expand health care coverage is that he is doing such a poor job administering the state’s existing health care programs that he can’t be trusted to do the right thing with new programs…
Comptroller Dan Hynes and several lawmakers used a stinging new audit to blast Gov. Rod Blagojevich’s administration for trying to expand state-subsidized health care when the current state Medicaid program is racking up huge deficits and is sometimes taking months to pay doctors who care for the poor and elderly.
Auditor General William Holland’s examination provided the first hard evidence of how the administration has camouflaged the state’s budget problems by rolling over about $1.5 billion in Medicaid bills each year. Moreover, the report said, it is taking the Illinois Department of Healthcare and Family Services an average of 77 days to pay doctors and pharmacists who are not associated with large hospitals.
“This is appalling and inexcusable,” Hynes said. “Health-care providers have been forced out of business as a result of the ongoing mismanagement of this program.” […]
Rep. Frank Mautino (D-Spring Valley) said he was especially troubled by the audit’s finding that the state is taking nearly three months before telling many providers that a payment request has been rejected. [emphasis added]
* Hynes gave a quick outline of the Auditor General’s report in a statement issued to reporters…
–During the last three fiscal years on average $1.5 billion in medical claims went unpaid in the same year the services were provided.
–Due to the late payments, the [Department of Healthcare and Family Services] accrued potentially $81 million in interest costs since FY2000. In the current fiscal year alone, Hynes noted, the state has paid out more than $20 million in late-payment interest for healthcare-related bills.
–The agency failed to develop a system to pay interest on late medical reimbursements until nearly eight years after it should have done so. It took an average of 452 days to pay interest due to some healthcare providers.
* More from Hynes’ statement…
“This audit provides more evidence that the administration has been mismanaging the Medicaid system and has been manipulating the payment process,” Hynes said. “By doing so, they are not helping people as they claim. Rather, they are harming some of the most vulnerable Illinoisans and the dedicated healthcare professionals who are trying to provide those citizens with critical services.”
In Rockford, SwedishAmerican Hospital is waiting on state reimbursement it requested five months ago for Medicaid-related expenses, said Richard Walsh, chief operating officer, adding that the hospital is waiting on $12.5 million.
“It’s frustrating for all health-care systems,” he said, that the state “continues to balance its budget by not paying for services that are being provided to Medicaid patients throughout the year, particularly when we can’t refuse those patients when they show up at our door.”
That’s the nut of it right there. The state is literally balancing its budget by borrowing from Medicaid providers. Illinois has always done this, but it’s gotten worse under the Blagojevich administration. Putting new people into Medicaid programs only puts more strain on the system.
The governor did try to address this last year, but his Gross Receipts Tax proposal - which would have pumped lots of money into Medicaid programs - was just too bizarre and too costly.
HYNES: We have to ask ourselves whether we’re really helping people if we’re expanding a system that’s broken, that’s underfunded, and where doctors don’t want to participate.
“I got Sam’s letter. I’m not telling you what it said. … We are still in negotiations with the Cubs-despite the letter, despite all of the stories,” Thompson said.
Former Illinois Gov. James Thompson, who heads the state agency, said Tuesday on Tribune Co.-owned WGN-AM 720 that the deal “still has life as far as I’m concerned” and that he planned “to act properly by going back to Sam Zell and negotiating further.”
“My family is deeply concerned and distressed by reports that federal law enforcement officials were disseminating information and anecdotes about a possible assassination of our father and mother,” Jackson Jr. said in a prepared statement.
* 12:40 pm - The House is now debating a proposal to inject some supplemental funding into IDOT’s badly frayed budget. This is a “clean” bill, unlike the Senate’s proposal, which directly tied funding for IDOT (and other stuff) to the passage of the governor’s health care proposals.
IDOT has exhausted its transfer abilities within its Road Fund budget, so this proposal would allow the department to transfer more money to pay for things like gasoline, etc.
* 12:48 pm - The bill passed 108-0. It now goes to the Senate.
…Adding… The bill’s sponsor is Rep. Jay Hoffman, the governor’s House floor leader. It was just common sense to de-link IDOT’s money woes from the governor’s health care agenda. So, I, for one, am happy to see that that at least some semblance of common sense finally prevailed. I kinda doubt the disease will spread, however.
* 1:00 pm - Rising gas prices aren’t the only thing hurting the state’s budget…
Just as Illinoisans are pinching pennies at the grocery store, the fallout from rising food prices is hitting state government.
The cost of providing food to prison inmates, aging veterans and developmentally disabled residents at state institutions is on pace to be up by $7 million this year, according to a review of state payments to vendors.
That’s more than a 10 percent increase over 2006, when the state spent about $64 million on everything from corn flakes to green beans.
* 1:13 pm - I was hoping to get this list by now, but I need to move on to other tasks today, so here’s last night’s CBS 2 story on Todd Stroger that many of you have already heard about…
Stroger critics, who asked not to be identified, gave CBS 2 a printed list of more than 1,300 top county jobs, all of them exempt from laws against patronage. Many are filled by workers with ties to key Stroger allies including House Speaker Michael Madigan; Mayor Richard M. Daley and his brother, County Board Finance Chairman John Daley; County commissioners Jerry Butler, Bill Beavers and Robert Steele; and former 19th Ward Committeeman Thomas Hynes, a longtime Stroger family friend. […]
Laura Lechowicz Felicione, the daughter of a former commissioner is a “special counsel” at $160,000.
Bruce Washington ran Stroger’s father, John Stroger’s, campaign. He’s a capital planner at a $133,000.
Gene Mullins is a Stroger pal from elementary school. He’s a new media liaison at a $120,000.
The logical next step would be “Exposing Daley.” If one is going to go after the governor and the county board president, then “getting” the mayor of Chicago would be the natural completion to the trio of political powerhouses.
Several dozen people registered at our new classfieds/calendar website InsiderzExchange yesterday. That’s very good. Much better than we’d hoped.
But I was talking to some potential users last night and they asked if we’d consider lowering the price, at least temporarily.
Their wish is our command.
We’ve cut the price for classifieds postings in half, at least for now. One week of classified advertising is just 25 bucks. That’s dirt cheap, man. Calendar items are still $25 - but they’ll be displayed at InsiderzExchange even if your event is six months - or even a year - from now.
Unlike CraigsList, there’s no goofy spam at InsiderzExchange. Unlike newspaper classifieds, InsiderzExchange is highly targeted to the people you’re trying to reach.
Assistant U.S. Atty. Christopher Niewoehner ended the trial’s final argument with a flurry, asking the jury for a conviction.
This wasn’t some series of random circumstances that led to Rezko being victimized, said Niewoehner, his voice rising with anger as he spoke to the jury largely without notes.
“This is a crime, ladies and gentlemen,” Niewoehner said. “This is a crime that involves the highest levels of power in Illinois.”
[…]
“He’s a victim of nothing but his own greed,” Niewoehner said of Rezko. “And that is a victim you need not concern yourselves with.”
“Mo matter how much Mr. Duffy wants to make this trial about the secret life of Stuart Levine, that’s not what this trial is about,” he said. “There’s somebody else who’s being exposed – it’s the defendant [Rezko’s] secret life.”
Rezko’s secret life had nothing to do with drugs or the all-night parties Levine had at the Purple Hotel in Lincolnwood. For Rezko, it was all about covering his tracks, telling people “don’t talk” to authorities and “there’s going to be a new U.S. Attorney to come in. The cooperators will be dealt with.”
[…]
Besides Rezko manipulating votes on a state teacher-pension board to enrich himself and his associates with illegal finder’s fees, “this is a crime that involves deciding where hospitals are going to be built . . . based on who’s willing to pay a bribe,” he said.
Rezko was also a victim of Levine’s schemes, Duffy said. When Rezko dealt with him, he did not understand what a con man he was, he told the panel.
“Did he, like anyone else, have a clue about what he really was? Of course not,” Duffy said.
Government agents had 41 interviews with Levine, and they, too, were fooled by him, Duffy said.
“Unlike Mr. Rezko, they are professional law enforcement people,” argued Duffy, telling the jurors that agents and prosecutors always have their antennae up.
[Duffy] spent most of his time dealing with Count 16, a charge that Rezko tried to extort $1.5 million in campaign fundraising help for Gov. Rod Blagojevich out of Tom Rosenberg, a principal in real-estate management firm Capri Capital that was seeking $220 million in investments from the same pension board. Prosecutors say Rezko, Levine and others conspired to hold up the investment as they tried to force Rosenberg to comply.
“Nobody ever asked Rosenberg for any money,” Duffy said. “Nobody, nobody, nobody. I don’t know how you have an attempted extortion where nobody asks the intended victim for anything.”
Duffy said he expected to talk for another hour this afternoon, and then Assistant U.S. Atty. Chris Niewoehner will give a rebuttal argument for the government — the final argument from lawyers on either side in the case. Niewoehner said he expected to take less than two hours.
*** UPDATE 1 *** From the Tribune’s excellent Rezko trial blog (both Chicago papers seem to be doing very good jobs, by the way)…
It is, of course, impossible to read the minds of jurors as they watch the closing arguments, but at least one seems to be doing his best to broadcast his displeasure — or at least his boredom — with Duffy.
The man sitting at the end of the jury box closest to the news media can be seen from the gallery smirking, talking to himself, looking at the clock, leaning forward and staring at the chair in front of him. He then leaned back and thumped his head against a back wall, rubbed his eyes, stretched his arms, scratched his back and shook his head.
All of this while every other juror appears to be paying attention and a few are taking notes.
Defense attorney Duffy also went after Joe Cari’s testimony this morning, suggesting that Cari confused his meeting dates.
Duffy invented a phrase to refer to the government’s theory of the case against Rezko. Duffy called it “the Levine prism.” All the evidence against Rezko, he said, is presented through the eyes and words of Levine. “It’s almost like they were trying to prove the Levine theory of the case and lost track of the big picture,” Duffy said.
And Duffy pulled out another metaphor, comparing the government’s case with the Great Pyramid of Egypt, an engineering marvel that sits perfectly balanced on its cornerstones. The message Duffy was trying to convey was that Levine was the cornerstone of the government’s case and therefore it was unsupportable.
* Going after Stu Levine appears to be a winner with the jury. This passage is from today’s Sun-Times…
At times, jurors smiled, suppressed chuckles or outright laughed. In poking fun at Levine’s memory, Duffy cited an old anti-drug commercial featuring eggs in a frying pan: “This is your brain. This is your brains on drugs. Bingo! They got it right.”
On why Levine is cooperating in the Rezko case: “He needed Rezko for one reason only. To avoid life in prison.”
On Levine’s claims that Levine was being truthful with the jury: “You’re not gonna change the stripes on a zebra.”
On what the government should have done with Levine: “They should have terminated his cooperation agreement and taken the full force of the law against him. The sad reality of it is they made a commitment to him and they needed him.”
On why the government didn’t have Levine attempt to record Rezko after Levine began cooperating: “Why wasn’t there an effort to tape Mr. Rezko? What do you think would have ended up on that tape? Nothing that would have been consistent with the story he told in this trial.”
Duffy showed a chart indicating Levine withdrew $1.3 million in cash from 2000 to early 2004. Duffy attributed the cash to a far more excessive drug use than what Levine admitted. He then showed a chart showing Levine dialed his drug sources 806 times in a 25-month period.
But what if your employer paid for you to ride to work on the CTA or Metra? […]
A recent study by Business Week found that more than half of workers in Chicago said they would take public transportation if their employer paid for it.
So on Monday, three Republican congressmen — Mark Kirk, Judy Biggert and Peter Roskam - announced their plan to make that happen.
Their bill would give tax credits to employers — a 50 percent tax credit for all free transit benefits provided to workers - up to $1,380 a year.
* Question: Is this a good idea? Also, should Illinois offer the same business tax credit? Explain.
Tuesday, May 13, 2008 - Posted by Capitol Fax Blog Advertising Department
[The following is a paid advertisement]
People are demanding even better and faster services as communications technology is evolving at a lightning pace. That demand requires a plan.
Bricks and mortal are the heart and soul of any plan to repair or build things.
But there is another capital plan, which is less obvious, yet requires enormous annual investment, creates good jobs and is a lifeline for consumers and the economy. The best news is taxpayers aren’t required to pay this tab.
This “virtual” capital plan is keeping the Internet humming along at faster speeds, expanding broadband, enhancing wireless service, keeping phone lines crystal clear and delivering a cutting-edge television product – U-verse.
While this capital program doesn’t require public investment, it does require public support.
Senator Clayborne and Representative Brosnahan sponsored the Cable and Video Competition Law to help consumers who were craving more choices in the video marketplace, and it was supported by the General Assembly and Attorney General Madigan.
They, along with Senate President Jones and House Speaker Madigan, understood this was a vital vote for our consumers and our economy
Since it was signed by Governor Blagojevich last June 30th, AT&T has created more than 1,400 jobs related to the rollout of its state-of-the-art video service.
AT&T has also started on a more than $1.3 billion Illinois investment plan over the next several years to bring consumers new services, including high-tech television.
Our elected officials made true video competition a reality. They understood all AT&T wants to continue doing is competing for customers.
“Not really, I mean he was a friend, I’m proud of what we did together. He clearly knew going in that I was for John McCain, although that was eighteen-nineteen months ago. You know my guess is he thought John McCain was probably not going to be our nominee. But, I have been a McCain supporter for many years and you know, Barack knew it. I limited what I said to just that [Obama] did work with Republicans in Springfield and nothing else.”
* And, apparently, there is an agreement not to run that ad in the fall if Obama gets the Democratic nomination…
“I have spoken to his staff and said if Barack is the nominee, and it is still not settled as we sit here [April 27], but when it is a head on head race, pull the ad.”
* Asked if he believes that the Obama campaign will honor the agreement, Dillard replies…
“I would hope they honor that because I think Senator McCain will come back…I think the McCain campaign will say look, somebody who knows Senator Obama is for me, John McCain, and many of the reasons that I am for John McCain, Jeff, are the reasons that I actually struck a friendship with Barack: John McCain works well with both political parties; John McCain has worked on ethics reforms at the national level. But, the difference is John McCain has national foreign policy experience and I most importantly believe that America needs a check and balance, whether it is Mitt Romney or Mike Huckabee or John McCain, the Republicans are a good balance and we need a check and balance on [Speaker] Nancy Pelosi and a Democrat Congress, so there are many reasons why I am for John McCain.”
* Here’s the script from the Obama TV ad that first aired in Iowa last year. It’s called “Carry“…
Script for “Carry” (30 seconds):
Obama: I’m Barack Obama, and I approve this message.
Obama (from the 2004 Democratic National Convention): There is not a liberal America and a conservative America — there is the United States of America.
Kirk Dillard (Republican Illinois State Senator): Senator Obama worked on some of the deepest issues we had and was successful in a bipartisan way…
Larry Walsh (Democratic Illinois State Senator): The legislation that he carried, he believed in. He was not carrying it for a group. He was not carrying for a lobbyist.
Kirk Dillard: Republicans legislators respected Senator Obama. His negotiation skills and an ability to understand both sides would serve the country very well.
* And here’s the ad, which has been used many times and in many states since Iowa…
On an afternoon conference call, Republican Illinois State Senator Kirk Dillard, who is featured in the ad titled “Carry”, talked about personally working with Obama and seeing firsthand his ability to bring people together to accomplish important goals.
“Senator Obama and I spent hundreds of hours working on issues together in a bipartisan fashion,” said State Senator Kirk Dillard. “I’ve seen firsthand that Senator Obama can take tough problems, reconcile parties and races and explain difficult topics to everyday people. We worked as a tag-team on many complex issues, and I feel privileged to have worked with Senator Obama in the early part of his career.”
* Eric Zorn tees off on the governor today. Zorn blasted Blagojevich for saying last week after the announcement of his $150 million anti-violence program…
“Children are being shot and killed. And for lawmakers to say we can’t do it, that’s exactly the reason why there’s so much violence out there today and so we’re just not gonna take ‘no’ for an answer.”
In fact, last August… “no” was his answer to a remarkable anti-violence program: In cutting the state budget, he removed the entire $6.2 million allocation for CeaseFire.
* More from Zorn…
Friday, Northwestern University released a 229-page report concluding that gun violence dropped 17 percent to 24 percent in six of seven neighborhoods where CeaseFire mediators were in place.
The three-year study, commissioned by the U.S. Department of Justice, offered the most striking proof yet that CeaseFire’s trained peacemakers—”violence interrupters,” who are often former gang members themselves—really do save a significant number of lives.
After Blagojevich cut funding to CeaseFire in August, 96 of the program’s 130 conflict mediators lost their jobs, according to founder and director Dr. Gary Slutkin, a University of Illinois at Chicago epidemiologist. CeaseFire’s analysis of police data suggests this has resulted in 170 additional shootings since September.
* Zorn goes on to point out that Blagojevich was an early backer of CeaseFire and that a House-approved bill to double CeaseFire’s appropriation is still sitting in the Senate Rules Committee, “where Senate President Emil Jones sends legislation to die.”
“Pass that bill and I’ll sign it!” Blagojevich did not say last week.
He should have.
* The State Journal-Register takes another whack at Gov. Blagojevich, this time over prison closings…
If Pontiac closes, 800 inmates would go to the Mississippi River facility, with the rest being shipped all over the state. Had Stateville’s wing closed, 400 prisoners would have moved to Thomson. Meanwhile, [a Department of Corrections spokesman] said 800 would have gone to — you guessed it — Pontiac.
If it strikes you as odd that a prison now in the governor’s cross-hairs was, until last week, part of the solution for another prison’s partial closure, welcome to wacky Illinois. Indeed, shuttering Stateville would produce an advertised first-year savings of $31 million. Boarding up Pontiac would supposedly save $4 million annually. We’ve yet to see an apples-to-apples comparison. […]
Is the governor’s reversal politically inspired, then? Did it happen because the legislator representing Stateville, state Sen. A.J. Wilhelmi, is a Democrat like the governor, while Rutherford is a Republican? Or because Rutherford supported putting a recall measure on the ballot, while Wilhelmi took a pass?
Netsch was quoted in 1980 suggesting that Quinn should be strung feet-first from the third-floor brass rail in the Capitol rotunda. Her opinion hasn’t softened much in the years since.
“The showboating, the press conference every Sunday. … It was always, ‘We’re doing it for the people,’” recalled Netsch, now a law professor at Northwestern University in Evanston. “Put it this way: There are other people I would rather see as governor.”
* Rep. Bill Black had another view…
“Had you been here 25 or 30 years ago, I don’t think people would have said ‘Pat Quinn’ and ‘governor’ in the same sentence,” said longtime state Rep. Bill Black, R-Danville. “They do now.”
Tribune Co. Chairman Sam Zell has rejected former Gov. James Thompson’s secret plan to acquire and renovate Wrigley Field for at least $400 million without raising taxes and now plans to package the Cubs and their landmark stadium in a private transaction, sources said Monday.
* Some of the possible reasons…
Zell, Cubs Chairman Crane Kenney and their advisers have concluded that the equity [seat sales] plan and its tax ramifications would violate both the Internal Revenue Service code and the rules of Major League Baseball, the sources said. […]
[Also] the plan could have driven away potential buyers of the franchise. The next Cubs owner could have been denied revenue from the best seats in the house.
Chicago-based Tribune Company announced it’s selling its Long-Island based-paper Newsday to Cablevision Systems Corporation. With a circulation of close to 400,000, Newsday is one of the country’s largest regional newspapers, serving mainly Long Island and parts of New York City.
The cable television provider bought the paper for $650 million. […]
Tribune needs to offset $8 billion of debt the company took on when it went private last year.
Those debt payments were crushing, and Zell needed cash quickly. That’s a big reason why he was trying to do the Wrigley Field deal with the state this spring. The immediate crisis may have passed, however.
Something tells me, though, that we are not yet out of the danger zone on a taxpayer financed bailout of Sam Zell’s Wrigley Field, or perhaps the new buyer. These things never completely die.
Crane Kenney, the Cubs’ chairman and outgoing general counsel of parent Tribune… says there’s still a chance that Wrigley could be sold separately to the Illinois Sports Facilities Authority.
But Kenney says Tribune’s moving ahead to package the stadium together with the ballclub in a private sale. Outside experts believe the sale could fetch as much as $1 billion for the media conglomerate.
Kenney told the AP that the company’s moving the private sale process forward and expects to get the financial books to buyers within the next two weeks.
Ending years of litigation, the U.S. Supreme Court has cleared the way for Chicago to acquire and relocate a cemetery needed for the continued expansion of O’Hare International Airport.
The Metropolitan Planning Council announced Monday that it could not support the proposed move of the Chicago Children’s Museum to Grant Park, citing unanswered questions and a lack of “thoughtful” public discussion about the controversial project.
* Children’s Museum collects another opponent: MPC
An MPC spokeswoman said the organization’s position represents the stance of the entire board, not just President MarySue Barrett, formerly a member of Mr. Daley’s administration. Mr. Daley appointed Ms. Barrett in 1993 to head his policy office.
“There is no comprehensive improvement plan. There is a series of projects and lists,” Msall said. “You owe it to the public — and the General Assembly should demand — that they know what priorities are before they approve the extraordinary borrowing against the future revenue stream, which is what the lottery is.”
“As a citizen and as someone who has been involved in some of the largest public works projects in recent history in this area, I am really disturbed about the timid nature of the current debate about capital,” Reilly said. “We say we’re a world-class city, yet we in transit will be very lucky if we get enough money just to maintain what is basically a late 19th Century and early 20th Century system.”
A City Council committee on Monday signed off on a $50 million settlement — the largest in Chicago history — for survivors of a 2003 Loop high-rise fire and relatives of six victims trapped in smoke-filled stairwells that locked behind them.
“I believe in bipartisanship, and that has gotten me in trouble,” LaHood told about 400 people at the $75-per-plate event at Northfield Inn Suites & Conference Center. “And I know this is a Republican gathering.”
