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The hotel deal has been a festering sore for years. Topinka has never been able to put the questions aside, so she tried a new tack with the Daily Herald.
Republican governor candidate Judy Baar Topinka expressed regret Wednesday for a decade-old, ill-fated hotel loan settlement proposal and also said she doesn’t think she’ll be hearing from federal prosecutors any time soon about a 2003 subpoena. […]
Asked Wednesday if she’d handle the loan situation differently in hindsight, Topinka said she would have tried to “create a consensus†instead of going at it “head on.†If she had done that, then-Republican Attorney General Jim Ryan, who eventually quashed Topinka’s settlement, might have helped her avoid what’s become a political albatross.
Topinka also denied any relationship with Cellini, despite his bank board’s ties. “He doesn’t contribute to me. I do not socialize with him,†she said.
The treasurer also said she doesn’t think anything will come of a February 2003 subpoena that U.S. Attorney Patrick Fitzgerald’s office issued after a former Topinka contract employee complained that workers were campaigning on state time. Topinka attributed the complaint to her decision not to renew the individual’s contract.
Will it work?
UPDATE: Audio here. (Scroll down.)
posted by Rich Miller
Thursday, Feb 23, 06 @ 8:03 am
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Yeah, it will work because there is simply nothing there. If there was anything there with the hotel deal, it would have been brought to light a long time ago. As for the disgruntled worker, well, we know what that’s all about. If they had anything, they would have certainly used it a long time ago too!
Comment by GOPJay Thursday, Feb 23, 06 @ 9:03 am
GOPJay –
Nothing wrong with the deal?
It was unlike any financing I have ever seen, and I have been active in the municipal marketplace for a long, long time.
It was structured to completely protect Cellini and company, eliminate any chance for a default. There was no way that the State could recapture the property without paying all of the non reducing principal. White shoe and formerly Republican, then Governor Jim Thompson would never as an attorney approve such a deal.
I am surprised they found a bond counsel to sign off.
Cellini gets off scot free and if Judy B had approved the deal, it would have been a give away.
The Cellini family is symptomatic of the combine riding roughshod over the interests of the public.
This was a deal which was run through with the cooperation of the Democrats as well. Jerry Costello had a Collinsville motel deal of the same ilk.
Jay, baby, go back and read the prospectus.
Judy B was a neophyte when she was originally asked to approve the bail out for Springfield’s richest gentleman. To her credit, she diud hold out for awhile. Then she gave in, for reasons which escape this writer.
Comment by Truthful James Thursday, Feb 23, 06 @ 9:15 am
Never Judy /Truthful James:
You just made the case, former bond counsel. She didn’t do the deal and opposed it.
No comment on the subpoena? Seems to me you would know a lot about that topic. Your silence says it all.
Comment by Bubs Thursday, Feb 23, 06 @ 9:38 am
Truthful,
I think that you are giving Big Jim a little too much credit as far as legal skills are concerned. Ask Conrad Black.
Comment by Bill Thursday, Feb 23, 06 @ 9:38 am
Bubs, Truthful James is not Never Judy.
Comment by Rich Miller Thursday, Feb 23, 06 @ 9:40 am
There are lots of addresses, Rich.
Comment by Bubs Thursday, Feb 23, 06 @ 9:52 am
Are so many of us here so ill-informed, or just untruthful? Topinka did not do the original hotel financing deal!!!
Those among us who criticize Topinksa’s supposed lack of government acumen, look at the hotel situation today and tell us the State would not be better off finicially if her proposed sale strategy had been implemented.
She did what she was supposed to do, act in the State’s financial best interest, and cut our losses. When you can get 25 cents on the dollar for debt that is worth zero, take it. Any business person would. By stopping her deal the net result years later is that the State has still received zero and the owners have still paid zero.
Comment by steve schnorf Thursday, Feb 23, 06 @ 10:02 am
I’m confused by all the conspiracy theories. Did Judy really structure the deal? Boy, she must have been some powerful state senator to play Jim Thompson like that.
Actually, Judy didn’t make the deal in 1982. She was elected Treasurer in 1994, sworn in during 1995. By that time, the loan was already in default.
I have some experience in settling bad debts. Offers and counteroffers are made every day. It is a good business practice. Better the state get something back than nothing.
In fact, Doug Ibendahl tells us that Jack Roeser, who owes the State Board of Elections tens of thousands of dollars in fines, made an offer to the Board to get off for pennies on the dollar. I wonder what Doug would say about the Board if they took his offer?
The “investigation” into the office is laughable, since Ibendahl started that also. And it went no where.
The lesson here is, don’t do those folks any favors. No good deed goes unpunished.
Comment by Rick Thursday, Feb 23, 06 @ 10:15 am
Looks like we chose the junkyard dog to head up the race for the governor’s office.
Comment by anon Thursday, Feb 23, 06 @ 10:42 am
I still think the state should take control and turn it into a legislative dormatory.
Comment by Cal Skinner Thursday, Feb 23, 06 @ 10:44 am
I never suggested that Judy B did the original deal. She was anointed as the new kid on the block to be the fall person on the bail out
Thanks, Rich, I am not and never have been either Never Judy or a lawyer. Bubs was jumping to contusions. I did read very carefully the Cellini Ramada Renaissance prospectus. Why the State found it necessary to kiss Bill Cellini’s cheeks, I do not know.
Comment by Truthful James Thursday, Feb 23, 06 @ 10:55 am
Color me “skeptical.” As we all know, there is more than one cow in that barn.
Comment by Bubs Thursday, Feb 23, 06 @ 11:03 am
Bubs — That’s udder nonsense. Cheer up.
If you keep your head still when you look at me, you won’t see double.
I don’t need another nickname to make my points.
Comment by Truthful James Thursday, Feb 23, 06 @ 11:08 am
It’s not the milk, it’s the manure.
Comment by Bubs Thursday, Feb 23, 06 @ 11:26 am
Judy speaks: now, she’s a stranger to Cellini and Kjellander. What a joke. On Cellini, here’s a good question: while party chairman, didn’t she approve Cellini as a slated delegate to the Republican National Convention in 2004? What were the circumstances surrounding her approval of Cellini as a delegate? During the long convention week did she NEVER socialize with Cellini? During all her years in Springfield, has she NEVER socialized with Cellini? Or his wife?
Give us all a break, Judy.
Comment by Never Judy Thursday, Feb 23, 06 @ 11:33 am
Speaking of manure . . .
Comment by Bubs Thursday, Feb 23, 06 @ 11:37 am
Bubs — if anybody should know about manure, you’re the fellow with the hipboots. But you keep using the wrong end of the pitchfork.
Comment by Truthful James Thursday, Feb 23, 06 @ 11:43 am
Oh, I don’t know about that, the manure is being pushed aside. There appears to be agreement that Topinka is hardly the origin of the Cellini problem, and that the 2003 subpoena bit is just a lingering smear. The truth is having a good day, for once.
Comment by Bubs Thursday, Feb 23, 06 @ 11:53 am
As to the deal; there is no there there.
As to the accusation of employee’s time spent on campaigning; thats a fact of life. Unless the employee wouldn’t spend their time on her campaign and was fired for doing it, there is no story here as well, just sour grapes.
Comment by VanillaMan Thursday, Feb 23, 06 @ 1:03 pm
She’s not doing a very good job of shaking the issue. She downplays the whole thing and tries to convince everyone that there wasn’t (isn’t) anything in it for her.
She is currently accepting campaign donations from Stephen and Theresa Cullian, two of the hotel investors that she tried to bail out with the deal. She’s the first one to criticize Rod for accepting contributions form people doing business with Illinois.
HPL is currently doing business with the state of Illinois.
Comment by B Hicks Thursday, Feb 23, 06 @ 1:13 pm
As a former county chairmain I can assure you Judy and Bill have been in the same backroom and discussed issues. They not only are of the same party but of the same mold.Did I say mold,I meant the same sold.
Comment by NIEVA Thursday, Feb 23, 06 @ 1:15 pm
Sparking an outcry from a Republican rival, state Treasurer Judy Baar Topinka accepted $11,000 from a firm owned by an investor in a clout-heavy luxury hotel that she once offered to bail out from a decades-old, unpaid state loan.
In October and again in December, Topinka opened her campaign coffers to Peoria-based Health Professionals Ltd., a contractor that provides prison health care services. The firm is owned by Dr. Stephen Cullinan and his wife, Dr. Theresa Falcon-Cullinan.
They must think that she’s pretty, too.
Comment by B Hicks Thursday, Feb 23, 06 @ 1:20 pm
She tried to bail the State out, not the investors. Be assured, they have no personal liability here.
Comment by steve schnorf Thursday, Feb 23, 06 @ 2:12 pm
Are you serious? She was trying to bail the state out?
If YOU and Judy consider that helping the state out, no wonder Rod was left with such a mess.
Comment by B Hicks Thursday, Feb 23, 06 @ 2:22 pm
If there was any real problem except for giving bloggers something to type about that big Fed in Chicago would of be having her make bail.
Comment by DOWNSTATE Thursday, Feb 23, 06 @ 2:27 pm
The “investigation”, such as it was, ended almost two years ago, and here’s why you can bank on it:
The feds instruct complaining witnesses not to talk to the press, and the “third rail” of a federal investigation in Chicago is touched when the complaining witness uses her allegations for publicity, particularly publicity for political advantage.
A. Topinka’s office complied with the subpoena for documents in February 2003.
B. JBT said in the recent article that she’s never heard from the feds after complying with the subpoena. If that “investigation” had gone anywhere, she would have at least been interviewed.
C. Over three months after the subpoena, Santos gave an interview to the Tribune and on June 5, 2003, the Tribune was suckered into a front page article which extensively related her allegations from her own mouth, including quotes.
Bottom line: there hasn’t been an “investigation” since at least June 2003, and likely earlier.
Comment by Bubs Thursday, Feb 23, 06 @ 3:13 pm
Wasn’t Cellini wife head of Edgar’s patronage office? One would think that the same backdoor was cut if JBT is elected
Comment by Anonymous Thursday, Feb 23, 06 @ 3:29 pm
Yes indeed, there was a Cellini inside the Edgar cabinet. But (tongue in cheek, firmly) I would say that she would never talk about state business with Bill.
Speaking of the Eunuch in Charleston, why would he decapitate Jack Ryan and not run in his stead. There were some ghosts about to come out of his closet, I understand.
Comment by Truthful James Thursday, Feb 23, 06 @ 3:50 pm
Rich, please give us an update on the latest governor race polls when another one surfaces.
Comment by anon Thursday, Feb 23, 06 @ 3:50 pm
Hmm….all things that then Treasurer candidate Tom Dart brought up about Topinka back in 2002
As Dart pointed out in conjunction with calling Topinka out on her corruption….Attorney General Jim Ryan admonished her for her involvement with this crooked deal.
Since Dart is bound to be the next Cook County Sheriff its nice to see a man of integrity succeed in Illinois Politics
Comment by prairiestatedem Thursday, Feb 23, 06 @ 4:15 pm
I guess my problem with Judy’s response is that — even knowing what she knows now — she would still allow these guys off the hook.
The bottom line is that these hotels are indeed profitable — as profitable as any — otherwise, how come they are always so booked up?
Comment by Yellow Dog Democrat Thursday, Feb 23, 06 @ 4:52 pm
Hey, conspirators, wake up. The hotel people are *off* the hook, right now, and Judy didn’t do a thing.
If she’d had her way, they’d have paid millions of dollars. Something instead of the big fat zero we’ve received since she was stopped.
Hey, the deal couldn’t have been that bad if Doug Ibendahl and Jack Roeser are asking for the same thing, and calling it “reasonable”.
Comment by Rick Thursday, Feb 23, 06 @ 5:18 pm
was it his wife or sister that worked for edgar? all i can remember is that she was the one who called me when i got my job
Comment by NIEVA Thursday, Feb 23, 06 @ 5:27 pm
Janis Cellini is Bill’s sister, and she was Jim Edgar’s Patronage Director for much of his tenure as SOS and Governor. Bill’s wife is Julie, of Abe Lincoln Musuem / Library fame. And let’s not forget how much money he was making from his part of the Alton Riverboat - while he claimed he could not make any payments on his hotel.
While JBT did not set up the deal - the blame for that goes to Thompson and Cosentino - her desire to get rid of an audit problem led her to be hasty and propose a deal that Jim Ryan said was 50% too generous - and to Cellini’s benefit.
Comment by Smitty Irving Thursday, Feb 23, 06 @ 6:10 pm
So how has the state done on the hotel since the sale was blocked, wizards?
Comment by steve schnorf Thursday, Feb 23, 06 @ 6:26 pm
I’ve always believed the only mistake Topinka made on this was bowing to pressure from Jim Ryan and backing out of the settlement.
She negotiated a settlement that would have gotten the state cash up front. The original deals (don’t forget there are two of them, one for a Democrat hotel and one for a Republican hotel) were certainly terrible. Obviously, when you have an agreement that says a business only has to make payments when it shows a profit, the businesses have every incentive to never show a profit, which is exactly what has happened.
But, the blame for that agreement goes to a former Governor now serving as Rod Blagojevich’s legal counsel. When she came on the scene, all Topinka did was try to salvage something for the state from an awful agreement.
Her campaign ought to be adding up the earnings that would have been made from the settlement and compare that to what the state has received since Jim Ryan blocked the settlement.
Unfortunately, Judy’s hesitation to criticize other Republicans has prevented her from telling it like it is: Jim Thompson cut a terrible bi-partisan deal; she tried to salvage something for the taxpayers; and Jim Ryan blocked it because he was more interested in playing to the media than in protecting the taxpayers.
Comment by Old Elephant Thursday, Feb 23, 06 @ 8:26 pm
Old Elephant - Didn’t Jim Ryan get U of I finance experts to show why the deal was really good for Cellini and really bad for the taxpayers? He wanted an agreement on those terms.
Comment by Smitty Irving Thursday, Feb 23, 06 @ 10:02 pm
Smitty Irving – see Steve Schnorf’s comment at 6:26. The State’s done really well with the agreement put together by J. Ryan and the University experts.
Not trying to be a smart*ss but I’ll take a real-world negotiation over university hypotheticals any day of the week.
Comment by Old Elephant Thursday, Feb 23, 06 @ 10:27 pm
What is it with you JBT lovers?
You don’t think that something as trivial as this hotel deal is going to harm the anointed one’s chances do you?
It’s Judy, the GOP saviour, remember? She is going to take Rod out, stop raiding the pension system, and live within our means. Geeeeeezz, are you guys living in la-la land?
Judy’s got this one! She is going to take all the cross-over Dem. votes and sail to victory. That is, after she wins that pesky little primary.
Comment by Anonymous Friday, Feb 24, 06 @ 8:00 am
The above was me.
Comment by B Hicks Friday, Feb 24, 06 @ 8:01 am
Whether Judy’s role regarding the hotel was legal or not, there are many of us voters that do not decide if a candidate is a “qualified candidate” based on whether they have been indicted or not. That is the problem anymore with Illinois political candidates. The “bar” has been set so low in Illinois politics anymore, that we now figure if a political candidate has still not been indicted that they must be ethical. Other states have to be laughing at us. We now assign our politicians an “ethical clean bill of health” based on whether they have yet been indicted.
Incidentally, having been involved on a personal basis with FBI and Federal investigations, don’t for a minute think that an investigation is over with just because no one has heard anything from the Feds after three or four years. They often go on for 5 years and sometimes longer depending on their complexity and their scope. And, they love it when everyone figures that everything must be okay because no indictments have been handed out. It lulls the people being investigated and their friends into a false sense of security and it makes the Feds ability to ferret out information and facts so much easier when everyone’s guard is down.
I do not mean to say that Judy is guilty of anything illegal. I also do not mean to imply that she is not. I only wish to say that illegalities rather than moral and ethical lapses should not be the factor that decides whether we should cast our vote for a candidate. Does anybody out there think that Big Jim would have a snowball’s chance of getting elected if he were to run for “any” political office today? George Ryan’s vote or opinion does not count.
Comment by Beowulf Friday, Feb 24, 06 @ 10:14 pm
I certainly do.
Comment by steve schnorf Monday, Feb 27, 06 @ 9:55 pm