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* Hotels, union far apart as contract expires

A contract covering 6,000 workers at 30 downtown hotels expired at midnight Monday, and labor and management remain far apart, according to Unite-Here Local 1.

* Chicago-Area Hotel Labor Negotiations Heat Up

* Cook Co. board scurries to prepare for critical tax vote

The appointment was critical, as today’s meeting is the County Board’s only chance to override President Stroger’s veto of a July measure to roll back the 1 percent increase in the county sales tax imposed earlier this year.

* State trooper replaces Maldonado on Cook County board

Just in time to vote down a sales-tax hike, Northwest Side Democratic committeemen chose Illinois State Trooper Edwin Reyes today to replace Cook County Commissioner Roberto Maldonado.[…]

County Board Finance Committee Chairman John Daley said that with Reyes’ appointment, there are 14 votes, including his, to override Stroger on Tuesday.

* Cook County sales tax rollback gets boost as new commissioner appointed

* Reckoning with Stroger

* Many big salaries on Olympic team

Several make six figures, with highest paid at $300K […]

Mayor Daley’s chief of staff got a whopping 41 percent pay raise — to $250,000 a year — when she jumped off the City Hall merry-go-round to become president of Chicago’s 2016 Olympic bid.

Even with that $72,784-a-year pay raise, former chief of staff Lori Healey is not the bid team’s highest-paid executive, according to Chicago 2016’s “Stewardship Report” of $48.3 million in Olympic spending.

* No free rides?

• • Translation: Sneed is told city budget chief Gene Saffold may tell cops and firemen to park it!

• • Further translation: Word is the city plans to stop the personal use of municipal cars by the Chicago Police and Fire departments.

• • Stop shop: “For many years, both departments have been permitted to take their assigned vehicles home,” said a top city source. “The use of such cars will now be strictly administered . . . and not treated like a perk.”

• • $$$$$: Is it true the approximately 400 city municipal vehicles cost the taxpayers millions yearly? Stay tuned.

* Daleys headed to Moscow to bolster trade

* Chicago Rents Fall as More Apartments Sit Empty

* Group asks for enforcement of parental notice law

* Illinois 13 expansion announcement Tuesday in Marion

The project, with an estimated price tag of more than $100 million, will also create jobs and give a boost to the local economy.

* Chicago State gets $40M surprise from lawmakers

* DNA law misses 50,000 felons released in Illinois

An estimated 50,000 felons have been released from Illinois prisons or county probation without submitting DNA samples as required by law, leaving a gaping hole in the 7-year-old program designed to link known criminals to unsolved crimes.

The Illinois Department of Corrections released nearly 10,000 felons without gathering their DNA since the law was enacted. And Atty. Gen. Lisa Madigan’s office estimates that county probation departments did not secure samples from 40,000 additional felons, mostly in Cook County, due to delays in implementing the law.

* South Siders Spend Billions Each Year Outside of Their Neighborhoods

* CN move worries foes

Railway may be opening door to more trains on old EJ&E line

* Old Sears power plant in Chicago turned into charter high school

The $40 million project, aided by $17 million in federal tax credits, has recovered the architectural glory of the old power plant, especially in a soaring turbine room with glistening white brick walls and tall, arched windows.

* Mobile home park faces fines for tornado damage

* Palatine councilman resigns; Varroney moving to D.C.

* Group launches Great Lakes education campaign

* Chicago street-grid system turns 100 on Tuesday
* Early applications available for Ill. heating help

posted by Mike Murray
Tuesday, Sep 1, 09 @ 10:13 am

Comments

re the CN:

Darch, Wiesner and the entire TRAC organization have stooped to the level of nothing more than meaningless whining.
Their last filing shows just how much they lack even fundamental knowledge as to how railroads operate. CN can not actually ‘own’ a railroad in the United States. Federal law prevents it. CN as a holding company owns and operates several American incorporated and American based subsidiaries. The employees of CN’s Illinois Central Subsidiary all get paychecks that say “Illinois Central” on them and have a seperate labor agreement from CN’s Grand Trunk Western or Wisconsin Central subsidiaries. These trackage rights deals they filed for are simply to allow the employees of one subsidiary company to operate over the tracks of another without stopping the train and changing crews. They have nothing to do with rerouting traffic or increasing train counts.
I do not think that Darch, Wiesner and the entire TRAC organization want to actually know the facts however. The facts can inconveniently get in the way of political posturing, PR spin and media facetime.
Darch and Wiesner–get a life and get on with your actual jobs!!! Stop filling the pockets of your lawyer buddies at the expense of city services and for God’s sakes for once stop being the typical whiny know-nothing politicians that you’ve so totally come to represent!! (Although I guess I should know better than to expect more from politicians)

train111

Comment by train111 Tuesday, Sep 1, 09 @ 10:26 am
luis guttierez appears to have violated the hatch act last night by having political work done on government property. it’s at 1:01.

http://www.wttw.com/main.taf?p=42,8,8&vid=083109e

Comment by Shore Tuesday, Sep 1, 09 @ 10:33 am
Who gives to the Chicago 2016 committee?

Is Daley pressuring philanthropists in Chicago to give to Chicago 2016 instead of social service agencies?

Am I correct to assume the money is being diverted from other forms of charitable giving?

Comment by Carl Nyberg Tuesday, Sep 1, 09 @ 10:47 am
Stakes are high in the hotel negotiations. Times are tough, but some of the biggest Mac Place shows of the year are coming up — Print, SUPERCOMM, World Food.

But the big kahuna is the Radiological Society of North America — 80,000 of the highest paid medical professionals in the world, taking three Mac Place buildings for a week after Thanksgiving, staying in the hotels, eating out large and doing their Christmas shopping on Michigan Avenue.

They’re the crown jewel of the Chicago convention business. They don’t want any mess — they can go anywhere.

Comment by wordslinger Tuesday, Sep 1, 09 @ 10:49 am
Carl,

I think you are correct - it’s a zero sum game. The money being poured into Chicago 2016 is most likely donations that would have funded much more meaningful and worthwhile endeavors. It’s Machine-style legalized extortion, with Daley’s TIF account being used as the carrot and the stick.

Comment by The Doc Tuesday, Sep 1, 09 @ 10:55 am
Shore: Is that a meeting at Gutierrezes campaign office or his district office?

Comment by Brennan Tuesday, Sep 1, 09 @ 11:00 am
so when Chicago loses the 2016 bid to rio, i pray for this everday, will all that donated money be put to use for more worthwhile endeavors? or, will it just go back to the donors?

kinda funny how mayor daley and a few thousand of his wealthiest friends can find all sorts of money for frivilous and trivial things, but then want to burden taxpayers for more funding for failing schools etc.

Comment by Will County Woman Tuesday, Sep 1, 09 @ 11:02 am
Unfortunately WCW, the members of the International Olympic Committee that will vote on the site of the 2016 Games in 31 days are probably too much like Daley and his “wealthiest friends” to give the Olympics to Rio.

Comment by fedup dem Tuesday, Sep 1, 09 @ 11:14 am
wttw doesn’t respond to tweets-too much to do. They said neighborhood office-which could mean either, but I’ve never seen democrats dressed like that for a campaign office or a campaign office that had furniture like that which was better than a college frat house.

the chicago 2016 thing is privately funded. As a republican I’ll aknowledge there are times when newspapers look too hard at the city. This is one.

hendon wanting 40 million for a school that’s not well managed and a building they don’t want and no republican rebuttal is 12 minutes of everything that’s wrong in this state.

Comment by Shore Tuesday, Sep 1, 09 @ 11:24 am
the curious thing was that Hendon said that his constituents want CSU.

The west side has UIC, so why is he and others acting like the west side is a university desert? UIC is a respected school, (probably) even more so than CSU. I wished that Eddie had mentioned UIC during the interview, but he didn’t.

eddie said something very startling about CSU, only 16 percent graduation rate????? Huh???????

Comment by Will County Woman Tuesday, Sep 1, 09 @ 11:43 am
hendon wanting 40 million for a school that’s not well managed and a building they don’t want and no republican rebuttal is 12 minutes of everything that’s wrong in this state.

Isn’t Hendon known for his battles with Obama in the State Senate vis a vis jockeying for appropriations to the West Side at least equal to what the South Side was receiving?

The CSU funding makes little sense to me for Hendon. It flies directly in the face of the bunkers he’s built for the West Side.

Comment by Brennan Tuesday, Sep 1, 09 @ 11:51 am
WCW, Chicago 2016 has hired a bunch of people. The money donated will have been spent.

Who gets those jobs?

I’m guessing the kid working the table at a fair is working for decent money and one of her/his parents has a relationship with a politician (prob an alderman) who is a Daley loyalist.

Dispensing jobs through unions, non-profits and contractors is better than public sector jobs b/c there is less scrutiny of hiring.

Comment by Carl Nyberg Tuesday, Sep 1, 09 @ 11:55 am
fed up,
the sun times is reporting that rio rumored to be in the lead for 2016. I know it’s just a rumor, but I pray that it turns out to be true.

Comment by Will County Woman Tuesday, Sep 1, 09 @ 1:07 pm
Shore, I don’t think doing grassroots lobbying for or against a bill is the same as political work. There is no attempt to get someone elected to office here. It is an attempt to get support for legislation to pass. Nothing wrong with using your government office for that even if you are using the same people that helped for political purposes.

Comment by Been There Tuesday, Sep 1, 09 @ 1:34 pm
in several years of working on capitol hill I don’t ever recall our office being used by outside groups to do organizing. We may have worked with humane society to tally votes, but nothing like that.

It should at least be looked at.

Comment by Shore Tuesday, Sep 1, 09 @ 2:25 pm
===It should at least be looked at. === You can look all you want but it won’t violate the Hatch Act.

Comment by Been There Tuesday, Sep 1, 09 @ 3:09 pm