I know your gameYou know you're bad. You're bad. Really really bad.
What you're about...
The word is out
You're doin' wrong
Gonna lock you up
Before too long
Your lyin' eyes
Gonna take you right
So listen up
Don't make a fight
Your talk is cheap
You're not a man
You're throwin' stones
To hide your hands
That's right aldermen, you are allowed to demand answers when taxpayer money is involved. You don't have to just blindly support whatever the mayor proposes. You can even use independent analysis. Like big boys and girls. Now go do your homework. Or no dessert for you.“If, through their own-foot dragging, they don’t present us with information in time for us to conduct an independent analysis, I would have no choice but to vote the entire package down. The old, ‘Trust me’ just won’t fly anymore,” [Alderman Joe] Moore said.
Ald. Willie Cochran (20th) said the City Council is bolder and wiser after the furor caused by broken, overstuffed and improperly calibrated parking meters and the steep schedule of rate hikes tied to the 75-year lease.
“We have been bitten by the lack of information from this past fiasco. I’ve learned early. Everybody has learned. We are taking those mistake-ridden decisions and moving forward,” Cochran said.
“I never want to be in a position ever again to be held accountable for making a vote on something without having adequate input.”
Even better, Cook County Commissioner Tony Peraica is taking legal action against Mayor Daley's blank check for the Olympics:Ald. Scott Waguespack (32nd) said he believed the committee and mayor’s office were responding to the concerns of aldermen, who have agreed to setting up a tax increment finance district to pay for Olympic infrastructure and back a shortfall of up to $500 million—but no more.
“I think the citizens have seen what they did when they went to Switzerland, and as far as I can tell, people are making a lot of calls to their aldermen,” Waguespack said. “We’ve already seen the story from 2016 change one too many times.
“We have e-mails just flooding in the office now,” he added, saying his constituents were urging the aldermen to commit no more money.
Ald. Manny Flores (1st) is drafting an ordinance he plans to introduce at next week’s City Council meeting that would block the city from making any further commitment.
Cook County Commissioner Tony Peraica today requested that Cook County State’s Attorney Anita Alvarez and Attorney General Lisa Madigan initiate quo warranto proceedings against Mayor Richard M. Daley for committing the taxpayers as guarantors for the cost of the Chicago 2016 Olympic Games.Gotta respect this move by Tony Peraica. He's bold enough to go right at Dick Daley. Looks like Cook County Commission William Beavers isn't the only "hog with the big nuts" around here. Tony Peraica...I applaud you.“I am taking this action on behalf of the taxpayers in response to Mayor Daley’s actions – which were unilateral, without express authority, and without approval from the city council,” said Peraica. “Like most people, I am a fan of the Olympic games, but not if they leave the taxpayers on the hook for a huge price tag that wasn’t even approved by the city council.”
If the Attorney General or State’s Attorney do not respond to Peraica’s request within 30 days, he will petition the Circuit Court of Cook County for leave to file the quo warranto proceedings as an individual on behalf of the People of the State of Illinois.
“As a Cook County Commissioner, I have a duty to protect the best interests of the people I represent in the 16th District,” said Peraica. “And right now, those people are hurting, looking for work, and wanting a government that spends their money legally and wisely.”
Of course, this information shouldn't be surprising to anyone with a brain. But it does show why it is important for our city council to stop and think things through before signing away a city asset. Now we are stuck with little control over parking policy. For 75 years. Awesome.Although the city is free to remove meters or change rates and hours of operations, Chicago Parking Meters LLC must be compensated for the loss of revenue at a rate that assumes “a car were parked in the space for 24-hours-a-day in the Central Business District,” the study said.
“This means that every potential project on a street with meters — including bus rapid transit, bicycle lanes, sidewalk expansion, streetscaping, pedestrian bulb-outs, loading zones, rush-hour parking control, mid-block crossing and temporary open spaces — are dictated, controlled and limited by parking meters,” the study said.
“These restrictions severely limit innovative planning for bicyclists, pedestrian and transit users. The loss of the potential for bus rapid transit on most streets over the next 75 years is one of the most disappointing losses.”
After Mayor Richard Daley triggered furious reactions last week by saying the city would take full financial responsibility for hosting a 2016 Summer Games, he promised to bring the details to the City Council for further discussion.Nah, the only ones that look like dummies are the Chicago citizens that continue to tolerate this shit. I've given up being outraged. Now I just laugh.
But the head of Chicago's bid team said Monday that information about the city's revised financial guarantees may not be disclosed for two months while additional insurance coverage is arranged.
"We can't go to the City Council today," bid team leader Patrick Ryan said at a press briefing Monday. "We'd look like dummies because we don't have it all complete."
So let’s recap: Behind closed doors the administration crafted a complicated ordinance that has a big impact on city life and the municipal budget, then presented it to aldermen for hasty approval. After little debate the aldermen complied. Some time later the full implications came to light, and aldermen became furious that they were blindsided. When pressed, the administration still didn't say exactly what it’s up to. Aldermen, facing unhappy voters in their wards, threatened to get angry and do something about it.Just another day in Chicago I guess. I'm laughing a lot these days.
The Daley administration spent $480,000 to modify 911 center consoles to accommodate 17-inch monitors instead of the current 15-inch models, even though the consoles themselves were about to be replaced, a source said.
...OEMC spokesperson Jennifer Martinez insisted that the fix cost $3,600 per console or $386,000.
She defended the decision to modify consoles scheduled to be replaced.
"We're still in negotiations [with the furniture contactor]. It could be up to a year before we see new work stations," Martinez said.
"In the meantime, we do not want to risk public safety. It's critical to public safety to have the latest technology on the 911 floor. We want to equip our call takers and dispatchers with the most up-to-date equipment possible. It's the balance between that and finances" that the city is attempting to strike.
A couple of questions come to mind: Who is this unnamed vendor that got this contract? I'm willing to be the vendor's got clout. And we all know, clout=money. Also, if 17 inch monitors are so vital to public safety, why didn't we have them in the first place? It's not like these things just came out. And if monitor size matters so much, why isn't the city installing 20+ inch monitors that are common today? Is two inches of screen surface really so important that we need to waste money like this, especially when our city budget is hurting so bad? Don't even get me started on all the rumors I have heard about our new state-of-the-art 911 call center having technological issues and going down often. Couldn't be true.
Olympic Bid Committee Chairman Patrick Ryan, backed up by Mayor Richard Daley, insists the city's financial risk for taking full financial responsibility for the 2016 Olympics is extremely remote (Daley ups the ante for 2016 Olympics).Since they are so confident the Chicago Olympics won't come in over budget, this shouldn't be a problem for them, right? And don't tell me you can't afford it Dick, I know that's a lie. Just look under your mattress.
If Ryan and Daley truly believe this, then they should have no problem pledging their personal wealth toward the Games. Come on, Mr. Ryan and Mayor Daley -- sign a contract that says before any city money beyond the existing guarantees is spent on the Olympics, your own money will be spent.
But where Daley often drew on the worst side of ethnic Chicago--its tolerance of corruption, its parochialism and racial prejudice--Royko spoke to its better instincts. A neighborhood populist, he celebrated the corner tavern and the weekend softball game. But Royko also challenged white Chicago's prejudices, skewering bigots who tried to keep a white couple that had adopted a black baby out of their neighborhood or a funeral parlor that didn't want to bury a black soldier killed in Vietnam. In the column he wrote the day after Harold Washington became the first black person elected mayor of Chicago, Royko began with one of his inimitable openings, "So I told Uncle Chester: Don't worry, Harold Washington doesn't want to marry your sister."You can think of Royko as the original John Kass, a constant thorn in the side of Mayor Richard J. Daley, the original Chicago Boss.
Several theories have arise as to what Mayor Daley really meant a few days ago when he said: "If they don't like it, they can kiss my ass."And here is Royko's tribute to King Richard I:
On the surface, it appeared that the mayor was merely admonishing those who would dare question the royal favors he has bestowed upon his sons, Prince Curly, Prince Larry, and Prince Moe.
But it can be a mistake to accept the superficial meaning of anything the mayor says.
The mayor can be a subtle man. And as Earl Bush, his press secretary, once put it after the mayor was quoted correctly: "Don't print what he said. Print what he meant."
So many observers believe the true meaning of the mayor's remarkable kissing invitation may be more than skin deep.
One theory is that he would like to become sort of the Blarney Stone of Chicago.
As the stone legend goes, if a person kisses Ireland's famous Blarney Stone, which actually exists, he will be endowed with the gift of oratory.
And City Hall insiders have long known that the kind of kiss Daley suggested can result in the gift of wealth.
People from all over the world visit Blarney Castle so they can kiss the chunk of old limestone and thus become glib, convincing talkers.
So, too, might people flock to Chicago in hopes that kissing "The Daley" might bring them unearned wealth. Daley, or at least his bottom, might become one of the great tourist attractions of the nation.
The Blarney Stone has become part of the living language in such everyday phrases as "You're giving me a lot of blarney."
That could happen here too. People who make easy money might someday be described as "really having the gift of the Daley bottom."
Don't feel too bad for Mayor Richard J. Daley. Royko was hard on the aldermen too:If ever a man reflected a city, it was Richard J. Daley and Chicago.
In some ways, he was this town at its best -- strong, hard-driving, working feverishly, pushing, building, driven by ambitions so big they seemed Texas-boastful.
In other ways, he was this city at its worst -- arrogant, crude, conniving, ruthless, suspicious, intolerant.
He wasn't graceful, suave, witty or smooth. But, then, this is not Paris or San Francisco.
He was raucous, sentimental, hot-tempered, practical, simple, devious, big and powerful. This is, after all, Chicago.
Sometimes, the very same Daley performance could be seen as both outrageous and heroic. It depended on whom you asked for an opinion.
I've always enjoyed Chicago's aldermen, and I believe that if they went away the city would be a much poorer place for their absence. Just how much poorer, I didn't know, because it would depend on how much you can stuff in a suitcase.
The city of Chicago spends more than $22 million a year leasing property, usually from clout-heavy landlords and often at higher rents than other tenants pay, a Chicago Sun-Times investigation has found.When you pay your property taxes, see that extra money added to your restaurant tab, or fork over $50 for a parking ticket, just remember who is getting rich while your taxes and fees rise. All this money from taxes and fees, all this money from the sale of the Skyway, parking garages, and parking meters...and the city is still broke! The city that works...for the connected cronies of our crooked mayor.
...In all, the city's Department of General Services says it has 75 leases for properties the city uses for such things as libraries, offices, warehouses and clinics.
But the list -- provided by the mayor's staff in response to a Sun-Times records request -- appears to be incomplete. It doesn't include, for instance, the warehouse at 3348 S. Pulaski that the city has occupied on a month-to-month lease since it was acquired by Vanecko and his partners in 2007. City Hall has paid them more than $480,000 in rent over the past 15 months.
...Among the Sun-Times' findings:
-The city pays the most per square foot for a branch library in Chinatown -- more even than it pays for downtown office space.
-The city has three leases with landlords who are clients of the insurance brokerage run by the mayor's brother, Cook County Commissioner John Daley.
-Two of the city's landlords have hired the law firm of Ald. Edward M. Burke (14th) -- in one case to win a cut in their real estate taxes on property leased to the city.
The most dangerous four words in the world are these: Trust me this time.That's what you hear from Mayor Daley and his 2016 Olympic-bid cronies. Those four words.
Forget the incessant city scandals that Daley knows ''nuttin' about.'' Forget the Daley relatives and pals lined up ass-to-elbow, snorting at the money trough. Forget the lakefront airport torn up in the middle of the night, the neighborhoods where school kids have as good a chance of getting shot as going to a four-year college, the police department that has had its morale ripped up and beaten to a pulp.
...
But don't forget this: Mayor Daley, Pat Ryan and all the other rich guys in on the Chicago Olympics bid are saying, like a chorus of spring peepers in the Great Bog of Clout: Trust me this time.
Trust the carpetbaggers and money-grubbers and imbeciles and would-be Pharaohs. They will take your money, people.
They will.
They always do.
Our mayor is so crooked, he's getting hit in the sports pages. Wake up Chicago! Call your Alderman, protest, give money to No Games Chicago...DO SOMETHING! Or we will all pay for Daley's over-priced Olympic pipe dream. The evidence is there - O'hare, Millennium Park, Block 37 - all ridiculously over-budget. Just like Telander said. "They will take your money people. They will. They always do."
How lame of a Senator is Roland Burris, the hack brought in by Illinois’ indicted ex-governor to take Barack Obama’s seat? The guy has himself an appointment to the Armed Services Committee. Which means he oversees the Pentagon, in theory. But during last week’s proceedings of that committee, Burris seemed genuinely shocked to discover that the Defense Department devoted so much time and money to science and technology.“You’re saying that [the armed] services have their own research laboratories going?” he asked Zachary Lemnios, the administration’s nominee to be the Director of Defense Research and Engineering — the Pentagon’s geek-in-chief. Then he asked Lemnios — pronouncing his name “Leonis” — the follow-up question you’d expect from a son of the Chicago Machine: So does that mean you’re the guy in charge of all that research cash?
Oh Burris, you are truly an embarrassment.
Full transcript available by clicking on the article link above.
Yo! City Council! Step in. The city's entire Olympic bid needs a slow and careful vetting in your chambers.Then, there's this one: Mayor Richard Daley's Decision to OK IOC Contract Puts Taxpayers in Deep End of Olympic Pool
This financial commitment is an extremely critical issue. The Chicago Olympic bid has a $4.8 billion budget for construction and operations, and it projects a profit. But recent experience in other cities shows that Olympic costs can skyrocket in stunning fashion. The 2012 Games in London are expected to cost nearly three times as much as first budgeted.
Daley did this because he can. He now plans to tolerate an actual discussion of the Olympic contract in a City Council meeting sometime soon. That debate will have all the suspense of a People's Assembly debate over whether to send birthday best wishes to dear leader Kim Jong Il.And finally: Olympics Funding: City Council in No Mood for Games
Now, Daley's second-in-command on the Olympic bid, retired insurance czar Ryan, is asking everyone not to worry.
That's what London's organizers said before they spent four times their original budget. Beijing's organizers exceeded the original budget by a factor of 10. The Athens Games' runaway $17.6 billion in spending helped boost the entire nation's budget deficit to 6 percent of Greece's gross domestic product.
Chicago 2016 will be different, we are told. The Chicago Games would have to log a $1.75 billion operating loss before bill collectors tapped into the taxpayers' treasury.
That would happen, said Sir Patrick of Ryan, only "if everyone was so inept that we go over" those guarantees.
Gross ineptitude? In Chicago? Not here in the land of the ill-considered parking project. Not here where Millennium Park came in at more than three times its original budget, and O'Hare's expansion is headed in that direction.
"I don't know where he gets the authority to do that," said Ald. Brian Doherty (41st). "We're supposed to be the watchdogs of the budget, and they've been very arrogant in doing whatever they want and not consulting us."
Ald. Manny Flores (1st), who plans to introduce an ordinance prohibiting the city from spending more than $500 million to cover any operating losses, said that "there has to be greater transparency on this."
...
"The whole thing needs a public hearing, no doubt about it," said Ald. Robert Fioretti (2nd). "In light of ongoing scandals and corruption issues, it erodes the confidence of citizens of this city in its government and the aspect of having the Olympics."I'm not sure my confidence in the mayor's ability to accomplish anything without corruption and scandal could be eroded any more than it already is Alderman Fioretti. But you hold that public hearing City Council. I'm sure all you aldermen will approve whatever the mayor wants, just as you always do. Your "defiance" is just a show. And then the city can lay off a bunch of city workers, cut services, and still not plug our $300 budget deficit, while in the meantime the mayor sits on an enormous TIF treasure chest created solely by our property taxes, just waiting for the Olympic spending spree to begin. I dunno, maybe the mayor can raise our taxes (again) and write more parking tickets to make up the difference.
But our latest investigation—piecing together public documents, records of City Council hearings, interviews with elected officials and financial experts, company profiles, and previous news reports—reveals that there’s a lot more to the story:I urge you to read the whole article. It is long, but it is worth every minute. While you're at it, read parts 1 and 2 of the Reader's series about Dick Daley's parking meter lease.- Not only did William Blair advise the city on the deal—it came up with the idea in the first place. Then it provided the city with the only estimate it ever received of what the system was worth and coordinated the bidding process.
- Two other financial services firms and three law firms were brought in to assist. All were given no-bid contracts for the work, and all appear to have political or personal ties to the Daley administration (which is not unusual for the way the city of Chicago does business).
- The financial advisers were each paid a share of what the city made in cash on the lease deal. William Blair received 0.375 percent of the payout, or about $4.3 million, according to records obtained from the city through a FOIA request. The others, Gardner Rich and Ramirez & Company, each received 0.0625 percent, or $722,813. The attorneys’ fees added up to another $1.3 million. All told, the city paid its legal and financial advisers more than $7 million for their work on the deal.
- At the same time they were helping the city prepare and conduct the bidding process for the parking meter lease, all of the financial firms, including William Blair, were working on other multibillion-dollar deals with the company that emerged as the winning bidder, Morgan Stanley. The overlapping relationships are in violation of the city’s own contracting rules.
- Partners in two of the three law firms hired to work on the deal had previously donated money to Mayor Daley’s campaign. City rules ban contributions to the mayor from employees of city contractors but don’t apply to law firms.
- Together the lawyers and financial advisers—not anyone in city government—determined who would control the parking meter system for the next several generations and how much money they’d make off it. But as private entities, none of these firms are required by law to disclose to the public how they arrived at their plan. And none would talk to us for this story.
They argued that Daley has “no authority” to sign the host-city contract without Council approval.I'm waiting to see what - if anything - the full City Council does about this. I'm sure they will still sign on to foot the bill for the Olympics, even as we face a growing budget deficit - $300 million and counting. But it is nice to finally see some aldermen asserting their rightful position as a check on the mayor's monstrous power.“This is a big deal. He’s planning to sign an agreement that puts the city on the hook for an unlimited amount of money,” said Ald. Joe Moore (49th).
“Let them come before the City Council and explain to us why this is a safe bet for taxpayers. They can tell us they have insurance. They can make all the arguments they want to make. But, as elected representatives closest to the votes, we need to have a say in this. This is something that recent events have made all too clear. We need to exercise our authority as a check and balance on the mayor’s office.”
After the fiasco caused by Daley’s $1.15 billion decision to lease Chicago’s 36,000 parking meters, aldermen can’t afford to sit back, according to Ald. Scott Waguespack (32nd).
“They made guarantees, and none of those guarantees have come true on the parking meter deal. I don’t think the Council will buy his guarantee of, ‘Don’t worry. There’s multiple layers of guarantees here,’” Waguespack said.
“The Council needs to be part of this process. The mayor’s office and 2016 needs to show us what those guarantees are and what taxpayers are on the hook for ... .I have no information right now that proves to me these backstops are genuine.”
I've long thought that the Olympic bid is a cruel joke Mayor Daley is playing on his constituents--to see how much nonsense we'll swallow before we throw up. It looks like our tolerance is endless. How else to explain why folks aren't taking to the streets to stop this lunacy?
Keep up the good work Mr. Tresser and everyone at No Games Chicago. I really appreciate everything you are doing to fight Daley's quest for the 2016 Olympic games.Why go?
Very simply -- to preserve our city's future. To prevent the piling up of massive debt. To prevent the displacement of people from their homes. To protect our parks. To say "Enough!" to the back room deals and pin stripe patronage and to take meaningful action against the small group of arrogant officials who have been running our city as their personal fiefdom for decades.
That's why we're here. That's why I'm here.
To back up a bit, I have to confess that I'm a good government geek. I'm an unreconstructed idealist. A reformer. A believer in independent, honest, grassroots-powered government. I stubbornly believe that government should serve the people and be an instrument for sustainable and equitable opportunity.
I get deeply frustrated and angry with the way Chicago has been run as a private ATM for a small group of politically connected families and their friends.
I'm embarrassed and saddened by the parade of corrupt state and county politicians and convicted Alderman (30 in the past 30 years?), TIF-funded sweetheart deals for fat cats and venal public employees who steal our tax dollars for work they do not do.
Also, it seems our glorious Aldermen want answers about the city's lease of one of Vanecko's buildings. So do I, city council, so do I.[Royko] was writing about another generation of Vaneckos and Daleys and a disease he called "payrolliaitis."
"It isn't anything that would show up through scientific testing," wrote Royko in 1965, "but Mayor Richard J. Daley is a carrier of a fast-spreading germ . . . called payrolliaitis. The symptoms are easy to spot. A person gets close to the mayor. Crunch -- the payrolliaitis bug nips him. He wanders off in the direction of a city, state or county agency, sits down at a desk, and his name breaks out on a payroll."
Royko was talking about the hiring of Robert Vanecko's grandfather, Dr. Michael Vanecko, whose son married the late mayor's daughter. Shortly before the wedding, that Vanecko went to work for the Chicago Board of Health. And later, his son, Dr. Robert Vanecko, was hired as the physician for the city's municipal pension fund. And now today we have the third generation, as his son, another Robert Vanecko, lands a $68 million deal with -- what else -- city pension funds. He severed all business ties with the deal only after the feds began subpoenaing records.
Unless the city can prove it needed flexibility to get out of the lease quickly, it appears that the month-to-month lease was designed to get around the City Council, said Ald. Joe Moore (49th).
"It would seem to me that someone was trying to hide something," Moore said.
He added, "One of the reasons we have these meetings is so the public and ... media can know who's getting these leases. It begs the question why, in this particular case, it was done in what appears to be a secretive fashion. We are owed an explanation."
Anthony Pascente a spokesman for the city's Department of General Services, did not return repeated phone calls on the lease.
Despite weeks of questions from the Chicago Sun-Times, City Hall yet to produce a lease document or invoices to justify the monthly payments, at a rate of $3.83-per-square foot for 70,565 square feet of space, 20 percent of the warehouse.
You're right Joe Moore, someone IS trying to hide something from us and we ARE owed an explanation. Maybe you and your 49 friends could do something about that. In the meantime, I'll be here waiting for that explanation...Though I'm sure if old Dick Daley ever gives one, I will not believe it. Such is life in the city of Chicago.
