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Daley Property Tax 'Gimmick' Clears Finance Committee

2009-11-25T21:30:26Z

Mayor Daley's proposal to tap $35 million of Chicago's parking meter reserve funds to provide modest property tax relief for some city homeowners passed the City Council's Finance Committee today.

Andruw Jones Signs With White Sox: Jones, Chicago Agree To One-Year Deal

2009-11-25T21:08:16Z

CHICAGO — Andruw Jones agreed Wednesday to a $500,000, one-year contract with the Chicago White Sox.

Jones hit .214 with 17 homers and 43 RBIs in 82 games with Texas this year while making 53 starts as the designated hitter, 12 in left field, five in right field and four at first base.

A five-time All-Star who has slumped in recent years, Jones was released by the Los Angeles Dodgers in January and signed with the Rangers the following month.

He agreed to a $36.2 million, two-year contract with Los Angeles in December 2007. Now 32, he can make an additional $1 million in performance bonuses under his agreement with the White Sox.

"This is an opportunity to add a power bat to the roster while improving our outfield depth," White Sox general manager Kenny Williams said. "With the addition of Andruw, Mark Kotsay and Omar Vizquel, we feel our bench is taking shape to be a strong asset heading into the 2010 season."

Vizquel, a 42-year-old infielder, agreed Monday to a one-year deal. Earlier, the White Sox re-signed Kotsay, another utility player who can play the infield and outfield.

Jones is a career .257 hitter with 388 homers and 1,174 RBIs. He earned Gold Gloves in his final 10 seasons with Atlanta while playing for the Braves from 1996-07 and has seven seasons of at least 30 homers, including a career-high 51 in 2005. He has also had five 100-RBI seasons.

Henry Henderson: Dam the Carp! No more dithering on invasive species

2009-11-25T16:45:46Z

The news was very bad on Friday when state and Federal agencies admitted that tests show invasive Asian carp have evaded an electrical barrier intended to prevent the fish from gaining access to Lake Michigan, and eventually the entire Great Lakes ecosystem. Scientists and government regulators all agree that the fish pose a dire threat to the Lakes because of their size and voracious appetites.

It would be easy to dismiss the problem, until you see these fish. The two invasive species (bighead and silver carp) can grow over four feet long and 100 pounds and quickly take over habitat upon arrival. In the Illinois River, they now make up 90% of the life forms present in some stretches of the river. Check out the first minute of this video and imagine the prospect of these whoppers smashing into swimmers at Chicago's crowded Oak Street Beach, or colliding with water skiers along the shores of Lakes Michigan, or leaping onto boats moving through the Great Lakes...

think I'd feel better about this situation if there was different leadership charged with finding a solution to the problem, and quick...

Alas, the Asian Carp Rapid Response Group, the folks who are helping to lead the charge on this issue, is populated with an array of agencies and companies who are part of the problem by allowing the situation to grow into an emergency with an amazing lack of urgency in dealing with this problem since it began its slow advance in 1993. You have the Coast Guard and the Army Corps of Engineers, who dreamt up the virtual fish fence that has allowed the carp to pass. And an interesting pair of serial polluters in the Metropolitan Water Reclamation District of Cook County (who have spent millions of dollars to fight the effort to get them to stop dumping human waste into the Chicago River) and Midwest Generation LLC (whose entire Illinois coal plant fleet is being challenged by USEPA, Department of Justice, Illinois Attorney General and a consortium of citizen activists for the Company's chronic and dangerous air pollution emissions).

It is time for all the locks to be closed until the Corps can prove that they have appropriately, scientifically and durably dealt with the problem. It is time for physical barriers to be erected on the Calumet River where the fish have been detected and no barrier exists to impede their movement. These are minimum actions to preserve the status quo, so that the environmental and economic damage can be averted while permanent solutions are put in place. Emergency closure of the water way will not fix the problem---it will just temporarily provide breathing space while real, scientifically sound, legally binding solutions are installed and public processes are engaged.

There will be howls over this action.

Shipping interests will raise Cain over the impact this will have on barge traffic. Midwest Gen will complain about the impact of coal deliveries for the filthy Fisk and Crawford Generating Stations. Others may complain about the impact on movement of goods along the Chicago River. But these are short-sighted, self-interested, and myopic positions. Do the costs of temporarily re-routing the flow of goods trump the multi-billion dollar Great Lakes fishery? Do they trump the health of an ecosystem that represents 90% of this nation's fresh surface water and provides drinking water to 40 million Americans and Canadians in the Great Lakes Basin?

More importantly, what are the alternatives? This is where big thinking needs to come fast. So far, we've not heard much from the Rapid Response group. They have said that everything is on the table---but tick tock, the fish are moving and nothing has been done since the fish were detected on the other side of the electric barrier. And let's not forget these guys can swim miles closer to the Lake every day.

To be fair, the Group has made some suggestions in the past... Indeed, Midwest Gen threw out a very convenient solution: their coal plants on the Chicago River dump a lot of thermal pollution into the waterway---meaning that they are so decrepit and inefficient that they cannot deliver all of the energy they create and have to dump the excess heat into the river. With a straight face, they offered up this pollution as the salvation we have all been looking for to keep the carp out of the Chicago River, another channel into Lake Michigan. Thankfully, that suggestion was rejected outright---but really, are these the stakeholders that we should be relying for out of the box solutions to this problem?

The answer is no. The Army Corps should not assume that the Group they have assembled has all the answers. The only way to create a permanent, effective solution to this problem is to fully engage the public, in an open and transparent debate that treats this issue as it really is: an issue that affects all of us.

Fortunately, the legal framework for this public process already exists. It's called the National Environmental Policy Act. When it is followed, it is supposed to require federal agencies like the Army Corps to solicit public input on major decisions before they make them, not after, in order to ensure that all potential alternatives are considered and their consequences are explored. It takes a lot to admit that you don't have all the answers. But with the fish fence having failed and carp bearing down on Lake Michigan, the Army Corps should immediately begin asking the public to help them come up with the best possible permanent solution.

The 19th Century thinking that gave us the Chicago Diversion does not meet our needs today. In fact, it puts us in harm's way by polluting our waters and threatening further, permanent loss of our fresh water seas---the Great Lakes. We can close those waterways to prevent the arrival of more carp and still protect commerce. That's the kind of aggressive action that is needed. Here at NRDC, we are investigating what sorts of legal action we can take to spur the Corps and other responsible parties to get moving in the face of this threat. And I would hope that the state Attorneys General of the Great Lakes states are all looking for similar legal actions to protect their waters. (After all, they are all party to a case that remains before the US Supreme Court related to the operation of the Chicago area water system and its canals---see Wisconsin v. Illinois, 388 US 426 et seq.)

Sadly, the only thing aggressive about the response so far has been the multi-million dollar price tag on the failed virtual fish fence... We can, and should expect more...

...quickly...

This post originally appeared on NRDC's Switchboard blog.

White Sox Cut Ties With Nacho Supplier Azteca Foods

2009-11-25T16:17:54Z

For 13 years, Chicago's Azteca Foods reigned as the Chicago White Sox's official nacho supplier -- until it was dethroned recently by Mexican-owned Mission Foods. Azteca's Art Velasquez knows that's the way the corn chip crumbles -- business isn't for the sentimental -- yet he can't help but feel a big loss.

Stevenson Students: We Were Forced To Publish Censored Paper Or Fail

2009-11-25T15:55:15Z

Less than a week after administrators at Stevenson High School in Lincolnshire halted the release of the student newspaper because of stories dealing with drinking, smoking and teen pregnancy, staff members said they were told they had less than two hours to produce a paper without the controversial stories, or receive failing grades.

Parking Meter Deal Balanced The Budget: Daley

2009-11-25T15:38:26Z

Chicago Mayor Richard Daley says without money from the controversial lease of the city's parking meters, there'd be no way to balance the 2010 budget.

DuPage Water Rates May Spike Over 40 Percent

2009-11-25T14:53:15Z

Customers of the DuPage Water Commission may face a steep rate hike to replenish financial reserves that have all but evaporated.

Chicago Cops Punished For Posed Photo With Cuffed G-20 Summit Suspect

2009-11-25T14:49:00Z

CHICAGO — A Chicago police spokesman says two high-ranking officers have been reprimanded after a video surfaced that showed officers posing with a handcuffed suspect at the G-20 meeting in Pittsburgh.

Police began investigating after video of the September incident began circulating on the Internet. In the video, more than a dozen officers in riot gear pose for a photo with the suspect kneeling in front of them.

Police spokesman Roderick Drew said Tuesday that a department chief and a commander were reprimanded. He declined to identify the officers or say how or why they were punished.

A lawyer for the detained man, a 21-year-old university student, has said his client was wrongly detained while returning to campus from a pizza parlor.

Pfleger Billboards Put Bounty On CPS Student Killers

2009-11-25T14:46:20Z

In a litter-strewn, vacant lot in Englewood, steps away from three houses of worship, a billboard went up Tuesday, asking, essentially, what is the price of a child's life.

Jimmy Clausen's Visor: Notre Dame QB Hides Punched Face At Practice (PHOTOS)

2009-11-25T07:12:05Z

Days after reportedly being punched in the face during an altercation, Notre Dame QB Jimmy Clausen attended practice with his face mostly covered by a black visor. As the AP notes, allowing a dark visor marked a departure from head coach Charlie Weis' previous visor policy:

Weis announced in August that he would allow Notre Dame players to wear visors for the first time. He said at the time that they could only wear clear visors because he didn't think dark visors would look right at Notre Dame because he didn't want players to have "Darth Vader visors."

Below, see photos of Clausen in his visor.

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Axelrod: 'I Thought Lisa [Madigan] Would Give Us The Best Shot' Of Keeping Obama's Senate Seat

2009-11-25T00:08:44Z

CHICAGO — The White House and Illinois Democrats said Tuesday that their bid to hold on to President Barack Obama's old Senate seat won't be easy and their difficulties aren't just because of the scandal that engulfed ousted Gov. Rod Blagojevich.

Next year is the first major election for Democrats since Blagojevich was arrested last year on federal corruption charges and removed from office. He has pleaded not guilty to charges that he tried to sell or trade Obama's Senate seat.

"No one ever said it was going to be easy. There's a dark cloud over everyone's head," said Alexi Giannoulias, Illinois' treasurer who's running for Obama's senate seat.

The Obama administration has even expressed some uneasiness about Democrats' ability to keep the seat away from Republicans in the wake of Blagojevich.

"Obviously there is an added burden, but not an insurmountable one," top Obama adviser David Axelrod told The Associated Press.

But Blagojevich isn't the Democrats' only hurdle, said Chicago City Clerk Miguel del Valle. Del Valle on Tuesday endorsed former city of Chicago inspector general David Hoffman, one of Giannoulias' Feb. 2 primary opponents.

"It's a rough political climate," del Valle said. "President Barack Obama is not having an easy time these days even though he's doing exactly what people like me want him to do."

Republicans are pushing hard to claim Obama's old Senate seat. The seat is currently held by Sen. Roland Burris, who was appointed to the post by Blagojevich after the then-governor was arrested last year.

The crowded GOP primary includes U.S. Rep. Mark Kirk of Chicago's northern suburbs, the best-known of the candidates in the field.

Democrats running for the seat also include Chicago Urban League leader Cheryle Jackson, a former top aide to Blagojevich in his first term, and attorney Jacob Meister.

The White House had hoped Illinois Attorney General Lisa Madigan could be persuaded to get in the race. Madigan decided to run for a third term as attorney general rather than seek higher office in the U.S. Senate or as Illinois governor.

"Obviously I thought Lisa would give us the best shot because she's the most popular politician in the state," Axelrod said.

Giannoulias said voters are looking for a candidate with the best ideas to move the country forward, while Hoffman said voters want fresh faces in politics.

"People are really fed up. They've had enough," Hoffman said.

___

Associated Press Writer Carla K. Johnson contributed to this report.

Chicago Sun-Times Eyes Online Pay Walls

2009-11-24T23:02:33Z

While there's no panacea for the ills of the newspaper publishing business, small changes will help turn the tide at the money-losing publisher of Chicago's No. 2 paper, Sun-Times Media CEO Jeremy Halbreich said.

Washington Post To Close New York, Chicago, LA Bureaus

2009-11-24T22:25:00Z

WASHINGTON — The Washington Post will close its remaining U.S. bureaus in New York, Los Angeles and Chicago at the end of the year to save money and will focus news efforts on covering the nation's capital.

Six correspondents are being offered jobs in Washington, while three news aides will be let go Dec. 31.

In a staff memo Tuesday, Executive Editor Marcus Brauchli told workers that the paper needed to concentrate its "journalistic firepower" on its central mission of covering Washington, D.C.

In the last decade, the paper has closed bureaus in Miami, Denver and Austin, Texas.

The Washington Post Co.'s earnings increased 69 percent in the third quarter partly due to cost-cutting measures. The company also owns Newsweek magazine, Kaplan education services and television properties.

Matt Farmer: I'd Love To Talk To You, But There's An Ongoing Investigation

2009-11-24T22:15:09Z

Did you ever try to get reimbursed at work for business travel expenses? It's usually not too complicated. You turn in your receipts. You fill out a form with some basic information about your trip. You get the proper person in the office to sign off on the document. And bingo -- within a few weeks, your expense check generally lands on your desk.

Unless, of course, you work for the Chicago Board of Education. The board's reimbursement process is now shrouded in mystery ever since former board president Michael Scott used his board credit card to take his wife to Copenhagen for Chicago's 2016 Olympic bash.

You might think Clare Muñana would be able to explain the reimbursement process. Mayor Daley appointed her to the board over a decade ago. She's been the board's vice president for the last five years, and she now serves as its interim president.

If anyone on the board knows about financial controls and organizational management, it is she. Armed with a Kellogg MBA, Muñana (according to CPS's website) "previously served as the Executive Director of a public sector financial management consulting group in Chicago, assisting Chicago government agencies in designing and implementing plans for significant financial and management improvements." She certainly sounds like a procedure wonk.

But during a Nov. 23 press conference, a local reporter asked Muñana the following softball question: "Who is supposed to sign off on out-of-town travel receipts [submitted by board members]?"

Muñana told the reporter she didn't "know exactly who is charged with that." She went on to explain that "that's actually one of the questions we've asked Mr. Jones to take a look at."

Mr. Jones is Walter Jones, a former federal prosecutor. Yes, folks, Muñana and her fellow board members have now hired an outside lawyer (on our dime) to figure out, among other things, who needs to sign off on board members' reimbursement requests.

When asked why the board's in-house legal department couldn't get to the bottom of this issue, Jones explained that it was important to have "some form of independent review."

And just how "independent" will that review be? Who knows? Jones's firm is one of CPS's go-to firms. CPS records reflect that the board authorized roughly $475,000 in legal fees to the firm in the last two years.

But the firm's ties to the City of Chicago extend beyond CPS. The firm's website indicates that the city provides a decent amount of additional work to Jones and his partners (e.g., Skyway privatization work, trial work, CHA work, civil rights work, etc.).

So will this engagement be a search for the truth or just internal damage control for a steady client? It's a fair question to ask because you and I will be footing the bill for this adventure. Were Jones or any of his partners friends with Scott? Are any of them friends with the mayor?

Jones and his partners are undoubtedly top-notch lawyers, but why didn't the board bring in a true outsider for this matter? Muñana, who also seems like a class act, should have demanded as much. Knowing both our city's history of corruption and the tragic facts that sparked this particular investigation, she needed to take steps to ensure that the public gets the truth -- without any additional appearance of conflict.

Let's remember the timeline that pushed this story into the headlines. Former board president (and close friend of the mayor) Scott and his wife traveled to Copenhagen between Sept. 29 and Oct. 2 as part of the Chicago group lobbying for the 2016 Summer Olympics.

Scott used his board credit card to charge thousands of dollars worth of expenses on that trip.

On Nov. 2, the Chicago Tribune served the board with FOIA requests concerning board members' expense accounts. According to Jones, CPS's inspector general had already launched its own investigation by the time the Trib served its FOIA requests.

On Nov. 16, Scott turned up dead.

(School officials later said that Scott began paying down his credit card debt on Nov. 8, though Muñana wouldn't confirm or deny that claim during the Nov. 23 press conference.)

On Nov. 23, the board's newly-hired outside lawyer said the board did not intend to provide the Trib with the documents the Trib had requested while an investigation was pending.

Maybe all of this will prove much ado about nothing, or maybe it'll be the tip of an iceberg. In any event, CPS CEO Ron Huberman has already warned of a $900 million deficit in 2010. And now we're paying a former federal prosecutor to tell Muñana and her colleagues to whom they should submit their receipts?

Smart money says the Trib's reporters could get Muñana the answer for one-third of Jones's hourly rate.

Deborah Douglas: E2 Sentences About Money -- Not Justice

2009-11-24T21:55:19Z

Twenty-one lives. Somebody had to pay.

And it might even seem like common sense for a housing court judge to sentence E2 club owners Dwain Kyles and Calvin Hollins to serve an unprecedented two years in prison for the tragic deaths of those club-goers on Feb. 17, 2002. Anybody who saw pictures of the humanity crushed against the glass doors of the South Loop club couldn't help but want justice for the dead and their families -- especially the children -- they left behind.

Except it's not.

A lot went wrong that fateful night, starting when two still-unidentified women got into a fight over a man, and a DJ ordered security to use pepper spray, sending the crowd into a panic. The specter of 9/11 was still fresh in hearts and minds, so those who yelled that the spray was indeed poison gas may or may not have known they were basically yelling "fire!" in a crowded theater.

But they did.

A lot more went wrong when police responded, treating the site like a crime scene instead of a rescue operation. Why, if the Chicago Fire Department has a designated rescue squad, as a retired firefighter told me this week, were those people crushed against locked doors? Firefighters have a variety of tools that can cut through and pry bolted objects. Pick a metal. The department has a tool that can cut right through it.

Monday afternoon, I sat down with Kyles, 55, a lawyer by profession. The Hyde Parker had operated venues at that site for 17 years. I assumed I would see a signs of fear and anxiety from a man facing prison, albeit in housing court where fines are the norm. But he was in a fighting spirit, which, I guess, comes naturally since he's the son of noted civil rights leader Rev. Samuel "Billy" Kyles. Besides, he said, the biggest challenge of his life was in 1991, when his son Quinn was born with a defective heart and got a transplant.

Kyles had every reason to believe his punishment and that of his friend, Hollins, would be just. After all, in March 2007, Judge Dennis Porter stopped the trial against Hollins, Kyles and promoter Marco Flores midway to declare them not guilty. Porter called the tragedy "a horrible accident," and refused to even hear the defense.

"This is 21 people dead," Kyles said. "There is no judge in America who would take that lightly."

Consider another tragic building incident, the June 29, 2003 Wrightwood porch collapse that killed 13 people, injuring 57. Building owner Philip Pappas admitted no wrong, but agreed to pay a fine and rebuild the porches. The contractor was banned from doing business in the city.
When the Cook County building at 69 W. Washington caught fire on Oct. 17, 2003, the county not only quickly settled but authorized an independent investigation to better learn how to respond to such fires in the future.

Where's the independent investigation here? This was arguably the city's first test of post-9/11 preparedness, and it failed. How will we learn if true responsibility is never assigned?

"I just don't think they would have made the same call on the North Side," said Kyles, noting that hours of surveillance tape from 11 cameras had been erased by police that could show them mulling about inside the club before the crowds started a second wave of panic. "I think they were pretty nonchalant about the whole thing."

Added retired CFD inspector Ken Westbrook: "The families should be demanding an inquiry."

To be clear, Kyles and Hollins, were convicted of violating a court order to close the second floor of the club, the meaning of which has been in much dispute. Did the order mean the bottom floor or the mezzanine VIP area? This dispute is bogus because the judge who issued it wrote exactly what he meant on something known as a "half-sheet." Clearly, this matter will be submitted on appeal because Cook County Associate Judge Daniel Gillespie had a copy, and could see for himself what a jury wasn't allowed to see.

Finally, consider that housing court judges rarely levy prison sentences. Either somebody is trying to make a statement or somebody else is being let off the hook in a case where the defendants have already been found not guilty in criminal court.

"That place ain't named Daley for nothing," Kyles said "All of those judges depend upon the Democratic machine to get elected. They're bound, compromised coming out of the gate."

This is a difficult case. By failing to punish somebody for these deaths, the City of Chicago risks sending a message that black life is cheap. Somebody had to pay, and punishing Kyles and Hollins is supposed to wrap this up without leaving the city -- and its wallet -- on the hook. But by failing to admit its own culpability in a crime scene that should have been treated as a rescue, the City of Chicago is failing to pay its own debt to these families.

Black life, in this case isn't cheap, it's free.