Monday, February 9, 2009
News / Clout City Afternoon news update
Posted by Mick Dumke on 02.09.09 at 12:15 PM
The Obama administration has a few things on its plate this week, like trying to slow if not stop the foreclosure crisis, do something about our national credit and banking problems, and maybe even pass a stimulus bill. Meanwhile ...
* The mayor has refused to disclose Chicago's stimulus requests for fear that "the media is going to be ripping it apart," according to the Trib. Maybe he's really afraid he'll be quoted accurately.... Regardless, other areas have eagerly publicized their stimulus hopes--officials in northwest Indiana, for example, are in the middle of a vigorous debate about what they can and should prioritize.
* Incidentally, lost in the hubbub last week over Daley's feelings about the work ethic of city employees was the fact that he's at least partly to blame for whatever terms they do or don't work under, having locked the city into an "historic" ten-year labor deal so he could make a full-out Olympics push without worrying about messy contract negotiations along the way.
* State rep John Fritchey and the other Democrats vying for Rahm Emanuel's old congressional seat aren't the only people worrying aloud that the mayor's privatization schemes are screwing the taxpayers. The Windy Citizen notes that a petition is circulating on Facebook that calls on the mayor to stop selling city assets.
* Not surprisingly, higher fees at Midway, downtown parking garages, and parking meters across the city aren't the only consequences of the Daley administration's budget decisions: as our good friend the Parking Ticket Geek reports, cutbacks in the city's Department of Administrative Hearings mean it's going to be harder to fight parking violations.
* Chicago isn't the only city struggling to fund police operations at a time crime is rising, as the Washington Post writes. Here, though, the mayor's aldermen are also busy attacking the mayor's police chief for security breaches, including the costly theft of computer equipment from the inside of police headquarters. Rest assured that the mayor is not pleased with this publicity either. Anytime alderman Ike Carothers goes off like that, you can be sure he's had a talk with the big guy first.
* A new program that tries to get reluctant citizens to share crime information with police via text messages is off to a slow start, according to the Medill News Service: "Text-a-Tip, developed by Crime Stoppers, is an anonymous text message tip line aimed at youngsters who might otherwise be afraid to come forward with information.... But only 36 messages have been received since its inception in September." The problem seems to be that it's hard to get people to participate in the program when they don't know it exists.
* The Chicago Housing Authority's ambitious Plan for Transformation is in trouble because middle-and upper-class families just aren't buying in, veteran real estate reporter Thomas Corfman reports. Under the decade-old plan the CHA has been trying to replace crumbling, segregated high-rises with new mixed-income developments. But the new units aren't selling, Corfman reports, so the CHA is now looking to rent more of its units out to lower-income families.
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LIL MICK, Maybe the public is finally figuring out that the Daley Administration is run by smoke and mirrors, because the smoke is lifting and the mirrors have broke.
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From: http://www.chicagobreakingnews.com/blog/ "Bid to cut Stroger's budget stalls February 9, 2009 9:21 PM | 1 Comment A proposal to cut $84.4 million from Cook County Board President Todd Stroger's 2009 budget proposal failed to win approval today, leaving commissioners at loggerheads just 19 days before the Feb. 28 deadline to approve the spending plan. The proposed cuts, backed by Republicans and Finance Committee Chairman John Daley (D-Chicago), would have gone a long way toward balancing the proposed $3 billion budget, which is out of whack because most commissioners don't support Stroger's plan to borrow hundreds of millions of dollars to pay for operating expenses. Daley, typically a Stroger supporter, said he will abstain from voting on the borrowing plan because of business and family conflicts involving companies involved in Stroger's proposed bond deal. When it was suggested Monday that the companies could be changed, Daley announced he would vote no in that case. After rejecting the proposal to cut the budget, commissioners rejected a series of amendments aimed at closing the budget gap, which some contend should not exist because of last year's boost in the sales tax. Stroger urged commissioners to reach compromise. 'You're supposed to be talking people into doing things, not just sitting at home,' he told the board toward the end of their meeting. --Hal Dardick" So, bill daley is quoted as saying he'll vote 'no' on stroger's plan to sink the citizens of this county further into debt, rather than trim the immense fat from the county's budget. But bill's original intention was to merely abstain from voting, because he has personal conflicts of interest issues concerning the very bond sales stroger is proposing? And the reason he has chosen to vote 'no' is because he was confronted with the option of changing the business entities involved in said bond sales, to, presumably, eliminate his involvement in said conflicts of interest? So, did bill daley vote 'yes' on the proposed budget cuts? The article doesn't say. How about it, Ben or Mick? What say ye?
