Wednesday, September 9, 2009
Politics / Clout City There's no "NAY" in "TEAM"
Posted by Mick Dumke on 09.09.09 at 02:23 PM
Critics often deride the Chicago City Council as a mayoral rubber stamp. Aldermen want you to know the critics have it wrong.
"We are a team on the City Council," Eighth Ward alderman Michelle Harris said today. "There's nothing we can't do with each other."
That raises all sorts of possibilities, but I think she meant that there was nothing aldermen can't do if they work with each other. One thing they certainly can do is give Mayor Daley the go-ahead to commit the city to covering cost overruns should it host the 2016 Olympics. And they did with a unanimous vote this afternoon.
In addition to authorizing the mayor to sign a host-city agreement—which he was already authorized to do—the ordinance they passed requires that Chicago's Olympic planners and organizers publish regular reports on their work and submit to City Council oversight.
The fact that any of this information will be public and available for scrutiny is a credit to Manny Flores, who's made a priority of pushing for "transparency" in tax increment financing, privatization agreements, and the Olympics bid process.
But the passage of legislation is always the product of compromise and, yes, teamwork. In this case, alderman Ed Burke, chairman of the council's finance committee, summoned Flores and the mayor's people to a meeting last week to work out a deal. The end result? Mayor Daley and his Olympic planners had to give up their resistance to letting the public know what sort of business they were conducting on behalf of the public. Flores and his allies had to sacrifice their reluctance to give the mayor a blank check and the right to hand pick which aldermen would be in charge of the oversight process.
So the final ordinance abandons Flores's call for a new City Council Olympics oversight committee. Instead, the council's finance and budget committees get the responsibility of monitoring the work of 2016 planners. Plus, the chairmen of those committees will themselves become members of the planning team.
"We have two of our colleagues in the game, which will represent the council as well," said 34th Ward alderman Carrie Austin, who as budget chair will be one of those colleagues. Burke will be the other.
Really, no one should be shocked or outraged that the mayor has persuaded aldermen to work together to give him the authority to determine how they will provide oversight for the Olympics. That's the sort of can-do teamwork that happens at City Hall on a regular basis.
"The membership of Aldermen on standing committees, and the Chairman and Vice-Chairman of such committees, shall be determined by the City Council by resolution duly adopted," the council's rules of order [PDF] state. But aldermen long ago ceded that right and responsibility to the executive branch (in addition to regularly violating other laws governing the committee process). Now the mayor and his staff choose who serves on all of the council committees, and only proven loyalists, such as Burke and Austin, serve as chairs or vice chairs.
In speech after speech this afternoon praising the ordinance, the mayor, the spirit of the Olympic games, and the history of Chicago dating back to Jean Baptiste Pointe du Sable, aldermen proclaimed that any misgivings they'd once had about hosting the games were now long gone. They said the citizens of Chicago are now protected from mismanagement and corruption and any other problems that might arise.
"The critics have been silenced," declared the 12th Ward's George Cardenas. Even Flores was feeling optimistic, releasing a statement praising the compromise legislation and outcome of today's council vote hours before it had actually been taken. "I am very proud of how far we came," he said. "If we are fortunate enough to receive the Olympic bid, the City Council will assume this oversight authority and must execute it with great diligence."
Mayor Daley ended the one-sided debate with an impassioned speech about how the Olympics can transform the image of Chicago before the world. "This is not about the legacy of Mayor Richard M. Daley," he said. "This is about the city of Chicago." Here's hoping he's right, because at this point he's one of the few who would know.
Comments (9)
Showing 1-9 of 9
All you malcontents should get over yourselves.
The Olympics are coming to Chicago and that is a great thing for this city.
You naysayers should just take a two week vacation (maybe to Gary, IN or Detroit, MI or Cleveland, OH) while the Olympics are here.
I will say one thing however, it is a shame that Carrie Austin is on this committee - she does not know her head from her rear-end, let alone anything about budget or finance.
And having Burke on the committee is a bigger joke.
What this all means is that when we get the olympics, watch for none of the aldermen to leave their posts . They will all want to be in on the Olympic glory - so you term limit folks can take a 9 year break.
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What did you expect Toddler's Alderman to say, just a day before slating is to begin?
Ah, the tired old canard from Rabble Rouser (Orion) about moving to Gary, Detroit, .....blah blah blah. If Chicago consisted only of butt kissing nitwits who think as you do this city would be even more f---ed up than it is now. Daley cannot get any major project done on time and on budget (Block 37, O'Hare Expansion, Millenium Park, and on and on) so why do you geniuses think the Olympics will be any different? Look for the IOC to enter into a co-dictatorship with Daley when Chicago "wins" the Olympics.
What Mayor Daley will be singing to the people of Chicago after the 2016 Olympics:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-yKdGWXTUG4
If you look at our great city, Chicago is a ubiquitous city.
Ald. Ed Smith
Wednesday September 9, 2009
so let the Olympics go somewhere else and they'll still be here
Mr. President, ladies and gentlemen of the council, the fifth star is ready
Ald. Ed Burke
Wednesday September 9, 2009
That this vote was unanimous days after a poll showed 75% of Chicagoans oppose the guarantee is as clear an illustration as you can hope to find that representative democracy in Chicago is very sick. Our City Council is to a man and woman a wholly-owned subsidiary of Daley & Associates, Inc. One of these things does not represent Chicago:
1. the City Council
2. the Tribune/WGN poll
Olympic opposition getting second wind as support in Chicago fades
47 percent of Chicagoans polled favor the bid, but that support had been at 61 percent in February
September 3, 2009
By Todd Lighty and Kathy Bergen Tribune reporters
Poll respondents made it abundantly clear that they disapprove of Daley's promise of an unlimited guarantee in the event the Games lose money, with 75 percent opposed.
http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/local/c…
This was an interesting take, is Spielman sugarcoating this or is she right?
http://www.suntimes.com/news/cityhall/1762…
Wednesday's 49-0 vote to put a bottomless pit of Chicago tax dollars on the line for Olympic losses looks like another example of the City Council acting as Mayor Daley's rubber stamp.
Looks can be deceiving.
Chicago aldermen demanded and received major concessions from Daley's Olympic planners to avoid a repeat of the lampooning they received for not looking closely enough at the $1.15 billion lease that privatized Chicago parking meters....
They forced Ryan to line up $1.4 billion in private insurance to insulate taxpayers and spend 50 long nights conducting public hearings in all 50 wards to shore up public support that started to falter after the mayor's overseas about-face.
Aldermen persuaded the Civic Federation to conduct an independent assessment of Chicago's Olympic bid -- and followed the federation's advice by demanding unprecedented oversight of Olympic spending.
The City Council will now have two representatives on the Olympic organizing committee to get reports on virtually all spending, hiring and contracting if the city succeeds in winning the Olympics.
That undoubtedly was more than Ryan wanted to give.
The fix was in from the beginning. The Council had to endorse Daley's blank check. If you want to derail the bid, support No Games Chicago. Everyone else has sold out the taxpayers of Chicago.
http://www.nogameschicago.com
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Chicago's 2016 Olympic Bid
An archive of the Reader's coverage by Ben Joravsky and Mick Dumke
- Sep 10, 2009
