Alderman Week
Friday, January 27, 2012
Alderman Week Politics Clout City Aldermanic rap sheet
Posted by Steve Bogira on 01.27.12 at 01:00 PM
You'll find them listed here in Appendix 1 of this report (page 14). There also are bios of each offender. Twenty-five of those convicted were products of the Democratic machine, three were Republicans, and only two were independents—Lawrence Bloom of the Fifth Ward, and Fred Hubbard of the Second Ward, who defected to the machine shortly after his election.
Alderman Week Politics Clout City My mixed luck with aldermen
Posted by Steve Bogira on 01.27.12 at 08:00 AM
I grew up in the 23rd Ward, west of Midway Airport. My first alderman, or the first I can remember, was named Frank Kuta. I was 13 when he was elected, in 1967. He went to prison in 1974 for taking a bribe to fix a zoning matter, and for tax evasion. He'd accepted a $1,500 check from a builder in return for not opposing a zoning change—a check he'd neglected to report in his tax returns. "I consider myself guilty only of the sin of being a politician," he told the judge who sentenced him. He got six months.
In the 1971 election, before Kuta's extortion had been discovered, Joseph Potempa unseated him as our alderman. Potempa also went to prison in 1974—for taking a $3,000 bribe to fix a zoning matter, and for tax evasion. He told the sentencing judge he'd been naive and stupid. He got a year. The federal bureau of prisons was probably considering opening a wing for 23rd Ward aldermen.
Thursday, January 26, 2012
Alderman Week Politics Clout City Alderman Ed Burke acknowledges the existence of a mere mortal
Posted by Mick Dumke on 01.26.12 at 08:00 AM
"Sometimes I don't think anyone gives a shit," he said.
Natarus served as alderman of the 42nd Ward from 1971 to 2007. Natarus has always been a sociable, creative soul, and on this occasion he was bearded and wearing heavy boots and a wooly acrylic jacket, as if he could have arrived straight from a hunting expedition in the north woods.
Wednesday, January 25, 2012
Alderman Week Politics Clout City Chicago's 50 wards—the jigsaw version
Posted by Ben Joravsky on 01.25.12 at 08:00 AM
Like—what the hell can we do?
But Andrew Bayley—a graduate student of architecture at the Illinois Institute of Technology—actually did something about the new map.
He took the 50 newly created and peculiarly shaped wards and turned them into a jigsaw puzzle. It's pretty funny to look at it, and it's probably a blast to assemble. You can find it on his website.
Tuesday, January 24, 2012
Alderman Week Chicagoland Politics Clout City Good old Joe
Posted by Kate Schmidt on 01.24.12 at 08:00 AM
Monday, January 23, 2012
Alderman Week Politics Clout City Oh, to have those fighting independents back
Posted by Steve Bogira on 01.23.12 at 08:00 AM
- Library of Congress/Wikimedia Commons
- Richard J. Daley
Take, for example, the city council meeting of April 6, 1973. "Squabbles disrupt Council," the front-page headline screamed in the Tribune the next day. "Daley, foes swap barbs."
That Daley, of course, was Richard J. Daley, Richard M.'s father. Like the son, old-man Daley always got his way—but unlike the son, or his son's successor, he often had to shout down a half-dozen independents. Or cut off their mikes.
Alderman Week Politics Clout City Starting today on the Bleader: Alderman Week
Posted by Tal Rosenberg on 01.23.12 at 07:00 AM
- Michael Boyd
- Walter Burnett Jr.
This week's theme ties into Mick Dumke's cover story on Walter Burnett Jr., the 27th Ward alderman.
And in case you missed it, here's last week's "Variations on a Theme," Fiction Week—an extension of our Pure Fiction issue—featuring Craig Champlin's five-part serial "The Ernie Bedlam Stories."
