Clout City
Thursday, November 19, 2009
Politics, Clout City CPS Pres Michael Scott's Backroom Meeting at Edna's
Posted by Ben Joravsky on Thu, Nov 19, 2009 at 5:46 PM
One day in 2006, Chicago School Board president Michael Scott sat down for breakfast with CPS chief Arne Duncan, Congressman Danny Davis, and state senator Rickey Hendon in the back room of a soul food restaurant on the west side. They must have expected a quiet discussion in the otherwise empty space, but the party was crashed by some activists with a video camera in hand. The discussion involved school closings, and I wrote about it at the time.
Now Michael Scott is dead, and the video has surfaced in three parts on YouTube, under the heading "Selling Out the Community."
Politics, Clout City Three-part Discovery Channel Series on the Cook County Jail Begins Tonight
Posted by Mick Dumke on Thu, Nov 19, 2009 at 1:40 PM
Earlier this week Cook County sheriff Tom Dart and several of the top corrections officials at the Cook County Jail were sued in federal court by an inmate named Kenneth Simmons Mays. In a handwritten complaint he filed on his own, Mays alleges that on October 28 he was stabbed in the mouth by another inmate wielding a homemade shank, left by guards to fend for himself, provided inadequate medical care, and then placed back in the same maximum-security tier where he was attacked.
"I'm fearful of my life," Mays writes. "I'm stress and depress."
He's seeking $2.6 million in damages.
Monday, November 16, 2009
Chicagoland, Politics, Clout City TIFs on the Airwaves
Posted by Whet Moser on Mon, Nov 16, 2009 at 5:34 PM
Mick Dumke talks TIFs and more politics with Nick Digilio
Politics, Clout City The TIF talk continues
Posted by Mick Dumke on Mon, Nov 16, 2009 at 3:51 PM
Todd Stroger's inadequacies weren't the only topics of discussion at yesterday's forum for the Democrats vying for Cook County Board president. Two of Stroger's rivals also weighed in against one of Mayor Daley's: his resistance to full disclosure of how hundreds of millions of dollars in taxpayer money is spent every year.
It was a striking example of how mainstream it's suddenly become to call for reform in the mayor's $500 million-a-year tax increment financing program.
Politics, Clout City Why Todd Stroger Is Hosed
Posted by Mick Dumke on Mon, Nov 16, 2009 at 2:16 PM
Todd Stroger can’t win.
For four years he’s been the butt of jokes, the topic of scathing editorials, and the symbol of government waste for angry Cook County taxpayers. Sometimes he deserves it and sometimes he's a straw man. And now, with his political fortunes waning, Stroger appears to have decided that the only way to eke out reelection is by focusing on mobilizing his base in the black community. This may be a practical move, but it ensures that even if he does survive the Democratic primary in February, it's unlikely that he'll be able to govern as effectively as he has the last three years—and as you might have noticed, that bar isn't terribly high.
Tuesday, November 10, 2009
Politics, Clout City, News David Orr Releases His Annual TIF Report
Posted by Ben Joravsky on Tue, Nov 10, 2009 at 10:50 AM
Cook County Clerk David Orr has just released his annual tax increment financing report, and for the first time in years the news is good for taxpayers — the city's TIF take went down in 2009.
Of course, as with every thing else with the TIF program, it's all a little complicated, so let's break it down a little bit.
Monday, November 9, 2009
Bicycling, Politics, Clout City The Active Transportation Alliance Does an About-Face on the Parking Meter Deal
Posted by Mick Dumke on Mon, Nov 9, 2009 at 6:52 PM
- Flickr user Calamity_Sal/Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 Generic
Five months ago the city’s largest bicycling and transit advocacy group released a report ripping the Daley administration for entering into the parking meter privatization agreement. Yet Monday night the Active Transportation Alliance inducted Mayor Daley into its “hall of fame,” and the group will soon release a new version of the report—screened beforehand by city officials—that will recant many of the criticisms it made in June.
"We made some key mistakes in how we analyzed the agreement" the first time, says Rob Sadowsky, the group’s executive director. "But it gave us an opportunity to step back and have a dialogue with the city."
Thursday, November 5, 2009
Clout City Don't Mess With Big Joe
Posted by Ben Joravsky on Thu, Nov 5, 2009 at 6:29 PM
Two weeks ago, Andrea Raila was eagerly gathering signatures to her nominating petitions and talking about cleaning up our rancid property tax system once she got elected Cook County Assessor.
Today, she withdrew from the race.
Monday, November 2, 2009
Chicagoland, Politics, Clout City Dear Mayor Daley: Thank You For Making Our Point About TIFs
Posted by Whet Moser on Mon, Nov 2, 2009 at 1:21 PM
"To be perfectly frank, I think it’s just a lack of marketing about what [TIFs] do and account for," Daley said. "We just have to show, with better marketing, we have to show what the benefits to the community are."The mayor said that the special taxing districts, which freeze the amount of property taxes collected within a given geographic area for up to 23 years and set them aside for local improvements, have allowed the city to build new police stations, fire stations and libraries.
THAT'S NOT WHAT TIFS ARE FOR. THAT'S SORT OF THE PROBLEM.
Friday, October 30, 2009
Chicagoland, Politics, Clout City From the TIF Archives: "The Schools Scam"
Posted by Whet Moser on Fri, Oct 30, 2009 at 2:28 PM
Since state test scores are among the big news items today, here's an excerpt from Ben Joravsky's 2006 piece "The Schools Scam: Under the TIF system millions of dollars in property taxes are being diverted from education to development"; it's long because the issue is tricky:
