By Margaret Burke

To say that I read with interest the article in yesterday’s Tribune about the outsourcing of Olympic bid work to China is an understatement. I’m livid.
The City of Chicago has a residency requirement; anyone who works for the city must live in the city. If I remember correctly, the defense for this requirement was that the taxpayers are paying these people; these people should also be taxpayers. While I don’t necessarily agree that the city gets the best value, as many talented people for many reasons live outside the city limits, there is some value in seeing the taxpayers get something for their money.
I guess that doesn’t go both ways. The Olympic bid committee needs animations. Do they go to local graphic designers and video artists? Do they call the faculty at Columbia College, requesting student submissions? I’m sure there are any number of talented people in Chicago who would have been able to do the work and happy to have it. Some of the best computer graphics minds in the world are right here in Chicago; did anyone consider calling the Electronic Visualization folks at UIC? No, of course not – the bid committee just sent it off to China.

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Posted on April 23, 2007

By Steve Rhodes

The Sun-Times expands today on Barack Obama’s relationship with indicted political wheel Tony Rezko in the first of a two-part investigation, this part called “Obama and His Slumlord Patron.”
The paper reports that “new facts [have] come to light that paint Rezko as a landlord overseeing dilapidated housing in the middle of Obama’s former state Senate district,” and that “Obama did legal work on some Rezko deals.”
As the paper acknowledges, the scope of Obama’s work remains unknown. But his involvement at some level is unmistakable – as is the absence of evidence Obama ever spoke up for the low-income citizens in his district whose lives were made miserable by the crappy housing Rezko built for them, even as he was taking campaign contributions from Rezko. On that score, the campaign would only say – in a written statement – that “Senator Obama did follow up on constituency complaints about housing as a matter of routine.”

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Posted on April 23, 2007

By Polly Pollworker

This past Tuesday, I served as an equipment manager election judge, in charge of setting-up and trouble-shooting the touchscreen voting machines and the optical scanner (for recording paper ballots) during the election. At the end of the day, it was my responsibility to transmit the votes, dismantle the machines, pack everything up and transport the important materials, including the voting machine memory packs, to the central receiving station.
This was my first time working the vote. Hours of hands-on training had gone into preparing myself and my fellow equipment managers to handle the technology of democracy. I’d read the materials multiple times, highlighted, tabbed and flagged my notebook and attended a practice session, where I’d changed the printer paper so many times I could practically do it blind-folded. I was nervous and excited to participate in an election from the other side of the curtain.
What follows is my riveting account of working the April 17th Cook County Consolidated Election.

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Posted on April 20, 2007

By Allison Riggio and Hunter Clauss

Four of the 12 Chicago aldermen running in the April 17 runoff employ relatives or other loved ones on their publicly funded ward staffs, costing taxpayers more than $400,000 a year. While laws in other major cities prohibit this practice, Chicago politicians say there’s nothing wrong with hiring people they trust and think their relatives deserve the same chance as other applicants.
“That’s just something that people always have done,” said Ald. Madeline L. Haithcock, who’s fighting challenger Bob Fioretti to hang on to her 2nd Ward seat. “Almost everybody has a relative on their staff. I have a daughter and have my husband that is watching my back on the West Side.”
Haithcock is not alone, according to a six-month investigation by creatingcommunityconnections.org, and published jointly with The Beachwood Reporter.

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Posted on April 12, 2007

By Tim Howe

I’ve swooned over the soaring rhetorical splendor of Barack Obama and John Edwards. I’ve geeked out on the earnestness of Tom Vilsack and Bill Richardson. But most of all, I’ve cringed at the political calculations and machinations of Hillary Clinton. Not only because they seem so redolent of what’s wrong with what politics has become in America, but because they’re likely to be successful and place her squarely on the path to a November ’08 showdown with whoever happens to survive the GOP primary.
And the prospect of a Hillary candidacy more than anything has made me fear for civilization. What passes for political discourse in this country has been on an ever-downward spiral for some time now. And the Red State/Blue State invective long ago reached a level that makes me literally sick to my stomach. And I’m well aware that the right wing’s Public Enemy #1 is Hillary.
While I’m a card-carrying member of the ACLU, a big city, pro-choice, pro-labor liberal trial lawyer, I’m also an avid hunter and outdoorsman, so I spend a lot of time with Republicans. Generally, they’re okay people. Really. But going way back to 1992, even the most kind-hearted, decent and open-minded among them have shared one thing: an utter loathing for all things Hillary. I’ve even endured the sweetest little PTA soccer moms telling the most vile jokes about Hillary Clinton’s sex life. It is singularly amazing the level of hatred that’s been directed to this one woman.

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Posted on April 3, 2007

By Steve Rhodes

The April 2 issue of The New Yorker has a fascinating must-read on Wal-Mart’s massive and sophisticated public relations efforts, led by the Chicago-born Edelman PR firm. The story demonstrates just what reporters, politicians, and citizens are up against in trying to pan for truth amidst the onslaught of highly-paid professionals whose job is to spin public policy in favor of the private, secret, and lucrative interests of the company’s executives. This is the company that the mayor and many of his city council cronies welcome to the city – the subject of several of the aldermanic runoffs in April. This article ought to make the rounds of those campaigns and city council chambers.
It’s also worth considering that the mayor and other politicians, including those running for presidents, run similar spin divisions with the purpose of imprinting images, narratives, themes, and buzz words (“rock star” anyone?) unlodgably in your mind. And it is among the highest priority of journalists to resist, reveal, and destroy those efforts in favor of reality.
Excerpts of The New Yorker story follow, as well as excerpts from the Edelman website, the Edelman president’s blog, and SourceWatch, which has a good summary of Edelman’s more notorious works.
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“Action Alley is the company’s war room, a communications center that was set up and is staffed by Washington-based operatives from Edelman, a public-relations firm that advises companies on issues of ‘reputation management.’ Wal-Mart corporate culture is parsimonious except in the matter of executive compensation, but, according to a source, the company has been paying Edelman roughly ten million dollars annually to renovate its reputation.”

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Posted on March 30, 2007

By The Beachwood Mayoral Affairs Desk

“No we’re not [breaking the promise] because we’re not putting any actual money up,” Daley said after it was revealed that city’s Olympic bid will include a financial guarantee built from taxpayer money. “This is in case . . . everything breaks down completely . . . This would be like an earthquake. If an earthquake takes place, and I doubt if it’s gonna take place.”
Other things the mayor doubted would happen.
1. “I doubt that there will ever be big Xs carved into Meigs Field.”
2. “I doubt we’ll have much trouble getting Block 37 built. It’s prime real estate!”
3. “You want to put WHAT all over the city? Plastic cows? Seriously, Lois, I doubt people will want to see that.”

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Posted on March 14, 2007

By Allison Riggio

For a ward under as much economic distress as the 15th, votes there sure cost a lot.
Toni Foulkes led the field of a dozen (well, 11 after ex-con and former Ald. Virgil Jones got tossed off the ballot) in last month’s election with 34 percent of the vote – after spending $225,000, about half put up by the Service Employees International Union. With 2,037 votes to her name, that’s about $110 a vote.
By contrast, her runoff opponent, Felicia Simmons-Stovall, spent $65,000 en route to winning 26 percent of the vote. With 1,603 votes to her name, that’s about $40 a vote.
That might bode well for Simmons-Stovall’s chances in April to win the seat vacated by retiring Ald. Ted Thomas, no matter how much more union money floods the ward.

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Posted on March 11, 2007

By Steve Rhodes

Does anyone but the local press corps believe the spin that, as the Tribune headline says, “Olympics Won’t Cost Taxpayers, City Says” (or as the online version says, “Taxpayers Are Safe, Chicago CFO Says“)?
“Chief Financial Officer Dana Levenson said the city would play a ‘subordinate role’ in the plan, which would kick in only if the Games were to operate in the red,” the Tribune reports.
Duh!
In other words, the city will pick up the slack if things go sour!
Beyond that, to say the city’s guarantee will be under so many layers of other financial guarantors that it is essentially meaningless is absurd. Then why require it?

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Posted on March 9, 2007

By Cyryl Jakubowski

Having no luck reaching Burt Natarus at his office for a post-election campaign story about the 42nd Ward for the Columbia Chronicle, I noticed that the now-deposed alderman says on his website that he takes calls at home¹. So on Monday – Casimir Pulaski Day – I called him at home. I was born and raised in Poland and let me tell you, Pulaski Day² is not a big deal. At least not to me. But to Burt – that’s another matter. Here is a transcript of my interview with the outgoing alderman, edited for clarity.
Cyryl: Hi, Mr. Natarus?
Burt: Yes.
Cyryl: How ya doing, sorry to be calling you at your house, this is Cyryl Jakubowski from the Columbia Chronicle newspaper.
Burt: What paper?
Cyryl: Columbia Chronicle. I think one of our reporters talked to you before.
Burt: Well I talked to them already. There’s really nothing left to talk about. If you’re in this business and you lose you have to learn how to lose. I’m over the hump, it’s no problem.
Cyryl: Well yeah, but I’m doing a post-election story . . .
Burt: Why bother?
Cyryl: Why bother? I’m interested . . .

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Posted on March 7, 2007