Archive for October, 2007

Angry demonstrators clogged the common space just outside City Council chambers Wednesday morning, protesting, among other things, the Daley administration's proposed tax increases on beer, wine, and spirits. "What's the most expensive ingredient in beer?" one sign said. "Taxes!" 

Protests or press conferences of some kind happen before nearly every full City Council meeting, but this one attracted some recent converts to civil disobedience, such as aldermen Eugene Schulter and Patrick Levar. Both are reliable Daley votes in the council, but this time both ripped the idea of taxing alcoholic beverages, saying that would only succeed in driving "mom-and-pop stores and taverns" out of the city.

It's obvious that the mayor's 2008 budget plan is going to have to change. Daley has even said so, announcing that he's willing to slash some of the nearly $300 million in proposed new taxes, including more than $100 million in property levies, and at least delay some spending, such as for additional cops and recycling services. The mayor is a skilled enough politician that he can present this as a thoughtful, generous compromise. In fact, he'd hardly  be the first public official to anger everyone with the specter of a gargantuan tax hike, then show apparent benevolence by implementing a slightly smaller one.

On the other hand, the mayor doesn't have a choice this time.

While some aldermen have moaned about the booze taxes, others have blasted the tax on bottled water or the jacked-up fines for parking violations, and just about everyone has run from the massive property tax increase.

Leading the property tax bitch-fest--it doesn't rise to the level of a "revolt" or even "coffee-cup rebellion"--are the northwest- and southwest-side white and Latino guys who are usually the mayor's closest allies. "The property tax stuff is no good," said 38th Ward alderman Tom Allen, who then asked this reporter for ideas to generate more revenue.

That's the problem right now: just about everybody agrees that the new taxes stink, but they don't know what else to do. Some aldermen have proposed things like scaling back a couple of the TIFs downtown, selling off city-owned plots of land, or fining people who hang signs without a permit, but these ideas don't have widespread support or won't generate enough to replace existing proposals. A few aldermen have groused that budget talks have so far focused on which ways to raise money rather than where fat can be trimmed. 

Most, though, have accepted Daley's argument that any significant cuts will keep Chicago from "moving forward," as his ongoing campaign slogan proclaims. "It's to the point where what used to take a day to get done is going to take a week," said 30th Ward alderman Ariel Reboyras.

But the mayor has to make some choices. He knows his budget doesn't have close to a council majority. Black and "independent" aldermen appear to be more open to many of the tax ideas than the mayor's usual friends, but they're only going to support them if Daley gives them a few gifts in return--such as additional funding for the Inspector General's office or an agreement to settle the police torture lawsuits. 

Daley's not going to make those deals. So instead he's got to appease the aldermen who represent the bungalow belt. "In this environment, there's not a lot the mayor can promise you--or threaten you with, which he never did openly, but it happened," said Brian Doherty, alderman of the conservative 41st Ward on the far northwest side. "The old patronage-type government is gone, there are new aldermen in the council, and people are against this property tax increase. It makes for an interesting time."

Doherty's prediction: "They'll keep lowering the property tax until they get 26 votes."

That's what other mayoral allies, such as council budget committee chair Carrie Austin, are already talking about.

But don't expect many more spending reductions. These aldermen are now hoping manna will drop from the sky. On the off chance that doesn't happen, they're wondering how high they can raise vehicle stickers and other fees, how fast parking meters can be leased to a private company, and what the odds are that the state will deliver Chicago a casino.

City officials have distributed a map to aldermen showing that they're planning to expand the Blue Cart recycling program to most of the north side and a good chunk of the south side between this December and the end of 2008.

If the plan is approved when the City Council votes on the 2008 budget ordinance Wednesday, the city's source-separated recycling program, in which residents served by city garbage crews place all of their recyclables into blue containers in the alley, will be extended to an 131,000 additional households on top of the 81,000 already included. That would mean that about 30 percent of the 700,000 residences with city garbage service--all Chicago dwellings with four or fewer units, known as low-density residences--will be covered by the program.

City officials say they want to organize this expansion around convenience and geography rather than ward boundaries. Previously the city has rolled the program out ward by ward; currently, all low-density residences in the 1st, 5th, 8th, 19th, 37th, 46th, and 47th Wards have the source-separated recycling service. Under the new plan ward boundaries would be ignored. All the low-density residences from Cicero Avenue east to the lake, and from Diversey north to the city limits, would be included. The service would also be offered to all the low-density homes between 55th and about 103rd, from State Street east to the lake. An area west of State from 55th to 75th would also be included, as would one south to 115th Street between State and Stony Island.

This would mean that all low-density dwellings in the 7th, 20th, 39th, 40th, 48th, 49th, and 50th wards would have blue cart service, along with portions of the 6th, 9th, 10th, 16th, 17th, 30th, 31st, 32nd, 35th, 44th, and 45th Wards. 

Since the new recycling program uses its own trucks and personnel, city officials say, it doesn't have to run in tandem with garbage pickup, which is coordinated by Streets and Sanitation ward superintendents. Besides offering more efficiency, the new organization plan may satisfy--at least temporarily--a greater number of aldermen, many of whom have been getting the business from constituents demanding better recycling services. 

The Chicago Recycling Coalition and other advocates have praised the Blue Cart pilot for yielding far higher resident participation and keeping about twice as much trash out of landfills as the city's Blue Bag program. But they've also been critical of the slow rollout pace, saying it's clear that source-separated recycling is far more effective than any other method. Some analysts believe the city is spending too much money and confusing residents by offering different recycling programs in different areas.

But city officials say they're limited by the up-front investment costs needed to take blue carts citywide. The proposed 2008 budget would set funds to purchase more than 20 new trucks to collect recyclables, at more than $150,000 apiece, and $7.9 million to cover 111 recycling-related jobs. 

None of this will directly help the thousands of people who live in large apartment buildings and condos--unless they're planning to sneak over to drop their recyclables into a neighbor's blue cart [scroll down to read PK's comment at the bottom].

Not that this is legal.

Aldermen have expressed frustration, fear, skepticism, and in a few isolated cases anger over the mayor's plan to collect nearly $300 million in new taxes. But most of their hand-wringing has been over the kinds of taxes that might be levied, rather than over the notion of tax hikes per se. The administration's pitch for $108 million in new property taxes has galled even longtime mayoral allies like 45th Ward alderman Pat Levar.

"The questions are about this tax versus another," one alderman said to a couple of reporters before police department budget hearings this week. "There aren't enough questions about how and where we can cut."

The police department is the last place the City Council is going to look to trim--even criticizing "a few bad apples" in the police department is generally considered a dumb political move. In this tough budget year, the mayor has proposed hiring 50 more officers, and aldermen have griped that they need to find money to hire more.

When interim police superintendent Dana Starks testified Monday evening, most aldermen played their expected roles, spending their Q & A time praising their district commanders and condemning those who dare to wonder if the department is plagued by corruption and abuse.

But a few tough questions about police spending came from Ninth Ward alderman Anthony Beale, normally a soft-spoken, deferential presence in the council, even when he bucks the mayor's lead.

Almost one-fifth of the city's proposed $5.9 billion budget will be devoted to police personnel costs. Beale read some of the line items in the proposed police budget aloud and asked Starks and his deputies to explain: $28.8 million for police overtime; $3.9 million for "holiday premium pay"; $37.1 million for "duty availability."

"What is 'duty availability'?" Beale asked.

"It's a contractural benefit paid to sworn officers," Starks said. One of his assistant deputy superintendents clarified: officers are paid $730 every three months, on top of their salaries, to be "available" in case they're called in to work an extra or emergency shift. If they report for extra duty, they're paid overtime wages as well.

"So each officer is getting $730 a quarter to be available? My, my, my," Beale said, shaking his head. "Is anyone tracking who's working a second job and isn't available?"

"No," Starks said.

Officers will also be paid a total of $11.5 million if they don't take furlough time they're entitled to, Starks confirmed, and $24 million each year to cover the cost of uniforms. That last expense works out to $600 per quarter for each officer.

"Is there anything in place to find out if the uniform allowance is being spent on that?" Beale asked.

"No," Starks said. "Just on the annual inspection day."

"Well, I can put aside a nice shirt and tie and come in looking real good for inspection," Beale said. "Officers are paid to be available, compensated for furloughs and uniforms, but we don't know if they're using it for uniforms or not--all that comes out to $153 million when we're being asked to slap the taxpayers for $300 million--"

Carrie Austin, the chair of the budget committee, cut him off. "Alderman, I didn't give you time for a speech," she said.

Beale offered a half-hearted near-apology before wrapping up his remarks. "I think we can cut some of the fat here," he said.

Starks explained that it's not that easy, since most of those expenses are written into contracts with the Fraternal Order of Police. The floor was then turned over to Ariel Reboyras, the 30th Ward alderman, who told Starks he had "the most difficult job in the world" but that crime fighting in Chicago was working. "We are the best in the nation," he said.

Dear Congressman Jackson:

Your commentary in Wednesday’s Tribune, detailing some of the Daley administration’s taxpayer-funded corruption and waste, was a provocative and desperately needed counterpoint to the mayor’s claim that we need to swallow nearly $300 million in new taxes to “keep Chicago moving forward.”

It also ticked a lot of people off.

Frankly, my first reaction to the piece was relief. Finally, I thought, someone of prominence is stepping forward to try to challenge Mayor Daley on his management of city finances and resources.

Then I became frustrated, because I realized again that this challenge came a year too late.

I’ve since talked to quite a few people who were downright pissed and called you a few choice names, most of them questioning your testicular virility, as Gov. Blagojevich once put it. (They obviously haven’t seen the pictures of you practicing your various martial arts.)

In your Trib piece, you repeatedly referred to a period in 2006 when you were “exploring” a run for mayor. It's clear that much of the criticism you laid out in this piece is based on research and preliminary campaign work you and your team did when you were acting like a Daley opponent for a few months there. Though some of your claims—your numbers—appear to be exaggerated by a few million bucks here or there, your central point deserves serious examination: We need to seriously review, if not revolutionize, the way this city is run.

It’s just too bad you didn’t have enough commitment to this idea to step up and run your own campaign for mayor.

Look, don’t get too full of yourself: I’m not saying people see you as a savior. I’m not denying that lots of people can’t stand you simply because you have the name Jesse Jackson. I'm not saying you or anyone could get into position to beat Daley in an election.

But I do think that there’s a pretty good chance that if you stopped waffling and started to consistently show that you’re in this fight, you’d win a lot of respect and support. People might even decide they like you a little.

I’ve had the chance to talk with you one-on-one quite a few times now. At first I thought you were a blowhard and a really good actor, someone who’s just smart and experienced enough to know how to sweet-talk progressives.

I’m still not sure that isn’t true, but I’ve also seen the way you took the time to listen to the line of well-wishing nut cases, elderly women, hardened union guys, and people who claimed to have marched 30 years ago with your dad—all while you were trying to eat a little breakfast before speaking at a rally. I’ve seen how you can get a crowd energized—not just for the guy they already plan to vote for, but for the idea that they’re part of a movement for social change. And I’ve also seen how you can get people on board and then turn around and walk away.

Personally, as a reporter and a citizen, I don’t care if you’re just a skilled, shrewd politician. Some people are fans of Mayor Daley and his flower gardens, some aren’t, but what seems obvious is that for the city to continue to function, its policy decisions have to come about through serious, well-informed debate. While the City Council has more reform-minded members than it's had in years, aldermen are still primarily consumed with delivering services to their wards. The council will almost never position itself against the man they depend on to do that.

I’m not sure anyone but a skilled, shrewd, aggressive, and—to be blunt—extremely self-confident politician can face off with Daley and his political operation.

Shortly before you pulled the plug on your mayoral bid last fall, you asked me, in so many words, why you should make yourself a sacrificial lamb. If other progressives wouldn’t back you or even join you on a citywide ticket, you said there was no point in even trying. “I’ve got to have somebody with me!” you said in a near shout. “It’s the only way it can be done!”

Actually, it’s not the only way it can be done. Look, you have an important job already as a U.S. congressman. I for one wouldn’t fault you if, like most of our congressional delegation, you decided to keep your mouth shut about local politics and simply tried to get a few things done in Washington.

But you seem to feel called to weigh in on the ugly stuff that happens around here. I don’t see how that’s anything but good for the city—if you’re going to stand behind your occasional words. You didn’t run for mayor because your polling numbers weren’t promising? Well, maybe people want to see if you’re interested in doing more than talking. If you’re going to surface every six months or every year to blast the mayor, then disappear while others are left here to wage the fight, your poll numbers are going to keep going down. And they should.

If, on the other hand, you take the risk of alienating a few machine Democrats, if you consistently offer an alternative to the rule-by-decree approach of Mayor Daley, if you show people that you care about more than getting your name in the papers once in awhile, if you get into this to make the city better and not just see if you can run a sure-thing campaign—well, in that case, you might be able to accomplish something.

And your poll numbers might get better, too.

Thanks for your time,

Mick Dumke

In this scene, taped at Monday's budget hearing, we learn a lesson in how to interpret the code words of City Hall.

The speakers are Third Ward alderman Pat Dowell and budget director Bennett Johnson III; the topic is tax increment financing districts.

Dowell used to work in the city's planning department, so she's one of the few aldermen who understands how the TIF program really works.

In this exchange, taped by AlderTrack (props on the new site, guys), she presses Johnson to see whether schools, parks, and taxpayers stand to get anything back for the $700 million (that's Johnson's own figure) they're losing to the city's 156 TIF districts.

Johnson, who's quite smooth, promises to run her questions by the city's lawyers, as though the issue she raises was an intriguing but radical concept in need of investigation. In fact, in the suburbs people have already challenged the legitimacy of pouring money into TIFs while schools and other public necessities go underfunded.

What Johnson's really saying is that he'll have the boys and girls in legal cook up some cockamamie justification for why they can't do what the mayor was never going to let them do in the first place. It's his way of letting Dowell know that her idea isn't going anywhere. As everyone should know by now, the mayor is never going to loosen the reins on his favorite slush fund.

Still, give Dowell credit. She's one of the few aldermen brave enough to link the massive tax hike the mayor's proposed to one of its leading cause: runaway TIFs.

May more follow her lead. 

In his budget address last week, Mayor Daley proposed expanding the city's Blue Cart recycling pilot program to 131,000 more households by the end of 2008. That would mean that about 211,000 households served by city sanitation crews, or 30 percent of the citywide total, would have source-separated recycling a year from now.

Most experts say that this kind of recycling, in which materials are sorted out of the trash before it's collected, is far more effective and results in far higher participation than postcollection recycling, the approach taken in the city's Blue Bag program. Wards that don't have Blue Cart recycling are still supposed to be Blue Bagging their recyclables.

The Chicago Recycling Coalition and other advocates praise the Blue Cart program but wonder why it's taking so long to expand it citywide. "We don't need more pilots--we know what works. Now we need to roll it out everywhere," said Julie Dick, a member of the coalition's board of directors. "The more they roll it out on a citywide basis, the easier it is to educate people on how to recycle. Because right now that's part of the problem--dealing with the confusion of how people can recycle in which part of the city."

The city has said it doesn't have the money right now to take Blue Cart recycling to all 50 wards. State grants covered some of the costs of introducing source-separated recycling into the seven wards that now have it, including the price of buying the blue recycling bins themselves.

Experts say that though launching first-rate recycling programs typically costs municipalities up front, as they have to invest in new equipment and some additional personnel, they should save in the long run as fewer people are needed to pick up garbage and landfill costs decline. 

But budget documents show that confusion and lower-than-necessary recycling rates might not be the only problems created by the city's slow-rollout introduction of source-separated recycling. It may also be costing taxpayers too much.

Before 2007 the city didn't have separate budget lines for recycling. Since Blue Bags were picked up with the rest of the trash, the cost of pulling them out at city sorting facilities was simply bundled in with the rest of the waste disposal budget. Critics charged that the Blue Bag program was a waste of taxpayer money, but the truth is that it was almost impossible to determine what the city was spending on recycling alone.

Now, though, the budget for the Department of Streets and Sanitation includes a section for recycling, and if the mayor gets his way, it's going to grow rapidly. In 2007 the city spent about $2.8 million on 46 recycling jobs. Daley's proposing a 2008 recycling budget of $7.9 million to cover 111 jobs--increases of 180 percent and 140 percent, respectively. That's roughly proportional with the increase in households covered under the program. Among the new positions will be two assistant general superintendents and four assistant division superintendents.  

At the same time, however, the city is planning to spend about the same amount on waste collection personnel, going from $44.4 million on 692 jobs in 2007 to $45.4 million on 688 jobs in 2008.

The city is also budgeting $52.3 million to cover the costs of hauling and landfilling garbage, less than the $54.2 million it estimates it will spend in 2007. But this year, as it has the last several years, spending on waste disposal has exceeded the budgeted amount by several million dollars. The city allotted $49.9 million, but will wind up spending about $4.3 million more.

The point here isn't that anything out of line is necessarily happening--not yet, at least. But the longer the Daley administration continues to spend money on the ineffective Blue Bag program while also attempting to invest in the Blue Cart approach, the less likely it is that taxpayers are getting cost-effective recycling or garbage disposal services. Savings, like higher recycling rates, can only going to be realized with a full-on commitment.

Then again, it's possible Chicago will never see these anticipated financial benefits. Given the Daley administration's record on hiring and contracting, effective recycling services might provide City Hall with the chance to go green and reward political supporters at the same time.

My call to Streets and Sanitation wasn't returned this afternoon, but the department's top brass is scheduled to testify in City Council budget hearings Thursday, Oct. 25. 

Thursday night I took a group of journalism students to a community policing beat meeting in the hopes they'd catch a glimpse of how the Chicago Police Department works.

They did.

The police department began implementing its community policing programs, known as CAPS, in 1993 and '94, and officially it still touts the cops-and-residents-working-together approach as an effective way to keep city streets safer. "The City of Chicago has a new weapon in the fight against crime--and that new weapon is you, the community," declares the community policing page on the department's Web site. "By opening up the dialogue between police and community, CAPS is producing a number of important success stories at the neighborhood level."

The officers in each of the city's police beats hold a meeting every month with a neighborhood volunteer known as a "beat facilitator" and anyone else who decides to come by. (Meeting dates, times, and places are posted on the department's Web site.) Generally the sessions consist of a police update on recent crime statistics from the area, complaints or questions about criminal activity or police inaction from residents, and pledges from the cops that they're all over it.

At Thursday's meeting, though, the police officer who was supposed to give the monthly crime statistics report didn't show up, so less than five minutes after the facilitator had called everyone to order, she opened the floor to questions. 

A resident of a nearby condo building asked how police are dispatched once a 911 call is placed. A plainclothes officer who identified himself as the district commander's community liaison began to answer the question, then looked at the students and stopped.

"By the way, you can't record this without prior permission," he said.

I've been attending CAPS meetings for years, and I'd never heard such a thing. Plus, I didn't think it was legal. So I said so to the officer. "This is a public meeting," I said.

"No, no, no, it's our meeting," he said. "It's a public meeting hosted by the police department, so you need prior consent."

"There are eavesdropping laws, too," said another officer. 

The first officer told me I had to call the department's news affairs bureau downtown and get approval. 

But when I called news affairs Friday morning, a different standard was explained to me. "It's been the general policy at these meetings that you're welcome to attend, but with any electronic media, you need to get the permission of the people at the meeting,"said Pat Camden, the deputy director of news affairs.

I asked if this policy was in writing, and Camden said he'd check and call me back. A little while later he did. "Talking to our legal people, it's their interpretation that CAPS meetings do not fall under the Open Meetings Act," he said.

The Open Meetings Act states that public agencies and officials cannot hold official meetings without opening them to citizens. "In order that the people shall be informed, the General Assembly finds and declares that it is the intent of this Act to ensure that the actions of public bodies be taken openly and that their deliberations be conducted openly," it says. It defines public bodies in broad terms as "all legislative, executive, administrative or advisory bodies of the State, counties, townships, cities, villages, incorporated towns, school districts and all other municipal corporations, boards, bureaus, committees or commissions of this State, and any subsidiary bodies." And it expressly states that "any person may record the proceedings at meetings required to be open by this Act by tape, film or other means."

Heather Kimmons, assistant public access counselor for Illinois Attorney General Lisa Madigan, said CAPS meetings should not be exempt. "Under the Open Meetings Act, they would absolutely be open to recording," she said. 

The law does allow some "responsible" restrictions that would interfere with conducting a meeting, such as noisy equipment or distracting lighting. "But a responsible rule would not include 'No taping without prior consent,'" Kimmons said.

At the Thursday night meeting I simply told my students to shut off their recorders and take notes. They did, and for the next few minutes, they listened to police officers complain that members of the media sensationalize problems within the police department and far too often don't bother to get the facts right.

Deanna Isaacs reports:

Ouch!  New York's Madison Square Garden Entertainment confirms that it has agreed to purchase one of our city's best-known landmarks, the Chicago Theatre.  Restored to its original spendor 20 years ago with $21 million of public money, the theatre was handed over to the private sector in 2003 for a mere $3 million. But at least that buyer, TheatreDreams, was nominally based in Chicago. Details of the pending sale, which is awaiting city approval, have not been disclosed yet.

Mayor Daley's budget speech Wednesday made one point overwhelmingly clear, if it wasn't already: He has no fear of Chicago voters.

Why should he? Back in February, the mayor was reelected by winning every single ward and 71 percent of the votes cast citywide. While voters in a few wards took out their frustrations on their aldermen, choosing to send would-be reformers to the City Council, the last few months have shown that Daley has more than enough council support to ram through just about whatever he wants, from a police reform initiative that gives him more power over who's investigating allegations of misconduct to a new Office of Compliance that most observers believe undercuts the work of the independent Inspector General.

Daley can hardly be blamed for thinking citizens of this city have given him leave to run the place however he sees fit. They have.

So here are some of the consequences: nearly $300 million in new taxes, fines, and fees, affecting just about everyone who lives in the city or even passes through. Own a home or even rent one? You'll be paying more. Enjoy having a beer once in awhile? The beer tax is going up. Have a car here? You'll be paying more for your next parking tickets, which, as anyone who's been here awhile knows, are pretty much impossible to avoid. Comforted by the idea that you might get police to show up for an emergency? The charge on your phone bill to cover 911 is going up.

Mayor Daley explains that the new revenues are essential to "keep Chicago moving forward." That's the same slogan he used as his campaign theme last winter, and the mayor's strategy for winning this round appears to be the same as the one he employed to hold onto his throne: Show everybody they've got nowhere else to go.

In his budget address, Daley repeatedly compared Chicago to "other cities" where services have been cut and the quality of life is, by his estimation, lower. The message is that if you don't want Chicago to become Detroit or Cleveland, you're going to have to place your trust in the Daley administration, along with more of your money.

"During these tight times, cities and states around the nation are increasingly under pressure to cut services and make substantial layoffs to balance their budgets, steps we've avoided in this budget, so far," Daley said. "I believe that the people of Chicago know that if we propose raising taxes it's because we've exhausted every other option. I believe they also know we've made real progress over the years because of their ongoing support and that we'll continue to invest their tax dollars to improve our quality of life."

In these "tight times," the mayor's budget grows last year's by tens of millions of dollars, which Daley said is necessary because of labor costs and the need to build more libraries. "Today, there are still communities without branch libraries in our city. They provide safe havens for our children and residents," he said. "For the first time, we would provide an ongoing, dedicated funding source for the library system."

In other words, you can blame the unions for the tax increases. Or you can decide to oppose them and punish the children.

All that was missing was a suggestion that opponents of the budget were racially motivated. 

Of course, this is a proposed budget--the City Council will be holding hearings over the next couple of weeks to scrutinize the plans in detail.

Expect some resistance. Aldermen know they'll be forced to take the heat from exhausted and embittered voters. Already, a few are shaking their heads "no."

Some aldermen noted that the payroll would only shrink by a handful of positions next year. One suggested that the administration work harder to dump ineffective or corrupt employees whose incompetence costs the city millions of dollars in legal fees each year. Others mentioned the high price of defending abusive cops.

Another alderman pointed out that Daley is proposing to save money by merging the Department of Buildings with the Department of Construction and Permits--four years after the mayor split them into two in a supposed cost-savings move.

"Who wants the title of 'The Best Unaffordable City'?" said Billy Ocasio, alderman of the 26th Ward. "Under this budget, we will be the most unaffordable, highest-taxed city in the nation."

That doesn't mean the council won't approve most of it. "We won't be, as you in the media like to put it, a rubber stamp," vowed 34th Ward alderman Carrie Austin, a Daley loyalist who chairs the council's budget committee. 

Uh-huh.

Apparently, the best way the U.S. Olympic Committee can get its message to Mayor Daley is to use the press.

If you recall, when they wanted him to break his promise to use no public money to pay for the 2016 Olympic games, Olympic committee vice president Bob Ctvrtlik went to the media.

"We definitely want the government to have some skin in the game," Ctvrtlik told reporters on March 7. "We had been assured by the mayor that this is the case with the city of Chicago."

Within a week Daley not only reversed his long-standing pledge not to use public money but had slammed through the City Council a Rube Goldberg financing scheme likely to cost taxpayers at least $500 million if, God help us, we get the games.

Last week Ctvrtlik's boss, UOC chairman Peter Ueberroth, came to Chicago and told reporters that if Daley doesn't improve his act, the International Olympic Committee will award the games to another city. "You have to care about  and develop real friendships globally if you're going to be successful in the Olympic movement," Ueberroth said.

In other words, Chicago has to start making nice to IOC shot callers.

This may not be so easy for Daley to do. It's one thing for the mayor to sign on to a plan to waste public tax dollars -- he does that all the time (think $40 million handout to the Merc). But it's another thing to actually get him to be ingratiating or solicitous. Daley doesn't suck up to people, people suck up to Daley. If the mayor wants to do something, he just does it -- to hell with the opposition (think the destruction of Meigs Field). In the case of the Olympics, Daley probably figured all he had to do was invite the IOC to McCormick Place, feed them deep-dish pizza, take them on a bus tour of the city, and the games were his.

Now he knows better. We're number four.

It's hard not to conclude that the city's hiring process is a mess. 

Earlier this week court-appointed hiring monitor Noelle Brennan said that 1,451 former city employees had filed claims saying they'd been passed over for jobs or promotions because they didn't have political connections.

Then 50 employees in the Department of Human Resources found their jobs advertised on Craigslist. Their superiors told them they'd need to reapply for their positions and be willing to take reduced pay as part of a department reorganization.

A few weeks ago the City Council approved Mayor Daley's plan to create a new office to oversee compliance with fair-hiring rules, even though Human Resources and the Inspector General's Office are supposed to do that. Several aldermen who voted for the plan said they didn't like it but decided to go along with the mayor because it was clear he was going to win. Brennan, IG David Hoffman, and antipatronage attorney Michael Shakman all ripped the plan.

These incidents all show, once again, how difficult it is for city employees, aspiring city employees, advocates of good government, taxpayers, or the federal courts to grasp--let alone reform--the insular and often rigged employment process at the city of Chicago.

And anyone who gets in should make sure to keep their bosses and sponsors happy. Data acquired from the city's Human Resources Board show that when city workers are fired, they have little chance of winning their jobs back [scroll down to "The Coconut Brings in a Closer"].

Since 2002, 149 city workers have appealed their terminations. Thirty have had their punishments reduced to suspensions. Seven have won a complete reversal. The others have lost their jobs for good.

Meanwhile, the city has struggled to discipline abusive and corrupt cops, and Christopher Kozicki is protected by the mayor. And let's not even get into the mess in Cook County, where Patty Young, the girlfriend of commissioner William Beavers, worked briefly in the purchasing department this week. She denied having done so, saying "I don't know who offered  [the job] to me, but it wasn't enough money, so I didn't take it."  Young, on "stress leave" from CDOT, would have reported to the wife of Todd Stroger's best friend, who heads the department; Stroger's cousin Vincent Jones is a deputy there. 

A few months ago a few aldermen with relatively independent voting records began trying to organize a City Council opposition bloc, which they were calling the Progressive Caucus. Fourth Ward alderman Toni Preckwinkle, one of the caucus organizers, said as many as 20 aldermen would be invited to its meetings, with police accountability, living wages, and affordable housing its top issues. 

From afar, it hasn't looked like much has happened since. Mayor Daley got most of what he wanted when aldermen--including, in the end, Preckwinkle and her closest allies--passed an ordinance that reshapes the agency that investigates charges of police misconduct. A couple weeks ago, when the Department of Housing presented its quarterly report to a council committee, none of the progressives was around to hear how the city was doing on affordable-housing issues.

And only six aldermen voted against Daley's plan to create a new city department that will supposedly ensure fair hiring, which is already supposed to be ensured by the city's human resources department and monitored by the Inspector General's office. Though it's opposed by court-appointed hiring monitor Noelle Brennan and attorney Michael Shakman, who's led the antipatronage fight for decades, some aldermen who might have voted against the measure said they had no idea Preckwinkle, 22nd Ward alderman Ricardo Munoz, and 49th Ward alderman Joe Moore were going to oppose it, so they played it safe and went with the council majority. "Many aldermen didn't know they were supposed to vote 'no,'" said someone involved in organizing the caucus. "And some of the old [veteran] guys didn't talk to them about it, because they aren't used to having backup."

Both rookies and many longtime mavericks need to be shown how to work as a coalition, this person said. "We're running a day-care center here."

Preckwinkle, though, says the group, now called the Independent Caucus, is getting organized. "We've had a couple of meetings," she said. Preckwinkle wouldn't specify who or how many aldermen had shown up. "We invite people and those who are able to come attend."

Other organizers say that, with some help from labor unions, the caucus hopes to raise $100,000 by the end of this year to hire at least one staffer who can conduct independent policy research. Right now, aldermen typically rely on analyses by the Daley administration and have no staff or funding to conduct follow-up studies or investigations.

"We don't have anything like a Government Accountability Office," said Moore.

Of all the half-truths, lies, and distortions streaming out of City Hall after the mayor called for tax increases totaling $158 million in the face of a $193 million budget shortfall, my current favorite comes from 36th Ward alderman William Banks.

"I've been in the City Council for 25 years and I've never voted for a property tax increase," he told reporter Fran Spielman. "I don't intend on voting for one now."

Banks wants the public to believe that he and his council allies are always taking a courageous stand against rising taxes for Chicago's beleaguered citizens. But, as he ought to know, this is not exactly true. The fact is that Banks and his councilmates have been routinely hiking property taxes over the last few years every time they create a new tax increment financing district.

What's the correlation between TIFs and property taxes? In a nutshell, a TIF freezes the amount the government can take in property taxes from a TIF district for up to 23 years. To compensate for the money they're not getting from the TIF districts, the city, county, schools, and parks have to raise tax rates. There are now over 150 TIF districts in the city -- with new ones proposed every month, soaking up well over $400 million a year in taxes.

Nobody really know how much these TIF districts add to the average taxpayer's bill. And nobody, except for a few academics, is looking into it. Certainly, not Mayor Daley, who pretends as though TIFs magically create new tax revenue out of thin air. It's important for city officials to perpetuate the myth that TIFs are free money because the less people know about TIFs the easier it is for the mayor (and his favorite aldermen) to spend them anyway they want. Actually, I'm starting to think Mayor Daley's fooled himself into believing that TIFs don't raise taxes. Why else would he so cavalierly propose something as wasteful as -- to pick just one recent example -- forking over $40 million to subsidize the merger of the Mercantile Exchange and Board of Trade.

I suppose it's OK for Alderman Banks and Mayor Daley to fall for their own disinformation -- obviously they make more than enough money to pay their tax bills. It's just a little harder for the rest of us schmoes to keep up.