Archive for July, 2008

State rep Annazette Collins, a Democrat from Chicago’s west side, agreed earlier this week to pay a $20,000 fine and issue an apology for filing inaccurate campaign finance reports with the state board of elections. From 2005 to 2007 Collins claimed she didn’t raise or spend a penny. Turns out both sides of the ledger were off by more than $100,000.

Collins has some company. A couple weeks ago I wrote about how 12th Ward alderman George Cardenas said he’d eschewed fund-raising, instead asking supporters to donate to charity in his honor—a maneuver that some campaign finance experts don’t think is legal. A couple of his colleagues, the 11th Ward’s James Balcer and the 35th Ward’s Rey Colon, also reported raising zilch in the first six months of 2008, while other politicians say they've brought in next to nothing: county commissioner Bill Beavers reported getting a meager $350, 17th Ward alderman Latasha Thomas just $600. And that's just what I found after a quick search.

Maybe there's a sudden movement afoot to ask potential donors to save their money for a worthy cause.

Probably not. It's more likely sloppy record keeping or some dubious scheme. “If they’re an incumbent claiming zero contributions, it’s a red flag,” says Tony Morgando of the state board of elections’ campaign finance division. “In the city of Chicago, especially, there’s money out there.”

And the board isn’t going to catch everybody who fails to comply with reporting requirements. Every six months each of the 3,600 active political committees in Illinois is supposed to submit itemized campaign finance records; active campaigns have to file additional reports in the weeks before the election. In other words, in election years like this one the board will receive a total of about 10,000 finance reports. It has 15 people on staff to go through them all.

Morgando says they conduct a “cursory review” of each report—for example, if a committee says it transferred money to another candidate, the staff will check that candidate's records to see if the numbers square. But that’s typically after the reports have become available for public viewing, since most are filed electronically and show up online almost immediately. And by law “deep audits” only happen when someone presents evidence of a problem.

“We operate this on an honor system, and anyone who knows anything about Illinois politics knows that probably can’t work here,” says Jim Bray, a spokesman for the Illinois Campaign for Political Reform, whose complaint against Collins resulted in the penalties. 

Of course, some politicians are on the opposite end of the disclosure spectrum. House speaker Michael Madigan recently reported making “contributions” to five of his legislative allies that totaled $1.29; the cash was apparently spent on highway tolls. And former state rep candidate Phillip Jackson meticulously listed the series of loans he’d received from his nonprofit education organization, for $2.16, $2.95, and $3.05.

In a quieter-than-predicted foreclosure sale, Jam Productions bought the Uptown Theater today for $3.2 million.

But that's only the latest step in the restoration of the historic property at Broadway and Lawrence. Jam owner Jerry Mickelson is telling reporters that he's going to need major financial assistance from the city.

And if you haven't figured it out by now, that probably means TIF money. Look for the funds to come from the Lawrence-Broadway TIF district. A few years back, Joseph Freed, Michelson's partner in the Uptown deal, got assistance from this TIF to fix up the Goldblatt's building, located just to the south on Broadway. And the same TIF issued $376,437 in unspecified Uptown-Theater-related expenses in 2006.

In last year's debate over the Hollywood-Sheridan TIF, Alderman Mary Ann Smith (48th) said money from the Lawrence-Broadway TIF couldn't be used to fix up the McCutcheon School because it was already earmarked for the Uptown. 

Think of it as the theater's favorite TIF . . .

They won’t give an exact number, but city officials have been admitting over the last few days that they’re already looking at a substantial budget shortfall—perhaps as high as $400 million, or 6 percent of the $6.3 billion budget.

Budgets are essentially guesstimates about what’s going to happen in the year ahead. Apparently last fall’s were off by quite a ways. 

Acts of God and the economy have lots to do with it—budget department spokeswoman Wendy Abrams says she can’t provide specific figures because they’re so fluid, but the unusually long, messy winter cost the city far more than it had expected, as have rising fuel costs. And the rotten economy—especially in the foundering construction and real estate sectors—has slowed the rate of money coming in.

There are a couple ways to look at this. On the one hand, city officials couldn’t have predicted how many inches of snow were going to fall last winter any more than they can control national economic forces. Then again, maybe their projections could have been more conservative. Chicago hadn’t gone through a full-on winter in a number of years, and sooner or later it was bound to happen. The housing market was in a free-fall well before the 2008 budget was drawn up.

Yet the Daley administration laid out a budget plan last fall that assumed a mild winter and a stabilizing economy. A few examples:

·        The city’s Bureau of Street Operations, the division responsible for street cleaning and snow removal, had a 2004 budget of $89 million, but it was cut to $73 million by this year. (Over the same period, the budget for the Bureau of Sanitation, which handles garbage and recycling, grew from $142 million to $163 million.)

·        The Department of Fleet Management, which provides the fuel for city vehicles, budgeted just a little more (a couple million) for gasoline and diesel though prices were already shooting higher.

·        The 2008 budget predicted the city would bring in the same amount in real estate transfer taxes—$210 million—as it did in 2007, despite the sinking housing market. (And the city overestimated these revenues last year too.)

·        Same deal with the sale of city-owned land, which rises and falls with the pace of development and real estate speculation: the city projected making $16 million this year even though it only brought in $12 million in 2007.

·        Mayor Daley announced a shortfall at this time last year too.

 
If the budget department was overly optimistic, it had allies in the City Council—40 aldermen voted for the revenue package (though just 29 for the portion of it raising property taxes), and 37 supported the spending plan.

Now the mayor is considering employee layoffs and unpaid furloughs, and aldermen have also been told to prepare for cuts in city services. There’s nothing remotely good about this for them. No one walks around singing songs of praise to their aldermen just because the trees are trimmed and streets are swept. But if people start noticing that little things aren’t being taken care of, they’ll bitch, and whoever’s sitting in the ward office will be held responsible for the decline of the neighborhood whether it’s actually happening or not.

So what is an embattled alderman to do? Thank God there's a Republican in the White House to blame, at least for now.

In the last few days Mayor Daley has been spreading the word that even though the city faces mountains of debt, there's absolutely no way he will raise property taxes.

Last week he and schools CEO Arne Duncan announced that the Board of Education would rather take $50 million out of reserves than hike taxes for the cash-starved system.

And today he proclaimed that he would mandate furlough days for nonunion city employees to help close a budget deficit he says stands at "a couple of hundred million dollars." But no new property taxes.

This is a surprising turn of events for the mayor, who hasn't been reluctant to hike taxes in the past. For instance, to help close last year's $293 million deficit, Mayor Daley raised roughly $276 million in fees, fines, and taxes, including $83.4 million in property taxes. And this was on top of his $113 million increase in what I call the TIF tax (which the mayor doesn't acknowledge because he's apparently convinced himself that TIFs aren't taxes even though we have to pay them).

So what gives this year?

Well, there are two theories bouncing around City Hall. The nice guy theory is that Mayor Daley truly cares about the little people of his town and he realizes that in these hard economic times they can't afford another tax hike.

"Chicago taxpayers have been generous and supported our school improvements, and they deserve a break," the mayor told reporters at a July 23 press conference where he announced no new property taxes for the schools.

Arne Duncan was even more direct. "People are hurting," he said at the same press conference. "They're having a hard time making ends meet. And we refuse to add to that burden....We will not raise taxes. It would have been the wrong thing to do at this time."

Then there's the more, shall we say, realistic point of view that goes like this. With just six months left before the city submits its official bid for the 2016 Olympics to the International Olympic Committee, the last thing Mayor Daley wants or needs is to risk igniting anything remotely resembling a property tax revolt. Not when he's trying to show the world that everyone in Chicago just can't wait to host the games. There will of course be plenty of chances to jack up taxes next year, when he won't have to impress the IOC.

So which theory do you buy: Mayor Daley truly cares about you, or he wants you to remain asleep? 

Trust me -- the last thing I want to do is wade in the muck of 49th Ward politics. 'Cause, lord knows, you're all a bunch of lunatics up there.

But, gulp, here I am . . .

I posted yesterday about Don Gordon taking a surprisingly strong stand against construction on Park District property, and that prompted alderman Joe Moore to give me a ring.

"Looks like you're endorsing Don Gordon," he told me.

Well, not really -- just saying I like what he said at the meeting and wished he had said it when he was running for office against you last year.

"Anyone who knows Don Gordon will tell you that in that election his main criticism of me was that I was too critical of the mayor," said Moore. "He was very critical of me in supporting the living wage."

Well, as long as I have you on the phone, how about the latest rumor I'm hearing from your opponents: as soon as Barack Obama's elected president -- if, of course, he is elected -- you'll step down to take a job in his administration and handpick Jim Ginderske as your replacement. 

Moore laughed and said: "Yeah, I'm kind of gunning for attorney general. Give me a break. That shows you how delusional and out to lunch they are. They're not going to get rid of me that easy . . . "

The funny thing is that, given Mayor Daley's attitude toward council independents, he probably wouldn't fill Moore's vacancy with anyone Moore recommended. Back in 1990, when former alderman David Orr became county clerk, Daley selected Bob Clarke over Moore, Orr's preference for the vacancy.

One year later Moore defeated Clarke in the regularly scheduled aldermanic election and the rest, as they say, is history.

The irony of ironies is that Gordon probably stands a better chance of getting Daley's nod than Ginderske or anyone else Moore might recommend -- or at least he did until he started sounding off against one of the mayor's pet causes.

My advise to Ginderske, Gordon, or anyone else who wants to become alderman is to suck up to Mayor Daley, praise his vision, and, most important, endorse the Olympics, no matter how much parkland it paves over. That's still the best bet to get ahead in this town.

During last year's 49th Ward aldermanic election, Don Gordon came across as Mayor Daley's guy, taking the mayor's side on most of the issues -- big-box minimum wage, foie gras -- on which incumbent alderman Joe Moore had opposed the mayor. As a result Gordon was the target of a union-financed battle in which lines were drawn: If you want independence in the council, vote for Moore.

Well, that wasn't the Don Gordon I heard speaking at Tuesday's Park District budget hearing at the Loyola Park Field House. In clear and unequivocal terms he assailed the Park District for allowing too much construction on its property. He'd done his research. He had the whole list -- from the high school in South Shore's Rosenblum Park to the senior citizen center contemplated for far-north-side Warren Park to the Latin School soccer field in Lincoln Park to the Children's Museum in Grant Park and so on and so forth.

"We're giving parkland away," he declared. "My message to you this evening, [Park District representative] Matt Marino, to Alderman Moore, to [Park District] Superintendent Tim Mitchell, and to the mayor is: Stop!"

Hearing Gordon that night made me wish he'd been elected. Then again, he later told me that if he had been he'd be much less likely to pound away at the mayor's policies. "I'd exercise more tact," he said.

Great, just what we need. More tact from alderman when it comes to speaking out about the mayor's excesses. If we had one -- just one -- alderman willing to consistently speak as strongly as Citizen Gordon, then maybe Mayor Daley wouldn't get away with so much on Park District property.

Check that -- of course he would. I think the mayor can pretty much get away with anything he wants. But at least one clear and forceful voice in the council would make it harder to ignore what's going on. 

It was the Park District's annual make-a-wish night at the Loyola Park Field House Tuesday.

That's when Park District officials -- in this case, Brian Loll and Matt Marino -- hold meetings where the little people parade past and tell them what improvements, additions, expansions, or new programs they'd like to see for their local parks.

Before the meeting began, Loll and Marino assured folks that they would take careful notes and convey suggestions back to parks superintendent Tim Mitchell and other Park District big shots, who were preparing next year's budget.

With that, the peasants made their pleas for money to fix floors and roofs, trim weeds, plant gardens, hire staff, restore cut funding, and even, in one extravagant instance, build a swimming pool. 

I was hoping someone might suggest the Park District raise money by selling the Streeterville office it bought for $22 million, but that didn't happen. So for me the highlight came when Lincoln Park resident Tom Tresser played a wild card and called for "a sunset on TIFs ."

Pointing out that the city's 160 or so tax increment financing districts divert about $37 million a year in property taxes away from the Park District alone, Tresser said "We wouldn't be fighting for scraps" if the city stopped creating TIFs. "It's our money," he said. The audience clapped, but neither Loll nor Marino said a word. They didn't bat an eye, just took it all down along with the plea for cleaner bathrooms in the Loyola Park field house.

Personally, I'd love to be there were they to bring this suggestion before Mitchell, a former mayoral chief of staff, who knows as well as anyone how the system works: "Uh, boss, you know the mayor's favorite honey pot -- the one that feeds him $500 million a year in property taxes? Well, some nut on the north side wants us to shut it down."

Actually, I have a funny feeling Tresser's suggestion won't make it to Mitchell, much less Mayor Daley. The mayor gets red in the face over relatively little things, like the foie gras debate. The suggestion of a moratorium on TIFs would probably turn him purple. 

It’s been clear to me for a while that people really do want to keep their garbage out of landfills. But I was still floored to find the bins overflowing the last two times I visited the city’s recycling drop-off site in my neighborhood (pictured). Other people aren’t just surprised and dismayed—they’re pissed.

North-sider Amy Lardner recently decided to e-mail a few suggestions to Streets and Sanitation commissioner Michael Picardi:

I've been frustrated by Chicago's lack of a valid, functional, city-wide, recycling program. Many of my acquaintances and friends are similarly dismayed by Chicago’s failure to show leadership in this area.

Tonight, any alderman or Streets and San official who wants proof Chicagoans want a working municipal recycling program need only go to the Lincoln Park Nature Museum's drop-off bin. The bin is heaped full and is overflowing. That so many people are making the time and special effort to drop off their recycling should surely prove something to the city's elected officials.

Until Chicago has a functional recycling program, I will continue to scorn any “green” designation the Mayor and city tout, and so will my friends.

Without recycling, Chicago's like Detroit. I lived there too. Twenty years ago--it's when I first started taking my recycling to a suburban drop-off bin, and here I am, living now in a city three times larger than Detroit, doing the same. Shame on Chicago.We need a functioning city-wide recycling program that works for all, from private to municipal haulers, and that means having a working program, enforcing it, and educating residents on how to use it.

Sincerely,

Amy Lardner

Amy heard back from one of the commissioner’s staffers (“We are currently working on a number of projects that should address this issue in the future”). After she challenged him for specifics, she got a response from Picardi himself (or someone who signed his name):

Dear Ms. Lardner:

Thank you for your letter and your support for recycling.

Chicago, in fact, is in the midst of a major evolution in recycling--which is a critical priority for Mayor Richard M. Daley. As the lead Department in the effort, Streets and Sanitation constantly seeks ways to improve how we recycle and to encourage a culture of recycling citywide.

Currently, we employ three basic recycling methods: the Blue Cart Program, Blue Bag and our 16 recycling drop-off centers across the city.

Blue Cart is single stream recycling. It has recently gone from field tests to a regional rollout. By 2011 it will be the main recycling mode for all of our residential customers.

Given the cost and logistics of shifting to such a large customer base, Blue Cart will not happen overnight. We believe that once it is in place, the system will offer Chicagoans the best and most up-to-date way to recycle.

The City provides waste collection to single family homes up to four flats. Buildings with private scavenger service cannot be provided with Blue Cart service. The Chicago High Density Residential and Commercial Source Reduction and Recycling Ordinance, however, requires all buildings that contract for private waste hauling to have a recycling program. This includes residential buildings more than four units, office buildings, restaurants and commercial establishments. This ordinance requires building owners or property managers (the person responsible for providing waste service) to provide a recycling program to tenants.  Furthermore, there must be an education program to ensure everyone is aware of the program.  It does not require building residents or tenants to use the program, but there must be the opportunity to recycle.

As Blue Cart expands, we will most likely look to strengthen the ordinance and require large residential buildings to have a system similar to Blue Cart.

Residents of areas that have yet to transition to Blue Cart may still use our expanded regional drop off centers. If they are not able to do this they may continue to use the Blue Bags until they are officially on Blue Cart. Any Blue Bags placed in the standard black garbage carts will be picked up. While we will no longer pay for mechanical sorting at sorting centers, operators of these centers or the transfer stations where all waste is taken are required by permit to pull these bags and recycle them. Since Blue Bags are used by customers of many private sector haulers who pick up trash and recyclables from high rise residents, they will continue to see Blue Bags at their facilities.

As I say, recycling in Chicago is evolving. We believe that within a few years recycling will be easy and wide spread and that the ideas contained within the culture of recycling will be deeply planted in people’s minds and lives. Again, thank you again for your interest. More information about the City's efforts can be found at www.cityofchicago.org.

Sincerely,

Michael J. Picardi
Commissioner Department of Streets and Sanitation

And no, I’m not Amy Lardner.

Arguably the biggest local election this fall will be for Cook County state’s attorney, where Democrat Anita Alvarez will try to hold off Republican Tony Peraica. If you think about it, Alvarez is kind of a Peraica Bizarro (if it’s not the other way around). Peraica, a former precinct captain for Bill Lipinski, lost a couple runs for office as a Democrat before switching parties and winning a suburban seat on the Cook County board in 2002. Now he encounters the stench of Democratic Party corruption everywhere he turns, and without fail finds it loathsome and campaign-worthy—he just can’t find enough opportunities to talk to the press about problems with the county jail, the county sales tax, or the county board president.

Then there’s Alvarez, a prosecutor who in her first political campaign promised to reform the office where she’d worked for 20 years. Since stunning several veteran elected officials by winning the Democratic nomination, she’s stopped talking about political corruption, police misconduct, crime-fighting, community outreach, the price of tomatoes, or pretty much anything else while quietly making the rounds of Democratic ward meetings and fund-raisers.

Their success at fund-raising the last few months is similarly dissimilar, according to reports just filed with the state board of elections: she’s raised gobs of money from a long list of insiders; he hasn’t. She looks like she’s going to have a party apparatus working for her; he couldn’t find a party apparatus if he wanted to. She’s taking money from some of the very people she criticized in the primary; he can only dream of such lucrative, uh, flexibility. She’s—well, you get the point.

Total raised since the February 5 primary:

PERAICA: $57,150

ALVAREZ: $463,276

Single biggest contribution:

PERAICA: $10,000, Corey Steel Company, Cicero

ALVAREZ: $52,029, Clifford Law Offices, Chicago

Top-contributing elected official:

PERAICA: $1,250, Tony Peraica

ALVAREZ: $20,000, state’s attorney Richard Devine

Other important financial friends:

PERAICA: Fred A. Krehbiel, CEO of Molex ($5,000), Leyden Township GOP committeeman Bradley A. Stephens ($250), state senator Christine Radogno ($250)

ALVAREZ: Media executive Fred Eychaner ($25,000), Chicago Federation of Labor ($10,000), county Democratic chairman Joseph Berrios ($2,500), mayoral brother Michael Daley ($1,000)

About the only Chicagoan who comes out looking good in Ryan Lizza's recent New Yorker profile of Barack Obama (yeah, it's in the issue with the cover) is Fourth Ward alderman Toni Preckwinkle.

She's depicted as a person of independence, integrity, and selfless dedication to her community -- one of the few politicians or activists in town who's not a sellout, hack, or Daley suck-up.

"Preckwinkle is a tall, commanding woman with a clipped gray Afro," Lizza writes. "She has represented her slice of the South Side for seventeen years and expresses no interest in higher office. On Chicago's City Council, she is often a dissenter against the wishes of Mayor Richard M. Daley."

Preckwinkle's quote about Obama, which closes Lizza's introduction, is particularly provocative: "'Can you get where he is and maintain your personal integrity?' she said. 'Is that the question?' She stared at me and grimaced. 'I'm going to pass on that.'"

Has Lizza's praise gone to her head? Has the prominence of her part in the profile changed her life?

"Not really," she says with a laugh. "I have been getting a lot of calls from the media."

And what are you telling them?

"Not much. I'm keeping my head down to avoid any more attacks of truthfulness."

Ouch. Who knew--she jokes . . . 

It’s now clear that the City Council questioning of police chief Jody Weis Tuesday had two purposes: (1) to send a message to the world, and particularly that small slice of it known as the International Olympic Committee, that Chicago’s leaders are going to crack heads and take care of this unpleasant gun violence problem (or at least make sure it’s banished from downtown); and (2) to allow the mayor to make a pointed argument—delivered via his handpicked police chief and surrogates in the council, who would not act on an issue like this without Daley's knowledge and consent—that the real source of this mess is an overly aggressive push to discipline police officers.

This second matter is the one most likely to impact the daily lives of people in Chicago. 

"I have heard from many officers that there is a degree of timidness--that people are not maybe as engaged as they should be because of fears of lawsuits, fears of [complaints registered] being put against them by criminals and by other folks who are just trying to impugn their integrity," Weis said, as quoted by the Sun-Times.

We’ve heard this argument many times before. “I understand there may be a few bad apples in the bushel, but there are gangbangers and drug dealers in the neighborhoods who learn how to file complaints against officers,” the 47th Ward's Eugene Schulter said in a hearing just last week that gave alderman an opportunity to tee off on the Independent Police Review Authority, the agency charged with vetting complaints about cops.

Schulter/Weis/Daley make a disturbing argument, but it’s certainly not the full story. Some thugs may actually file complaints to taint good cops and, as a result, undermine the process for disciplining not-so-good ones. Then again, it's also possible that some cops may actually rack up complaints from honest citizens concerned about their conduct.

From April through June the IPRA closed its investigations into 672 cases that involved either allegations of misconduct, reports of an officer discharging a weapon, or other “extraordinary occurrences” such as a suspect dying in custody, according to the authority’s most recent report (which can't be viewed on all browsers). The vast majority—at least 523—didn’t result in any finding against the officers. In fact, in 230 of these cases the person who filed the complaint refused to sign an affidavit, an assertion under oath that the testimony is true. This figure could underscore what Daley, Weis, and the aldermen are ranting about: if gangbangers are indeed filing frivolous complaints about cops just to screw with them, they’re probably not going to follow up by taking a trip to IPRA headquarters to sign affidavits.

And another 86 cases were closed after investigators ruled the allegations were simply “unfounded.”

Still, at least 203 were “not sustained,” which essentially means the evidence wasn’t substantial enough to prove misconduct or innocence.

And I can tell you from firsthand experience that it’s not that easy to file a complaint--and it’s far less easy to prove it’s justified.

A couple of years ago I was on the Red Line headed south of the Loop when a couple of cops stepped onto the car and immediately approached a teenager and asked for his ID. He provided it, and one of the officers glanced it over and then put it into his pocket. The kid demanded to have it back; the cop told him he’d return it when the kid got off the train—which, the cop said, would be at the next stop.

Sure enough, we pulled up to the 47th Street station and the officer shoved the teenager off the train, pushed him over to a support beam, and ordered him to put his hands up. As we pulled away, the officer was kicking the kid in the legs.

Maybe I don’t need to say this, but I will: I respect and admire the thousands of officers on the force who help keep me safe every day I’m in this city, and most of those I’ve interacted with appeared to be serious about their jobs because they cared about people they’d never met. But this cop’s behavior was way out of line. I wasn’t the only person who thought so—our train car was buzzing about what had just happened. So I took down the names and phone numbers of four or five others who’d seen the whole thing and put in a call right then to the Office of Professional Standards, the IPRA’s predecessor. I was told they’d look into it.

A few weeks later an investigator got in touch with me and asked me to come down to their offices on the south side. I hadn’t gotten the officer’s name or star number, and OPS couldn’t figure out which cops might have been on a southbound CTA train at the time of the incident, so the investigator needed me to take a look at the photos of a bunch of officers.

I had to take a half day off work to make the trip down there, wait awhile, wait some more, then finally get escorted to the desk of an investigator who pulled up a bunch of photos of officers on her computer screen . . . only to determine what you might expect: there was no way to look at someone’s head shot and honestly say yes, that’s the guy I saw once, several weeks ago, from several yards away, most of the time with his back to me, seemingly harassing a teenager who didn’t appear to do anything other than act like a teenager.

Many weeks later I received a letter from OPS in the mail. The complaint, it said, had not been sustained. The case was closed.

Our ongoing problems with violence demand action, including vigorous public debate. But I wonder if engaging in baldly political displays shows any respect for Chicago Police officers or the citizens they try to serve and protect.

I'm sure there will be plenty of seats available when the Plan Commission meets Thursday to discuss Mayor Daley's plans to borrow $85 million to buy and demolish Michael Reese hospital.

What's that? You didn't know the meeting was even on the calendar [pdf]?

Well, of course not. When it comes to throwing a fundraising bash in Millennium Park intended to feed the fantasy that the games will magically make our lives better, the Olympic planners can't send out enough press releases (I think I got three) inviting the media to show up. (And if you want to see who pitched in some cash, read the report from Crain's.)

But they don't send out any announcements for a meeting that will explain the finer points of their plans to get started on building a 7,500-unit (give or take a couple hundred) Olympic Village--such as how in the world we're supposed to pay for it without bankrupting our schools and parks.

And they hide the meeting on a weekday afternoon.

Too bad. I for one am really looking forward to the city's first public explanation of how they're borrowing $85 million but not really spending the money.

I'll keep you posted--or you can see the fun for yourself at at 1 PM Thursday in the City Council chambers.... 

Police chief Jody Weis told aldermen Tuesday that he's looking into reorganizing and re-energizing police coverage across the city, possibly with strategies ranging from drawing up new police beats to reminding officers to be aggressive to creating new squads that could be mobilized in gang-infested and crime-plagued neighborhoods. But that all sounds a bit too familiar to John Hagedorn, a criminal justice professor at UIC whose extensive writings on gangs and crime include the new A World of Gangs: Armed Young Men and Gangsta Culture (University of Minnesota Press). The rookie police chief, Hagedorn says, is essentially continuing an anti-gang policy that's been ineffective since the first Mayor Daley introduced it in 1969. 

  
MD: The Chicago police superintendent has just told aldermen that a poor economy and gang culture are provoking the city’s problems with violence. In your newest book, though, you downplay joblessness as a cause of gangs and gang violence. Instead, you say gangs are a response to racism and “social exclusion.”

JH: I’m from Milwaukee, and one of the differences between Milwaukee and Chicago was that up there we watched the gangs form along with deindustrialization. But here the gangs preceded deindustrialization--they’ve been around for decades! Something else is at work.

Since the beginning of globalization you see a reaction of all sorts of armed groups around the world saying, “We’ve got to get our own.” And in this country it’s very deeply tied to race--in other places to ethnicity, religion, or tribe. As the state withdraws a lot of social services, the gangs work to fill in the vacuum.

You argue that the best approach to gangs is to try to reach out to them and change them into community assets. Is that practical? The superintendent's not going to pitch that to the City Council.

It’s not what people want to hear. It may be that in this climate it isn’t possible to say, “We want to work with the gang structure.” But if you don’t work with these guys, who’s going to stop the violence?

And do you think the gangs aren’t already involved with politics in Chicago? Lots have ties to local aldermen. They’re very aware of the gangs. There’s been an official policy here for 40 years of not including anybody in a community project who’s involved with gangs, but that’s not really the way it works.

So you don’t think that any new, aggressive police tactics will end gang violence.

There’s been a 40 years’ war on gangs that we’ve had in Chicago. Instead of the police getting assault weapons, maybe we should reevaluate that war. The police are at war with the gangs, and the gangs are institutions with deep roots in their community. [The police] don’t seek to convert them and it’s one side against another. That war mentality is what needs to change here, but the new police chief has bought into it. War is a funny way to confront violence.

When I came here 12 years ago I was invited to a meeting with people doing community policing and all the evaluations of it, and they asked me what I thought. I suggested they invite young people and gang members and ask them what’s going on. That was the last meeting I was invited to.

You argue that the Vice Lords tried to become a community organization in the 1960s but were targeted by the police and eventually turned to the drug trade. What are you seeing on the west side now?

Because I’ve developed relationships with the Vice Lords guys from the 1960s I’ve been trying to bring them together with some of the younger people out there. We’ve had like four generations of the Vice Lords sitting down and talking. A lot of these guys have never heard those stories of the 60s. Young people today can be influenced by the past. It’s important for young people to see that the gang has been different things through the years, and the only route isn’t the drug deal.

Have you seen progress?

Hopefully some things are coming together. A lot of people are involved with their little hustles or whatever, but that doesn’t mean they’re stuck there. There’s a reason why the drug trade is so big--there aren’t any jobs. The issue is how you see it and treat it--do you see everyone in it as evil? Well, then, you can just fill the prisons.

You try to keep organizing. I think giving up and waging war are two sides of the same coin. What’s needed is some quiet diplomacy—sitting down with these young people and saying, “What do you need?” And then acting on it.

But I think Chicago’s going to continue to get hot. The city wants the Olympic bid and they don’t want to be seen having a problem with gang violence. They’re going to try to crack down, but that’s just going to end up hurting their bid.

If you want to know why we're on the road to ecological destruction, head on out to Bensenville, only go there by CTA and bike.

I did it yesterday, along with Dave Glowacz, a freelance journalist also known as Mr. Bike. I was taking him to Bensenville to show him the Dead Zone for a segment of an Internet interview show we do together.

In his role as Mr. Bike--and, by the way, this guy has to know more about bicycling around Chicago than anyone alive--he had plotted our route with maps and the Internet.

As he explained it, Bensenville is about six miles directly west from Harlem Avenue along Irving Park Road. To ride there, we had a choice. We could pedal to Union Station, put our bikes on the train, and take Metra to downtown Bensenville. Or we could take the CTA to River Road and bike south around O'Hare Airport, slipping through Schiller Park and into Franklin Park before riding northwest into Bensenville.

I chose the scenic route.

So at about 10:45 in the morning we boarded the Blue Line at Irving and rode to River Road. In the good old days, when Harold Washington was mayor, it would have taken us, oh, I don't know, maybe ten minutes. This time it took us almost 20--I was timing it on a stop watch--because the tracks are falling apart and there are slow zones galore.

We got off at River Road, then biked south to Bryn Mawr, west to Milton Parkway, south to Balmoral and then--well, after that I didn't know where we were. I was just following Mr. Bike, who had the map. It seemed there were construction crews tearing everything up, like they were constantly rebuilding the same parking lot.

We hooked up with Franklin Avenue at its intersection with Scott Street and headed off on the last leg of our journey.

Remind me never to do it again. Franklin was hardly the warm, fuzzy bike-friendly road I foolishly thought it would be. It was like traveling through an industrial hell: a two-lane, potholed road bounded by a gravel-filled shoulder that's really rough on bike tires.

Cars and trucks whizzed by. Jets zoomed over our heads.

"There's got to be a better way to bike from Franklin Park to Bensenville," I gasped.

"This is pretty much it," said Mr. Bike. "Obviously, they weren't thinking of bike riders when they built these suburbs."

We stopped for water at Wolf's, a restaurant at the corner of Wolf and Franklin. The joint was packed with factory workers waiting in line for hot dogs, burgers, and fries. 

Five minutes later, we crossed some railroad tracks and rode into Bensenville.

Ah, Bensenville, glorious Bensenville--it's become my home away from home since I realized that Mayor Daley intended to plow over about 15 percent of it to make way for another one of his Great Ideas, in this case the O'Hare Modernization Program. Before our green mayor is done he will have spent well over $15 billion expanding O'Hare just in time for the collapse of the airline industry. Hey, how's that for planning?

We rode York to Roosevelt and then entered the Dead Zone, passing one boarded-up, abandoned house after another. Not surprising, it was the most bike friendly area we'd passed through all day. I could just imagine what it must have been like before Mayor Daley intruded--little kids riding their tricycles along tree-lined sidewalks and that sort of thing.

Driving by in his car was a grumpy guy from the real-estate management company that has a contract with Chicago to keep an eye on the area. He warned us that we'd better stay on the sidewalks and street because the property belonged to Chicago and we could get a trespassing ticket.

I was going to tell him that I was a taxpaying resident of Chicago so that, you know, technically, the lawns and homes belonged to me. But he didn't look like he was in the mood for conversation.

After about an hour, rain clouds were moving in and we decided to head home. I told Mr. Bike that I'd rather not deal with Franklin, so we took our chances with Irving Park. Man, it was like biking on the interstate--the cars and trucks were pushing sixty. At least it had a pretty decent shoulder to ride along.

At River Road we joined a line of sweaty, anguished-looking travelers getting off the buses from O'Hare. The CTA maps promised them door-to-door service from the airport to the Loop. But, of course, the final leg of the Blue Line is down, while workers repair the tracks.

On the train back to Chicago we sat across the aisle from a lady out of Syracuse, New York, who was in town for a teachers' convention. She said she wanted to make sure her stop in the Loop had an elevator or escalator because she had a bad back and she didn't want to carry her suitcase up the stairs.

Mr. Bike explained that the map on the wall showed which stops had elevators, but there was no way of knowing if these elevators were malfunctioning. It was pretty much a crap shoot.

As the train crawled along, she asked how much time she should give herself if she wanted to take the Blue Line back to O'Hare for her return flight on Monday. "I don't like to take cabs," she said. "But if the service is always like this, you know..."

For no apparent reason, the train stopped just outside Montrose, where we had the pleasant view of the expressway clotted with bumper-to-bumper traffic spewing exhaust.

We got back to Irving Park about 3:30. There's no elevator or escalator so we carried our bikes down the stairs.

There was no exit for bike riders--we obviously couldn't get our bikes through the revolving gate. But a CTA employee was nice enough to unlock another gate to let us out. If he hadn't been there, I don't know what we would have done--probably called the police.

"It's big cars, big airports, big highways," said Mr. Bike. "Just gas `em up `n go."

But, hey, at least we're not Detroit ...

City officials announced this week that they're ready to start catching parking violators by posting cameras on street sweepers. Earlier this year there was talk of busting speeders with cameras. All of it is inspired by the city's success with using technology to nab people running red lights--and to collect millions of dollars in fines from them.

The city now has red-light cameras mounted in at least 72 intersections, and officials are planning to install scores more over the next few years. 

As it is, some intersections seem to inspire more red-light runners--and, presumably, produce more city revenues--than others. But thousands of people who've been caught don't bother paying the fines.

This chart shows how many alleged violators were caught by each camera between the beginning of 2007 and the end of April 2008, and how any of those have paid up. Of those who haven't, a select few contested the charges and either won or are still fighting; most of the others are still in the city's system. (The highlighted intersections had cameras installed after January 2007 and therefore haven't generated data for the full 16 months.)