Entries associated with the tag "Chicago":

This just in from New York: "A new wind is blowing in Chicago."

According to a New York Times article by former Tribune scribe Jeff Zeleny, Chicago "is basking in a moment of triumph."

The main reason, of course, is that the country elected Barack Obama president.

But there's more: "A spire is finally poised to be placed atop the Trump Tower here, bringing the skyscraper to 1,361 feet, the tallest American building since the Sears Tower was built three decades ago."

Also, "a new Modern Wing for the fabled Art Institute is set to open next spring, including a Renzo Piano bridge to Millennium Park."

And a whole bunch of famous locals--Rick Bayless, Scott Turow, Jeff Tweedy--think Chicago's a wonderful place to live.

Look, I like Chicago too. And I was overcome with joy on election night as well. But, c'mon, people, let's be real-- a new wind? To me, it looks, smells and feels like the same polluted gusts.

Yes, Trump built his tower, but the downtown condo market is so soft that even the great Donald is having trouble peddling the units.

And, true, a nice new bridge will soon connect the Art Institute to Millennium Park, which, by the way, was so over cost that we had to sell a bunch of parking garages [scroll down]  to pay off the bills.

Even as president-elect Obama marches off to Washington to change the world--with Rahm Emanuel, Valerie Jarrett, and David Axelrod in tow--Mayor Daley and his hacks are cutting up the underfunded spoils of their seedy little empire.

In the race to replace Emanuel, they're conniving to figure out how to muscle out the only true independent, Cook County Commissioner Mike Quigley.

In the city council, they're staving off bankruptcy by booting more cars, increasing fees on garbage collection, and holding back on hiring new police officers.

Mayor Daley's dream to expand O'Hare Airport all the way to Alaska, or wherever, is stalling because, like pretty much everyone tried to warn him, the airlines are too broke to pay for it.

To fund the proposed Olympics--another big-ticket mayoral dream we can't possibly afford--Daley sold Midway cheap (I'm starting to think the Indians got a better deal for Manhattan), and continues to siphon property tax dollars away from our cash-starved public schools.

We still have public school kids running in hallways because we still don't have one indoor public running facility; and they're planning to kick the softball teams, tennis players, joggers, nature lovers--in short, ordinary, taxpaying park users--out of Washington Park to free it up for an Olympic stadium. Just as the mayor and his minions continue to look for new ways to loot the TIF accounts to move the masses out of the near south side.

Have I mentioned our world-class public transportation system? As I write this, the train that runs outside my house has stopped. I'm sure there's a good reason, though at the moment it's not apparent. The conductor is looking out the window. Wait, wait--an update.... The train's moving, at a crawl. Ah, yes, high-speed rail comes to Chicago. Oh, by the way, the CTA is raising its fares.

In short, it's business as usual in Chi-town: treachery, back-room deals, bad planning, wasteful spending, land grabs, and robbery of the poor to benefit to the rich. Sweet home, Chicago.

The more I think about it the more I realize Obama was smart to get out. He realized it would easier to be elected president than clean up this town. 

When city officials first made their pitch for bringing an exclusive franchising system to private garbage collection in Chicago, they pointed to several other municipalities [PDF]  that they said had boosted their recycling rates, cut garbage disposal fees, and reduced emissions from garbage trucks after implementing similar plans.

They didn’t bring up the example of St. Louis County—and understandably so.

To be sure, the layout of the unincorporated areas around St. Louis is far different from the city of Chicago’s. As are the politics, the demographics, the economics, and probably many other factors.

But a recent editorial in the St. Louis Post-Dispatch shows that the county offers a telling example of another sort—how a decision to impose a franchising system over and above the opposition of waste haulers and residents has created a confusing, costly mess.

Chicago’s plan has prompted a wave of concerns that something similar could happen here. When Chicago Department of Environment commissioner Suzanne Malec-McKenna testified during City Council budget hearings last week, several aldermen bluntly told her they weren’t on board with the new proposal. She promised that it was by no means in its final form, and reiterated the point in an interview this week.

“While there’s been consternation and misinformation and confusion about the whole thing, over the last two months we’ve gotten tremendous input from hospitals and retail associations, et cetera,” she said. “We’ve now taken that information and we’re back with their suggestions and saying, ‘Okay, if this is an issue, how do we work with it?’ So our next step is to bring back the representatives of all those organizations, including the National Solid Wastes Management Association, and our goal in the next phase is to have a set of meetings with all the representatives and talk through what we’ve come up with and see if there are alternative ways to do it.”

The conversations will likely continue at least through the winter, but Malec-McKenna emphasized that the city is committed to the goals if not the specifics of its proposal. “Who knows what it’ll end up looking like, frankly,” she said. “But I can’t see that anybody who will say they’re opposed to increased recycling and decreased costs for consumers--well, there may be some people opposed to that--and improved environmental impact. It's kind of a no-brainer."

They're having a reverse political insurrection in New York City, with Mayor Michael Bloomberg teaming up with leaders of that city's council to do away with term limits so they can run to stay in office for at least another four years.

Their main argument is that only one man in all of New York -- Mayor Bloomberg -- has the brains, experience, fortitude, etc, to lead New York through the tough times brought on by Wall Street's current volatility.

Ironically, I was always a little envious of New York City precisely because it had term limits. In fact, if not for term limits, New Yorkers might have been stuck with a third term of Mayor Rudolph Giuliani, who, if you recall, tried to postpone his departure from office on the grounds that he was the only man with the brains/experience/fortitude/etc to lead New York through tough times brought on by 9/11.

Meanwhile, here in Chicago, we would never even dare to imagine term limits. It's assumed that only one man -- and you know who that is -- can be mayor, which is why we we're apparently willing to put up with, among other things, waste, scandal, and the selling off of assets.

Tread carefully, NYC. 

There was an Olympic rally on the south side this morning, but it wasn't like the rallies staged by Mayor Daley.

Instead of bringing in out-of-town celebrities to join the mayor's chorus -- Olympics good, Olympics good -- the newly formed coalition Communities for an Equitable Olympics raised the possibility that maybe, just maybe, staging the games in 2016 wouldn't be such a hot idea for Chicagoans.

It was a glorious sunshiny morning, and many of the leading south-side community organizations were there: the Kenwood-Oakland Community Organization, Action Now, Centers for New Horizons, the Chicago Coalition for the Homeless, and the Brighton Park Neighborhood Council.

Facing a horde of reporters and camera crews, they stood on the steps of Michael Reese Hospital, at 2929 S. Ellis, which the city -- as busted as it is -- is preparing to replace with a 37-acre development that could serve as the Olympic Village.

Think about this for a moment. The city's $400 million in the red, we're in the midst of a crisis in low-income health care, and the condo market's soft. But the mayor's gearing up to sink $85 million into a 7,500-unit condominium complex that will take the place of a hospital.

For the moment the activists are playing things diplomatically. "We're not here to hurt the Olympic bid," said Denise Dixon, a member of Action Now. "We're here to enhance it."

The coalition wants to force the city to sign a "legally enforceable benefits agreement" that would, among other things, guarantee that as much as 20 percent of the units in the Olympic Village development would be affordable for working-class and poor people who currently live in the area.

At the risk of sounding like the jaded old coot that I am, I don't know why they would trust any promise that the city makes when it comes to affordable housing. As best I can tell the whole point of the Olympics -- other than putting an international spotlight on the mayor -- is to move the poor people out of the south side.

I can only hope that if the city turns down the residents' demands they'll move to plan B: opposition. I say the sooner they get there the better. Until Mayor Daley can show how he would pay for the games -- other than with property tax dollars -- we shouldn't be spending millions to try to have them, 'cause we can't afford them.

When I think about it, there should have been people from the north, northwest, southwest and west sides at today's rally as well. After all, tax dollars are coming out of their pockets too.  

This just in . . .

Not only are we not Detroit, we're now the new Nashville!

Yes, that's right, Chicago's emerged as the political capital of America. It wasn't easy. We had to overcome Nashville and Little Rock. But, darn it, we did it!

And we owe it all to Mayor Daley because -- everyone together now -- our mayor is responsible for all that is good in the universe. Even Barack Obama.

So one more time: Thank You, Mayor Daley. Thank you, thank you, thank you.

Over the last few years, Mayor Daley's boosters (like his father's) have had one standby response (see comments below posts) to any criticism of his reign: without him, we'd be Detroit.

It's a curious response. I know it's code for something, but I'm not sure what. I mean, of all the cities to compare Chicago to, why Detroit? Why not, oh, I don't know, Minneapolis or Seattle or Toronto?

Do the mayor's supporters really believe that whatever differences may exist between Chicago and Detroit come down to Mayor Daley and his leadership?

If so, what exactly has Mayor Daley done to keep Chicago from becoming Detroit?

For that matter, are there parts of Chicago that actually are like Detroit?

If so, why hasn't Mayor Daley helped them?