Entries associated with the tag "Grant Park":

The Chicago Plan Commission is set to take up the Chicago Children’s Museum’s plans to move into Grant Park at its May 15 meeting, and the safe bet is on the museum getting its way. Why? Well, the commission rarely sees a high-powered zoning change it doesn’t like. Then there’s the rather vocal position of its most important member, Mayor Daley. And finally there's the matter of the individual loyalties and ties of all the other commissioners:

• Linda Searl, chair: A partner in the respected Searl Lamaster Howe architectural firm, Searl is ten-year veteran of the commission, a donor to Daley’s campaign committee, and a longtime adviser to Daley and the city’s planning department.
• Mayor Richard M. Daley: Didn’t we hear something about how he’s going to look out for the children?
• Arnold L. Randall: As the commissioner for the city’s planning department, he reports to Mayor Daley.
• Tom Byrne: As the commissioner of the city’s Department of Transportation, he reports to Mayor Daley.
• David Weinstein: Now the president of the Chicagoland Entrepreneurial Center, a nonprofit affiliate of the Chicagoland Chamber of Commerce, which receives thousands of dollars a year in city funding. He formerly served as the mayor’s “technology adviser.”
• Alderman William J.P. Banks: The northwest side alderman chairs the City Council’s powerful zoning committee—which would take up this proposal next if the commission passes it. He's one of Daley’s staunchest council backers and proud of it.
• Patricia Scudiero: Scudiero is the top official—officially the "administrator"—for the city’s Department of Zoning, which enforces and interprets the city’s zoning code. As the Chicago Tribune has reported, Scudiero formerly served on Banks’s zoning committee staff and worked for the planning department.
• Alderman Edward M. Burke: Among his many intertwining business and political relationships, the City Council’s finance committee chairman has received numerous campaign contributions from museum board secretary Matthew Neumeier.
• Leon D. Finney, Jr.: Finney was one of the mayor’s earliest and most vocal supporters in the black community, and the nonprofit he leads, the Woodlawn Organization, has received millions of dollars from the city for social service and public housing programs.
• Alderman Mary Ann Smith: Smith often touts her independence but is usually a reliable council vote for the mayor’s initiatives. She’s enthusiastically supported the Daley administration’s ever-expanding use of TIFs, including several in and around her 48th Ward, and she’s got a record of using hardball tactics and backroom deals to eliminate political opposition.
• Doris B. Holleb: The University of Chicago trustee and professor of economics and urban planning has served as a consultant to the city’s planning department and an education, economics, and cultural adviser to the Carter, Reagan, and Clinton administrations. Her husband, Marshall, is a widely respected preservationist and attorney who has donated thousands of dollars to numerous political campaigns, including those of aldermen Smith and Banks.
• Lyneir Richardson: Richardson is a registered City Hall lobbyist for General Growth Properties, a real estate firm that develops, owns, and manages shopping malls in 45 states. The firm has received hundreds of millions of dollars in tax breaks around the country, according to a study by SEIU, which has been in a pissing match with it over procedures for unionizing employees.
• Carole Brown: Besides being appointed by the mayor to chair the CTA’s board, Brown is a member of the Children’s Museum board.
• Smita Shah: She’s the president and CEO of SPAAN Technology, which last fall received a $5 million city contract to provide engineering services for the city’s transportation department. The firm has also done work for the CTA and Chicago Public Schools.
• George W. Migala: Migala’s a radio broadcaster and station executive at WCEV 1450-AM.
• Alderman Patrick O'Connor: As Daley’s unofficial City Council floor leader, he’s about as loyal as they come. He’s currently got a campaign war chest of about $400,000, much of it contributed by developers, realtors, and construction interests.
• John H. Nelson: Nelson, a $5,500 donor to Mayor Daley’s 2007 reelection campaign, is an architect with Harley Ellis Devereaux, whose work includes the Boeing Galleries in Millennium Park, the 18th District police station, and the Picnic Grove Pavilion at the Lincoln Park Zoo.
• Nancy A. Pacher: Pacher is president and chief operating officer of U.S. Equities, an international real estate firm that has received millions of dollars in city business for property management and consulting work on TIFs.
• Alderman Bernard L. Stone: Stone isn’t above berating a city official when he’s worked up during a meeting of the City Council’s buildings committee, which he chairs. He’s not even above stalling what he deems “stupid” ordinances some of these officials occasionally send him. But after more than three decades as an alderman, he’s not going to suddenly become an independent. Like most other influential aldermen, Stone receives thousands of dollars in political contributions from developers every campaign cycle.
• Gracia M. Shiffrin: Now the senior director for development and construction programs for Catholic Charities, Shiffrin previously held several high-ranking positions in the Daley administration, including deputy chief of staff to Daley, assistant planning commissioner, and assistant corporation counsel.
• Alderman Regner "Ray" Suarez: As chairman of the council’s housing committee, Suarez is a proud defender of the Daley administration’s housing and development record. He too is able to rake in campaign contributions—about $147,000 in just the last six months of 2007, when he wasn’t running for anything. As with his council colleagues on the Plan Commission, Suarez collected a good chunk of his cash from developers and construction companies. But he’s the only one who will be faced with a conflict of interest if the entity known as Fullerton Cicero Donuts ever has a matter before the commission. It gave him $1,025 last year.

A lot of our political leaders have been busy playing cards.

Earlier this week Mayor Daley played the Evil Unions Card, so you had to know it was only a matter of time before he returned to his old favorite: the Race Card.

And there it was on Wednesday (the same day he threatened to play the utterly predictable Tax Hike Card), when he suggested prejudice is what’s motivating opponents of the plan to move the children’s museum to Grant Park.

As might be expected, he surrounded himself with loyal aldermen who awkwardly tried to play the It’s In The Public Interest Card.

“This is a public park. People keep acting like it’s a private park,” 17th Ward alderman Latasha Thomas told the Sun-Times.

Thomas was right—but she may not want to make that point too loudly around her mayor or his children’s museum friends. I’m pretty sure the Chicago Children’s Museum is a private institution that wants to build its new pay-to-visit facility on public land.

In fact, 42nd Ward alderman Brendan Reilly also played the It’s In The Public Interest Card Wednesday, except he was explaining his firm opposition to the plan during an evening speech to Streeterville residents.

“I was just informed on my way to this meeting that Mayor Daley again chose to play the Race Card in this debate,” Reilly said. “We hosted nine public meetings on the museum plan. If the mayor had been at one of those meetings—just one—he would have seen the diversity. And the one thing people were unanimous about was their rejection of this proposal.”

Reilly, though, didn’t stop there. He played the Hypocrisy Card, then backed himself up with the Here Are The Facts Card, which is seldom used in local politics.

“I think it’s ridiculous to suggest that children are currently not allowed to play in Grant Park,” he said. “If you visit Grant Park you will see hundreds of children of every race and creed playing in the park at no charge. The truth is that under this proposal children will be welcome to play in Grant Park—so long as their parents can afford to pay the steep admission fees of this private institution.”

A few minutes later Reilly was asked what he thought of another recent park controversy: the private Latin School’s exclusive rights to use a soccer field in Lincoln Park during most of the spring and fall seasons in return for money to build it.

Reilly noted the field is in the 43rd Ward, not his, but blasted the deal anyway, playing the even more rare Let’s Put This In Perspective Card. “There are some similarities here to the current debate taking place in Grant Park,” he said. “What I see is the slow but steady leasing off of public land to private institutions. And I think that’s wrong.”

Forty-second Ward alderman Brendan Reilly says he didn't get very far when he sat down with officials from the Chicago Children's Museum earlier this week to talk about potential sites for their new facility. They're only interested in one: Grant Park.

"They've refused to consider any other locations, and they've defined their parameters so narrowly that it will be practically impossible to find a place for them anywhere but Grant Park," he says.

Reilly opposes the museum's plan to build a new facility in the park because he believes it would violate a century-old city commitment to keeping the space clear and open to the public. Last month he wrote museum CEO Peter England and board president Gigi Pritzker-Pucker a letter asking them to consider other sites proposed by people from across Chicago, including downtown locations like Northerly Island, the old post office, the Riverwalk, and the South Loop. "I am writing to ask the Museum to review this list of suggested alternative locations and provide me with your evaluation of these potential sites," he wrote.

The alderman says the alternatives were rejected out of hand. "They didn't really offer specifics," he says. "They just said, 'No, those aren't suitable.'"

Spokeswoman Natalie Kreiger says the museum took the time to look into alternatives months ago. "Before we even focused on Grant Park, we did our due diligence and looked at a number of sites, and we found that Grant Park was the only one that met our criteria," she says. Those specifications include a central location, access to public transportation, and room for parking.

The museum doesn't see any reason to compromise. "We're going to pursue this site," Kreiger says. She adds that it's "fair to say" the museum is prepared for a political or legal showdown.

Reilly says he's been spending a couple of hours each day trying to build and retain support among other aldermen, who would have to defy the mayor to back Reilly. Meanwhile, the museum just hired a big public relations firm to help drum up support and has been busy doing its own lobbying in the City Council. "We have a lot of people and consultants working for us in a wide variety of ways," Kreiger says.

I got a big kick out of Mark Konkol's story in Friday's Sun-Times about the downtown residents who are seething at Mayor Daley for writing them off as a bunch of bigots because they're against his plan to move the Chicago Children's Museum to Grant Park.

The best quote came from a black woman named Ariel Elliott, who figures Daley has a helluva nerve playing the race card. "Who is he to say we're racists," said Elliott. "He grew up in Bridgeport. Please. Give me a friggin' break."

Of course, what I don't understand is why downtown residents are suddenly surprised to discover that their mayor is a bully who's not afraid to hit below the belt. I mean where have they been for the last -- oh -- 18 years as he's shoved one stupid idea after another (Soldier Field, Meigs Field, the failed airport in Peotone Hegewisch) down the throats of people who didn't want them?

The residents kind of remind me of the slackers who showed up at a City Council committee meeting this summer to bitch and moan about the city's proposed tax on concert promoters. It's like those dudes rolled out of bed early one afternoon, stumbled over their bong pipes, and realized they were living in a city run by a not-so-benign dictator.

Maybe the downtown residents are feeling like spurned lovers. They were almost cultlike in their allegiance to Daley in February's mayoral election. In the 42nd Ward Daley won about 86 percent of the vote against Dorothy Brown and William Walls, racking up more than 90 percent of the vote in two of the ward's precincts.

I always thought these voters were inconsistent for ousting incumbent aldermen Burt Natarus for Brendan Reilly. As anyone in City Hall will tell you, Natarus was only following the fifth floor's orders on zoning and development deals. You'd figure folks in this ward would be smart enough to connect the dots. But, no, they punished the factotum and rewarded the boss.

On the other hand, I can sort of understand why Daley's miffed at them. By Chicago standards, they're highly ungrateful. After all, Daley plundered the tax coffers to build them Millennium Park. With most Chicago voters, you give them a garbage can and they're yours for life.

As a child of the 60s, Mayor Daley had plenty of opportunities to join the civil rights movement.

Born in 1942, he could have been a Freedom Rider, fighting to desegregate interstate bus service in the south. Or he could have been an activist, fighting to register black residents in Mississippi during the Freedom Summer of 1964.

Closer to home, he could have locked arms with Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., as he marched for open housing through mobs of rock-throwing thugs in 1966.

But, no, Daley stayed out of all the great civil rights struggles of his youth. His one great contribution to black empowerment came in 1983, when he challenged Mayor Jane Byrne, siphoning off just enough white votes to enable Harold Washington to win the Democratic primary. Of course, Washington would have had an easier time of things in the subsequent general election against Republican Bernard Epton had Daley come out strong for his Democratic colleague. But after quietly attending a postprimary "unity breakfast" with Washington, Daley essentially hid under the table for the election, not wanting to offend white or black voting blocs. And he pretty much remained under the table until he ran for mayor in 1989, two years after Washington had died and his movement had splintered.

So I find it sort of curious that at this relatively late stage in his life Daley has become something of a civil rights crusader. The first sign came last September, when he gathered his favorite preachers and aldermen for a rally in Roseland against the big-box living-wage ordinance. According to Daley, if Target and Wal-Mart had to pay their workers a livable wage, they wouldn't come to black neighborhoods -- and that would be unfair to black residents.

His rally worked. Three aldermen -- including one black and two Hispanics -- flip-flopped and voted to sustain his veto, thus killing the big-box wage hike. Lost in the hype was the fact that on the same day as the Roseland rally, the Community Development Commission, a mayorally appointed board, unanimously approved the LaSalle Central Tax Increment Financing District, which will divert over $1 billion from the schools, parks, and county for the next 23 years. So downtown developers get access to hundreds of millions of tax dollars, and south-siders get a cap on already low-paying big box jobs. Power to the people, Mr. Mayor, right on.

Now the mayor's playing the race card against downtown high-rise residents -- most of them white and well-to-do -- who don't want the Children's Museum coming to Grant Park. According to Daley, those opposed to the move really want to keep black and Hispanic children out of their community.

Now, I'm not saying those in opposition are angels when it comes to integration. But for the last several months they've been badgering me to write stories about their opposition to the museum. And after hours of conversation with them,  I can tell you that racial concerns are the last things on their mind. They're up in arms about all the usual NIMBY issues of congestion, traffic, and loss of public space.

In any case, Daley's eagerness to stick the museum in the park is not about providing opportunity for disadvantaged minorities to begin with. It's about pleasing the museum's well-connected board members and finding a way to bring more cars to the underused Millennium Park parking garage.

Though it is sort of funny to think of Daley as a champion of civil rights with the second installment tax bills about to make it difficult for many south- and west-siders to hold on to their homes.  

Will Daley's tactic work this time? I doubt it. I can't see the council voting against local alderman Brendan Reilly (42nd) on a zoning issue. But at least the aldermanic debate will be an entertaining diversion from those tax bills.