Entries associated with the tag "Isaac Carothers":

Lobbying by the Children’s Museum and mayor’s staff obviously had a bigger impact over the last few weeks—especially the last few hours—than the push from 42nd Ward alderman Brendan Reilly and other opponents of the museum's Grant Park plan.

A couple of aldermen said Wednesday that mayoral aides offered them administration help for projects in their wards in return for their votes. While horse trading is part of politics, some of the projects probably would have—and almost certainly should have—received city help without the promise of a vote on a citywide issue. As one alderman put it: “I just wonder if they cashed in for too little.”

But this is why the mayor and his team are good: they don’t just ask (or tell) people how to vote. They also provide the goodies to help the decisions get made—and the arguments that can be used to defend them.

Way back when, Mayor Daley and allies like Father Pfleger suggested that opponents of the museum plan were essentially racist for not wanting black and brown kids in Grant Park. That didn’t go over too well, so the arguments kept changing. By the time of Wednesday's vote supporters were reciting another line: the museum will offer poor kids the chance to expand their horizons by getting out of their neighborhoods and visiting the city’s front yard, which some aldermen referred to as the city's "back yard." (The fact that schools already can—and do—take field trips to cultural institutions downtown was generally left unmentioned, as was the thought that they can currently visit Grant Park at any time.)

Shortly before the vote an alderman and a mayoral staffer each made versions of this argument to me. Then, during the debate on the council floor, almost every alderman who spoke in support of the museum plan offered a variation of it. I can’t state for certain that cheat sheets were circulated. And in fairness, opponents of the plan shared some arguments too. But the sudden frequency of the cultural enrichment defense was odd if it wasn’t planned. Some examples:

Billy Ocasio, 26th Ward: “I envision parents having the opportunity to spend the day to take their children to the greatest backyard the city ever had: Grant Park. It is our greatest backyard. It is a backyard a lot of our children don’t get to go to very often. It is a backyard where they could run, observe, and explore things they’ve never seen before. Our children in our poor communities of the city may never have a chance to get down there. If you talk about the neighborhoods, our children need an opportunity to explore. Our children need an opportunity to see the rest of the city—to get out there and imagine and be creative. That’s what this provides them. This is our backyard—let the children come here and kick the ball around.”

Emma Mitts, 37th Ward: “Why shouldn’t our children be able to have the opportunity to go and experience the cultural diversity that this city has? You know, if I’d had that opportunity when I was a child I think I would have had a better life. But now I’m not going to deny these children that opportunity.”

George Cardenas, 12th Ward: “I took my family to visit Grant Park. I wanted to do my homework—I wanted to make the right decision. So we went there. I took my two daughters. It was a Sunday, and we’d just had breakfast. And to me, it was important because it was for my daughters that I was going to be making this decision. And I stood in Bicentennial Plaza, looking toward the lake, looking south toward Grant Park. And I said to my daughter, ‘Isn’t this beautiful?’ And she said, ‘Yes, Papi.’ And that to me was showed me what this was about.”

Toni Foulkes, 15th Ward: “I have to agree with my colleagues—it’s all about the children. I remember when I was young, going to see the King Tut exhibit. My friends and I took the Green Line downtown by ourselves. That one ride got me out of my comfort zone, going somewhere else by myself. Kinds in our communities like West Englewood need to get out of their neighborhoods.”

Ike Carothers, 29th Ward: “I come from a community where I really believe young people will relish the opportunity to come downtown. … And my colleague from the 42nd Ward, I’ve got to tell you, I hope you’re buying us all lunch, because this debate has kept us here a long time.”

Aldermen concerned about rapid changes in the Chicago Public Schools are upset that they're not better informed, the Sun-Times reported today. "Are our opinions valued?" 29th Ward alderman Ike Carothers asked school officials Tuesday.

It's great that members of the city's legislative branch are concerned enough about the restructuring of the school system to ask a few questions about it. Maybe they'll get inspired and do it again sometime.

The gripes and grilling came during a meeting of the City Council's education committee--seemingly an appropriate venue for aldermen to have a public exchange with top school leaders.

It's also a relatively unused one. Over the last year, by my count--as CPS has announced a series of school closings and major policy changes, floated proposals for boarding schools and other out-of-the-box ideas, campaigned for a change in state education funding, struggled to work with the most vulnerable young people, lost thousands more students who dropped out [scroll down], and suffered a horrific spate of student violence--the education committee has met three times. In other words, once before this week.

The committee has an annual budget of about $206,000 and employs two staffers hired by its chair, 17th Ward alderman Latasha Thomas. 

In late May, the City Council passed a resolution calling for hearings into the special prosecutors' report on torture under former police commander Jon Burge. That's the same report that was released last July 19 and immediately discredited as a whitewash, in part because it concluded that Burge and his underlings were exempt from prosecution because so much time had passed since they had beaten, burned, shocked, suffocated, and shoved guns in the mouths of suspects in their custody. Some aldermen expressed outrage when the report was issued, especially since the city continues to pay Burge's legal bills and pension, but months passed before Ike Carothers, chairman of the council's Committee on Police and Fire, held a hearing on it.

That was last November. Little happened as a result of the hearing, and this spring, after new aldermen were sworn in and several incidents of police abuse were captured on video, the council's black caucus called for another meeting on Burge. The stated purpose, according to their resolution, was "to invite Special State's Attorneys Edward J. Egan and Robert D. Boyle, along with [police] Superintendent Philip J. Cline, to hearings to discuss the Special State's Attorneys findings published in their report."

That second hearing on the Burge report was held today. But just minutes into it, Carothers announced that Egan and Boyle weren’t going to show up. "They indicated that to me yesterday that they had made a decision not to appear before the committee," Carothers said.

Then he announced that the hearing’s third would-be guest of honor, outgoing superintendent Phil Cline, had sent one of his deputies. It was a good indication of how seriously Carothers and the Daley administration were taking the hearing.

First deputy Dana Starks told the committee that the police department has taken numerous steps to protect citizens and its own reputation from "rogue" cops like Burge.  

Ninth Ward alderman Anthony Beale was one of the aldermen who responded with skepticism. “While I agree with you that this type of torture that went on years ago is not prevalent today, there is another type of abuse going on in this department,” Beale said, mentioning recent disclosures that most complaints of police misconduct are levied against special operations officers. “What is your take on the fact that most of those complaints were just brushed under the rug and none of the officers were disciplined for it?”

Carothers didn’t let Starks respond. “You need to ask questions about this resolution,” Carothers told Beale. “Did you look at the resolution on the floor?”

“Yes, but I asked him a question—”

“You can ask him a question in the hallway if you want,” Carothers snapped. “But today we’re here for questions related to the resolution set forth by your colleagues that you may have even signed. You are asking questions that are totally out of that scope, that have nothing to do with this resolution.”

“Mr. Chairman, we have the first deputy here who is one of the best first deputies in the question, and I am asking his personal opinion on the complaints that are coming in about these special operations units that are under the direct supervision of the superintendent.”

“Alderman, I’ll say it again: You can ask all the questions you want, but today the purpose of this hearing is to deal with this resolution. The purpose today is not to deal with every question you have about the police. You can ask him that question outside.”

“That question I asked is a direct reflection on abuse—another form of abuse of power in the police department,” Beale said. “Now, it happened 20 years ago, and another form is happening today—”

“Alderman, it has nothing to do—”

“Thank you, Mr. Chairman.”

“—with the resolution at hand.”

“Thank you, Mr. Chairman.”

Eventually the committee heard from civil rights attorneys and community activists who blasted the Daley administration for not looking for creative ways to cut off the pensions and legal defense of Burge and his henchmen. By implication, the witnesses were also blasting the City Council for not being more aggressive, and aldermen knew it.

“Look, we know what happened—everybody in this building would like to get the anvil of Burge off our neck,” said 38th Ward alderman Tom Allen. “Where there’s a will, there’s a way. If we want to do things in this administration, if we want it hard enough, we can create legal theories to get it done.”

Later Carothers told reporters it wasn’t the City Council’s right or responsibility to work out settlements for police cases, and he was skeptical that the city could legally get off the hook for covering Burge’s pension or legal defense. “I don’t believe we have the power to do that. If we do, I assume that’s something we would have already done.”

Under state law, the council has the power to subpoena witnesses to appear, but Carothers also brushed off the idea of compelling Egan and Boyle to testify. “I’m not sure I’d want to do that,” he said. “I’m not sure what it would accomplish to have them come in here.”

But that was supposedly the whole point of the hearing.

Howard Brookins Jr., alderman of the 21st Ward, said he’s going to research how to subpoena Egan and Boyle—right now he doesn’t know how to do it, since the council hasn’t subpoenaed anyone in years—and hopes to draft an appropriate ordinance for the next council meeting in September.