Entries associated with the tag "Olympics":

For years environmental advocates have been trying to get the coal-burning power plants in Pilsen and Little Village to close down or clean up, citing evidence that they produce enough toxic air pollution to cause at least 40 premature deaths and scores of trips to the emergency room each year.

But when two dozen activists—many wearing air filter masks for effect—gathered outside Mayor Daley’s office Wednesday morning, they delivered the message with a new, urgent twist: it’s about the Olympics.

“We’ve been fighting to shut them down for a long time, but the mayor hasn’t shut them down,” said Kimberly Wasserman Nieto, an organizer for the Little Village Environmental Justice Organization, which was behind the event. “So we figured that if he won’t do it for the residents, maybe he’ll do it for all the Olympic visitors.” 

In other words, they’re trying to use the Olympics as leverage. The strategy should sound familiar: south- and west-siders have already started forming coalitions to demand funds for affordable housing, transportation, and parks before they agree to using chunks of their neighborhoods for Olympic facilities. 

And why not? The mayor does as much of what he wants as he can; banding together to pressure him may not work, but it’s certain that nothing else will. 

That said, it’s going to be tough to force the power plants to shut down. For starters, the mayor and his staffers have their defenses well-established by now. They say they don’t have the authority to force the plants to close or even curb emissions, even though they’d of course like cleaner air; and they say that jobs would be lost and electric rates might climb. All of these arguments are debatable, but since 2006 the Daley administration has also been able to point to a deal the state brokered with Midwest Generation, the owner of the plants, to cut most of their pollution within a decade. 

The LVEJO activists say that’s too long—the health of hundreds of Chicagoans will be imperiled over that time, and the plants won’t even be cleaned up before the 2016 games. They’d like to see the plants turned into training centers for renewable energy jobs. “We want to really be seen as the greenest city,” said Samuel Villansenor, another organizer. 

The group is also part of the growing chorus demanding public transit improvements as part of any Olympic package. Michael Pitula, LVEJO’s point man on transit, called on Daley to make a priority of securing more federal and state funding for the RTA, clean up the CTA’s bus fleet, and boost its maintenance staff. “Come on everybody and join me: No transit, no clean air, no Olympics!” he hollered. 

Of course, Mayor Daley was 1,000 miles away, and most of the media with him; the hallway outside his office was an echo chamber. But the LVEJO leaders said they’ve already sent him a letter asking for a community meeting. If they don’t hear anything back, they say they’ll show up outside his office again. Then they’ll start drafting a note to the International Olympic Committee. 

“We’ll tell them it’s not as pretty a picture as [Daley's] painted it,” said Wasserman Nieto. She added: “We’re not opposed to the Olympics per se, but we need to get the mayor’s attention.”

If Saint Paul didn’t convince us, Mayor Daley might: the latest converts often become the most aggressive evangelists.

I bring this up because the mayor has apparently realized that Chicago’s public transportation system needs some work, and he wants to make sure others are onto it as well. “You have to get this on people’s minds,” he said during a tour of Beijing’s system.

Actually, it’s been on our minds—those many thousands of us who rely on the CTA to get to work each day—for years.

But the mayor appears to have had his own blinding light experience earlier this year when the International Olympic Committee gave our system tepid reviews. The exposure of a major weakness in Chicago’s Olympic bid captured Daley’s attention in a way the frustrations of riders and a string of high-profile mishaps never could.

Now, the Trib reports, Daley would like to find a way to get CTA president Ron Huberman and others over to Beijing to check out their comfortable, high-tech transit network.

But some of his constituents are suggesting a far cheaper, more essential option: maybe the mayor should start taking public transit in his own city to see how it creaks along.

After all, if he continues to be inspired like this, the man who’s amassed the power and funding to “reform” the schools and “transform” public housing and “modernize” the airport can find a way to move buses and trains, if not mountains.

2008 could be the year of Tony Rezko's redemption in court, or progressive tax relief for area voters. But we don't think so. Here's a few more likely scenarios:

Olympics In June, the International Olympic Committee will select Chicago as one of its four finalists for the 2016 games (the final finalist will be chosen in 2009). Mayor Daley will prepare to spend two more years explaining how the games will be financed without public tax dollars and why we need Frank Kruesi to carry the Olympic torch into Soldier Field.

TIFs TIFs, which collected $500 million in property taxes in 2006, will take in at least $600 million in 2007 and $800 million more in ’08. Mayor Daley and the aldermen who help decide how to spend the money will continue to insist it isn't a tax hike while creating new TIF districts for "blighted" sections of the Mag Mile.

Police misconduct After working through the final legal snags, loopholes, and kinks, the city will finally agree to settle the lawsuits accusing police of torture under former commander Jon Burge. Aldermen will be relieved to put this issue behind them so they only have to approve payouts for routine police beatings and shootings.

CTA bailout State leaders will find money to let the CTA avoid cutting all but a few bus routes on the city’s south and west sides while continuing to employ former aldermen, ousted mayoral aides, and other middle managers sent over from City Hall.

Cook County Board President Todd Stroger will remain the favorite scapegoat for anyone interested in playing reformer while providing jobs for his friends, cousins, in-laws, nieces, and nephews.

Council progressives Reform-minded aldermen will realize they need some help organizing an independent caucus in the City Council and decide Mayor Daley is exactly the guy who can get it done.

New taxes The city will consider taxing residents 5 cents per toilet flush to raise money for the legal defense of alleged Shakman Decree violators. 

New lease arrangements Having worked out a deal to lease Midway Airport for an infusion of cash into the city’s coffers, Mayor Daley will propose to lease Lake Michigan to DuPage County.

Gery Chico was back in City Hall Thursday, and aldermen greeted him with warmth and extensive wish lists.

Chico, a bright, well-connected attorney, once served as Mayor Daley's chief of staff and then as president of the Chicago School Board. In 2001, though, the mayor decided the pace of school "reform" wasn't happening fast enough. Chico quit the board just before Paul Vallas was ousted as the Chicago Public Schools CEO.

Chico returned to practicing law with several high-powered firms; he was the chairman of Altheimer & Gray when the firm strangely and abruptly dissolved in 2003. In 2004, Chico ran a thoughtful campaign for U.S. Senate but was soundly defeated by Democratic machine support for Dan Hynes, oodles of cash at the disposal of multimillionaire Blair Hull, and the groundswell of passion for Barack Obama. Then he went back to lawyering and making money.

Few would have been surprised if Chico stayed out of politics and public policy after that. Over the last 18 years, a game plan has developed for former aides and allies of Mayor Daley. Top city policymakers are typically hardworking, loyal people whose ideas and long hours the mayor relies on to run the city, and whose names, reputations, and jobs he feels free to offer up as sacrifices when scandal strikes. Basically, commissioners and aides get zero credit when things are working right and take the blame when someone's been naughty, even if they really weren't responsible. They exist, in part, as mayoral insulation. 

This happens in politics everywhere, but Daley has shown particular skill at it, surviving one embarrassment after another by letting onetime star underlings become fall guys. In exchange, they're usually set up with comfortable gigs in the private sector if they can't find one themselves. The list of these people is long, but it includes former planning and development commissioner Alicia Berg, canned for being caught up in a backroom political mess involving some aldermen, public housing redevelopment, and mayoral friend Oscar D'Angelo, who became a vice president at Columbia College Chicago (where, I should disclose, I am an adjunct faculty member); and onetime environment commissioner and budget wonk William Abolt, a Hired Truck scapegoat who went on to a position with an environmental services firm.

But earlier this month Daley dusted off Chico and decided he was worthy of leading the board of the Chicago Park District. 

In confirming the appointment yesterday, aldermen praised Chico's smarts, commitment to public service, and concern for children. "He is an outstanding asset for government," said finance committee chairman Ed Burke. "Gery Chico has never accepted an assignment he did not do well and complete successfully." 

Such as dissolving a once-powerful law firm. 

It was 27th Ward alderman Walter Burnett who brought up the most likely reason Chico's been recruited again. "Gery knows how to get the money from Springfield and also from Washington, D.C.," Burnett said. "And I think that's very, very important for us." 

Chico pretty much confirmed that analysis after he was confirmed. "I plan to spend some time trying to develop capital," he said in the lounge behind council chambers, in between handshakes and pats on the back from aldermen eager to hit him up for help with projects in their wards. "[Parks Superintendent] Tim Mitchell's done a very good job, but he'd be the first guy to tell you we've got to do even more. People want things done, they want projects, and we've got to pay for it."

The Park District has an annual budget of about $400 million, but as Chico acknowledged, there's not a neighborhood in the city that isn't desperate for additional green space, better recreational programming, and facility upgrades.

And let's face it: aldermen and the mayor can talk about how important the Park District is to city kids, but if Daley's going to get the Olympics here, he's got to confront decades of lackluster investment and planning in the parks and make some major facility upgrades--really freaking fast.

"You've got the best steward you could have to get the Olympics to come to the city, and that's Mayor Daley," Chico said Thursday. "And [I'll do] anything I can to help and to get the district to help."

That's why Chico's here: he'll try to get it done, and even if he doesn't, he'll never stop playing the good soldier.

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency announced yesterday that it's ponying up $40,000 to help the city of Chicago figure out how to improve recycling in high-density residential units.

City recycling coordinator Chris Sauve told 46th Ward residents at a recent public meeting that city officials were talking to the owners, managers, and residents of several Uptown high-rises to find out how they were recycling, if at all, and what they'd found effective and ineffective. The EPA said yesterday it was helping to pay for a formal study of the buildings' waste streams. 

"The Chicago Multi-Unit Recycling Study Project is receiving $40,000 to conduct waste and recycling audits in several multi-unit residential buildings in the 46th Ward," the EPA announced in a press release. "Waste and recycling rates as well as barriers to recycling will be studied. The pilot project will result in a best management practices tool and resource kit to be distributed to building managers throughout the city."

The agency also announced it will contribute $20,000 to a waste-reduction "task force" among managers of Chicago's sports arenas and stadiums, including Soldier Field, Wrigley Field, U.S. Cellular Field, the UIC Pavilion, and the United Center. The stadiums will set goals to lower their garbage production and lift their recycling numbers. 

It's not clear--to me, at least--why these profitable operations need more money to help them do what city law already requires, but I'm guessing $20,000 in taxpayer money has been spent on worse.

Still, if it weren't already evident that politics drive our environmental policies, here's the last line of the EPA's statement about the stadium task force: "This project is especially important in Chicago's bid to host the 2016 Olympic games."