Olympic Town Hall Meeting Turns into a Race to Alderwoman’s Car
Thanks to Chicago News Bench for posting this classic video of a Chicago Alderwoman being chased to her car after a town hall meeting on the 2016 Chicago Olympics:
Follow the Money of Olympic Demolition Crew
The Sun-Times reports that Mayor Daley officially took a big step toward the 2016 Olympic effort with the awarding of lucrative contracts to construction companies to demolish the current Michael Reese Hospital site:
The Mayor Daley-chaired Public Building Commission today took a giant step toward building the $1.1 billion Olympic Village on the Michael Reese Hospital site–alternately viewed as the riskiest element of Chicago’s bid and its most significant legacy. The PBC awarded $11 million worth of contracts to a pair of companies responsible for building abatement and demolition.
So the first big Olympic contracts are awarded. Wanna bet they’re going toward firms with strong histories of giving campaign cash to Cook County insiders?
Let’s take a look…(the below campamign contributions are just some of those listed on the Illinois State Board of Elections site).
Brandenburg Industrial Service Co. (awarded $7.98 million in contracts)
- Friends of Michael J. Madigan - $20,000 contribution (11/1/96)
- Citizens for Moreno - More than $13,000 in contributions since 2002
- Richard M. Daley Campaign Committee — $2,500 (11/28/01) by company president Thomas J. Little
- Richard M. Daley Campaign Committee — $3,000 since 2001 by company vice president Jack Jasinowski
- Committee to Elect Anne M. Burke (Supreme Court Justice and wife of Alderman Ed Burke) — $2,000 in 2008 by company president Thomas J. Little
- Friends of Edward M. Burke — $1,500 on 11/16/02 by company vice president Jack Jasinowski
- 11th Ward Regular Democratic Organization (John Daley) — $1,250 since 2003 by company vice president Jack Jasinowski
- Friends of Sandi Jackson (wife of Rep. Jesse Jackson, Jr.) — $3,500 in 2007 by company president Thomas J. Little
- Friends of Blagojevich — $4,000 on 6/19/02 by company vice president Jack Jasinowski
- The Cicero Good Government Group (controlled by insider Ed “Fast Eddie” Vrdolyak) — $4,500 since 2003 by company vice president Jack Jasinowski
Heneghan Wrecking Company ($3.19 million in contracts)
- Richard M. Daley Campaign Committee — $1,200 since 2001
- Political committees controlled by Alderman Ted Matlak — $3,200 since 2003
- Friends of Edward M. Burke - $1,500 on 11/19/08
- Citizens for Patrick O’Connor — More than $3,200 since 2000
- 11th Ward Regular Democratic Organization (John Daley) — $1,400 since 2003
- 11th Ward Regular Democratic Organization (John Daley) — $600 on 5/4/09 by company director Hugh Heneghan
- 32nd Ward Regular Democratic Organization — $1,900 since 2000
- Friends of Vi Daley — $5,000 since 2006 by company president Patrick Heneghan
- Friends of Vi Daley — $4,500 since 2007 by company vice president Rita Heneghan
Taxpayers on the Hook for Olympics Starting this Week
This morning’s Chicago Tribune features a story on the city of Chicago’s acquisition of the proposed 2016 Olympic Village site — assuming tomorrow’s “closing on the $86 million purchase of the Michael Reese hospital site” goes as planned.
But the story also carries some stark reminders of the financial problems that other major Olympic cities are facing — namely Vancouver and London, both of which have needed taxpayer bailouts despite promises of private financing.
The acquisition of the Olympic Village site carries substantial risks, given the moribund state of the credit markets, which has created wrenching problems for Vancouver and London. Both cities have had to bail out their respective Olympic Village projects, which, like Chicago’s, were supposed to have been privately financed.
And for Chicago, those struggling projects hover like specters, raising any number of questions. Will the lending spigot have opened sufficiently by 2012, when work is slated to begin? Will the city’s glut of new housing units have been absorbed by then? Will Chicagoans line up for condos and rental apartments that won’t be available until 2016, and only after they have been crash pads for several weeks for about 16,000 visiting athletes and coaches?
As we’ve written about before, Chicago’s track record on a large-scale projects, such as Millenium Park and the proposed CTA mega-station in the Loop, is less than stellar. Given this track record of going over-budget and over-schedule, how can we expect anything different from the Olympics?
And, when that taxpayer bailout comes — will it be limited to the taxpayers of Chicago, or will Mayor Daley come looking for a handout from Cook County and Springfield, as well?
Chicago Journal: Quit Pretending on Taxpayer Funds for Games
The Chicago Journal this week comes out swinging against Mayor Daley’s committment of taxpayer money to fund the 2016 Olympic Games:
The Daley Administration and its lackeys in the local Olympic organizing committee have repeatedly promised that no public money would be spent putting on a 2016 Olympiad here.
“Taxpayer money is not being used for the games,” John Murray, chief of bid operations for Chicago 2016, told us last year.
Well, no. That hasn’t been true for a while now. Shame on anyone for pretending otherwise.
Good for the Chicago Journal. Keep working to hold Mayor Daley and the Chicago City Council accountable.
This Week in Cook County …
Filed under: Corruption, Mayor Daley, Reform, Spending, Todd Stroger
A few of our favorite updates from the past week:
- Commissioner Peraica initiated legal action against Mayor Daley’s unilateral committment of the taxpayers as guarantors for the cost of the 2016 Olympics. Read coverage of this action here, here, here and here.
- The city’s 2016 Olympic organizers hold secret meetings with a number of aldermen (but not enough to trigger the Open Meetings Act) … yet another slap in the face to Chicago taxpayers.
- The Wilmette Life covers the North Shore Tea Party, in which Commissioner Peraica took part.
- The Illinois State Crime Commission provides laughs by honoring Melrose Park Mayor Ron Serpico.
- Chicagoland is shocked (but not surprised?) when Anthony Abbate — the Chicago cop whose brutal beating of a female bartender was caught on video — was sentenced only to probation and “anger management.”
- This morning’s Sun-Times reports on a new, $5,000 expenditure by the Stroger Administration to have the Cook County seal embroidered on the carpet in the county building entrance. The usefulness of the expensive seal was especially called into question since it is “roped off” like a museum exhibit.
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