Division Street

An astute reader spotted Richard M. Daley’s recent blog entry on Fast Lane, The Official Blog of the U.S. Secretary of Transportation. Please feel free to leave your own comments there.

1. Todd Stroger moves forward with his plan to fire Cook County Public Defender Ed Burnette.

A) Complains Burnette has done poor job defending him.
B) Relative graduating high school needs job.
C) Will hire him back as a consultant, though.

2. Bill Beavers asks Juvenile Detention Center director if he owns a suit.

A) “Not on what you’re paying me.”
B) “It’s at the dry cleaners having gang blood removed.”
C) “Do you own a brain?”

3. Rod Blagojevich skips Holocaust ceremony.

A) “This administration is about looking forward, not back.”
B) Was driving to Cincinnati to watch Jon Lieber’s first start of the season for the Cubs.
C) Was having a bad hair day.

From the official notice that Todd Stroger will present his selections for the new Interim Board of Directors of the Cook County Bureau of Health next Tuesday to the Legislation, Intergovernmental and Veterans Relations Committee:

“I feel all of the candidates provided are excellent; thus, I will not address any questions that relate to why I did not select a particular individual. Instead, I would recommend to any person that wishes to offer someone else to consider, who they would remove from the list I have put forth.”

This recommendation most reflects the childhood development theory of:
A) I know you are, but what am I?
B) I’m rubber and you are glue . . .
C) I’m taking my ball and going home.

Keep reading →

“With nary a word of public notice - and with no public hearings seeking input from the Chicago music community - the City Council Committee on License and Consumer Protection was set to meet again today in its rush to push through a new ‘promoters’ ordinance’ initially proposed last year and only delayed at the last minute when music activists caught wind,” Jim DeRogatis writes at his Sun-Times blog in “The City Tries Again To Legislate Clubland.”

DeRogatis has written frequently about how unfriendly - to put it kindly - City Hall is towards the city’s local music industry, despite how fruitful and enriching it is. Let’s face it, Mayor Daley simply does not rock - and does not like those who do.

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I’ve got a lot of fun stuff about Indiana in my Beachwood Reporter column today. Head over there, then come back here. I’ll have some new posts this afternoon.

Jeffrey Toobin on CNN has invoked Chicago’s infamous political culture about a half-dozen times by now in discussing his disgust with the absence of any vote totals from Lake County, Indiana, as of 10:30 p.m.

Here’s what the Northwest Times is live-blogging:

“With Hillary Clinton’s statewide lead under 40,000, the pending results from Lake County loom large.

“While Clinton reportedly led voting in cities like Hammond, Whiting and East Chicago, Gary Mayor Rudy Clay is indicating a huge margin in favor of Obama in his city.

“‘It’s very lopsided,’ Clay said, pointing to a hand-written list of precinct results.

According to his numbers, in most districts Clinton’s turnout in the city of Gary was near non-existent. One district saw 126 voters turn out for Obama, while only four voted for Clinton.

Says Clay: “The Gary people took care of business.”

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From the Washington Post: “In March, Clay predicted the race would come down to Gary, telling the Northwest Indiana and Illinois Times that tonight on CNN, ‘They are going to point at Indiana and say Hillary Clinton is leading by one point but Gary ain’t come in yet.’”

I went looking for Politico’s county-by-county map of the Indiana vote and found yet another example of the Obama campaign’s savvy Internet advertising strategy. They’re everywhere.

George Frost writes at Salon that “Obama is wrong about the gas tax” and uses Obama’s own experience in Illinois as the reason why.

“CBS News says Obama voted for the temporary lifting of the tax three times in the state Senate,” Frost writes. “The tax holiday was finally approved during a special session in June of 2000, when Illinois motorists were furious that gas prices had just topped $2 a gallon in Chicago. The moratorium lifted the state’s 5 percent sales tax on gasoline through the end of 2000.

“Obama told constituents that gasoline prices would drop: ‘Gas retailers must post on each pump a statement that indicates that the state tax has been suspended and that this temporary elimination of the tax should be reflected in the price per gallon of gas.’

“During one state Senate floor debate, Obama joked that he wanted signs on gas pumps in his district to say, ‘Senator Obama reduced your gasoline prices.’”

Keep reading →

“With an important vote a week away on a proposal to relocate the Chicago Children’s Museum from Navy Pier to Grant Park, an alderman opposed to the plan said Tuesday that he is picking up support in the City Council,” the Tribune reports this morning.

“Asked how many of his colleagues now oppose the project, Ald. Brendan Reilly (42nd) replied, ‘More than [those who] support it.’”

I’m not sure if that constitutes movement or not; Reilly has always disputed claims emanating from City Hall that the mayor had all the votes he needed. (The vote right now looks close enough that it could actually be decided by a single swing alderman; wonder what the mayor would offer to make him or her swing his way . . . )

“The Chicago Plan Commission is scheduled to take up the issue on May 15. The City Council is expected to vote in June. For many aldermen, Reilly said, the issue is not about previous court decisions that barred building in Grant Park, but ‘concern is about losing aldermanic prerogative.’”

I hope the plan is voted down, but I have no patience for “aldermanic prerogative,” an ancient folkway designed to allow aldermen to accrue power and build fiefdoms with no regard for how their actions impact the rest of the city.

What happens in one ward affects residents citywide, be it a horror like the new Soldier Field, the desecration of historic landmarks, or the depletion of low-income housing. An alderman is not only a representative of a ward, but the ward’s representative to issues facing the city.