Division Street 101

Talkin’ Division Street with NBC5’s Marcus Riley. Find out who’s behind the blog, what’s behind the name, and how blogs are influencing politics.

Bus Service

The CTA is now recruiting to hire 400 part-time bus drivers. In most cities that wouldn’t be a political story, but this is Chicago. Tell them somebody sent you and the road test gets a whole lot easier.

Obama’s Grade Inflation

I don’t think Barack Obama has ever said he was under sniper fire in a war zone, but he certainly has his own long list of exaggerations. Lynn Sweet returned to one of them over the weekend: his perpetual claim to professorhood. Not so.

Wright’s Reward

Controversial Obama pastor Jeremiah Wright is receiving a nice parting gift as he makes his way toward retirement: a $1 million home complete with a whirlpool, butler’s pantry, elevator, and four-car garage.

God bless America!

Pundit Patrol

* Sweet: A senior Obama adviser says the Jeremiah Wright fiasco was the campaign’s low point.

* Chicagoist: Your guide to Mike Flannery’s 40-minute interview with Todd Stroger.

* Fritchey: Loves the CTA’s new solar-powered trash compactor; except the part about it being underground at State & Lake.

* Dumke: Aldermen attempt to talk to an economist. It does not go well.

* Proft: Blago’s brazen Wrigley Field hustle – and Jim Thompson’s conflict of interest.

Clout Spout

Wouldn’t you know it, one of the big winners amidst $12 million in payouts to victims of City Hall’s rigged hiring system turns out to be an alderman’s son.

Not that Jay Stone isn’t necessarily deserving of his whopping $75,000 check to make up for a losing aldermanic challenge to former 32nd Ward Ald. Ted Matlak (D-Machine), but geez, what about the folks like Cynthia Moody, who was awarded $1,500 for being rebuffed – for political reasons – seven years’ straight in her attempt to get a job as a “hand laborer” in Streets and San?

Hate Slate

“After religious divisions paralyzed a state commission on hate crimes, Illinois lawmakers wanted a fresh start,” the AP reported this week. “They created a new version of the Governor’s Commission on Discrimination and Hate Crimes, designed to promote tolerance within the state’s diverse population.

“But seven months later, Gov. Rod Blagojevich hasn’t appointed a single person to the overhauled commission, which will fail to accomplish its first major goal, presenting a report by March 30.

“Meanwhile, the old version of the commission hasn’t met in two years, but its executive director, Kimberly M. White, continues to draw her $96,000 annual salary.”

Hey, give the governor a break: He’s got his hands full right now.

Chicago Way Convergence

It’s too bad the Democratic National Convention is in Denver this August instead of right here, smack dab in the heart of the Old Politics. Oh, what a showcase to the nation we could have been! As Clout Street notes, “It’s going to be a busy fall on Dearborn Street.”

* On September 8, Niles Mayor Nicholas Blase is scheduled to go on trial “on federal
corruption charges for allegedly using his public office for more than three decades to steer local business owners to purchase insurance through an insurance agency that paid him bribes and kickbacks from the revenue it collected from insurance clients in Niles.”

* On September 15, former Chicago alderman Edward “Fast Eddie” Vrdolyak (who has actually been a member of both parties) is scheduled to go on trial “on federal fraud and bribery charges for allegedly scheming with cooperating businessman Stuart Levine to obtain a kickback for Levine from the sale of a building in Chicago’s Gold Coast neighborhood for a condominium development.”

* On September 17, former Chicago alderman Arenda “Most politicians are Ho’s” Troutman is scheduled to go on trial “on federal bribery charges for allegedly accepting a $5,000 cash bribe and agreeing to accept an additional $10,000 and other benefits in exchange for taking official action to support zoning changes and alley access on behalf of a purported private developer as part of an undercover investigation.”

* On November 10, gubernatorial kitchen cabinet member and gambling policy advisor Chris Kelly is scheduled to go on trial “on federal tax fraud charges for allegedly understating his true personal and business income by more than $1.3 million over five years, in part by concealing the use of corporate funds for personal expenses including gambling debts to sports bookmakers.”

* And while Tony Rezko’s trial will presumably be over with by then, the federal investigation from which it spawned presumably will not.

Foreclosure City

The news about home foreclosures just gets worse by the day.

The city council’s Housing Committee was presented with data on Wednesday that showed that home foreclosures in Chicago soared 46 percent between 2006 and 2007, to 14,250. Among the neighborhoods cited, according to a Sun-Times report: Logan Square, where foreclosures went up 108 percent in the last year, and West Englewood, which had 223 forceclosures per square mile, the city’s highest concentration.

And the numbers from the first two months of this year are even worse, according to Crain’s, which reports that foreclosures throughout Cook County are “on pace to smash last year’s record.”

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You can find a great collection of stories and links at the Chicago Bubble Blog.

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From the campaign trail:
- “McCain Rejects Broad U.S. Aid On Mortgages”

- “Obama Criticizes McCain On Mortgage Crisis”

- “Clinton Details Mortgage Plan”

Museum Melee

While the epic Wal-Mart battle is fading into oblivion, the epic Children’s Museum battle is about to get worse. After laying low for several months huddled with PR powerhouse Hill & Knowlton, museum officials are embarking on a new offensive – and that pretty much describes it – in its unpopular effort to move to Grant Park. Like the Wal-Mart fiasco, this fight also turned racial when the mayor (him again) accused foes of not wanting black kids in the neighborhood.

The controversy has already been a public relations disaster for the Children’s Museum, but for some reason it’s officials stubbornly blunder on like, well, children, even though downtown Ald. Brendan Reilly has suggested a couple dozen alternative sites he could get behind.

In the Tribune article, Reilly derided the museum’s new public relations effort as “an attempt to manufacture public support that isn’t there.” Maybe Hill & Knowlton will have better luck than Barack Obama media maven David Axelrod, who was previously running stealth PR operations for the museum, according to the April issue of Business Week Chicago.

The opposition remains galvanized. In an e-mail sent to supporters earlier this month, Reilly wrote: “This project is NOT on the March Plan Commission Agenda but very likely to be heard at the April 17, 2007 meeting. Thousands of community residents, Friends of the Parks, Preservation Chicago, Save Grant Park and Friends of Downtown all continue to reiterate their opposition to violating the special protections that have preserved Grant Park for 172 years.”

Preservation Chicago, in fact, has put Grant Park on its list of the city’s most endangered, um, buildings.

In an e-mail sent out on Tuesday, the organization asked those opposed to the museum move to attend the Plan Commission meeting in green shirts.

It’s an environmental message, to be sure, but it’s also the only color the Children’s Museum – which would be in line for park-related taxpayer subsidies – seems able to understand. Maybe in the confusion, the museum folk will change sides.

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Mick Dumke and Ben Joravksy at Clout City have some other ideas about how to fill up Grant Park.