Shortshank's Waterloo ????

August 25, 2009
Daley hears critics on Olympics, budget, parking
Posted by Dan Mihalopoulos at 11:01 p.m.

Mayor Richard Daley fielded complaints about crime, the city’s Olympics bid and the parking-meter controversy Tuesday night during a packed public hearing on the South Side, but he offered little direct response to his critics.

In a short speech that was received with a mixture of cheers and jeers, Daley defended his oft-criticized deal to lease the city’s parking meters to a private company. He called it a financial bonanza for the city but said “the implementation was not good at all from the city’s side.”


“I know that, you know that,” Daley said.
The mayor stopped short of an apology—a point noted by some critics in the audience. He also skipped over harsher language that was in the prepared remarks his staff gave to reporters—in that script he was to say “we screwed up the way it was implemented.”

Parking rates went up as a result of the switch, which also was plagued with widespread technical problems for motorists.

The meeting was the first of three hearings that are held annually by the mayor in the run-up to the release of his budget plan. While Daley warned participants to “respect one another,” the session was at times turbulent.

Daley did not directly respond as several critical speakers unloaded, but mayoral aides later approached them quietly to discuss their concerns.

Some in the crowd expressed concerns the mayor places a higher priority on the bid for the 2016 Summer Olympics than on problems in neighborhoods.

“The crime rate is so high, we would be an embarrassment for the United States,” said South Side resident Michelle Dixon-Holmes. “People will be gentrified away from their homes for a two-week event.”

Daley smiled but did not answer when she noted that Chicago Police Supt. Jody Weis has makes a higher salary than the president and asked if Weis would continue to work at that pay rate if the city’s 2016 bid fails.

Carol Smith, an activist for the mentally ill, blasted the mayor for closing the decision to close mental health centers.

“Why should people who have mental health problems suffer because the administration screwed up?” she asked Daley. “I want an answer right now.”

Daley sat stone-faced for several seconds as many in the audience yelled for him to reply. Finally, the city budget director said the health commissioner, who sat at the front table with other members of Daley’s Cabinet, would address the question. But he did not immediately answer, and Smith walked from the microphone.

Melvin Slater, one of dozens who signed up to speak, pressed for financial details that the city has not released as part of the preliminary budget, such as the amount paid by the administration to settle lawsuits against police.

The crowd jeered and laughed when budget director Eugene Munin replied, “We’ll have somebody talk to you.”

A mayoral aide approached Slater as he left the room at the South Shore Cultural Center and spoke with him for several minutes. But Slater said he was disappointed that there were fewer details available at the time of the hearing. Without more information, he said, “Then it’s just for show.”

In some cases, the speakers seemed more intent on making a comment than getting an answer.

"The words 'I'm sorry' never came out of the mayor's mouth regarding the parking fiasco," said Ted Seals, a member of the Grand Crossing Park Neighborhood Network who left the room after making his comment.

As he walked away, Seals added, "I was told we were going to have a great apology tonight. I didn't hear anything like that. It was more of a vindication."

Many of the comments centered on the Olympics, including a plea for funding from Queen Sister, who heads a community group in the predominantly black Roseland neighborhood called It Takes A Village.

She suggested that Daley places higher priority on the Olympic bid than on the problems of her neighborhood.

"You talk about bringing forth the Olympics, a multi-cultural event, when in the city African culture and black pride is being denied," she said, with 30 young men from her group standing behind her in bright yellow shirts.

"I am so damn tired of hearing about the Olympics," added Judith Rodgers, who lives near the proposed Olympic stadium at Washington Park.

She said venue construction is "going to tear up Washington Park, which is a black park."

Sharon Payne of the Woodlawn neighborhood said only "big wigs" want the games in Chicago.

"We can't afford it, sir," she told Daley. "Please think this over again."

The mayor smiled tightly and said nothing but "thank you" at the end of her remarks.

The last word went to an Olympic backer.

"Our community is in full support of 2016," said Leonard McGee, president of The Gap Community Organization on the Near South Side and the last speaker of the night. "2016 - bring it on.'

The mayor will do it all again on Wednesday and Thursday. The schedule is below.

Wednesday: Central West Regional Center, 2102 W. Ogden Ave.

Thursday: Laughlin Falconer Elementary School, 3020 N. Lamon Ave.

Hearings begin at 7:00 p.m. Those wishing to speak should be there early for registration from 6:00 p.m. to 7:00 p.m.


dmihalopoulos@tribune.com

Posted at 11:02:40 PM in Chicago politics, Mayor of Chicago, Olympics

Must be nice to have bodyguards !

Escaped inmate caught by Daley security guard
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July 13, 2009

BY KARA SPAK Staff Reporter
A member of Mayor Daley’s security team captured a convicted murderer near the mayor’s Michigan vacation home Monday morning, holding him at gunpoint until police arrived.

The takedown of the escapee from a maximum-security prison happened around 6:40 a.m. in a driveway on the 49000 block of East McKean, Grand Beach, Mich., about one-quarter mile from Daley’s beachfront property, said Grand Beach Police Chief Dan Schroeder.





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The Daley security officer caught Charles Smith, 48, who was convicted of murder in the 1990s, Schroeder said. The security guard then called local police who arrested Smith.


“We’re extremely appreciative, absolutely,” Schroeder said.


Smith, Mark Booher, 46, and Lance Battreal, 45, escaped from the maximum-security Indiana State Prison in Michigan City over the weekend.


Booher also was convicted of murder and Battreal was serving time for rape.


Schroeder said a man believed to be Booher escaped while the security guard was apprehending Smith. Local police in the quiet Michigan vacation area are on high alert, he said.


The man believed to be Booher was wearing a white shirt, grey sweat pants and blue shorts over the sweat pants, Schroeder said. He is described as a white male in his mid-40s, and asked anyone who sees someone matching his description to call police.


The prison the men escaped from is about 15 miles from Grand Beach.


Schroeder said this was the biggest police incident in town since a multi-million-dollar home near Daley’s summerhouse was torched in April 2008.


A letter sent days before the fire to Daley’s City Hall office threatened to torch his summer home in retaliation for the Chicago police killing a cougar loose in Roscoe Village in April 2008.

Shortshanks on his knees ?

Daley: Stop throwing darts or risk losing Olympics
Comments

July 8, 2009
BY FRAN SPIELMAN City Hall Reporter
An impassioned Mayor Daley today portrayed the 2016 Summer Olympic Games as the economic salvation for Chicago, but warned that the city just might lose the Olympic sweepstakes "if people keep throwing darts."

"In the next eight years of any city in America, tell me where the economic development is gonna come from. Is it gonna come from the military? The military builds in the south and southwest. It does not build in the Midwest and East," Daley said.

"You tell me one economic program that anyone has offered — both in the private sector or public sector. Every other city would love to have this—when the federal government will spend billions of dollars on infrastructure and on security. Besides that, the national and global publicity we receive from the build-up all the way to 2016. This is the only economic engine. We're talking about jobs. We're talking about contracts…coming into Chicago."

But, the mayor warned, "If people keep throwing darts at it, maybe they will not get it."

Pressed on whom he believes is "throwing darts," Daley said, "Did you read any headlines?" He added, "You beat us up."

He then caught himself and said, "I'm not gonna blame the media because then, you'll say, ‘The mayor is fighting with the media. The mayor is always so arrogant. Then, he's fighting with the aldermen.' No. People can ask questions. But, there was a misconception by the media that I signed" an agreement making Chicago taxpayers the final back-stop against Olympic losses.

Support for Chicago's Olympic bid has been hemorrhaging since last month, when Daley told International Olympic Committee members meeting in Switzerland that he would sign a host-city contract that amounts to an open-ended guarantee from Chicago taxpayers.

Blindsided by the mayor's blank-check promise, besieged by angry constituents and burned by the parking meter fiasco, the City Council demanded that Chicago 2016 open its books to an "objective" third party — possibly the Civic Federation — for an independent analysis of the city's bid.

Ald. Manny Flores (1st) even introduced an ordinance that would cap the taxpayer contribution at the $500 million already authorized by the City Council.

Aldermen weren't the only ones on the warpath.

Media cheerleaders turned into critics. And Inspector General David Hoffman piled on by branding as the "wrong approach for government" a reluctance to fully disclose Olympic financing plans.

On Tuesday, Chicago 2016 announced plans to hold public hearings in each of the city's 50 wards to stop the bleeding of public support — even though Chairman Pat Ryan has not yet lined up the $1 billion in private insurance needed to shield taxpayers from unlimited losses.

On Wednesday, Daley said he understands that Chicagoans struggling to make ends meet after layoffs, pay cuts and retirement fund losses have legitimate concerns about the cost of the Olympics.

But, he said, "I would never bankrupt the city of Chicago."

The mayor added, "People can discuss this, but this is the best economic engine we have going. I have nothing [else] up my sleeve."
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