Chicago’s Olympic failure is a win for taxpayers

Many in Chicago are breathing a sigh of relief. Chicago’s bid for the Olympics fell flat, as the city was eliminated in the first round of deliberations.

While some see it as a missed opportunity, Chicagoans see it as justice served.

To begin with, President Obama’s lobbying on Chicago’s behalf for the Olympics at Chicago bothered many. The saw his efforts as poor prioritizing by the president, and now see it as a waste of time.

Taxpayers, annoyed with Chicago as it is, also saw that winning the bid to host the Olympics would have been a reward for Chicago’s corruption.

To top it all off, members of Mayor Daley’s Chicago Olympic Bid Team were making as much as $300,000. All at the taxpayer’s expense.

It’s no wonder that no one took Daley’s message seriously that Chicago taxpayers wouldn’t be burdened by the games.

So while Chicago may have lost the bid for the Olympics, Chicago taxpayers are calling it a win.

Daley’s partial transparency

Chicago’s Mayor Daley refused to make the spending project lists for the stimulus Bill transparent.    

“Yes, we do, we have our list, we’ve been talking to people. We did not put that out publicly because once you start putting it out publicly, you know, the newspapers, the media is going to be ripping it apart,” Daley said.

Apparently, Daley does not understand that the role of the media is to hold public officials accountable. 

On Feb. 11 Daley went to Washington and offered a partial list of the spending projects, which includes 200 schools, 150 miles of main streets, 200 miles of street lights and 75 miles of sewer and water mains.

It is pretty transparent from the 2009 budget that Daley is using red light cameras, parking tickets and parking taxes to ameliorate the budget crisis.  The city should also be completely, not partially transparent to tax payers on the spending list for the massive stimulus package. 

Investigate Chicago Vote Fraud, receive a zeroed-out budget

Apparently, Chicago Ward 50’s alderman Bernie Stone is going public with his lust for political payback against Inspector General David Hoffman. At a recent budget meeting, Stone threatened to zero-out Hoffman’s department budget in response to his prosecution of Stone’s ward superintendent for issues relating to vote fraud.

The Tribune reports:

Hoffman’s office started to investigate 50th Ward vote fraud after getting tips following Stone’s narrow 2007 runoff re-election over challenger Naisy Dolar.

The probe ended up with Cook County prosecutors charging Stone’s 50th Ward Supt. Anish Eapen with official misconduct, absentee ballot fraud and mutilation of election materials. Prosecutors alleged Eapen, a member of Stone’s political organization, used his influence to manipulate absentee voters and, in one instance, mark a citizen’s ballot to gain votes for Stone.

Absolutely outrageous. Of course, Eapen pled not guilty to the charges. I hope he’s working on a deal that drags more Chicago vote fraud out into the sunshine.

In other Chicago corruption news, the Sun-Times reports that 44 new investigations were started July-September 2008, in contrast to only 8 in the same quarter in 2007.

The 44 probes last quarter included 10 allegations of falsified employment records, six claims of misuse of county property, malfeasance by Cook County Clerk David Orr’s office and a complaint of bribery.
…
And the Sun-Times reported this week that an investigation found county purchasing agent, Carmen Triche-Colvin — who’s husband, State Rep. Marlow Colvin is county president Stroger’s best friend — violated county policies for awarding contracts and used a fax machine in violation of federal law.

Let’s hope that these investigations lead to punishment for any wrongdoing, fraud, and misuse of public trust, but also serve as deterrents to people desiring to continue along the old Chicago Way of doing business.

IG discovers stench in Chicago sanitation dept

Chicago is often called “The City that Works,” but according to a report by Chicago Inspector General David Hoffman, that title should not necessarily include the city’s sanitation department.

It only takes a quick review of the day’s headlines to know it’s going to be another bad, bad day for Mayor Daley, who is on the cusp of releasing a city budget that is an estimated $420 million in the red.

Chicago Sun-Times Editorial: Trashing the taxpayers

For years, the Daley administration has used city jobs in Streets and Sanitation to reward political workers. The bloating comes with a price, and now we know it — about $21 million a year. That, according to the inspector general’s report, is the total when you add up the money spent on the city wages for no work, plus other lost savings.

That’s $21 million Chicagoans pay every year for nothing.

Chicago Tribune: Your tax dollars at work

Like his father, he has bought labor peace during his 19-year tenure, in part by not demanding an end to such wasteful nonsense as the three-man garbage crew; many suburbs deploy one-man trucks. Now comes elaborate proof that the mayor’s garbage operation is a costly scam on taxpayers… With budget dollars tight and taxpayers furious with every level of government, maybe Daley finally will attack systemic cheating like this rip-off by garbage workers. He’ll never have a better excuse to downsize these three-man crews.

Shockingly (NOT!), union leaders are already crying foul, offering up a conspiracy theory that claims Mayor Daley is in cahoots with the Inspector General in an attempt to justify cutting sanitation jobs before Daley’s big red budget release.

Chicago Sun-Times: Garbage crews ‘paid to do nothing’ city surveillance finds

Lou Phillips, business manager for Laborers Union Local 1001, said it’s no accident that Hoffman issued his report at a time when hundreds of laborers are targeted for layoffs to ease a budget crunch.

“Sounds a little bit like a witch hunt to me. They’re laying off 1,080 people. Over 300 are members of Local 1001. Read between the lines,” he said. “It could be a downed truck. It could be between loads. There’s a number of different situations” that could cause down time.

Downed truck. Truck between loads. Right, right, right…

Read the full report for yourself- and prepare to be disgusted.

Trib lists reasons for budget crunch- leaves transparency out

The Chicago Tribune asks today: Why do Chicago and Mayor Richard Daley face $420 million budget shortfall?

This is the Trib’s explanation:

1. Many city workers make a lot more than average Chicagoans.

The generous wages and benefits given to many in the roughly 38,000-strong municipal workforce amount to 80 percent of the cost of running the city’s government, making it impossible to significantly cut the budget without reducing personnel costs.

2. The city depends heavily on taxing real estate sales.

Despite the burgeoning housing crisis, which began last year, Daley’s budget analysts expected to reap $210 million from real estate transfer tax revenue this year, slightly more than in 2007. Instead, with the real estate sales slumping, the city’s analysts believe that this revenue will total no more than $155 million. No other municipality in the state has a higher real estate transfer tax than Chicago’, according to the Chicago Association of Realtors.

3. Millions of tax dollars are siphoned to boost development.

More than $500 million a year goes into the city’s tax-increment financing (TIF) accounts, according to Cook County Clerk David Orr. Diverted from property tax revenues in Chicago’s 160-odd TIF districts, the funds are used to subsidize development projects in those areas rather than going to the school system, parks and the city’s general fund. That main operating fund, which supports police, fire and other services, is the one that is facing a funding shortfall.

4. City Hall builds little cushion into the budget.

Every year’s budget is merely a forecast of how much government expects to rake in and how much of that money will be spent. City officials should keep 5 percent to 15 percent of their operating budget in reserve, according to the Chicago-based Government Finance Officers Association.

Wages, real estate, TIFs, and cushion… but where’s the Transparency? Citizens should have easy access to lobbying costs, ethics policies, audits, and tax information on the city government website. As a Chicago resident, I feel the pinch of big government every day- yearly parking fees, rising transit costs, bottled water taxes, the highest sales tax in the nation, etc etc etc… Maybe Cook County voters wouldn’t be considering an advisory referendum to add a recall provision if they were confident their money was being spent responsibly.

Look here for the Windy City transparency information I was able to find.

Chicago Corruption Exposed

I ran across this blog post this morning. It appears that it is business as usual in Chicago. I am thankful that the media is beginning to shine some light on corruption in Chicago City Government.

Chicago Officals Caught with Hand in Cookie Jar …. Again

I was shocked last night as I watched the local Chicago Fox News 10:00 PM news broadcast of a story of the continued abuse by elected officials in Chicago, Il. Fox News should be praised for having a reporter take the time to go through the mountain of misc. expenses of Chicago’s Aldermen and uncover the “questionable” expenses.

The highlights were $1500 for lawn care for one Alderman to the company of one of her poltical supporters; the paying of one Alderman’s subscription to the magazine of the Communist Party of the United States; and the hiring of of a magician for an event for the Alderman.

The news report points out that many of these expenses were paid without question.

If you would like to view the news report please click here.

The taxpayers of Chicago deserve better.

Stay tuned as the reporter promised to reveal the political expenses of Aldermen that were paid for with your tax dollars. I will bring you his report as soon as it is aired.

This was cross posted from – http://catch22.blogivists.com/