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The ongoing city scandal over real estate and leases involving the mayor's nephew has drawn the ire of 31st Ward Alderman Ray Suarez. Reacting to the questionable month-to-month lease the Department of General Services established back in November of 2007, Suarez told the Sun-Times that he should have signed off on it. Suarez is chair of the City Council’s Committee on Housing and Real Estate.
Last week he demanded answers as to why the city has paid nearly half a million dollars in rent to Vanecko's company, when the arrangement was supposed to be temporary. Yesterday he announced that he'll introduce an ordinance to require greater city council oversight of such deals. “You could have one or two or three or four months. Then, you would have to come to the City Council and have a letter of justification why it should be done,” Suarez told the paper. “Long month-to-month leases give the impression … that something [kinky] is going on. I want to make sure that we avoid any kind of perception out there by the public. ... We’re gonna correct this. ... It’s gonna be something that’ll bring credibility to the system.”
There are scant details on what Suarez's proposed ordinance might look like, but we're always in favor of greater oversight of city funds and assets. Given Chicago's terrible track record with handling anything of value that isn't directly connected to the body of mayor or an alderman, we'd suggest that Suarez take a look at the federal regulations governing the leasing of private real estate. A process of greater transparency, governed by a rational process might make it harder for patronage hacks to hand over tax payer dollars to connected players.
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We may be moving closer and closer to an actual sighting of Alderman testicles. I've heard say of such things, but always thought they were folklore, like hens teeth.
I just now emailed my Alderman to ask if anyone on the City Council planned on growing a pair anytime soon.
Unless they're worried about losing their elected positions they'll continue rolling over and taking it from Daley.
Who's got web-developing skills? Can we create a "complain to your alderman" website that allows users to enter
a) their street
b) their name
c) their issue (olympics, taxes, zoning, budget, corruption, etc)
And sends off an email to the alderman? Sure, it's a generic form email, but the sheer volume (and the tracking of that volume and the issues tied to it) puts a pulse on the community -- an independent pulse.
It can be broken down by ward, by issue. Further demographics can be requested from users.
I understand the cons -- there's no way to track the validity of the user-entered data, but a tool like this can be used for data mining and finding the real hot-button issues that our city actually needs to deal with.
Is it frivolous if it gets people more involved and aware?