The plot thickens involving Park Grill's contentious deal with the city, as Emanuel's chief of staff — and Mayor Daley's cousin — Theresa Mintle is identified as a former investor in the Millennium Park restaurant. more ›

The political drama that ended the Hispanic Democratic Organization's grip on city hiring ended yesterday, with the sentencing of long-time HDO chief and former Streets and San commissioner Al Sanchez, who was convicted of four counts of mail fraud last year. U.S. District Judge Robert Gettleman handed down a sentence of 2-1/2 years in federal prison for Sanchez. But he didn't go quietly. more ›

Gene Schulter's decision not to run for re-election makes the number of aldermen leaving City Council to 11. more ›

City Clerk and mayoral candidate Miguel del Valle told the media Wednesday that what he lacks in campaign funds, he'll make up for in integrity. “I’ve raised $150,000 thus-far,” del Valle said during a campaign stop in Logan Square. “People are not going to vote based on the millions of dollars raised by candidates ... who have made a personal fortune off of their connections with government and their prior positions with the federal government or the city government." more ›

Less than a month on the job and Cook County Board President Toni Preckwinkle is tackling some of the problems her predecessor left behind. This week she met with state officials to try and sort out the mess that Stroger's infamous "zoo party", paid for with funds allocated to help county flood victims, left for her. more ›

Just a few weeks after the news that Cook County Assessor Joe Berrios hired his son and sister, county Inspector General Patrick Blanchard and ethics board chief MaryNic Foster have issued a two-page "advisory" cautioning against hiring family members. While the report was not aimed directly at Berrios, the timing of the advisory, along with the fact that Berrios was among the recipients of the memo has forced Berrios's office to defend the hiring. more ›

With Christmas just around the corner, City of Chicago Inspector General Joseph Ferguson is urging a total ban on city workers accepting gifts from contractors with business before the city. The recommendation comes as Ferguson releases a report detailing gifts accepted by Department of Transportation employees including meals, golf outings and sports tickets. According to the report, department contractors spent more than $10,000 on gifts for more than 40 employees over a two year period ending in December of 2008. more ›

Mary O'Connor, who is running for alderman in the Northwest side 41st Ward, recently held a fundraiser that was sponsored in part by Michael and Alisa Leyden. Michael Leyden was banned for life from doing business with the City of Chicago after he allegedly paid nearly $60,000 in bribes to the city as part of the Hired Truck scandal. His wife Alisa co-owns American Tank, their trucking company. “It was a mistake,” O’Connor told the Sun-Times. “It was ignorance on my part,’’ she said, adding "I’ll never let it happen again.” more ›

Michigan Republican Fred Upton will assume the committee chairmanship of the House Energy and Commerce Committee, after closed-door voting by the Republican Steering Committee denied Collinsville Republican John Shimkus the seat. Shimkus, who walked out of a joint session of Congress earlier this year while the President spoke, was vying for the seat by trying to claim the mantle of the true conservative choice for the seat. more ›

The Chicago Tribune is reporting that newly released county documents showed a zoo party was hosted by outgoing Cook County Board President Todd Stroger's administration, paid for with federal grant money intended to help families whose homes were damaged by flooding. more ›

The feud between Cook County Board President-elect Toni Preckwinkle and outgoing board president Todd Stroger took an ugly turn during Tuesday's board meeting, as Cook County Commissioner Bill Beavers lashed out at Preckwinkle. more ›

Republican Congressman John Shimkus, of downstate Collinsville, is making a long-shot bid for chair of the House Energy and Commerce Committee, Politico is reporting. The downstate congressman will become the most powerful Illinois Republican in Congress if he can bypass several other, more senior congressman for the seat. more ›

In a press conference held just in time to be upstaged by Tom Dart's announcement that he's not running for mayor, Forrest Claypool, who is running against Joe Berrios for county tax assessor, released a review of where taxes breaks have been granted in the county. more ›

Losing a county-wide election by a staggering margin, having one of his cronies arrested on fraud charges, these are the things that should leave a politician wondering how safe he might be in the eyes of both the public and prosecutors. But no, outgoing Cook County President Todd Stroger appears to be hellbent on making sure that people with political connections have a safe paycheck place to work. more ›

Sigh. Another day, another Sun-Times report about how much money the city is wasting paying top management. This time it's the staggering six layers of management that it takes to run the city's Aviation Department. According to the Sun-Times, it takes 49 management positions in the department to operate the city bureaucracy over Midway and O'Hare, and nearly 60 percent of those positions take home salaries that top $100,000. more ›

"All said very openly that it was because of Oprah," Kelley says. more ›

In the ongoing power struggle to shift authority over hiring to the city's Inspector General, Anthony Boswell, Mayor Daley's chief ethics officer, has resigned from his post in the city's Office of Compliance. Boswell has been at the center of controversy in that department since the mayor suspended him for 30 days for mishandling a sexual harassment complaint involving a manager at the city's 911 center. Boswell is suing Daley and the city's IG in Cook County court. He alleges that Daley overstepped his authority by suspending him, and claims that the inspector general and Chicago's corporation council Mara Georges are retaliating against him for questioning her attempt to hire and promote her predecessor's unqualified daughter. “I uprooted my family from Dallas, Texas in order to accept a position with the City, with the implicit promise that the City was serious about having a best-in-class compliance program,” Boswell wrote in his resignation letter to Daley. “Given recent events, it has become difficult for me to remain excited about the work of the Office of Compliance.” more ›

Aldermen moved forward yesterday on a plan that is part of Mayor Daley's plan to get the city out from under federal hiring oversight, with a key committee signing off on the mayor's proposal to put his Office of Compliance out of business. (Daley put the Office of Compliance together in late 2007, telling reporters then that “I know there have been many questions raised about whether this office will compete with the inspector general. … At its core, this department is about assuring that the city is complying with the many local, state and federal requirements.”) The measure will send five Office of Compliance staffers over to the city's Inspector General, and give the IG more funding and authority over hiring. The mayor hopes this move will get federal monitors (including Federal Judge Wayne Anderson) off his back about patronage in Chicago. more ›

In his on-going efforts to stop the bleeding at McCormick Place, Mayor Daley is floating the idea of privatization as a solution to overhauling the city's convention business. The convention center, part of the publicly-run Metropolitan Pier and Exposition Authority, which includes Navy Pier and is known as McPier, has been under pressure lately as it has lost conventions and trade shows to other parts of the country, thanks to the high costs of doing business in Chicago. "Bring the private sector in and you manage it and get out of the business of McCormick Place in the sense that it should be fully privatized," Daley told the Greater North Michigan Avenue Association's annual meeting. "Then you can run the costs down." Jodi Kawada, a spokeswoman for the mayor, quickly pointed out that the mayor was not talking about selling McCormick Place off as a city asset. "This is just an idea at this point," she told the Tribune. "The mayor is trying to think creatively about jump starting the convention and tourism industry in Chicago, which will require bold steps." more ›

Soon-to-be-former 7th District Cook County Commissioner Joseph Mario Moreno thinks it's on the way out. Reeling from his loss to Jesus "Chuy" Garcia, Moreno lamented the demise of the Chicago Machine to the Sun-Times. "The committeemen don't have as much influence over the voters as they did when patronage was alive and well," Moreno told the paper. With Al Sanchez and the Hispanic Democratic Organization out of the way, and a federal judge looking over the mayor's shoulder when it comes to hiring, ward bosses can't round up mobs of poll workers to help turn out the vote. Garcia, who was bounced from his seat as a state senator in 1998 at the hands of the HDO, beat Moreno in last week's election. more ›

Mayor Daley had his hands full with McPier this week, staving off the suggestion of a merger of the troubled Metropolitan Pier and Exposition Authority with the state agency that owns and operates U.S. Cellular Field. "First of all, you can't take McCormick Place, which is not doing that well, and merge it with the Illinois sports authority, which is doing well," Daley told the Tribune. "You're saddling the Illinois sports authority. You couldn't do that, no, it would be unfair." more ›

With a massive budget deficit looming, property taxes on the rise, and the mayor talking about more furloughs and service cuts, the Chicago Public Schools have still found over $150,000 to hire a city hall insider to handle "forging partnerships with the business community to support school programs," the Sun-Times is reporting. Better yet, the hire is Barbara Lumpkin, who has served as Daley's city comptroller, budget director and city treasurer, and who was involved in several city hall scandals during her previous tenure. more ›

He just won't go away. And even though he's already started filming on the show, former governor Rod Blagojevich still doesn't know if he'll be allowed on the reality TV show Celebrity Apprentice. Because when you think "celebrity," you think "Blagojevich." Prosecutors allege that the show will interfere with the federal case against him by tainting the potential pool of jurors. According to reports, concerns are over when the show actually airs: it begins airing in March, just a few months before Blago's trial kicks off in June. more ›

It's been just a hair over nine months since Rod Blagojevich was impeached and a little less than that since he was removed from office. And yet we're still learning about what went on behind the scenes of the Blago administration. Today's Sun-Times features an in-depth look into the clout shenanigans that went on with Blago in charge. The two most prolific supporters in terms of hiring were Blago's right hand man, the late Christopher Kelly, and his father-in-law, Ald. Dick Mell (33rd). Mell was the sponsor for 293 positions with 110 of those getting filled. More than 5,700 total candidates supported by almost 400 political sponsors are listed in the Blago database. Stop by the Sun-Times story to check out full details as well as excerpts from Ald. Mell's and Kelly's lists. more ›

During his City Council confirmation hearing, Terry Peterson, headed towards being chairman of the CTA board, said fare hikes could still be coming as the agency struggles to close a $300 million budget gap. Peterson said, "When Springfield helped out in '08, no one could have predicted where we are today. No one could have predicted the type of economic downturn. We've got to sit down with the state. We've got to go to the federal government. We're looking internally to see what management can do. [And] labor is one of our partners. They're part of this. We've got to sit down and talk with everybody." Peterson has formally served as head of the CHA, a campaign manager for Mayor Daley, and also as aldermen of the 17th ward. The City Council Transportation Committee unanimously approved the appointment, made last week by Mayor Daley. more ›

The Tribune has discovered that Michael Scott has more of an interest in the Olympics than civic pride. Scott, a Chicago 2016 committee member, president of the Chicago Public Schools and a "friend of Richie", also served as a consultant to a condominium developer near the proposed Olympic Village site, a deal that could result in the project being worth far more than it currently is. For his part, Scott says that there's no conflict, given the depth of his role in the project. "I had no financial interest. I didn't do any real work," Scott told the Tribune. This, of course, is all in addition to the story from earlier this summer that Scott owns land located near the proposed Olympic cycling venue, something that Scott and others have said was not a conflict of interest. more ›

Just as the president of a major university was forced to resign for clout admissions, Mayor Daley defended a rule for some elite Chicago Public Schools that allow principals to handpick five percent of the students admitted, practices that have resulted in at least two aldermen getting their children admitted after calls to the principal. Reacting to accusations of unfairness, Mayor Daley said: more ›

After the kerfuffle at the University of Illinois, it's the Chicago Public School System's turn to earn some scrutiny regarding clouted students and admission practices. Today, the Tribune is reporting that U.S. Sen. Dick Durbin wrote a letter on behalf of a student who was rejected by Jones College Prep. The student was a relative of a Durbin staff member and, lo and behold, the student eventually was admitted via a process "that allows principals to handpick 5 percent of the incoming class." Though, as the Tribune points out, Durbin has done nothing wrong, those handpicked selections require letters of recommendations and are at the principal's discretion, and while the student's test scores were below Jones College Prep's requirements, they weren't that far below. So is there really an issue of clout here or is the Trib just trying to see what sticks? more ›

• A 15-year-old girl continues to fight for her life after being shot in the head last night while trying to shield another family member; police say she was not the intended target of the gunfire.
• WBEZ's blog has a very comprehensive breakdown of who's in for 2010 races.
• Blah blah blah Mayor Daley blah blah blah defends alderman blah blah blah clout.

The Chicago Public School system now finds itself under scrutiny from the federal government for alleged shady admissions practices at some of its more elite schools. The CPS has already launched its own internal investigation, but a source told the Tribune that the feds have served the CPS with a grand jury subpoena looking for admission process information. According to the Tribune: more ›