As Daley’s on his way out, there’s a lot being said about what he did (or didn’t do) for our city. While most of the hot topics include Chicago Public Schools, privatization fiascoes and police commissioners, not much is being said about his contribution to Chicago’s literacy culture, claims James Warren from the Chicago News Cooperative. more ›

Considering how well the privatization of the parking meters has gone, it makes perfect sense that Mayor Daley would want to sell off other city assets, right? Well, that seems to be what our exalted leader is thinking, anyway. We reported a few weeks ago that there were rumors that other things would be privatized before Hizzoner leaves office, including the recycling system and some lakefront festivals. more ›

Heeeeere’s Rahm. Local and national media are all atwitter now that Rahm Emanuel has made his mayoral bid all official with this video online announcement: more ›

Mayor Daley's announcement last week that he would not seek re-election unleashed an orgy of speculation and vanity in both the media and the local political worlds. And while those in the city that watch these things are wrapped up in questions of who might run, how and why, Chicago's business is wringing its collective hands over both the uncertainty of who the new mayor might be, and the loss of their friend in City Hall. more ›

Just because the Mayor is on his way out, does not mean he is out of big ideas for the City. He let loose a doozy with the Trib yesterday. The Clout Street blog reports that Daley is interested in re-reversing the flow of the Chicago River back into Lake Michigan: more ›

Along with the news that Mayor Daley is calling it quits, the media has been pretty occupied with the notion of White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel running for mayor in Chicago. And while the specter of "Rahmbo" running looms large over any decision that a potential mayoral candidate might make, there's a group in Chicago that is getting organized against Emanuel. Two key political leaders from those groups - Congressman Bobby Rush and Alderman Roberto Maldonado - have both taken public swipes at Emanuel. “I don’t know the friends he can count on that’s beyond his little network of people. ... If he’s gonna run, he’s gonna have to leave the White House — he should have left last night … to try and get acquainted with the citizens of Chicago,” Rush told the Sun-Times, noting that he intends to work to make sure there is a strong, viable black candidate for mayor. And Maldonado lashed out at Emanuel, accusing him of standing in the way of immigration reform. more ›

Police Superintendent Jody Weis's recent tete a tete with local gang leaders has angered some aldermen, who say that Chicago's top cop shouldn't be "negotiating with urban terrorists." 2nd Ward Ald. Bob Fioretti, who is rumored to be considering a run against Daley for mayor, lashed out at Weis Monday for his mid-August meeting. "I can't believe we're sitting down and negotiating with urban terrorists who are killing our kids with guns and drugs on the streets," Fioretti told the Sun-Times. "These are not people the superintendent ought to be negotiating with. They've now been elevated to equals. They're not equals. They belong in jail. It's an admission that the Police Department can't control the streets." Fioretti also questioned Weis's threat of going at gang leaders with federal racketeering charges if they don't back down, wondering why the police superintendent hadn't already applied that tactic. "We ought to be working hard with the feds and U.S. Attorney's office to start applying these RICO statutes now instead of giving them a warning that says, 'If you kill somebody.' That didn't help this weekend." 49th Ward Ald. Joe Moore, a longtime Daley critic, wondered if a crisis of leadership in the department was to blame. "What would accomplish more is to have a Police Department with good morale that believed in their leadership and believed in their mayor. We haven't had a Police Department with that kind of leadership in 22 years," Moore said. more ›

Mayor Daley pushed back at State Representative John Fritchey's proposed TIF legislation in characteristic Daley fashion - full of bluster and accusation. “Everybody wants to raid something,” Daley told the Chicago News Cooperative. “I’m not going to listen to state government for financial advice. I’ll tell you one thing: The city of Chicago should not listen to the federal or state government for financial advice. We would be bankrupt today. We [should] not listen to them, your state senators or representatives. No way. Look what they’ve done with the state budget and now they’re telling us what to do with the city budget. No way.” Daley didn't limit his attacks to the general assembly, though. He took on (one of his favorite targets) the local news media, telling Dan Mihalopoulous that he wouldn't ask the Sun-Times or the Tribune for financial advice, either. Citing the Tribune's bankruptcy and layoffs of reporters, he pointed out to Mihalopoulous that he "worked there before and they let you go.” Mihalopoulous replied that he quit the Tribune and wasn't laid off. “Oh, didn’t they? OK, well, you were on the waiting list then.” more ›

On Sunday, State Representative John Fritchey announced that he was introducing legislation that would require unappropriated funds from Tax Increment Financing districts to be refunded to their original taxing bodies at the end of the fiscal year. Tax Increment Financing, or TIFs, freeze the amount of revenue that a taxing body, such as schools, parks, the county and other agencies can take from a district for 23 years. And revenue generated from a tax increase is diverted into a separate fund, which is operated by the city. A product of state law, TIFs were designed to fight blight in an area that might need an extra boost for development. As a result, those other taxing bodies wind up starved for cash while the TIF fund balloons into a pool of cash that is accounted for separately from the city budget. "If you take the numbers based on 2009, this program, this legislation would have resulted in $500 million going back to the Chicago Public Schools. That's enough to wipe out $370 million deficit plus a surplus," Fritchey told ACB7. more ›

Mayor Daley announced the creation of a blue-ribbon committee (literally - it's called the "O'Hare Express Blue Ribbon Committee") to study the feasibility of building a privately financed and operated high-speed train from O'Hare to Block 37. “It has to be almost a separate private system,” Da Mare said in a press conference at City Hall. He's hoping that the 17 member panel, made up of local civic, labor and business leaders and led by Lester Crown of Henry Crown and Co, can figure out a way to build and operate a system parallel to the Blue Line without any city or government money. “The mandate from the mayor is: ‘No city money. No government money.’ ” Crown told the Sun-Times. “There’s already interest by private investment funds, foreign investment funds,” Daley said. “They’ve come to see me, I’ll be very frank, talking about this. That’s exciting.” more ›

The recent economic crisis has exacerbated what was already becoming a huge problem for the city of Chicago: our municipal budget deficit. Barrels of ink and gigabytes of pixels have been published about both the shocking cuts and tax hikes needed and enacted to close the city's gaping budget hole; almost as much has been written about Daley's hoarding of tax dollars in the city's TIF program. And yesterday the Sun-Time's Fran Spielman ran a piece looking at the $2 million surplus the city had on hand after closing the books on 2009. According to Spielman, that number is significantly higher than the $200,000 the city had left at the end of 2008, but it's hardly enough shore up the half-billion dollar (and growing) budget deficit the city is caught up in this year. more ›

Ford Motor Company, which has an assembly plant on Chicago's South side and a stamping plant in Ford Heights, unveiled the new Ford Explorer Monday afternoon with much fanfare. While the launch of the newly redesigned Ford Explorer has been anticipated among car aficionados for some time, the big story in Chicago is the employment impact building the car here will have on the local economy. Ford will be adding 1,200 workers to it's local payroll to handle production, which is expected to start in November. Mayor Daley, poet laureate of the City of Big Shoulders, summed it up to Crain's, saying “New jobs are being created. Overtime is being created... In America, people want a job.” Echoing that sentiment, Bill Ford Jr., executive chairman and great-grandson of founder Henry Ford said that while his company has experienced four quarters of growth, he's still feeling cautious about the market. “Overall, the car market isn’t as healthy as it was two years ago. So far in July, though, early sales look good,” he told the Sun-Times, adding that “we’ve got to get the economy moving again for all of our sakes.” more ›

Now why are you still reading this? Get on over to our meet-up at Goose Island Clybourn! 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 ›

The drumbeat of "news" around Wal-Mart's entry into Chicago's retail market continued yesterday, as the local media continued to print Wal-Mart's press release promising jobs city-wide and wages that start at 50 cents above the minimum wage. And Mayor Daley demanded answers from labor leaders in Chicago for their opposition to the mega-retailer's urban expansion. “They’re up to the highest point that no other retailer pays at the beginning salary. And they don’t pay that in the suburban area. No other retailer has gone that far,” Daley said, before launching into a tirade that Fran Spielman noted hinted at playing the race card, as the mayor did four years ago when he vetoed the so-called big-box ordinance. more ›

Yesterday a series of news reports about Wal-Mart's (latest) attempt to break into the Chicago retail market made their way around the internet. First, the Chicago political class's favorite tool Michael Sneed got a hot "tip" that Mayor Daley met privately with Wal-Mart executives in Oklahoma City during the recent conference of mayors, and that construction of stores in the city would be great, if the evil unions didn't want to kill all the jobs here in town. more ›

State Senator Bill Brady, the Republican nominee for governor of Illinois, visited Mayor Daley yesterday to talk about budget issues facing the city and state. But Daley made it clear that he's not endorsing Brady for governor. "It was a courtesy visit," mayoral press secretary Jacquelyn Heard told the Sun-Times. "Sen. Brady some time ago asked to see the mayor and [Tuesday] was the day," she said. "Mayor Daley is never so partisan that he's unwilling to listen." more ›

Ahead of a key Zoning Committee vote, officials for super-retailer Wal-Mart sat down with union officials to hash out a wage agreement. more ›

As the May 7 City Council showdown over a Pullman Wal-Mart approaches, the store expands it's lobbying efforts. more ›

It looks like Mayor Daley is backing down from his proposed "grid" plan for the city's street sweepers. Instead, there seems to be agreement on something of a hybrid plan, reducing the number of overall sweepers but allowing aldermen to maintain control of the sweepers four days a week. According to the Sun-Times, the new plan would retain 40 street sweepers (instead of the current 50 and the Mayor's proposed reduction to 33). As for the specific plan, The Parking Ticket Geek reports: 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 ›

In yet another cost cutting move, Mayor Daley is proposing changes to the way the city allocates street sweeping services. Currently street sweeping is done by ward, with 50 street sweepers, one assigned to each ward. This gives aldermen more control over how the streets get cleaned in their ward. Under the mayor's plan, however, the city would switch to a grid system, breaking Chicago up into 33 equal sized "chucks", the Tribune is reporting. Daley says that the switch will lead to more efficient cleaning of city streets, and of course cost savings. "If this side is one ward -- of the street -- and that's the other side, we can only street clean one side one day and the other the other day," Daley said Tuesday. "Now you clean both at the same time." more ›

According to a report by the Tribune, Mayor Daley was secretly interviewed by the FBI in 2008, as part of their investigation into Calvin Boender and the Galewood Yards project. That investigation has led former 29th Ward Alderman Ike Carothers to plead guilty to accepting a bribe in connection to the project, and bribery charges against Boender. "The mayor cooperated with a request for an interview during the course of the investigation," said Jennifer Hoyle, spokeswoman for the city's Law Department, in an e-mail response to Tribune questions. "There is no indication that he was or is anything other than a witness." more ›

Bringing the total number of sitting aldermen that Mayor Daley has appointed to the City Council to 19 (that's nearly 40 percent of the city's legislative body!), Da Mare announced his picks to replace 1st Ward Ald. Manny Flores and 29th Ward Ald. Ike Carothers late yesterday: Proco "Joe" Moreno in the 1st, and state Rep. Deborah Graham in the 29th. The appointments follow an on-line application process to replace the aldermen, one who left office to pursue a position at the state level, and another for prison, respectively. Daley said he interviewed 44 people for the position. "The interesting thing was to listen to people about their concerns" Daley told the Tribune. The mayor assured the local press that the new appointees won't be doing his bidding on the council, though. "If you get some things done, it is amazing. [You say] they do my bidding. They don’t do my bidding. I do my own bidding….It is not one way — the Daley way — or that's it. I’m sorry," the mayor told the Sun-Times. 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 ›

Codifying what City Hall officials say has been an unwritten policy, the city council approved an ordinance proposed by Mayor Daley to let drivers off the hook once a year if they've overstayed their parking meter for five minutes. The ordinance will dismiss tickets issued to motorists within the first five minutes of parking meter expiration, once a year, provided they've kept their receipt. "The change will assist motorists who are occasionally ticketed for accidentally overstaying the time on their pay box receipt by a few minutes, despite trying to comply with parking requirements by purchasing adequate parking time," Daley told the Tribune. more ›

Following on the heels of a sexual harassment scandal that bubbled up into the news last month, Mayor Daley has transferred control over city hiring to Chicago's Inspector General. Daley is also proposing that the IG have the power to investigate corruption in the city council. Citing the federal corruption investigation into 29th Ward Ald. Issac Carothers, Daley said that “I think after the Carothers issue, some people are losing confidence in government.” more ›

Mark Meaney, first deputy to Anthony Boswell in Mayor Daley's Office of Compliance, resigned his $146,940-a-year position yesterday. The city inspector general recommended to Mayor Daley in a report last month that both be suspended for their handling of a 2008 complaint of sexual in the city's 911 center. The IG's investigation stems from an incident in which a student intern alleged that a high-ranking 911 center deputy made inappropriate comments about her appearance, repeatedly asked her out on dates and remarked that he'd like to have a cheerleader for an intern someday. The city's sexual harassment officer (who works for Boswell and Meaney) tried to investigate the claim, but ran into resistance, according to the IG's report. The two compliance chiefs supposedly tried to get the 911 official a new student intern, as well as trying to move him to a different city job, away from the 911 center. more ›

• Mayor Daley said there's no reprieve coming for the impending CTA cuts.
• More developments in the Alexi Giannoulias/Broadway Bank matter. Meanwhile, opponent Cheryle Jackson has called for Giannoulias to bow out of the race.
• That new Blago indictment could be coming by next week.

In the wake of a Tribune investigation into the apparent misuse of city-issued credit cards by high-ranking officials in the Chicago Public Schools, Mayor Daley says that he wants to wait to see what the report that Schools Inspector General James Sullivan will issue says. "The report has not come out as yet, but we'll be sitting down with that," Daley told the Tribune. "The independent inspector general is supposed to issue a report as well, and we'll respond appropriately. Like anything else, you want to protect taxpayers' money at all times." more ›