Extortion
An influential alderman warned Metra’s executive director on Thursday that “people are going to get hurt” if the commuter rail agency fails to bolster minority participation on a $133 million South Side railroad bridge known as the “Englewood Flyover.”
Ald. Anthony Beale (9th), chairman of the City Council’s Transportation Committee, did not explain who he believed would “get hurt” or who the perpetrators might be. But, he was clearly referring to civil disobedience or maybe even violence at the construction site.
[Metra Executive Director] Clifford said he “respects and appreciates” Beale’s point. But, he also stood his ground, arguing that Metra has “not done anything wrong” and “followed federal statutes to the letter.”
[...] “By federal statute, we are not allowed to set a minority target. If a bidder comes in and achieves that goal — 25 percent DBE — they have met the federal mandate. The federal mandate is what I must follow and I will not violate the law,” Clifford said.
Metra held something like a year's worth of seminars explaining exactly what would be required by bidders for the Englewood flyover bridge in Englewood itself, and got zero takers on the contract. What the hell are they supposed to do?
Labels: we got nothing
posted by SCC at 12:05 AM
47 Comments:
Don't be so hard on Beale.He only has two years of college. He is only doing what the Jackson's and Rev. Meeks told him to do.
What an asshole.
Beale's is trying to look good in front his constituents.
I thought skin color does not matter. what wouls doctor king say?
No one will touch Brainless Beale. Asshole Alderwhores like him can say and do whatever they want and nothing is done. If one of us were to make such a veiled threat we would have a CR# presto. What an arrogant little bitch this guy is to make threats at an open meeting. You can take the Alderwhore out of the Ghetto but you can't take the Ghetto out of the Alderwhore. Fuck him.
Years back when Harold was mayor Alderfool Dorothy "The Hat" Tillman pulled out a pistol at a closed city council meeting and threatened another Alderman because she didn't like what he said to her. The good old days. The city won't let decent citizens Conceal and Carry but we allow our 50 brain dead Alderfools carry guns. Only in Chicago.
typical shit-head
Maybe they want "Uncle Tom's Railroad"?
This is typical when a big chunk of money is on the table for a project and all of a sudden you get minorities saying, "Hey, where is ours?"
No one wants to put in any effort marketing for the job OR even buying the tools needed to do the job - they just want a piece of the action. They think they are entitled to it.
Minority contracting is BS. What about all the small white firms? Where are their set asides? There AREN'T any.
AND when you DO get a contract and have to sift through the minority businesses on the "certified list" you find a lot of businesses sharing the same phone number.
Call one number and you get, "Leave a message for Joe's plumbing, Rita's typing services, Mel's IT programming services or Metro electrical services."
Part of the cost of doing business is that you have your own phone - not share it with 3 others. If they are too cheap to get their own phone what else are they lacking?
Listening to that message does NOT give you a comfort level that any of the businesses there are that legit or are focused on the skills they are offering.
PLUS - if you are the contractor, you are still on the hook for the work performed by the MBE or WBE whether they do it or not.
It is not enough that politicians in Illinois steal with both hands. Now they feel powerful enough to actually threaten people with violence in public, in the press, no less.
Who reported this threat? Why didn't that "news person" demand a clarification of the threat? Why do the voters put up with this?
Oh yeah. I forgot. It was Beavers. His constituency would vote for him if he murdered his wife and all but decapitated her 'friend'.
All of this is OK in Chicago...in Cook County...in Illinois....the most corrupt political arena in this Country. Why?
Trouble at the construction site? Switch to live ammunition to protect the railroad from terrorists (domestic).
Look who's talking! His wife is a felon - she stole thousand$ and hasn't even been indicted.
Nothing from FITZPATRICK, only smoke and mirror, gimmie cases will be handled. Why do you think Chicago is in such a bad state of affairs? NOBODY PUT THESE REAL POWER PEOPLE IN JAIL.
Hot air from yet another entitlement asswipe "public servant".
Two more years my kids are done with college and I'm out of this effed-up place.
Extortion is all some people know........filling out paperwork, balancing budgets -not so much.
Why don't the alderman of this city ever have to give up anything? I anm so sick and tired of having the police pension fund thrown out to the public who in fact do not understand that most of us get a pension that we contributed toward, have our social security benefits reduced, and some of us have paid our full
share. If anything, do away with the Gold Braid, and leave the rest of us alone.
If Ald. Beale follows through on this, would it be considered . . . drum roll . . . terrorism?
Probably not under this administration, sadly.
Beale and the like have been getting away with this since the 60s,and providing votes for the democratic party all the while. This will pass, and will continue as long they support the democratic ticket.
can i have a violence reduction mission number in the number one bonehead zone!
And after beals made his threat he asked, you want fries wit dat? Which is what he'd be doing if not elected.
An influential alderman warned Metra’s executive director on Thursday that “people are going to get hurt”
Assault? Did the alderfool ball his fists?
Another project that justifies stealing from the taxpayer. I've taken the Rock for nearly 30 years and never realized there was a delay at this bottleneck.
Fuck this project and fuck these asshole politicians who continue to dip their hand into my pocket!
Taxation is stealing from them who have. All government spending equals taxation.
How dare Metra pass up that skilled labor pool, so willing to work that is Englewood!
I wouldn't mind if our Metra train hit him going about 65 mph up the main line right through Englewood.
talk about aldercreatures
didn't our mayor promise to reduce aldercreatures to 20
reduce the bloated expense accounts
"Listening to [all this sort of nonsense] does NOT give you a comfort level that any of the businesses there are that legit or are focused on the skills they are offering..."
--6/01/2012 04:48:00 AM
Remember the Woodfreak or Noisefest or whatever it was some "Courvoisier Productions" or something was going to run a couple of summers ago out in Maywood? City council having special meetings, CCSD and other departments canceling time off and making crowd control plans, maps being drawn, shuttle buses being set up to come in from outlying parking areas, the whole place in an uproar...
...and like FIFTY PEOPLE came. There were more police there than that.
"ABC 123 Elite Promoters" at "Suite 456" suddenly weren't answering their leased $19.95/month "makes you sound just like a real business" sharephone.
People are probably still looking for them to collect money owed...
Let's say Metra decides to avoid violence and picks a minority firm. What's going to happen when they build and nothing meets specs? Will there be violence then? What if they drag feet and the work takes three times as long to complete? Violence when accountability is demanded?
It looks like they give Metra a perfect excuse to NOT hire them. If they're so prone to violence why risk it?
Been there, done that said...
This is typical when a big chunk of money is on the table for a project and all of a sudden you get minorities saying, "Hey, where is ours?"
No one wants to put in any effort marketing for the job OR even buying the tools needed to do the job - they just want a piece of the action. They think they are entitled to it.
Minority contracting is BS. What about all the small white firms? Where are their set asides? There AREN'T any.
AND when you DO get a contract and have to sift through the minority businesses on the "certified list" you find a lot of businesses sharing the same phone number.
Call one number and you get, "Leave a message for Joe's plumbing, Rita's typing services, Mel's IT programming services or Metro electrical services."
Part of the cost of doing business is that you have your own phone - not share it with 3 others. If they are too cheap to get their own phone what else are they lacking?
Listening to that message does NOT give you a comfort level that any of the businesses there are that legit or are focused on the skills they are offering.
PLUS - if you are the contractor, you are still on the hook for the work performed by the MBE or WBE whether they do it or not.
6/01/2012 04:48:00 AM
Small white firms catch it too, I can't deny that. Still they have a better chance getting a contract than a small black firm, same skills and caliber. If you don't think it's true, peruse the internet and see how many people anonymously admit that they refuse to higher anyone black. As long as you got guys posting that stuff behind closed doors where they can be themselves you can give up on people not thinking we need an equalizer. Affirmative action is similar to policing in this, everybody blames affirmative action/police but if we were doing what we were supposed to in the first place we wouldn't have "needed" to get so deep in it in the first place. Might not like it but it's true. By the way, people forget that affirmative actions programs emphasize women as a protected class. That's why hiring "minority" women is a two for one, just like a disabled woman or a female veteran that are white...both are still double category.
"Metra held something like a year's worth of seminars explaining exactly what would be required by bidders for the Englewood flyover bridge in Englewood itself, and got zero takers on the contract. What the hell are they supposed to do?"
"Fly over" the place. Proof once more that there is nothing there to stop for. Sad, but true.
I have a 1948 photo of a little boy on the Englewood Union Station platform, watching the greatest railroad show on earth; this was the spot where the Pennsylvania, the New York Central, and the Rock Island crossed. Hundreds of trains a day.
The Rock Island ran a tremendous commuter service, and PRR and NYC raced each other out of the station every evening, headed for New York -- the Broadway Limited and the 20th Century Limited.
By 1966, we went downtown to LaSalle Street Station to catch our NYC train, even though Englewood was closer to where we lived -- the neighborhood was already too dangerous.
Freight trains rolled through Englewood with the caboose windows up and the doors locked, against locals who would climb on and rob the crew. No one stepped out into the caboose platform to even grab a sheaf of train orders from the tower without a weapon of some kind -- a burning red fusee was a favorite.
Englewood Union Station is long gone. What is left up there now is busy freight yard, and they want to jump the Metra commuter trains over to prevent delays.
There is a limit to the amount of a__swiping and handholding that can be provided. Unfortunately all-too-typical response here -- sit and wait for someone else to deliver the goods, and then become physically threatening when the fruit basket doesn't arrive.
Same guy that wants to eliminate CPD uniform and duty availability checks. Fuck him! He needs to be dealt with.
"...if the commuter rail agency fails to bolster minority participation..."
How is METRA suposed to do that after they begged for a whole year and no one came forward?
Why don't "minorities" "bolster minority participation?"
fuck him
Anonymous said--
....Still they have a better chance getting a contract than a small black firm, same skills and caliber. .........
--------------------------------
I would not waste my time with any city or county contract. Whites are a minority now - so where is OUR set asides?
True story - A black minority firm gets hired by TRW for the airport communications work (about 18 years ago) and hires white subcontractors to do the work. They hold back pay and finally pay them what is owed and then file bankruptcy unbeknownst to the subcontractors.
Over 2 years later, the white subcontractors are all sent subpeonas from Federal Bankruptcy Court saying to pay back EVERYTHING that they were paid because it fell in the last 90 days of the minority firm's existence and that their creditors wanted their bills paid. Total shock!!
Over 2 years later and getting a subpeona to "pay it all back"?
Would YOU take that risk? I wouldn't. Funny how that never got into the Chicago Press.
Hire on qualifications - not on gender or skin color.
Quoting SCC:
"Isn't interference in railroad commerce under Federal jurisdiction? There certainly ought to be Federal charges available to entertain Beale and some defense lawyers for a few years."
Only if you are not a minority - then you are exempt.
"Ald. Anthony Beale (9th), chairman of the City Council’s Transportation Committee...warned Metra’s executive director on Thursday that “people are going to get hurt” if the commuter rail agency fails to bolster minority participation on a $133 million South Side railroad bridge known as the “Englewood Flyover.”
Mayor Emanuel -- do you back Ald. Beale's stand?
Every minute that this man remains in his position on that committee says that you do.
"True story - A black minority firm gets hired by TRW for the airport communications work (about 18 years ago) and hires white subcontractors to do the work."
True story about EXACTLY THIS SITUATION in another office setting -- a black man, laying back in his swivel chair, was once overheard on the phone to some woman bragging that "Yeah, we puttin' in the whole system. Of course, I don't do none of that manual labor.
"I got me a white man to do that."
Both parties chuckled and guffawed.
That white man was clipped into YOUR LINE on his "butt set" -- installer's phone handset -- doing his job.
*
"How dare Metra pass up that skilled labor pool, so willing to work that is Englewood!"
--6/01/2012 10:45:00 AM
>all over the keyboard<
"Another project that justifies stealing from the taxpayer. I've taken the Rock for nearly 30 years and never realized there was a delay at this bottleneck."
--6/01/2012 10:13:00 AM
Is that a fact?
Oh, man. Can't argue with first hand.
Some local reporter -- was it someone at Crain's? -- is under the impression that this project is what we would call a "grade crossing separation." The guy has obviously never even seen the place. It was probably grade-separated -- tracks put above street level -- in something like 1898.
IC and PRR and the old Lake Shore (same NYC line that goes through Englewood) used to cross each other at grade at Grand Crossing, back in the handlebar mustache, link-and-pin coupler days. I understand they used to just go through at full throttle and hope for the best. The inevitable ensued...
Did you get to see Brighton Park before it got CTCed not too long ago? Last manually-operated interlocking plant like that...in the whole country, I think. Semaphore signals operated "armstrong" by pipe lines from levers in a little gray shed...they got through the tremendous crush of WWII like that, and another sixty years after, too.
Sounds more like threat to me!!!!
"All of this is OK in Chicago...in Cook County...in Illinois....the most corrupt political arena in this Country. Why?"
Because the corruption is business as usual. It starts at the top and works its way down to every level.
There's no escaping it. It's expected.
It's "normal."
It's the way of life here.
That's the main reason so many of us are against Obama. It's not that he's black. It's not even that he's a democrat.
It's because he's a dirty, Chicago democrat. No matter what you say or think, he's got some of this shit on him. It got him elected. It's like being in the mob; once you're in, you can't get out.
"Let's say Metra decides to avoid violence and picks a minority firm. What's going to happen when they build and nothing meets specs?"
Nothing, until a derailment occurs.
Then the victims & their families attempting to sue will only find Metra is still around. The MBE will be long-defunct.
08:34:00
They are separating an at grade rail-rail crossing, a bridge will be built so the Rock Island can "fly over" the Norfolk Southern tracks.
After it's done Norfolk Southern will be expanding their intermodal yard in Englewood. The area from Garfield to 61st between the two sets of railroad tracks will be leveled completely.
I love the fact that many of these ghetto asshole's, have no qualification's to do anything other than, push a broom or holding the "traffic flag" in a construction zone..BUT insist on being the project manager, or the lead civil engineer on these projects.
If they could put down the crack pipe for just 5 minutes, maybe..oh nevermind!
actually SCC, what he said was "there are no people of color involved in this project, I'm afraid someone is going to get hurt". He's an asshole, but what he said wasn't a flat out threat.
What Beale means is that his constituents will take the CTA to the north side and hurt some human beings while stealing their cell phones unless everyone in Englewood gets their 'guvment checks increased.
20 year old shithead arrested today after stealing a yuppie's cell phone near Belmont on the Red Line. 20 years old, on parole, parole violation warrant, 5 page rap sheet, failed to get a multi million $$ contract to do structural steel work on the Englewood flyover, got pissed, started stealing smartphones in hopes he would get smarter through cerebral osmosis. Didn't work.
Anonymous said...
actually SCC, what he said was "there are no people of color involved in this project, I'm afraid someone is going to get hurt". He's an asshole, but what he said wasn't a flat out threat.
6/02/2012 09:52:00 PM
This isn't a threat either, you are a fucking softball.
Anonymous said...
Same guy that wants to eliminate CPD uniform and duty availability checks. Fuck him! He needs to be dealt with.
6/01/2012 12:53:00 PM
I am afraid someone might get hurt if we lose any of our pay or benefits or pension.
Post a Comment
<< Home