Friday, March 29, 2013

$100 Million Loan

  • A $100 million federal loan to build an urban playground along the Chicago River downtown is a "done deal," outgoing U.S. Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood said Thursday.

    Appearing along the river with LaHood, Mayor Rahm Emanuel said he expects groundbreaking for the extension of the Riverwalk to take place in 2014. The six-block project would run along the south bank from State Street to West Lake Street.
The national economy is tanking, our pensions system is broken beyond almost all chance of repair, Illinois credit rating is in the tank and Rahm is pleading broke with every union in the city.

But he can secure $100 million for this?

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102 Comments:

Anonymous Anonymous said...

Rahm can pay it back because he has no intent on fixing our woefully underfunded pension.

3/29/2013 02:30:00 AM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

I dont believe for one moment this is a loan, more like a grant. The word loan looks better in the papers.

3/29/2013 03:16:00 AM  
Anonymous SAN ANTONIO RIVERWALK said...

I know Chicago. Chicago is NOT San Antonio.

Y'all still spending FIFTY-FIVE MILLION DOLLARS [$55,000,000.00] to canonize the dead wife of that corrupt rat motherfucker?

3/29/2013 03:18:00 AM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Retired city workers will be sleeping on the benches and eating out of the garbage cans in this park.

3/29/2013 03:20:00 AM  
Anonymous THE RACCOON said...

It's for the children!

3/29/2013 03:31:00 AM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Go to know for up coming contract negotiations.

3/29/2013 03:31:00 AM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

It's ok, he's using our pension fund as collateral. No worries.

3/29/2013 03:38:00 AM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

New Chicago Game Show Called.

WHO'S HOT SPOT IS IT?

Oh look, this group on the CTA is prolly on their way to the river walk

They must of got on right after his royal hinest and his security entoruge got off. No it's safe, really.

3/29/2013 03:49:00 AM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Wait til the NATO inspired tourist see this. Entertaimetn on the CTA

Come-on down to the World-Class city of Chicago now.

Ay. how come this entertainment ain't on Rahm's train?

3/29/2013 04:31:00 AM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Of course he can. Fuck You Rahmy!!!

3/29/2013 04:49:00 AM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

They will name it after Patrick Daley. So don't you worry about nothing.

3/29/2013 05:24:00 AM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

100 million + interest + cost overruns = 500 million. No???

3/29/2013 05:37:00 AM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Don't forget about Maggie park.

3/29/2013 05:46:00 AM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Even better...We can get $100 million for a 6 block stretch...That's 16.6 million per block...And it's Shitcago, so the cost overruns will at least triple that figure.....

3/29/2013 05:48:00 AM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Well, we can't run White House tours with volunteers at 18k a week either. But the Obama girls are on their third vacation of the year, their pop fires up the 747 every other day for a round of golf, and "Shotgun Joe" Biden's hotel room bill was half a million for one night in Paris.

What's another 10th of a Billion for a playground?

3/29/2013 06:01:00 AM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Didnt a city do this beforeand halfway through the project learned they could not pay for all the improvements. The conected got rich and moved on the public got a half ass job and the bill. Who is connected in Chicago. Another couple of million in Rhams pocket for nothing and he is out of here.

3/29/2013 06:02:00 AM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

That $100dollars could be better spent creating a downtown prison. We can create more revenue by allowing tourists to visit the Lakefront jail and see Chicago's Honor students behind bars.

3/29/2013 06:04:00 AM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

is this the same LaHood from Pale Rider?

3/29/2013 06:57:00 AM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Make that $94million, after the Feds deduct the $6mil that the city's on the hook for from the O'Hare snow-removal. But still, like the city really needs this fucking play ground...!

3/29/2013 07:01:00 AM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

and not one member of the so called media asked how Rahm can get 100 mil loan for a riverwalk a day after thousands march against closing schools because the city is broke

3/29/2013 07:02:00 AM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Don't forget that Rahm is also pushing to rebuild Malcolm X College for close to a half million dollars (the existing college is obsolete after less than forty-five years -- translation the vandals have wrecked the place and the salaried patronage deadbeats have not done routine maintenance) which will magically transform the West Side and turn illiterates into contributing members of society. Talk about bad medicine.

In other news, pigs can now fly.

3/29/2013 07:15:00 AM  
Anonymous JAFO said...

With that much money, I would fix some other part of the city.

If it can only be earmarked for some type of infrastructure improvement, I would NOT put it where they want to put it.

Build something fresh and new in an underdeveloped part of the lakefront or river (if it has to be adjacent to water).

As for getting payroll money, the answer is very easy. CUT THE NUMBER OF ALDERMEN to 20 or 25. Then you free up millions for real work that has to be accomplished in the city.

This isn't rocket science. Cut half the Aldermen and their bloated perks.

Not a LEO, JAFO

3/29/2013 07:31:00 AM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

which politically connected construction firms will get a piece of the action--- all will be contributors to rahmbo's slush fund....

3/29/2013 07:34:00 AM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Just another place to walk through and be victimized.

3/29/2013 07:43:00 AM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

I said it before I will say it again, the city is not broke they always have money for what they want. But the unions and media believe the mayor when he cries poor! Just tell the mayor to build another park! How about Pension Park!! Once again us first responders mean nothing to him except the ones standing around him on the train!

3/29/2013 07:56:00 AM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Is there any doubt when you idiots keep electing Democrats - who got us in this situation - a bunch of bleeding hearts - NO ONE IS EVER HELD ACCOUNTABLE - with the exception of the lowest guy on the totem pole

3/29/2013 08:05:00 AM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

What's the problem? This project will cover SIX whole blocks so it's only $16.6 million per block, money well spent donchaknow?

3/29/2013 08:12:00 AM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Why is the federal Department of Transportation handing out loans for cities to build playgrounds? Let me guess, they'll want to regulate swingsets and merry go rounds next?

3/29/2013 08:16:00 AM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

What a waste of money, but then again DEMOCRATS IN ACTION once again

3/29/2013 08:17:00 AM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

I call dibs on the (stolt) IPhone For Ca$h vending machine concession.
Chicago's Riverfront Crip Walk.

3/29/2013 08:25:00 AM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Arbitrator Benn you watching this?

3/29/2013 08:26:00 AM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Ah...another place for disadvantaged yutes to pillage and plunder.

3/29/2013 08:32:00 AM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

It's a two-for-one:

It they don't spend money on this shit, the no-bid contractors can't skim the money via change-orders and then pass on the kick-backs to the politicians.

They claim a decrease in unemployment (around election time, Rham's or 2016 Congressional).

What else could it be? No way, no how, in an economy like this do we need to spend money like this, on this -- half of it borrowed...all if it printed and diluting hard earned savings by Joe Schmoe.

3/29/2013 08:37:00 AM  
Blogger I Fart In Your General Direction said...

And still you stupid Sheep will write parking tickets and impound cars because the boss says you can't work that early car if your "activity" doesn't come up.

Now go make more revenue for these assholes, you spineless bastards. And be sure to sock away those VRI check in investments to offset your greatly dimisinshed pensions (if you still even have one).

And some of you wonder why the CPD is the laughing stock of law enforcement. Keep nibbling that carrot on the stick that Rahm & Co. are dangling in your face.

3/29/2013 08:46:00 AM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

So it is 100 million dollar loan…..for a project we don’t know how much it will cost. What is the total cost?
They say 70% will come from boat operators…..so 30% from taxpayers?…which would be 30 million!
Who pays for the overages, extras, change orders?
The city is broke…the county is broke…the state is broke…the country is broke….
Who loans money on a project they do not even know the cost of?
If no loan…..how can it be a done deal?

This news story highlights what is wrong with government and journalism.
Poor planning and nobody asking the right questions.

3/29/2013 08:49:00 AM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Rahm has access to lots of money, but he only uses it on things HE wants.

He refuses to use it to pay the city's existing obligations.

3/29/2013 08:52:00 AM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

PRIORITIES (lost)

3/29/2013 09:08:00 AM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

One of my fond memories of that "riverwalk" is when, as a wagon man in the early '80s, the marine unit (or fire boat, the scotch does that to your memory) left a bagged floater for us to transport on one of the few benches down there, then left the scene to go to eat. That guy would have been down there a month if we didn't actually look for him. The tourists would probably get a kick out of that these days.

3/29/2013 09:12:00 AM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Just like Daley spent the parking meter money ahead of receiving it, Rahm will spend Casino money before the first Roulette Wheel is spun!

3/29/2013 09:19:00 AM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

As police and firemen we need to stand together and stand up to the city.

3/29/2013 09:22:00 AM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

He does not care about our pensions that is why he will never try to get any funding to fix them. He is telling us fix them our selves while he keeps trying to change the laws so he does not have to pay what is already required by law. Our health and welfare is not important to him only his legacy just like Daley. Just another RAT...

3/29/2013 09:41:00 AM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

c'mon, lets all put on our skinny jeans and go on down! That sight alone woll stop this nonsense cold

3/29/2013 09:45:00 AM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Does that mean the turkeys won't be able to turn the Chicago River piss green on St. Patricks Day (the saint who emigrated from Spain)!

3/29/2013 10:05:00 AM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

"But he can secure $100 million for this?"


It's for the children, so it's all good.


rb

3/29/2013 10:15:00 AM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Guaranteed it will become a piss bum and dealer hang out just like the park at State and Vanburen that I believe was also built with the feds money. Its like a weed shopping bazaar for the Superdorm idiots. What a fucking waste!

3/29/2013 10:26:00 AM  
Blogger Mr. SouthSide said...

To Rahm parks are important...,we are not.

3/29/2013 10:37:00 AM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

It will be a place for the Michigan ave Flash Mobs to regroup

3/29/2013 10:49:00 AM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Another example of government wasteful spending and misplaced priorities. There are roads and bridges here that needed repair for years and pensions that have been neglected for years, but building another park in a city already full of them is more important.

3/29/2013 10:56:00 AM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Why no thugs in the artist rendering? This is a waste of money that IL and Chi don't have. Today is Good Friday as we mark the 10th anniversary of another jerk who authorized the tearing up of Mieg's Field so Chi could have another park.
MS

3/29/2013 11:05:00 AM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

When will the grant for a barbed wire fence be approved to cover the entire riverwalk ?

3/29/2013 11:10:00 AM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

100 million to dress up a pig. It's still a pig. The Chicago River is polluted and in some areas contaminated. 100 million isn't going to improve decades of using it as a garbage can. During floods the tampons and condoms do a dance on the water.

3/29/2013 11:18:00 AM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Thank You, Mr. Mayor for setting priorities. Build a friggin river walk with money that could be used for pensions and police. Or how bout some new police cars? Really? A friggin river walk!?

3/29/2013 12:24:00 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

OT, ..Speaking of money. I tried explaining dollar cost averaging to the cops at work when the market dumped in 07 and 09. I said stay with the equities, they will come back, the market always does. They said I was wrong. Foolish for staying with stocks. They were getting out...and they did. My deferred just bumped over 325 g's. The ship has come in sorta like the Queen Mary and they missed it... Its true.people who laugh last do laugh best..

3/29/2013 12:52:00 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Holy fuck people in this town are dumb as a box of rocks!

Read some of the comments!

"It's a loan"... NO SHIT! A LOAN! As in something you have to PAY BACK!

These people are clueless! They think .gov money just grows on trees or something.

Hopefully we can plant a dozen of those .gov money trees in this park!

3/29/2013 12:53:00 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Oh Joy!!! A new park to eat dog food in when I retire! Fuck a park! Fuck the mayor! Fuck all so called leaders! They can quit stealing & pay what they owe. THAT would be a headline

3/29/2013 01:27:00 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Even I have to say -- the mayor closed half of the city's mental health clinics, but he can find money for this artist's-conception-type s__t?

LIfe is an abstraction to these people -- if they ever look up from their stock ticker app.

3/29/2013 01:31:00 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

ENOUGH of the 'new'.
How about we just maintain the 'already got it'?
And put any available money toward digging out of the hole and getting this city back to 'break-even'.

3/29/2013 01:32:00 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

You forgot to mention the sequester!

3/29/2013 01:35:00 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

This doesn't surprise me at all. That's sad.

3/29/2013 01:46:00 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

No money for Police, Fire, schools, teachers or pensions but he can find it for this....Wish the Aldermen or someone would stand up to this fool.....

3/29/2013 01:56:00 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Why don't we,as tax payers, get to vote on this project?
Is it to late for us as the general public to say, no, we don't want this at a cost of a $100 million dollar loan?

3/29/2013 02:09:00 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Pension? Fuck your pensions!


That shifty eyed freak LaHood (what an appropriate name) is servicing the Combine well.

More swag for the connected builders!

3/29/2013 03:10:00 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

The "Pork King of Illinois" strikes again. It was nice to be rid of him for a while.
For what my opinion is worth, I'd say he's setting up some contributions to his personal pension fund from contractor contributions to augment his Federal one when he leaves Washington. Id like to see the U.S. Attorney for the Northern District of Illinois keep a very close watch on who gets the contracts for this barrel of pork.
Cui bono?

3/29/2013 03:11:00 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Chicago priorities as usual. Playground is obviously more important that officer safety and hiring more cops.

3/29/2013 03:33:00 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...


According to the US Census the population of Chicago is estimated to be 2,707,120 people and 21.4% of those people (579,323) are living below the povety level.

Those numbers are 2011 estimates.

This is 2013.

I think it's safe to say that Chicago has at least 25% of its people living below poverty level today.

On what do I base that? The fact that the number of people depending on the Food Stamp system has grown at just under 10% over the last year alone.

The fact that Chicago's unemployment jumped from 9.8% in Jan to 10.3% in Feb .

How many Chicagoans are going to benefit from this $100 million dollar six city block long fiasco?

How many Chicagoans are going to benfit from a $55 million dollar Maggie Daley park and six-figure per mile bike paths?

We have no money for education of the children that we will all look forward to one day in the future to have good jobs, compete and support our infrastructure and our pensions, our retirement, our healthcare. But we have money for this b.s.

The mayor is selling us all out for a fast buck.

Chicago doesn't have a mayor. Chicago has a King! Like medival times the churls of the kingdom are expected to beg the King for favors while the King picks and chooses the winners and losers at his discretion.

No-one held the royal Daley family accountable for ripping up Meigs Field in the middle of the night and so the rape, pillage, and plundering goes on...

So do the math.. The river walk will cost a full-time min-wage WalMart worker that is living day to day hand to mouth at least a full days pay.

What are they getting in return? Where's their return on investment?

The last thing they need is a river walk, a tibute park to an ex-mayors wife or a golden brick bike path.

3/29/2013 03:41:00 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

build a $55 million dollar park right next to an existing park then blow $100 million on a riverwalk but put continue to put band aids on the crime issue. Continue to allow emergency personal's equipment to age and fall into disrepair. Dont pay for new cars for Police or fire, watch what happens to your parks and riverwalks when no one is there to keep them safe.

3/29/2013 03:46:00 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...


Close down 54 schools to "save" oh it will enable savings.

Savings, how could you not like savings? It's so alltruistic?

They use their new math to project it will save what? $560 million dollars OVER TEN YEARS!

It always sound so impressive, the savings does, when you plug in whatever rate of inflation you like to make the numbers look good no matter if they are anywhere near reality.

HEY! When you gonna learn?

It's the same game with our pensions.

They plug in some number, let's say it's 8% and tell us that the pensions should earn 8% this year from investments and so we don't need to make a pension contribution.

Out right theft.

10 year US treasuries are earning under 2%. The S&P, the stock market is just now at what it was back in 2007. Hell at 8% compounded interest the value should double after nine or ten years. Is the S&P any where near double?

Nevertheless, using their numbers: $55 million for Maggie park would of kept 54 schools open for another year. $100 million for a river walk would of kept 54 schools open for two more years on top of that. Now we're at three year with no school closings. Close just 27 schools and that wasted money on parks and paths could of kept 27 schools open for six years. Not to mention what the money from the parking meters and parking garages could of done. Money wasted on bike paths. Money wasted on Cease Fire.

Money wasted on Taste of Chicago.

How could the World-Class city not have a Taste? If we cut the money losing Taste we won't be able to look like big shots funneling money to Hollywood types. So if we blow a few more million it's "necessary" because the Kings issued an edict saying so.

Pretty sick of it all.

3/29/2013 04:03:00 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Lisa our next govenor Nora Conroy Daley is our next mayor and Little Tommy Bryne is our next supt i will a 100 million on that and Patrick Daley is an idiot.

3/29/2013 04:22:00 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Maybe Rahm banks at the same place as Eddie Caranza.

3/29/2013 04:29:00 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

It will be used by the piss-bums to beg for change!

Streetwise

3/29/2013 04:31:00 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

This loan is to be paid back by the taxpayers regardless of whether the constructed improvements ever generate any revenue to the city or not. It is borrowing. Has to be paid. Taxpayers are on the hook. Can't be borrowed in the bond market so borrowed from the Feds. Will need to be paid by taxpayers. City council blindly signs off.

3/29/2013 04:55:00 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Don't forget that Rahm is also pushing to rebuild Malcolm X College for close to a half million dollars (the existing college is obsolete after less than forty-five years -- translation the vandals have wrecked the place and the salaried patronage deadbeats have not done routine maintenance) which will magically transform the West Side and turn illiterates into contributing members of society. Talk about bad medicine.

In other news, pigs can now fly.

3/29/2013 07:15:00 AM


that's half a Billion dollars, just to begin what he's planning on spending $7+ Billion on.

3/29/2013 05:01:00 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Keep nibbling that carrot on the stick that Rahm & Co. are dangling in your face.

3/29/2013 08:46:00 AM




that's not a carrot.

3/29/2013 05:16:00 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

well.....to the masses....why not just stop "working?"....

3/29/2013 05:19:00 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

I left a comment in the Sun Times web edition about this story reminding voters that the increased payments to our pension funds under state law SB 3538 must start to be paid at about the same time that this "loan" comes due; asking where the money will come from.
Checked for responses 1/2 an hour later and noticed the the comment section was disabled. Just a coincidence I'm sure.

3/29/2013 05:21:00 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

I so wish the MSM, LSM, whoever, would cover this vs. gun violence, and the corrupt, broken God-forsaken town we live in and not let up.

--No Cop Here

3/29/2013 05:43:00 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Don't know if it's ok to copy this from another SCC thread, but this is some seriously scary shit. The ballerina's brother sounds like a complete nut job---a seriously DANGEROUS nut job. Read the article linked at the bottom--it will scare the beejesus out of you. At least it did me! I hope he and Rahm get cancer next week. Before you judge my comment, read the article!

Anonymous said...
"When rahm isn't doing his civil servant deed as the mayor of Chicago, he moonlights riding the train to elderly people's houses as dr kevorkian. Assisting in the death/euthanization of elderly people by politicians is all part of the new medical laws that were not yet printed in the Obamacare bill when it was passed."

3/28/2013 06:56:00 AM

That would be Rahm's brother, Obama's health care advisor and eugenicist, Dr. Ezekiel Emanuel.

"LET OLD PEOPLE DIE WITH NO MEDICAL CARE," SAYS MAYOR EMANUEL'S BROTHER EZEKIEL

"...services that promote the continuation of the polity—those that ensure healthy future generations, ensure development of practical reasoning skills, and ensure full and active participation by citizens in public deliberations—are to be socially guaranteed as basic. Covering services provided to individuals who are irreversibly prevented from being or becoming participating citizens are not basic, and should not be guaranteed. An obvious example is not guaranteeing health services to patients with dementia."
(Hastings Center Report, November-December, 1996)

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970203706604574374463280098676.html

Young and vigorous people can buy their Lollapalooza tickets now for $200 per. See Ari Emanuel, around the back.

3/29/2013 01:08:00 PM

3/29/2013 06:22:00 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Anonymous said...
OT, ..Speaking of money. I tried explaining dollar cost averaging to the cops at work when the market dumped in 07 and 09. I said stay with the equities, they will come back, the market always does. They said I was wrong. Foolish for staying with stocks. They were getting out...and they did. My deferred just bumped over 325 g's. The ship has come in sorta like the Queen Mary and they missed it... Its true.people who laugh last do laugh best..

3/29/2013 12:52:00 PM

You are an ASSHAT. Cost-average that. Zero + zero = 0. It's a wonder your co-workers haven't stuffed shit in your mouth yet.

3/29/2013 06:33:00 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Another park for the suburbanites I'll never use.

Hey, Rahm ... some people fucking LIVE HERE. Take care of the shit WE NEED.

This ain't Disneyland you midget prick.

3/29/2013 06:42:00 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

TD 9.5 is a total shortshanks. Two jags from the same bag. Fuck him and his $100M riverwalk.

3/29/2013 06:56:00 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

So there is NO MONEY for fireworks, no money for Taste, no money for Venetian Night, no money for pensions, no money for pothole repair, no money for schools, no money, no money...
But now we can start a new FESTIVAL honoring the Chicago Fire?
We are honoring a FIRE?
Rahm Emanuel has officially lost his mind.

3/29/2013 07:25:00 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

This is like a person with maxed out credit cards, house in foreclosure, car repossessed, borrowing money to remodel their bathrooms.

3/29/2013 08:53:00 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Don't forget Maggie Daley park, the numerous new Uno schools, and it seems that every park is getting extremely expensive turf fields. These only benefit the connected, contractors, designers, architect, engineering consulting firms etc...

3/29/2013 09:27:00 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

This little jagoff is such an asshole it's beyond belief. Whose going to police it,Navy Seals?Put the money where it will do some good you little idiot.

3/29/2013 09:59:00 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

This is pitiful. How can the city keep crying broke and come up with this? And I don't know what, if anything, we residents can do about it. It seems that there are no reins on the ridiculous, unneeded, and useless projects this city can come up with, nor are there any reins on the mayor, aldercreatures, and city hall as a whole. If I had any ideas, I would put them forth, but I don't. And to the federal government (mr president), shame on you for allowing this. All this talk about closing schools, cutting pensions and programs because the city is broke is a pile of shit. You all need to put the money where it would do most good, not on a fancy urban playground. Who goes there anyway? Hell, there are enough things up that way already. Most of the regular working people (aka URBANites) in this city can't go downtown to a playground. After working a full shift most just take the kids to the neighborhood park, and those are sorely lacking as it is. So, who is this really for? Mayoral self aggrandizement? Tourists? Or is this just putting a band-aid on all the other sores in this crap city to make it look good? If it is, a much bigger band-aid is needed.

3/29/2013 10:11:00 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Oh man...social media has Rahm and his b.s. about "the children" and with regard to school closings on BLAST.

shocking-rahms-shock-doctrine

..via thenation.com

...Stunning, stunning, stunning: As even the district’s official school closing documents acknowledge, the number “145,000” refers to the number of Chicagoans between the ages of 0 and 19 the city has lost, a large number of which are not even school age, many of those who are school-aged not being CPS students. So Apples to Apples ran the numbers of students CPS has actually lost: only about 30,000, about a fifth of their mendacious claim. It’s enough to make an honest person want to scream.

Here, meanwhile, are other statistics—accurate statistics. Five schools, almost a fifth of the total, are in the Carbrini-Green ward, the 27th—a prime area for gentrification over which real estate developers salivate. (Here’s Mrs. Harris: “I think the reason they really wanna close this school here is because of the land. I don’t know how much these homes cost, over here, or condos—$200,000?”) The area is dotted with high-performing magnet schools; but of course none of the Manierre kids are being reassigned to those—they’re being assigned to a school that’s 98 percent black. Eighty percent of students affected by school closings, in fact, are black; but only 40 percent of students as a whole in the system are black. (Signs hoisted on the dais of the rally on Daley Plaza starred the faces of African-American heroes whose names adorn some of the schools being closed: writer Henry Dumas. Singer Mahalia Jackson. Eighteenth-century scientist Benjamin Banneker.)

“Everybody on the board did not look at this decision as numbers on a spreadsheet,” said Rahm at his sunburned Saturday press conference. “We looked at it and viewed it as what can we do to have every child have a high-quality education regardless of their neighborhood, regardless of their circumstances, regardless of where they live.” Yeah, right. There is a reasonable suspicion that a lot of these shuttered schools are going to be turned over to charter operators. In 2012, belying every “underutilization” claim, the school board announced plans to open 100 new charter, “turnaround” and “contract” schools over the next five years. Considering that fact, here are some other accurate statistics concerning the United Neighborhood Organization, or UNO, the city’s most prominent charter company, whose CEO, Juan Rangel, is a major supporter of Mayor Emanuel. $1.5 million: the amount a company owned by the brother of a top UNO executive, Miguel d’Escoto, got for work as the “owner’s representative” for UNO school construction. $10 million: the amount another d’Escoto brother stands to make installing windows in UNO schools. $98 million: the amount of the state grant to UNO for school construction from which this beneficence derives.

it’s about real people vs. really rich people, read another of the Daley Plaza placards—rich people like school board president David Vitale, the former CEO of the Chicago Board of Trade, vice chairman fo the DNP Select Income Fund, board member for United Continental Holdings, for which he was paid $216,688 in 2011....

You see why Chicago teachers are angry. And why they’re not going away. And why they promise more civil disobedience. “So lemme tell you what you’re gonna do,” shouted Karen Lewis at the rally. “On the first day of school, you show up at your real school! You show up at your real school! Don’t let these people take your schools.” They just might. They’ve beat Rahm before. They could beat him again.


read the entire thing

3/29/2013 10:16:00 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

I bet 10% of the money comes back to rahm in shoe boxes...why else would we be building all these projects when we're broke, it's the way they steal from us.

3/29/2013 10:22:00 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Are they naming anything else for Maggie Daley? Has she been honored enough for being married to the stuttering prick? Damn, maybe sainthood is next for her, married to Mayor Mumbles and mother to the thug alcoholic bum Patrick. Yeah, maybe she does qualify for something extra for putting up with those two idiots.

3/29/2013 11:02:00 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Always O.P.M. (Other People's Money)

I bet he used our pension fund as collateral.

3/30/2013 02:08:00 AM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

It's for the piss bums , and they will land a man on Mars before they can clean that disgusting cesspool of a river . Retired Marine Unit Sgt

3/30/2013 07:13:00 AM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Dow record close, posts best Q1 since 1998. S&P500 ends above 07 record close.

3/30/2013 07:20:00 AM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

For those that stayed with equity funds thru 07 , you have tripled your money on those shares.

3/30/2013 07:28:00 AM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

I see the state is looking into how the millions of education funds were wpent for UNO and their network of private schools. Rangel, madigan and Burke were seated together, probably discussing how to divvy up more millions of tax payer funds for their family and friends. The state looking into this? Really6? Lisa madigan looking into this? I doubt it. How about a federal grand jury for starters. When you pay your brother 2 million in " management fees", something stinks.

3/30/2013 08:21:00 AM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Just another prime area for wildings to take place......

3/30/2013 09:53:00 AM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Yeah, maybe she does qualify for something extra for putting up with those two idiots.

3/29/2013 11:02:00 PM

Putting up with them? She took part in the creation of one and willingly nurtured both. And she was a partner with the shanks in all of the financial shenanigans and fiascos that have put us behind the eight ball. She qualifies for nothing but contempt. $55M for Maggie Daley Park is a sin.

And, how long is TD 9.5 going to approve security/valet service for the shanks? It has been near two years since the shanks (was forced to step down) retired.

3/30/2013 11:31:00 AM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Yeah, maybe she does qualify for something extra for putting up with those two idiots.

3/29/2013 11:02:00 PM



she was the brains behind the brainless.

3/30/2013 11:50:00 AM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

no money for schools or pensions but.......we can have a nice riverwalk!

3/30/2013 11:57:00 AM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Why aren't we, as Chicago taxpayers, allowed to simply vote on what projects get done and those that don't. Hold a special referendom once a year with a list of projects that will use ANY tax payer funds and let the citizens vote!

3/30/2013 03:58:00 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Why aren't we, as Chicago taxpayers, allowed to simply vote on what projects get done and those that don't. Hold a special referendom once a year with a list of projects that will use ANY tax payer funds and let the citizens vote!

3/30/2013 03:58:00 PM


that would work, in a world not saturated with those partaking of the seven deadly sins.

this world is not that world.

3/30/2013 06:40:00 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Stayed with equity funds in deferred thru high in 07 and low thru 09 , glad I did . Now 350 k.

3/31/2013 12:30:00 AM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

>>>Anonymous said...
I bet 10% of the money comes back to rahm in shoe boxes...why else would we be building all these projects when we're broke, it's the way they steal from us.

3/29/2013 10:22:00 PM<<<

Now that rings a bell!

How many of you are old enough to remember Illinois Secretary of State Paul Powell. When he was the S.O.S. you made out your checks for licenses simply to "Paul Powell". He is famous for the line, "There's only one thing worse than a defeated politician, and that's a broke one." All Democrats ever since follow this philosphy.

I would have loved to have pulled a burglary on that house. He died with all those shoeboxes full of unspent cash.

3/31/2013 12:50:00 AM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

He died with all those shoeboxes full of unspent cash.

3/31/2013 12:50:00 AM



we all leave with what we arrived with, minus the flesh, blood and bone.





Chalkie

3/31/2013 05:17:00 AM  

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