How Navy Pier Spends Money
From our comment section:
- Jon Markel said...Back in 2010 the IL General Assembly privatized Navy Pier so they don't have to share any financial info or respond to any FOIA request. A bunch of connecteds who used to manage the publicly run Navy Pier got big pay raises to do the same job for the private Navy Pier. Mike Madigan rammed the whole deal through in a day with no debate. And as the screw-the-citizens cherry on top of this mess the company selected to run the private Navy Pier was formed one day before the contract was awarded and is owned by John Schmidt, Daley's former chief of staff.
- After reading the Sun-Times piece on Navy Pier that was the subject of last Monday's Papers column, I was curious to see who in our esteemed General Assembly voted for this massive change in how the largest tourist attraction in Illinois and our massive convention center is managed. It took a while to find it because I was looking for something with a title referencing Navy Pier, Metropolitan Pier and Exposition Authority, McCormick Place or similar. Turns out the title I should have been looking for is "SB0028 QUICK-TAKE-COUNTRY CLUB HILLS."
What the what?!
In the end I found out much more than just who voted for the bill. I'm willing to put this forward as Exhibit 1 in how the Illinois General Assembly is subverting democracy and failing the citizens of Illinois.
The original bill when introduced was a run-of-the-mill eminent domain tax district change for Country Club Hills. You can read the entire text in less than two minutes as it was about half a page long when introduced in the Senate in January 2009.
It bounced around there for a while in committee with a few revisions and then, in April 2009, passed overwhelming in the Senate. Once in the House nothing really happened for over a year, and then this lowly one-page bill passed out of committee and went to the full House on May 5, 2010. The very next day Mike Madigan introduced a floor amendment to the bill.
Then the fun really begins with Madigan deleting the entire text of the SB0028 Bill and inserting 187 pages to hide exactly how McCormick Place, Navy Pier and the entire Metropolitan and Pier Exposition Authority were removed from any sort of public oversight, solely to enrich the connected few.
Go read it all. Markel pulls a "Joravsky" with his research.
Go read it all. Markel pulls a "Joravsky" with his research.
Labels: un-fucking-fucking-believable
posted by SCC at 12:21 AM
29 Comments:
Can't someone, somewhere, investigate this and bring charges against these lying, conniving thieves?!?!
What else is new?
Just follow the money. What a corrupt city, county and state. As soon as my time is in, I am out of here and going west.
Forget it Jake, It's Chicago Town.
Just realized, the state has beat me into submission...I'm not even mad anymore.... I should be since they are stealing my tax money...they just beat the outrage out of me
HB0207
Starts by $2 to dept of agriculture. Get passed then amended to change everything after enacted and then costs 570,000,000 for food programs and misc services.
That was looking at one of 22 bills ended by him. its funny that you can look how they are introduce passes amended and become law. And have nothing to do with how all these bills came about.
Naked corruption and thievery is what it is. How can anyone vote for these politicians?
Please let this be the nail to close madigans coffin
This sounds like something our Attorney General should investigate. What's her name again?
Why aren't these criminals in jail?
Maybe they could be made honorary Policemen, then they would be indicted!
Nothing unusual about this, every piece of legislation passed in Illinois starts like this, due to a silly rule that bills must be introduced by some early date for action to be taken. Every session there are thousands of shell bills introduced, and Madigan just picks one to wipe out with a copy/paste when he wants to ram through some piece of legislation.
And yet no federal investigation. Business continues as usual. And the lemmings in this city and state continue to vote these lying thieves in again and again. This whole state deserves to go bankrupt and get flushed down the drain.
That is what I call true journalism. All of the other main stream news media just parrot what the city and corporate bosses tell them. When has the Tribune or Sun Times or a tv news network has every reported anything even remotely something like this? Never!
I said it before when I worked at the Pier part time. Navy Pier exists for the connected. No one else. Not you,not me, not for the taxpayers, not for the citizens or anyone else. Which is why we should NOT go along with this deal the FOP has with the City regarding funding our pensions through a casino. IF they build a casino they will do the exact same thing. They will build it with connected contractors, they will staff it with connected people and it will be run by the chosen few. They will hide it from public oversight and then claim that they are barely making a profit and cannot make the required payments to the pension fund. Right now the law is on our side. Every copper alive should be on the phone demanding that the FOP cancel this deal that they made with the City and demand that the City abide by the law and start making the required payments to the pension fund. If the City is allowed to get away with this all you young guys can kiss your pension goodby. Act now before it's too late.
Not that it really matters. I know that the state attorney general doesn't do anything without daddy's approval but is any of that bullshit legal?
So why does anyone think a casino will pay for pensions? More likely another 'deal' for the connected.
Is that how they did health care bill in the senate?
And now we see where they learned that trick.
Like the Parking Meter deal, leasing a multi billion dollar City revenue producing asset for peanuts and running it through the city Council in a couple of days, rush rush, hurry it up, no need to read it, we must get this done quickly. Why noy simply sell bonds like rahm does now?
But hey what the hell...lets keep voting them back in....or is that rigged too??? How silly of course...
Mikey Madigan is the person who, in my opinion, is the #1 person in the state responsible for the financial issues we have.
Daley;Degnan;Shields(Mrs.Obama)et al and Madigan. This should come under federal investigation if 1 dollar of U.S. Govt' money was used and should be a headline story of lackluster, beat up the Police newspapers.
John Schmidt was the Combine's original candidate for governor in 1998, until he was beat in the primary by Glenn Poshard. The Daley crime family and Illinois Combine then backed and installed Republican George Ryan.
Schmidt has been in the center of this shit for years.
He negotiated the Skyway lease and was balls deep in CHA redevelopment.
Now go get me some fuckin' contact cards!
"Turns out the title I should have been looking for is "SB0028 QUICK-TAKE-COUNTRY CLUB HILLS...." ...the fun really begins with Madigan deleting the entire text of the SB0028 Bill and inserting 187 pages to hide exactly how McCormick Place, Navy Pier and the entire Metropolitan and Pier Exposition Authority were removed from any sort of public oversight, solely to enrich the connected few."
This kind of thing is called "transparency," right?
*
Every one involved into the woodchipper.
Civilian here.
What is the cause of action that you believe that the Feds should be investigating? If one believes that the "bait-and-switch" is illegal, you'll have to file a civil lawsuit (if you can establish "standing" and a recognized legal claim)
As for the casino paying for pensions, does anyone believe this is ever going to happen? Get real. You guys are going to have to sue to get that payment, so start looking for an attorney, boys and girls.
Hello...Better Government Assocation ? Aaaahhhh......Inspector General ? Ooohhh...Oooohh....Illinois Attorney General Lisa Madi-....Forget about it.
Wait till Trump is president! People laugh but he is #2 most popular in New Hampshire, if you want to turn USA around Trump is our man!
Anonymous Anonymous said...
Wait till Trump is president! People laugh but he is #2 most popular in New Hampshire, if you want to turn USA around Trump is our man!
6/24/2015 08:10:00 PM
Great, he can be President of New Hampshire. Or Vice-President of New Hampshire, since he's number two in popularity.
Time to move out.
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