CHICAGO | Politics and Current Events

[bnk]

It's got to be a Daley

"Chicago ain't ready for reform yet"
Paddy Bauler




'Paddy' Bauler (January 27, 1890 – August 22, 1977) was an American saloonkeeper and alderman of the 43rd ward of Chicago from 1933 to 1943 and again from 1947 to 1967. He was known as a corrupt, controversial and charismatic Chicago political boss and is famous for the quote, "Chicago ain't ready for reform yet",or "Chicago ain't ready for a reform mayor" which he exclaimed many times over while dancing a jig in his saloon upon the news of Richard J. Daley's first election as mayor of Chicago in 1955. Mayor Daley banned Bauler from attending public functions for a time shortly after the quote was published. He was the brother of Herman and John Bauler, who had respectively been aldermen from 1909 to 1911 and 1912 to 1920 when the area was part of the 22nd ward

[lakeshoredrive]

Originally Posted by bnk

It's got to be a Daley

"Chicago ain't ready for reform yet"
Paddy Bauler




'Paddy' Bauler (January 27, 1890 – August 22, 1977) was an American saloonkeeper and alderman of the 43rd ward of Chicago from 1933 to 1943 and again from 1947 to 1967. He was known as a corrupt, controversial and charismatic Chicago political boss and is famous for the quote, "Chicago ain't ready for reform yet",or "Chicago ain't ready for a reform mayor" which he exclaimed many times over while dancing a jig in his saloon upon the news of Richard J. Daley's first election as mayor of Chicago in 1955. Mayor Daley banned Bauler from attending public functions for a time shortly after the quote was published. He was the brother of Herman and John Bauler, who had respectively been aldermen from 1909 to 1911 and 1912 to 1920 when the area was part of the 22nd ward

no thank you. we do not need another daley to blow up the deficit.

[Kenmore]

mendoza will be mayor

[Steely Dan]

^ if she plays her cards right, that's certainly very possible.

she ticks a lot of boxes.

she's experienced and mainstream enough for city power players to be comfortable with.

she's a woman. that seems to be a big thing in politics at the moment (looking nationally at the recent women's wave in the US house).

she's of mexican ancestry. chicago has never had a mexican ancestry mayor before, and while she won't excite the more progressive end of that ethnic group, i could see a lot of rank and file mexican-americans in the city coalescing behind her to have their own "harold" moment.



but she's already mis-stepped with her "age" comments the other day. she'll need to be more disciplined than that if she wants to win.

[Steely Dan]

he's back......

Fioretti runs again: Joins crowded race to replace Mayor Rahm Emanuel
ByFran Spielman

Four years after finishing fourth out of five mayoral candidates, former Ald. Bob Fioretti (2nd) on Friday jumped into the way more crowded race to replace Mayor Rahm Emanuel.

Fioretti updated the Friends of Bob Fioretti campaign committee he used to challenge County Board President Toni Preckwinkle in the Democratic primary and turned it into a mayoral campaign committee.

Contacted late Friday, Fioretti said he’s been “looking at” running for mayor again for months and finally decided to take the plunge.

“All I’m hearing is the same old, same old. Same people. Same establishment candidates with the same approach to the same problems. We need solutions we can deal with here,” he said.

full article: https://chicago.suntimes.com/news/fi...l-preckwinkle/






and then there were 18:


Dorothy Brown

Gery Chico

Bill Daley

Amara Enyia

BoB Fioretti

La Shawn Ford

Ja'Mal Green

Jerry Joyce

William Kelly

John Kozlar

Lori Lightfoot

Garry McCarthy

Susana Mendoza

Toni Preckwinkle

Neal Sales-Griffin

Paul Vallas

William 'Dock' Walls

Willie Wilson




expect a lot of these to drop out after the filing deadline on the 26th.

[left of center]

^ Jesus, what a circus.

Three quarters of the list have absolutely no job running for any public office (including the one they may currently have), let alone mayor of the city.

Originally Posted by Tom In Chicago

I like Mendoza and Preckwinkle but what are they going to do to attract money from outside the city. . . they're both local candidates with local reach. . . like Rahm, Daley seems to have a greater resources for keeping Chicago on the national/international stage. . .

. . .

This.

I'm not ecstatic about voting for another Daley, but he is the smartest choice out of this lackluster bunch. The vast majority of these candidates are locals who are the big fish in the small pond, and have no connections to powerbrokers in NY or DC that Daley appears to have.

[emathias]

Two things:

First, has anyone else been getting a lot of spam-type redirects on this site, and only this site? It seems like the site has been hacked. Do moderators or someone investigate things like that?

Second, I saw the new movie "Widows" last night. I liked it quite a bit, and in some ways it's almost a companion piece to the Stars series "Boss." Anyone else seen it yet?

[SIGSEGV]

First, has anyone else been getting a lot of spam-type redirects on this site, and only this site? It seems like the site has been hacked. Do moderators or someone investigate things like that?

I haven't seen anything of that sort... but I use uBlock Origin on all my Firefoxes (works on Android too... no idea about iOS.).

[Kngkyle]

Daley’s goal: 3 million Chicagoans or bust

Seeking to break through the clutter of a race filled with 21 candidates, mayoral hopeful Bill Daley today said one of his prime goals, if elected, would be to rebuild Chicago's population to at least three million people.

In a speech to the City Club and comments later to reporters, Daley argued that Chicago's economic and fiscal problems are so great that the only way out is to grow the city—literally.

"Our tax base is not big enough meet our obligations and provide the services we need," he said, emphasizing that much of the drop in the city's population from a peak of more than 3.6 million in 1950 to around 2.7 million now has been among African-Americans. Just since 1980, Daley said, Chicago's black population has dropped 400,000—"more than the size of Cleveland . . . We cannot accept that success in part of Chicago is good enough. We have to make this city work for everyone."

.....

https://www.chicagobusiness.com/greg...agoans-or-bust


Also said he isn't opposed to a state constitutional amendment to reduce pension liabilities, suggested that more schools may need to be closed, a commuter tax on non-city residents, and is in favor of the recently announced $1.5b in TIF funds for infrastructure at Lincoln Yards, The 78, and River District.

I wonder if growing the city population via annexation is on the table.

[BorisMolotov]

But where would you annex? I think it's ridiculous that there are as many municipalities as there are in Illinois, specifically Chicagoland - you don't see this level of fracture really anywhere else in the country, but would any bordering cities really want to annex themselves into Chicago? Or moreover, any cities or villages that would actually benefit Chicago's tax roll? I can't imagine Hometown, Calumet Park, or Burnham would provide much in the way of population or significant tax revenue. You could forget about anything to the north and most of the west side as well.

[the urban politician]

I think that suburbs should merge with eachother, if not with Chicago.

Not sure why nobody has explored this idea

[BorisMolotov]

^ I agree with you, however too many suburbs are for whatever reason fiercely independent. We saw this with the failed (and weird) Naperville attempted annexation of Woodridge and Warrenville.

[tjp]

What do you guys think of the commuter tax? I worry it would stymie the movement of jobs downtown and offset any benefit of increased tax revenue, but I really haven't thought or read much about it.

[Steely Dan]

^ on the surface, it seems like a potentially terribly idea that could kill off downtown's current momentum, but i too need to read more about the specifics.

[IrishIllini]

https://www.chicagobusiness.com/greg...agoans-or-bust

Thoughts?

[left of center]

Sources: Federal agents raid powerful Chicago Ald. Ed Burke's City Hall office
Source: https://www.chicagotribune.com/news/...129-story.html

Federal agents raided the City Hall office of longtime powerful Chicago Ald. Ed Burke Thursday morning, sources familiar with the development confirmed.

Agents arrived at the office early Thursday morning, told employees to leave and papered over the glass windows at the office’s entrance to conceal the investigation going on inside, a source confirmed. A woman who left the office and did not identify herself said FBI agents were inside.

Burke’s office did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

Burke is the longtime chairman of the City Council’s Finance Committee, where he controls much of the legislative purse strings at City Hall. He has held office since 1969 and is running for re-election to a record 14th term.

[left of center]

Originally Posted by the urban politician

I think that suburbs should merge with eachother, if not with Chicago.

Not sure why nobody has explored this idea

We have literally dozens of suburbs with populations under 5,000 residents, and a handful under 1,000 residents (McCook: 230, Forest View: 700, Bedford Park: 580, etc). Start with those first, and work our way up. Any suburb under 10k residents should be pushed to amalgamate with neighbors in order to achieve tax savings through economies of scale.

[left of center]

Originally Posted by tjp

What do you guys think of the commuter tax? I worry it would stymie the movement of jobs downtown and offset any benefit of increased tax revenue, but I really haven't thought or read much about it.

Against. We don't need to make the city look like more of having a high tax burden than it already does.

If the city is looking for additional tax revenue, why not legalize slots? City residents are already playing them. Berwyn has the highest per capita gaming licenses in IL, mostly due to the fact that Chicago (and neighboring Cicero) do not allow gaming parlors.

Marijuana revenue will also help the city in the future as well, so long as Pritzker (and now Madigan) make good on their support for legalization.

[LouisVanDerWright]

Chicago will start annexing suburbs again in 10-20 years as they begin to fall to the same issues that plagued Chicago in the second half of the 20th century. The depreciation cycle in these burbs is heavily synced and a lot of places are getting old and shitty quickly. Turns out not that many people want a 1950's or 60's ranch home that hasn't been updated in 50 years and is loaded with asbestos. At some point certain suburbs will pass the point of no return where they essentially collapse like many Chicago neighborhoods did post-war. However, they will be unable to ever see good times again without a larger municipality to carry they until things can be fixed as Chicago has carried it's South and West sides. I don't see a way out for a place like Maywood or some of the south burbs once they go ghetto. The only way to get additional resources will be annexation on Chicago which is much the same reasoning why so many burbs were annexing around the turn of the century. Chicago offered transit and financial resources those burbs needed to transform from pseudo farming communities to actual developed areas. Same will happen in a couple of decades once Chicago has cleared out more of its inventory of downtrodden neighborhoods and offers resources and expertise to adjoining burbs that are down on their luck.

Originally Posted by left of center

Sources: Federal agents raid powerful Chicago Ald. Ed Burke's City Hall office
Source: https://www.chicagotribune.com/news/...129-story.html

Federal agents raided the City Hall office of longtime powerful Chicago Ald. Ed Burke Thursday morning, sources familiar with the development confirmed.

Agents arrived at the office early Thursday morning, told employees to leave and papered over the glass windows at the office’s entrance to conceal the investigation going on inside, a source confirmed. A woman who left the office and did not identify herself said FBI agents were inside.

Burke’s office did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

Burke is the longtime chairman of the City Council’s Finance Committee, where he controls much of the legislative purse strings at City Hall. He has held office since 1969 and is running for re-election to a record 14th term.

Go directly to Jail, do not pass Go, do not collect $200...

Excellent news, maybe the Feds are about to show up and clean up these alderman now that Aldermanic Perogative and it's abuse has moved into the public spotlight. If Burke goes down you can bet your ass a bunch of lower alderbeasties will bite the bullet as well. He is basically the last remaining center of the clout machine in City Hall and all things clout go through him. I can't imagine what goodies the Feds might find in that office. I know for sure that several alderman like Moreno who are known for abusing their power learned it from Burke and are likely tied to him in enough ways to get their own offices raided after this...

[Via Chicago]

bout time