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Mayor Rahm Emanuel today said he erred last month when he said tighter protest rules and higher fines for thwarting police would be temporary measures designed just for a pair of spring meetings of international leaders in Chicago.

“I misspoke, and I take responsibility for the confusion,” Emanuel said at an unrelated news conference. The mayor meant to say that only the blanket spending authority for the G8 and NATO conferences, which he is seeking along with the other measures, would be temporary.

The mayor’s description of his errant statement came after protest leader Andy Thayer, noting today’s Tribune story that explained how the measures were permanent, accused the mayor of lying.

“Mayor Emanuel has frankly lied when he said that these ordinance changes would be temporary,” Thayer said. “He knew what it was about.”

Thayer and other members of the Coalition Against the NATO/G-8 War and Poverty Agenda this morning filed a permit application for a mass march on May 19 that would start at Daley Plaza and end at McCormick Place, where the NATO and G-8 summits are to be held.

Before filing the application, Thayer stood before a throng of television cameras, calling on Emanuel to reverse course on the proposed protest changes and aldermen to reject them before the Jan. 18 City Council meeting.

Don Rose, a political consultant who was an anti-Vietnam War spokesman during the troubled 1968 Democratic National Convention that led to riots, also spoke. He said tougher protest restrictions could trigger “acting out” by frustrated protestors seeking to peaceably demonstrate.

“I was one of the organizers when the whole world was watching, and I see some unfortunate parallels here,” Rose added, saying the “Battle of Michigan Avenue” was touched off in 1968 after marchers took to the sidewalks after being unable to get permits. “If they are serious about protecting first amendment rights, they will expedite and cooperate in giving the parade permits.”

Emanuel’s proposed new rules would double the maximum fine to $1,000 for protestors charged with resisting or obstructing a police officer, as well as those helping protestors escape custody. The minimum fine would soar to $200 — a $175 increase.

The duration of demonstrations would be reduced by 15 minutes to exactly two hours. Public parks and beaches would be closed until 6 a.m., two hours later than now. Loud noise, amplified sound and music at parades and public assemblies would be allowed only between 8 a.m. and 10 p.m.

“Every piece of sound equipment would need to be registered with the city a week in advance,” Thayer said, citing one of the proposed revisions he believes is unworkable. “You can’t predict who’s going to show up with a bullhorn, who’s going to show up with a megaphone or what have you.”

Emanuel, meanwhile, again said his intent is to allow world leaders to meet and conduct their business while also protecting protestors rights to free speech.

“Our fee structure hadn’t been updated in 20 years,” he said of the proposed fine increases. “We’re bringing it more in line.”

The NATO and G-8 summits are scheduled for May 19-21 at McCormick Place. Emanuel has stressed that the event in President Barack Obama’s hometown is a chance to showcase the city, while some observers note riots have resulted in other cities where those groups have met.

Emanuel was back on the job today with a tan after spending much of the last two weeks vacationing with his family in South America. The mayor, his wife, Amy Rule, and his three school-aged children went to Chile and Argentina on a 70-mile white water rafting trip. They also spent their time outdoors fly fishing and hiking, the mayor said. And the Emanuels brought in the New Year in Buenos Aires.

“Every year we try to take the kids to a different part of the world to see,” Emanuel said. “When you grow up again, you want to be an Emanuel child at some point.”

Source: Chicago Tribune 

As City Council heavyweights prepare to redraw ward boundaries in a once-a-decade exercise that will reshape Chicago’s political landscape, a group of independent-minded aldermen is raising money to pay for its own high-tech map room.

It would be outside City Hall — and not run under the rules of the power structure within it. Aldermen or their aides would be welcome to use the computers to arm themselves with demographic details, said Ald. Joe Moore, 49th, one of the leaders of the Reform Caucus, a loose affiliation of more than a dozen aldermen not beholden to regular Democrats.

“We just want to make sure everyone has free and unfettered access to this information,” said Moore, who contended that 10 years ago aldermen could peek just at their own wards and then only “with someone looking over your shoulder.”

The Reform Caucus isn’t the only group searching for a leg up as the remap gets under way. Both the Hispanic Caucus and Black Caucus plan to hire consultants, even as influential Ald. Richard Mell, 33rd, sets up the official map room on the second floor of City Hall.

All that planning is a sign of the importance of redistricting, which takes place after every census to ensure fair representation. The obscure insider process can make or break individual careers based on a few clicks of a mouse. It can tip the balance of power, which makes it of keen interest to new Mayor Rahm Emanuel.

Because Democrats run Chicago, remap debates are about race and ethnicity, not party affiliation. They’re often contentious.

Much changed in the ethnic and racial makeup of the city from 2000 to 2010, when the population dropped to just under 2.7 million. A loss of about 200,000 people will shrink the average size of each ward to about 53,900 people.

The biggest decline was among African-Americans, whose numbers dropped by about 182,000 as the city tore down public housing high-rises, the foreclosure crisis left swaths of South Side and West Side communities vacant and blacks moved to the suburbs. The white population also fell, by nearly 53,000.

Meanwhile, the number of Latinos rose by about 25,000. The Asian population grew by more than 20,000.

If the ethnic and racial makeup of the city mirrored its population, the council would have 16 whites, 16 blacks, 15 Latinos and three Asians. But the way wards get carved up — by politicians trying to maintain or grow power while not running afoul of federal and state voting protections for minorities — is far from that simple.

The council now has 22 white members, 19 African-Americans, eight Latinos and one alderman of Indian descent — a combination well out of sync with the makeup of the Chicago following the 2000 census.

Based on the 2010 numbers, many Latino politicians say they deserve more seats. They would come at the expense of whites and especially African-Americans.

“It’s a tricky problem, in that African-Americans don’t want to give up any seats, and Latinos are due four to five seats at a minimum,” said political science professor Dick Simpson of the University of Illinois at Chicago. “They have been treated as junior partners at best, and they ought to be full partners in this corporation running the city.”

Mell, who as chairman of the Committee on Rules and Ethics will lead the redistricting effort, said he’s been through three previous remaps but this one could “be as challenging as it’s ever been.”

Emanuel is expected to get involved, largely with the aim of avoiding the lengthy, expensive court battles that have resulted from earlier maps. “There will be disputes, maybe big disputes,” an administration source said. “We want to avoid having it spill into other matters.”

The mayor also could be looking to protect allies and even win greater support on the council in the years ahead.

The council has until Dec. 1 to approve a map, under state statute. But if any group of 10 or more aldermen endorse an alternative, the competing maps go to referendum in March.

The most contentious recent remap followed the 1980 census. The map ended up in court for half the decade, and the end result handed Mayor Harold Washington control of the council amid the racially tinged Council Wars.

The next map, based on the 1990 census, was picked by voters in an unprecedented referendum measure. It resulted in a six-year court case that cost taxpayers $18.7 million and gave African-Americans one more seat.

Peace broke out 10 years ago, when aldermen approved a map that maintained African-American representation, slightly boosted the number of Latino wards and cut the number of white aldermen, even as it protected the interests of some long-powerful white Democrats.

This year, the equation seems more complex, with Asian interests thrown into the mix and the significant black and white declines bolstering the idea that Latinos are under-represented.

Although Asians in sheer numbers merit three wards, their population is more diffuse, and they have not previously waged the same kind of voting rights battles as other minorities. This year, however, they are getting more involved.

In greater Chinatown, the Asian population now tops 27,000, and there are three times as many voters as there were a decade ago, said C.W. Chan, head of the Coalition for a Better Chinese American Community.

Chinatown and nearby Asian blocks are now split between Aldermen James Balcer, 11th, and Daniel Solis, 25th. The neighborhood would prefer to be in a single ward, but Chan conceded that having two influential aldermen responding to the community’s needs has worked well.

“Neither alderman appears to be interested in losing Chinatown,” Chan said.

There also are significant numbers of Filipinos, Indians, Pakistanis and Koreans in the city’s Far North Side wards. The goal is to create one or more wards that are 20 to 25 percent Asian so aldermen have to take into account the community’s concerns, said Tuyet Le, executive director of the Asian American Institute.

“Whether the elected official is Asian-American or not is less important than whether that official is accountable or not,” she said.

Latinos, meanwhile, are increasingly spread out across the city, making it more difficult than before to create Hispanic voting blocs within single wards. Also complicating those efforts is a Latino population that has fewer citizens of voting age than the city’s other ethnic and racial groups.

“We have to look at … how many wards we should get out of redistricting,” said Solis, chairman of the Hispanic Caucus. “It’s going to require some discussion and negotiation.”

Another reason that the number of Latino aldermen falls well short of the group’s share of Chicago’s population is that several wards with Hispanic majorities continue to be controlled by powerful white political leaders.

They include Ald. Edward Burke’s 14th Ward; Illinois House Speaker Michael Madigan’s 13th Ward, where his ally Marty Quinn is alderman; Mell’s 33rd Ward; and the Far Southeast Side’s 10th Ward, which is represented by Ald. John Pope.

Solis said there’s nothing wrong with that. “I think our job is to get a good representation of the people in the wards of the city, and who the voters want to represent them is up to them,” Solis said.

By contrast, African-Americans tend toward greater concentrations in particular neighborhoods, making it easier to draw districts with a majority of blacks, said Ald. Howard Brookins, 21st, chairman of the Black Caucus. But he also acknowledged there may be fewer black wards in a new map.

“I think the jury is still out on how this affects us,” Brookins said. “There is a possibility that there is a loss of a seat — at least.”

The 10 wards that lost the most people between 2000 and 2010 all are represented by black aldermen.

“I think everybody wants to do what’s fair and what’s legal, and no one wants a protracted court case,” Brookins said. “We’re going to go into this without our eyes wide open in an attempt to do what’s fair, legal and respectful of everyone’s rights.”

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Source:  The Chicago Tribune

Illinois state officials will celebrate the 21st anniversary of the signing of the Americans with Disabilities Act.

The special event at the James R. Thompson Center in Chicago’s Loop on Thursday will highlight the accomplishments of people with disabilities through an art exhibit and demonstration, hands-on art activities, entertainment, interactive exhibits, workshops and a three-on-three wheelchair basketball tournament.

The festivities will be from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m., with a speaking program at noon.

Guests will include the directors of the Illinois departments of Human Services, Human Rights, Natural Resources and the commissioner of Chicago’s Mayor’s Office for People with Disabilities.

The ADA was a landmark law that improved accessibility for disabled people.

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Source:  The State Journal Register - The Oldest Newspaper in Illinois

Mayor Rahm Emanuel has quietly disbanded the $3.6 million-a-year Office of Compliance that former Mayor Richard M. Daley created in 2007 to get around an inspector general who had embarrassed him.

Last year, oversight over city hiring was transferred from the Office of Compliance to Inspector General Joe Ferguson to bolster the city’s case to get out from under the Shakman decree banning political hiring and firing.

A few months later, Compliance chief Anthony Boswell — the Denver attorney hired to oversee city hiring — resigned.

Federal hiring monitor Noelle Brennan and attorney Michael Shakman, the original plaintiff in the long-running Shakman patronage case, had accused Boswell of ignoring blatant violations, covering up hiring irregularities he’s supposed to correct and failing to discipline employees who refuse to toe the line.

Now, Emanuel has dispersed the functions that remained in the Office of Compliance — internal audit, minority contracting and certification, employee education and training, legal compliance and safety administration — to five city departments: Human Resources, Procurement Services, Streets and Sanitation, Finance and the Board of Ethics.

The re-organization — like several other departmental mergers proposed by the new mayor — has not yet been authorized by the City Council.

Daley created the Office of Compliance in 2007 — and hired an outsider to run it — because he didn’t trust then-Inspector General David Hoffman to oversee hiring after a series of investigations that embarrassed the mayor.

But, it wasn’t long before Boswell himself became an embarrassment to Daley.

Ferguson targeted minority contracting fraud and Shakman violations under Boswell’s watch. At the inspector general’s recommendation, Daley suspended Boswell for 30 days for allegedly mishandling an intern’s sexual harassment complaint against a 911 center deputy.

Boswell filed a lawsuit that contained the explosive allegation that then-Corporation Counsel Mara Georges led a “retaliation campaign” that culminated in the “illegal” suspension after Boswell blew the whistle on her efforts to manipulate hiring and promote her predecessor’s unqualified daughter.

The lawsuit was subsequently dismissed. Boswell resigned before Daley could act on another Ferguson recommendation — that Boswell be fired for accepting two years’ worth of Spanish lessons from a consultant over whom he had “contracting authority” on city time at taxpayers’ expense.

Chicago aldermen have long complained that Daley made a mistake taxpayers could not afford when he created the Office of Compliance in an end-run around the inspector general.

Ferguson said the same thing Wednesday, albeit more diplomatically.

“This office has issued numerous reports — investigative and program reviews — highlighting both the structural and operational problems of that office. That’s in addition to multiple federal and state criminal prosecutions of IGO-initiated matters, most notably related to the long-troubled minority business program,” Ferguson said.

“I don’t know whether the office should have been created in the first place. I wasn’t here. I don’t know what global concept Daley might have had in mind. But, you don’t dismantle something that’s working.”

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Source:  The Chicago Sun-Times

Chicago is getting out of the Independence Day fireworks business.

There will be no city-run July 3rd or July 4th fireworks show this year — not even a scaled-down version — thanks to former Mayor Richard M. Daley’s decision to hand off the Taste of Chicago to the Park District to reverse $7 million in festival losses over the last three years.

That means Chicago’s only official fireworks will be the previously scheduled show at 9 p.m. July 4 at Navy Pier. That 15-minute show is paid for by the Metropolitan Pier and Exposition Authority.

Chicago Park District spokesperson Jessica Maxey-Faulkner said the decision to cancel even last year’s smaller fireworks at three lakefront locations was a sacrifice demanded by the economic times.

It’s the same reality that forced the Park District to fold the city’s four least-popular music festivals — Viva Chicago, Country Music, Gospel and Celtic fests — into the Taste as one-day events focusing on local acts instead of making them stand-alone weekend fests with big-name talent.

“When the Chicago Park District inherited the Taste, we did so with an eye on cutting expenses and bringing the focus back to a family-friendly food festival,” Maxey-Faulkner said, noting that last year’s show cost $110,000, not including police expenses.

“Knowing that Navy Pier has fireworks shows scheduled for July 2 and July 4, we felt that was a reasonable expense to cut.”

Last year, declining city revenues and disappearing corporate sponsors claimed the annual July 3 fireworks extravaganza in Grant Park.

Instead of having one fireworks show on July 3 that drew more than 1.2 million people and stretched city services to the brink, Chicago held smaller synchronized fireworks shows on July 4: at Montrose Harbor and 59th Street to coincide with the previously scheduled show at Navy Pier.

City Hall hoped to cut security costs by making the switch, but it didn’t quite work out that way.

Policing three fireworks venues cost $756,476, including $251,377 in “regular tour pay,” $444,251 worth of “accumulated compensatory time” and $60,846 in overtime, records show.

The only venue that drew an overflow crowd was Navy Pier, where attendance was so big, police were forced to shut off access for the first time in history.

The Pier closing started at 7:20 p.m. and continued for “two or three hours,” barring even those who had reservations at Navy Pier restaurants.

“We stopped counting at 250,000” people, Navy Pier spokesman Jon Kaplan said of the record crowd on that day.

“Only employees working in Navy Pier stores and people with tickets to the theater or tickets previously purchased for boat cruises were allowed in.”

Two years ago, Venetian Night, the annual parade of illuminated boat floats, was sunk by Daley’s cost-cutting, ending a 52-year-old summer tradition.

Viva Chicago, Country Music, Gospel and Celtic Fests were next on the chopping block — at least as stand-alone festivals.

Now, there’s no more city fireworks show.

“The city is broke. We can’t afford the circuses. Perhaps fireworks are a luxury we can do without,” said Ald. Joe Moore (49th).

Civic Federation President Laurence Msall agreed that the fireworks fizzle is “a sign of the financial distress the city finds itself in.”

But, he said, “Although we understand the need to cut expenses, we’d like to see it tied to a long-term plan for all the city’s special events and promotional activities when it comes to encouraging people to come downtown and enjoy the lakefront.”
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Source: The Chicago Sun-Times

The Democratic redistricting map shot through the Illinois House this morning on a 64-52 party-line vote.

Republicans complained that Illinois citizens had not had enough time to review the final map before the vote after Democrats made changes to it after public hearings last weekend and on Tuesday.

“You said to the public, ‘Here’s your chance, take it or leave it, we’re going to ram this map through next week,’” said Rep. Roger Eddy, R-Hutsonville.

House Majority Leader Barbara Flynn Currie, D-Chicago, called the process the “most transparent, accountable, open redistricting process in the history of this state.”

Republicans tried to smoke out Currie on the factors used to draw the map. Currie, who admitted previously that politics played a role, said the map was drawn to comply with federal and state laws aimed at protecting minority rights.

Majority Democrats squashed a GOP effort to get a House vote on the Republican version of the map. The map now goes to the Senate.

The vote came hours after Illinois Democrats released a much-anticipated remap of U.S. House districts.
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Source: The State Journal Register - The Oldest Newspaper in Illinois

Vice President Joe Biden will attend Chicago Mayor-elect Rahm Emanuel’s Monday inauguration, sources said Thursday.

The inauguration will take place at 10:30 a.m. at Millennium Park’s Pritzker Pavilion and is open to the public.
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Source: The Chicago Tribune

Calling Oprah Winfrey’s presence in Chicago a “gift for more than two decades,” Mayor Daley on Wednesday gave the departing talk show diva an honor she considers “better than an Oscar or an Emmy”: a street named in her honor.

The 100 block of North Carpenter Street just outside Winfrey’s HARPO Studios will be called “Honorary Oprah Winfrey” Way.

“That’s better than an Oscar or an Emmy,” said Winfrey, who will tape her final Chicago show at the United Center on May 17, to air eight days later.

“It is really just a full-circle miracle story that a little colored girl born in Kosciusko, Mississippi, on a red dirt road ends up with my name on a street in the greatest city in the world, Chicago. So, thank you.”

Winfrey recalled the story that she has told her HARPO staff so many times. When she first arrived in Chicago to audition as host of a show then known as A.M. Chicago, she “fell in love” with the city.

“I thought, even if I don’t get the job, I’ll move into advertising in order to just be able to live in the city, which truly is the greatest city in the world,” she said.

“I just would like to say, `thank you’ to the mayor and also to the city of Chicago for embracing me and allowing me to take a stand and make a stand here in this city. … This place is my Tara. Scarlett O’Hara should have known about Chicago.”

Daley closed Michigan Avenue for Winfrey’s 24th season premiere only to have her pull the plug on the show after her 25th season.

On Wednesday, the mayor called Winfrey an “extraordinary woman” who has made an “incredible impact” on Chicago, the nation and the world.

“There isn’t enough time or adequate words that can describe what your 25-year journey has meant to Chicago,” Daley said.

“Your presence in Chicago has been a gift over two decades. The Oprah Winfrey Show has drawn world-wide attention to our city and an instinctive energy from it. So, of course we’re all sad” that she’s leaving.

Calling Winfrey a “great ambassador for our city,” Daley said, “It makes me very, very proud to have your name appear on one of Chicago’s city streets. I want to thank you for the little notes she sends to me as well. … Now, I give you Oprah Winfrey Way.”
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Source: The Chicago Sun-Times

Amtrak and Illinois Department of Transportation officials will promote train travel as a way to beat high fuel prices and see tourist sites around the state.

“Illinois Tourism Day” on Friday will feature representatives of cities and businesses along routes to and from Chicago. Tickets and other prizes will be awarded from 7 a.m. to 4 p.m. at Chicago’s Union Station.

New this year will be an appearance by Richard “Fritz” Klein of Springfield. Klein impersonates Abraham Lincoln internationally. The Vintage Brass Band of Springfield will play music from the 1840s to 1920s from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m.

City and business officials along three Amtrak routes through Illinois will also be represented. The routes are from Chicago to St. Louis, Chicago to Carbondale and Chicago to Quincy.
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Source: The State Journal Register - The Oldest Newspaper in Illinois

Rahm Emanuel’s inaugural celebration will be as much about setting a tone for how he wants Chicagoans to perceive his administration as about commemorating his ascendancy to mayor.

The planning team is going for festive, but not too festive. After all, Emanuel enters office preaching the need for shared sacrifice with the city’s wallet short by $600 million or more.

“Togetherness” is the overarching theme. There’s a free concert in Grant Park on Saturday afternoon, preceded by community volunteering in the neighborhoods. On Monday, Emanuel will take the oath outside at Millennium Park, and the public again is welcome.

All of that togetherness is being paid for by private donors. The contributors — some who gave as much as $50,000 — get to spend Saturday night at an exclusive reception and dinner with Emanuel at a hip hall on the Near West Side.

Emanuel’s camp plans to release the list of donors, though it’s not required to do so, a few days later.

Melinda Kelly, one of seven co-chairs chosen by Emanuel to help coordinate the inauguration, said she was tasked primarily with making sure as many residents as possible could participate in the festivities, and to ensure that public events were free. Planners kept in mind the city’s financial problems and the money difficulties many residents are experiencing, she said.

“I think this inauguration is going to show how we’re all going to pull together” during the Emanuel administration, said Kelly, executive director of the Chatham Business Association. The group receives city economic development funds to help improve small businesses in its South Side neighborhood.

Emanuel also is likely to highlight the need for togetherness going forward in the speech he delivers after being sworn in Monday, according to Tarrah Cooper, a spokeswoman for the Emanuel transition.

The outdoor communal event contrasts with Mayor Richard Daley’s first inauguration. In 1989, Daley faced a crowd inside Orchestra Hall as he took the oath to complete the final two years of the late Harold Washington’s term.

And Emanuel’s speech is expected to differ rhetorically from Washington’s first inaugural address in 1983. Chicago’s first African-American mayor criticized outgoing Mayor Jane Byrne and told attendees at his Navy Pier ceremony that reform was coming with him to City Hall. Council Wars began soon thereafter.

Emanuel plans to kick off inauguration festivities by taking part in Saturday morning’s “day of service.”

Four organizations — Chicago Cares, the Chicago Park District, Friends of the Chicago River and One Good Deed Chicago — list 28 projects people can volunteer for. Most involve planting flowers and picking up trash at parks and gardens around the city. People can clean up the banks of Bubbly Creek in Bridgeport or the Chicago River in Lincoln Park, for example.

Emanuel is likely to be joined by Clerk-elect Susana Mendoza and Treasurer Stephanie Neely at one of the sites, where he will pitch in before heading to a couple of other locations to thank volunteers.

From there, the mayor-elect will head to Butler Field in Grant Park, where throwback rockers Chicago will headline an afternoon concert. Free tickets are available upon request at chicagotogether.org, and about 6,000 people had signed up for them as of late last week, Cooper said.

On Saturday evening, Emanuel will head to a reception and dinner at Venue One, an event hall in the 1000 block of West Randolph Street. The guest list to the private event will include “friends, family and supporters,” according to Cooper.

People who contributed at least $5,000 to defraying the cost of the inaugural festivities got tickets to the Venue One reception.

Emanuel will take one page out of the Daley inauguration playbook, hosting an afternoon open house at City Hall after Monday’s Millennium Park swearing-in, just as the outgoing mayor has done after each of his election victories.

Chicagoans will be able to line up to shake the new mayor’s hand in his fifth floor office, just a week after Daley held a farewell open house in the same spot.
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Source: The Chicago Tribune