Illinois Government Consultants Incorporated

Standing behind a desk once used by former Mayor Anton Cermak, the architect of Chicago’s Democratic political machine, Mayor Emanuel on Monday signed six executive orders to strengthen city ethics rules in his first official act as mayor.

For 22 years, Mayor Daley used the desk that belonged to his father, former Mayor Richard J. Daley. The younger Daley took the desk with him when he left office on Friday, hoping that it would someday be the cornerstone of a Daley era exhibit at a Chicago public library.

That forced Emanuel to dig into the city’s storage closet for another desk — and he chose the one used by Cermak.

Anton Cermak was Chicago’s first-foreign-born mayor. He also forged the racial and ethnic coalitions that created the Democratic machine. Cermak died in office in 1933, three weeks after taking a bullet intended for then-President Franklin Delano Roosevelt.

Emanuel did not explain the significance of his furniture choice. But, he told reporters gathered Washington D.C.-style behind a blue velvet rope to witness the executive order signings that the desk contained a “beautiful note” left behind by Mayor Daley.

Asked to divulge what the note said, Emanuel joked, “It said, `Don’t ever answer any of Fran Spielman’s questions — especially if you read it from right to left.”

Turning serious, he said, “It was a personal note about the strength of our city, the strength of its people and that we are a city of optimistic people made up of immigrants from all communities and all areas and also a city that … is always ready for change being dealt with honestly.”

Emanuel campaigned on a promise to “change the culture” of corruption and cronyism at City Hall that gave birth to the Hired Truck, city hiring and minority contracting scandals.

The executive orders he signed Monday would slam the “revolving door” that has allowed city employees and mayoral appointees to lobby City Hall. They would be banned from doing so for at least two years after leaving their city jobs.

From this day forward, Emanuel said he would stop accepting campaign contributions from city lobbyists. And city employees would be insulated from pressure they have felt to give gifts or make political contributions to the mayor, department heads or city supervisors.

Emanuel also reissued three of Daley’s executive orders. They include: a ban on political contributions to the mayor from the owners of companies doing business with the city; a mandate that city employees comply with the hiring oversight rules tied to the long-running Shakman litigation and an order compelling city employees to report wrongdoing to the inspector general.

Daley swore off campaign contributions from city contractors in 2005, one year after the Chicago Sun-Times blew the lid off the Hired Truck scandal that branched out into city hiring.

The mayor’s former patronage chief and Streets and Sanitation commissioner were subsequently convicted of rigging city hiring and promotions to benefit the Hispanic Democratic Organization (HDO) and other pro-Daley armies of political workers.

The city was forced to create a $12 million fund to compensate victims of the city’s rigged hiring system — and spend millions more for a federal hiring monitor who has been riding herd over city hiring since 2005.

“This is basically to bring about a real sense of change. I want everybody to understand [who] works here that this is about the public and public service,” the new mayor said.

Emanuel likened the executive orders to a “new value system that reflects the honor that it means to be in public service.”

“The things that I pledged during the campaign … will bring about a new day, a change in political direction and be clear about the type of government we’re gonna run. I want a set of values as an example. We can’t [expect] people to have any sense in the entire city of that change if you’re not gonna lead by example,” he said.
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Source: The Chicago Sun-Times

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

Ald. Edward M. Burke (14th) will stay on as chairman of the City Council’s Finance Committee — but his power will be somewhat diluted by the creation of a new committee chaired by Mayor-elect Rahm Emanuel’s closest ally — under a reorganization plan expected to be ratified next week.

After months of behind-the-scenes negotiations, City Hall sources said Emanuel has settled on a City Council reorganization that reduces the number of standing committees from 19 to 16 and cuts spending by ten percent or roughly $470,000.

Instead of funneling all major legislation through the Finance Committee, the shake-up calls for creating a new Committee on Workforce Development and Audit chaired by Ald. Pat O’Connor (40th). O’Connor served as Mayor Daley’s unofficial floor leader and will play an even more prominent role in an Emanuel administration.

O’Connor acknowledged that Burke would relinquish some control in the new line-up. But, he said the goal is simply to move the issues that Emanuel outlined as his priorities during the mayoral campaign. Burke and his staff have been “very collaborative” about the idea,” O’Connor said.

“The intent is not to dilute his power. … It’s not about power and this committee vs. that committee. It’s about making the committee structure make sense and having the ability to respond to today’s challenges,” he said.

Ald. Michelle Harris (8th) will become president pro tem, chairing Council meetings in Emanuel’s absence after relinquishing the Police Committee she now chairs to Ald. James Balcer (11th).

Housing Committee Chairman Ray Suarez (31st) will also serve as vice-mayor.

Aldermen chairing committees for the first time include: Tom Tunney (44th), Economic, Capital and Technology Development; George Cardenas (12th) Health and Environment Protection; Michael Zalewski (23rd) Aviation and Joe Moore (49th) Human Relations.

The line-up also includes: Budget Committee Chairman Carrie Austin (34th); Education Committee Chairman Latasha Thomas (17th); License and Consumer Protection Committee Chairman Emma Mitts (37th); Special Events Committee Chairman Walter Burnett (27th); Traffic Committee Chairman Marge Laurino (39th); Transportation and Infrastructure Committee Chairman Anthony Beale (9th); Zoning Committee Chairman Danny Solis (25th); and Rules Committee Chairman Richard Mell (33rd).

Of the 16 Council committees, five will be chaired by African-Americans, a loss of one. Seven committees will be chaired by white aldermen, down from eleven currently. The number of Hispanic committee chairmen will go from two to three.

Two committees — Buildings and Landmarks — will be folded into the Zoning Committee. The Environment Committee will be eliminated and merged with the Health Committee. The Parks Recreation Committee will be folded into Special Events and Cultural Affairs.

The Buildings Committee and the Landmarks Committee will be folded into the Zoning Committee. The Environment Committee will be eliminated and merged with the Health Committee.

Chicago taxpayers currently spend $19.5 million-a-year to maintain 50 aldermen and an additional $4.7 million-a-year for the 19 standing committees.

The changes will save roughly $470,000, a largely-symbolic, but nevertheless important move to usher in an era of shared sacrifice needed to erase an annual structural deficit that, Emanuel has claimed, could approach $1.2 billion.

Emanuel rocked the boat with a pre-election threat to re-organize the City Council — and strip Burke of his police bodyguards and, possibly, his chairmanship.

The mayor-elect blames Burke for laying the groundwork for the residency challenge that nearly knocked the former White House chief of staff off the ballot.

But, with an annual structural deficit approaching $1.2 billion, Emanuel ultimately decided to work with Burke and avoid a repeat of the 1980’s power struggle known as Council Wars that saw 29 aldermen, most of them white, thwart then-Mayor Harold Washington’s every move.

Sources said the proposed reorganization has been cleared with all 50 aldermen and is expected to be ratified May 18, when Emanuel presides over his first City Council meeting.
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Source: The Chicago Sun-Times

Instead of tying up the city’s 311 non-emergency lines, Chicagoans can now get their routine questions answered via text messages, thanks to a technology upgrade unveiled Wednesday.

Earlier this year, Chicago became the first U.S. city to allow residents calling 911 to send photos and videos of emergency scenes from their cell phones.

Now City Hall is getting in on the texting craze.

“We studied the types of information requests received when calling 311 and decided we should explore ways of providing answers to routine requests and, hopefully, decrease customer wait times and call volume for 311 operators, freeing them to concentrate on other calls” involving service requests, 311 director Audrey Mathis said in a press release.

Many people who use their cell phones to call 311 are seeking information. They’re not calling to request a city service. In fact, nearly half of the top-20, information-only calls simply require a phone number so the caller can contact an outside agency.

The new 311 ChiTEXT messaging service allows callers to choose from a menu of information options and get a text message in response.

Callers are advised to start by texting the word “Chicago” to 311311. An automated response then asks the caller to choose between: contact information for a government agency or public utility; location search for ward, police beat and district information or vehicle services to locate a tow.

Chicago’s 311 non-emergency system was created to take the strain off 911 while speeding response to city service requests.

Two years ago, then-Ald. Tom Allen (38th) complained that the award-winning system was doing just the opposite. He said it was slowing down the process because half of the calls turn out to be bogus, but nevertheless generate paperwork used to measure the productivity of city crews.

The Motorola-created texting system is being introduced as 311 call volumes are about to surge.

The city is preparing to launch a dramatic change in 911 dispatching aimed at freeing up police officers to respond to the most serious crimes by diverting lower priority calls to 311 or convincing crime victims to file their reports online.
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Source: The Chicago Sun-Times

The competition to become Chicago’s next police superintendent has come down to a three-man race between a veteran Chicago cop and a pair of outsiders, with a final decision possible later this week, City Hall sources said Monday.

The top three are: Newark Police Chief Garry McCarthy; national drug czar R. Gil Kerlikowske and Chicago’s deputy chief-of-detectives Al Wysinger. Mayor-elect Rahm Emanuel was asked Monday whether an outsider can improve the morale problems that dogged career FBI agent Jody Weis.

“My No. 1 goal … is what do we have to do to reduce violent crime in the city,” he said.

“I’m looking for a person who understands that the beat officer is the backbone of the law enforcement community. …. The measure is, how do we get results and who is the right leadership to get results.”

If Emanuel chooses to go with an outsider, McCarthy appears to have the edge.

That’s because of his background as a street cop and the role he once played as the driving force behind the CompStat program credited with dramatically reducing New York City’s homicide rate.

Under the program, police commanders are called before a review board on a monthly basis and held accountable for crime spikes.

McCarthy was a surprise finalist in the 2003 search that culminated in Mayor Daley’s appointment of Phil Cline.

At the time, the Police Board was willing to take the heat for choosing three whites as finalists because it was “absolutely dazzled” by McCarthy.

“We knew the ticket lacked diversity, but we also felt strongly that if Garry McCarthy could bring his experience to Chicago, it would help address our homicide rate, our drug and gang problems,” Police Board President Demetrius Carney said at the time.

“He interviewed so well. His knowledge of the city was just unbelievable. He knew the top brass here. He knew and understood our CAPS program. If we could combine his CompStat with CAPS, what a strong city we’d have.”

Kerlikowske is a former Seattle police chief. But, his current job as national drug czar would likely make him more of a federal bureaucrat in the eyes of rank-and-file Chicago Police officers. That could be a liability after Weis.

The only hitch for McCarthy could be a 2005 disorderly conduct conviction stemming from McCarthy’s attempt to get his daughter out of a parking ticket.

At the time, McCarthy and his wife had been driving down New Jersey’s Palisades Parkway while their teenaged daughters followed in another vehicle.

The McCarthy daughters separated from their parents, stopped at a rest stop and parked in a handicapped space without the required placard.

When a pair of plainclothes Parkway police officers issued a ticket, McCarthy’s daughter allegedly explained that she had an ankle injury caused by a prior accident and had been issued a placard, but didn’t have it with her.

Garry McCarthy was then accused of driving up in a police SUV, blocking the unmarked New Jersey police car and engaging in a shouting match with the plainclothes officer. He was placed in handcuffs and led away as a crowd watched.

Wysinger earned his chops on the day in 2007 when he ran down a gunman who shot a woman in a West Side gangway near his grandmother’s 80th birthday party. His appointment would almost certainly play well with the rank-and-file.

But, his level of experience pales by comparison to McCarthy, who would be surrounded Emanuel-style by a diverse team of insiders to soften the blow, City Hall sources said.
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Source: The Chicago Sun-Times

Mayor Daley will end his administration the way he started it: with a City Hall open house to personally thank Chicagoans for supporting him.

Movers-and-shakers will be asked to stand in line outside the mayor’s office alongside everyday Chicagoans from 1 to 4 p.m. on May 9, one week before Rahm Emanuel is sworn in as Daley’s replacement.

In recent weeks, Daley has been on a ribbon-cutting blitz of Chicago’s 50 wards that aides have dubbed his farewell “Neighborhood Appreciation Tour,” complete with, “Thank You, Chicago” banners.

The open house is a variation of the same theme.

Daley personally welcomed Chicagoans into his City Hall office after each of his six inaugurations. The final chapter of his 22-year reign will be similar to the first.

Chicagoland Chamber of Commerce President Jerry Roper predicted that the line outside City Hall would include “tens of thousands” of people, including business titans.

“We’ve had such a great working relationship with him in helping to build this city to what it is today. His leadership and his vision has inspired the business community to want to be involved. They’ll come and thank him for that on that day,” Roper said.

Roper said he’s amazed at how upbeat Daley has been as he prepares to leave office. At an Art Institute fund-raiser last week held in honor of the outgoing mayor and his wife, people were on stage singing. Daley joined in.

“He was so jovial and so into it. He’s really having fun with this. I don’t know when it will really hit him,” Roper said.

University of Illinois at Chicago professor Dick Simpson, a former independent alderman, predicted that the line to greet Daley on May 9 would not be nearly “as big as when he came in” because his power has waned.

But, Simpson said, “There are a lot of people who want to say goodbye. He’s been doing what I call victory laps in the neighborhoods. The open house seems a perfectly reasonable way to try and end up his term as mayor.”
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Source: The Chicago Sun-Times

Chicago Mayor-elect Rahm Emanuel has expanded his search for police superintendent to include more candidates with national reputations.

Emanuel has interviewed Newark, N.J., chief Garry McCarthy, who was a finalist for the Chicago job in 2003, as well as President Barack Obama’s drug czar, R. Gil Kerlikowske, the former chief of police for Buffalo, N.Y., and Seattle. He is also considering a handful of high-ranking officials from within the Chicago Police Department, but a source familiar with Emanuel’s search said Chicago connections are not as critical as they once were.

More candidates from outside Chicago became interested in the job in recent weeks after Philadelphia Police Chief Charles Ramsey took himself out of the running. Several high-profile candidates around the country saw Ramsey, a former Chicago deputy superintendent, as a shoo-in.

Emanuel named the head of the Rochester, N.Y., schools to take over Chicago Public Schools on Monday, and quickly followed up Tuesday by announcing his management team for the Chicago Transit Authority. But arriving at a choice for police superintendent is a more complicated process because of the formal role played by the Chicago Police Board, which must interview candidates and recommend three superintendent finalists.

Emanuel has been running a separate but parallel selection process while the police board goes about its work. He has been outspoken about picking his own top cop, sending a clear message that he expects the board’s list of finalists to contain his own shortlist picks. The police board, which is appointed by the mayor and is currently headed by a City Hall lobbyist, does not have a record of opposing the mayor on the top cop selection.

Kerlikowske had an interview with Emanuel over the weekend, sources confirmed. McCarthy, whose national reputation has risen during his time in Newark, was a deputy commissioner of the New York Police Department when he last competed for the Chicago job. In 2006 he became chief in Newark, a city of 277,000.

Emanuel had previously stressed Chicago connections as an important criterion for the job, along with experience doing real police work on the street.

Later this week Emanuel will name Lois Scott as a top budget adviser, according to a transition aide. Scott is president of the financial advisory firm Scott Balice Strategies.
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Source: The Chicago Tribune

The last close race for alderman is over.

John Garrido — a mere 28 votes behind his rival John Arena for alderman of the Northwest Side’s 45th Ward — announced Monday that he would not seek a costly recount.

“We must move on and do what is best for the 45th Ward,” Garrido said in an e-mail to supporters.

He concluded his e-mail with: “Who knows, maybe even a rematch in four years.”

Arena, who owns a printing company and who has been active in the Portage Park Neighborhood Association, said last week that Finance Committee Chairman Ed Burke greeted him as “Landslide John” Arena.

“It only takes 50 percent plus one to win, so the way I see that, I overshot it by 28 votes,” Arena joked before absentee and provisional ballots dropped his lead over Garrido from 29 votes to 28.

Today is the deadline for seeking recounts.

Ray Lopez, the Southwest Airlines skycap who drew less than a third of the vote from Ald. Toni Foulkes in the 15th Ward, has filed a lawsuit charging voting irregularities there.
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Source: The Chicago Sun-Times

Gov. Quinn and Mayor-elect Rahm Emanuel vowed Friday to turn their 31-year relationship into a “very strong alliance” after their first face-to-face meeting since Emanuel’s election.

Emanuel is inheriting a city on the brink of bankruptcy and a school system $750 million in the hole. He needs pension reforms, a downtown casino, money for the CTA and a Springfield mandate for a longer school day if teachers won’t agree to it at the bargaining table.

The two old friends might have talked about those meaty issues during Friday’s luncheon meeting at the Thompson Center. But, they limited their public comments to political generalities.

“We had a good discussion about a cross-section of issues important to both the city and state. … [We] talked about where we can form … a very strong alliance to make sure we are pushing our city and our state forward,” Emanuel said.

“By the time I get sworn in, there’ll only be a couple weeks left to the session. We both share the same view: We don’t have a day to waste as it relates to the people we represent to get moving on the things that are very, very important to … Chicago and also the state: getting the economy moving, getting the type of investments we need both for education, for job growth and for the types of reforms necessary to make sure our state stays competitive.”

Quinn noted that he and Emanuel have known each other since 1980, providing a solid foundation for a productive political partnership.

Aides said Quinn and Emanuel first met each other while working on a political campaign for then-U.S. Senator Paul Simon (D-Il.)

“We have lots of things we’re gonna do in the coming year and years to come. … We have a progressive mayor-elect and a progressive governor. I see a future of governors and mayors working together progressive and aggressive,” Quinn said.

“I really look forward to working with Rahm, as I have with Mayor Daley. Mayor Daley … is one of the greatest mayors America has ever had. He’s the best mayor in America today. I think Rahm is ready to fill his shoes.”

Pressed on whether he and Emanuel have a Springfield agenda, the governor said, “We have lots of energy, lots of ideas, lots of idealism, and we’re gonna apply all of the aforementioned to helping the common good.”
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Source; The Chicago Sun-Times

Chicago Mayor-elect Rahm Emanuel has his transition team.

Emanuel on Thursday named seven people to be his transition co-chairs. They will lead a review of city government and prepare for his new administration.

The team includes Chicago’s Museum of Science and Industry head David Mosena, former Mayor Richard Daley aide Sarah Pang and former state Rep. Judy Erwin.

Emanuel also chose a former police officer who now works at a college and a financial professional. He also picked a person with non-profit experience, South Side pastor the Rev. Byron Brazier.

Emanuel is moving ahead just two days after trouncing five rivals by getting 55 percent of the vote in Tuesday’s election.
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Source: The State Journal Register - The Oldest Newspaper in Illinois