My Blog

Category: Mayor’s Race

  • Da Mare’s Private Road to McCormick Place

    A $43 million busway built to whisk conventioneers between downtown hotels and McCormick Place has turned into “the mayor’s road” and should be opened to taxicabs in exchange for a surcharge, Ald. Robert Fioretti, 2nd said Monday. Fioretti suggested turning the 2.5-mile busway into a money-maker after Chicago Sun-Times columnist Neil Steinberg lifted the veil…

  • Widespread Violence on the CTA

    With almost 20,000 CTA bus trips a day, tempers sometimes flare on a few of them. Regular users of the CTA know what an obstacle course it can be. On the CTA’s 1,200 rail cars, riders are often met with a variety of frightening encounters- from armed robbers and cell phone thieves to fist fights…

  • Texas Sen. Ted Cruz Writes a Letter

    Letter from Senator Ted Cruz to Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel, Bank of America, TD Bank Group Putting folks in their place.

  • Chicago’s Pension Time-Bomb

    While Emanuel can coast for two more years, the city in 2015 is required by law to set aside an additional $700 million a year for two of its four pension funds, all of which are woefully underfunded: That year’s budget will include a total of $1.2 billion for the retirement accounts of teachers, police,…

  • Aldermen Briefed on Pension Time-Bomb

    [Chicago’s] Chief Financial Officer Lois Scott reminded council members that absent significant changes to pension plans, the city will be forced to drastically cut services, raise taxes or do both to close a funding gap that could reach $700 million in just a few years, aldermen said.  … …  Lawmakers are looking to fix the…

  • More Bad News on the Pension Crisis

    If I was Rahm I would so totally throw Daley under the bus on this issue. The debt from 10 Chicago-area pension plans swelled more than 600 percent to $27.4 billion between 2001 and 2010, according to a study released Monday by the nonpartisan Civic Federation. That’s $8,993 for each man, woman and child in…

  • Robber Armed with 2-by-4 on West Side (Rahm demands lumber registry)

    A police alert warns Lawndale residents about a robber who threatens and beats his victims with a 2-by-4.  … The robber was described as a black man with a dark complexion, between 5-foot-9 and 5-foot-11, weighing 150 to 160 pounds. He was last seen wearing a dark-colored baseball hat and a dark top, police said.via…

  • McCarthy (Rahm) Shakes-up Police Brass (Not Really)

    This past week Rahm launched an ambitious plan to revitalize the city.  However in order to make that work, he must first prevent Chicago from becoming Gotham.  The post below talks about how the lack of enough police officers is causing a false reduction in the number of crimes being reported.  I personally think that…

  • Crime? What Crime?

    Crime is out of control.  It’s not reported because in this town No Report = No Crime.  And because we have so few police — who are constantly running from call to call — a LOT of crime is going unreported.  Sometimes you can call 911 and wait 30-40 seconds before someone answers the phone.  But when…

  • Building a New Chicago

    I was skeptical of Rahm coming in as mayor.  But as time goes by I’m getting more and more impressed by his ability to take on the unions, manipulate the media, get things done, outmaneuver worthless alderman, and most importantly develop and articulate his vision for the city.  (It appears that) He gets it.  …