COURT REMOVES RAHM FROM BALLOT

CHICAGO – An Illinois Appeals Court ruled Monday that former White House chief of staff Rahm Emanuel's name can't appear on the ballot for Chicago mayor because he didn't live in the city in the year before the election.

The court threw Emanuel's candidacy into doubt a month before the race when it voted 2-1 to overturn a judge's ruling to keep his name on the Feb. 22 ballot. Emanuel had been considered the front runner and had raised more money than any of the other candidates running.
Those challenging Emanuel's candidacy have argued that the Democrat doesn't meet the one-year residency requirement because he rented out his Chicago home and moved his family to Washington to work for President Barack Obama for nearly two years.
Emanuel has said he always intended to return to Chicago and was only living in Washington at the request of the president.
"We conclude that the candidate neither meets the municipal code's requirement that he have resided in Chicago for the year preceding the election in which he seeks to participate nor falls within any exception to the requirement," the appeals court said in its ruling. One judge dissented, saying Emanuel should be on the ballot.
There was no immediate response from Emanuel on Monday. The appellate court's ruling is not the final step in the process and its decision can be appealed to the Illinois Supreme Court.
Emanuel is one of several candidates vying to replace Chicago Mayor Richard Daley, who didn't seek a seventh term. Emanuel moved back to Chicago in October after he quit working for Obama to campaign full-time.
Before Monday's ruling, attorney Burt Odelson, who represents two voters objecting to Emanuel's candidacy, had little luck trying to keep Emanuel off the ballot. The Chicago Board of Election Commissioners and a Cook County judge have both ruled in favor of Emanuel, a former congressman, saying he didn't abandon his Chicago residency when he went to work at the White House.
Odelson had said he planned to take the challenge all the way to the state Supreme Court, if necessary.
"I won," Odelson said.

This town is nuts. All the viable candidates were bought off or forced out to make room for Rahm. Now we're left with fringe candidates who were pulling down single figures in the polls. What a joke. The rest of the country must be laughing their asses off.

AR IS OUT

He has resigned his post as Information Systems Director. Must be more to it than that. I suspect the rest of the vestiges from the JA era can't be far behind.

BEARS WIN!!!!

Packers-Bears in Soldier Field for the NFC Championship game. Wouldn't have it any other way.

FIREFIGHTER DIES

Chicago firefighter dies after found unresponsive at firehouse

A 51-year-old veteran Chicago firefighter died of apparent natural causes after being found unresponsive at his firehouse quarters on the South Side Saturday morning.

Lt. Patrick Hannon was given Advanced Life Support care and was taken to Mercy Hospital and Medical Center where he died, according to Fire Media Affairs Dir. Larry Langford. He was on-duty and was found unresponsive in his firehouse quarters Saturday morning.
Hannon was pronounced dead at the hospital at 7:25 a.m. after being found unresponsive at 2534 S. Throop St., the Cook County Medical Examiner’s office said. He died of apparent natural causes.
Hannon worked for Truck 8 in the South Side Bridgeport neighborhood, Langford said. He joined the Chicago Fire Dept. in December 1988 and turned 51 last month. He is married and has two children, Langford said. His wife is a firefighter paramedic within the department.
“Fire Commission Robert Hoff and the command staff, as well as rank and file of the Chicago Fire Dept. express our sorrow at this loss of one of our own,” Langford said.

Our thoughts and prayers are with the family.

HAPPY NEW YEAR

POLICE FATALITIES UP 37 PERCENT NATIONWIDE

By GREG BLUESTEIN, Associated Press

ATLANTA – Two officers in a remote Alaska town were ambushed as they chatted on a street. A California officer and deputy were killed by an arson suspect with a high-powered rifle as they tried to serve a warrant. Two other officers doing anti-drug work were gunned down by men along a busy Arkansas highway.
These so-called cluster killings of more than one officer helped make 2010 a particularly deadly year for law enforcement. Deaths in the line of duty jumped 37 percent to about 160 from 117 the year before, according to numbers as of Tuesday compiled by the National Law Enforcement Officers Memorial Fund, a nonprofit that tracks police deaths.
There also was a spike in shooting deaths. Fifty-nine federal, state and local officers were killed by gunfire in 2010, a 20 percent jump from last year's figures, when 49 were killed. The total does not include the death of a Georgia State Patrol trooper shot twice in the face Monday night in Atlanta as he tried to make a traffic stop.
And 73 officers died in traffic incidents, a rise from the 51 killed in 2009, according to the data.
Craig Floyd, director of the Washington-based fund, said the rise in fatalities could be an aftershock of the nation's economic troubles as officers in some communities cope with slashed budgets.
"We're asking our officers to do more with less. We're asking them to fight conventional crime, and we're asking them to serve on the front lines in the war against terror," he said.
Last year's toll of 117 officers killed was a 50-year low that encouraged police groups. But this year's total is more the norm than an anomaly: The number of police deaths has topped 160 five times since 2000, including 240 in 2001. The annual toll routinely topped 200 in the 1970s and before that in the 1920s.
The deaths were spread across more than 30 states and Puerto Rico — with the most killings reported in Texas, California, Illinois, Florida and Georgia. The two law enforcement agencies with the most deaths were the California Highway Patrol and the Chicago Police Department, each with five.
Ten of the shooting deaths came from five tragedies in which several officers were shot and killed in groups.
The cluster shootings started in February, when authorities say a Fresno County, Calif. deputy was shot by an arson suspect who had vowed to kill investigators and himself rather than go to prison. The killing led to a daylong gunbattle during which a police officer was also shot and killed. The gunman later killed himself.
In March, San Juan authorities say two park rangers serving as guards at Puerto Rico's Department of Natural Resources were gunned down by invaders who jumped a fence during an attempted robbery.
Two West Memphis police officers doing anti-drug work in May were shot to death by two men wielding AK-47s along an Arkansas interstate. The suspects were later killed in a shootout that injured the local sheriff and a deputy at a crowded Walmart parking lot.
In June, authorities say a man wanted for writing a bad check shot and killed two Tampa, Fla., police officers after he was pulled over at 2:15 a.m. And in August, a man was charged with killing two officers chatting in front of his home in the tiny Alaska village of Hoonah.
Maria Haberfeld, a professor of police science at the John Jay College of Criminal Justice, said the rise of community-oriented policing over the last few decades has also had the unintended consequence of lessening the public's respect for officers.
"It's a cascading effect of the people thinking police are here to serve and protect them on an individual basis" instead of acting as an arm of the government, she said. "We spend hours teaching children about Shakespeare and history, but we don't devote even an hour a week to the role of police in creating the world in which we live."
The uptick in traffic deaths also troubled analysts.
The research didn't reveal what led to many of the traffic deaths, partly because local departments often don't keep complete records those fatalities, said Floyd. But he said it suggests that more research is needed to investigate possible driver fatigue and distracted driving.
"We're asking citizens not to talk and text on their cell phones, but we're providing officers with laptop computers and cell phones and radios," he said. "That means taking their attention from the road. Are we putting too many distractions in police vehicles?"

It's like that fireman who was killed said. He left the police department because people no longer respect the police. With fewer police to back each other up, the punks are emboldened. They fight back. They are not taught to respect anything at home so why should they respect anything on the street. We need to have more police to combat these vermin. They need to be taught respect.

MERRY CHRISTMAS

TWO FIREFIGHTERS KILLED

 

Two firefighters died after a wall collapsed during a 3-11 alarm fire at an abandoned South Side commercial building this morning, authorities said. Fourteen other firefighters were injured, including two who were trapped with the ones who died.
Police squad cars escorted two ambulances north on Lake Shore Drive to Northwestern as ramps were closed to clear it of traffic, according to fire communications. One of the firefighters taken there has died, sources said. The condition of the other one was not known.
A third trapped firefighter, later identified as Corey Ankum, who had been with the department only 16 months, was taken to Christ Medical Center in Oak Lawn, where he died.
Late this morning, dozens of firefighters stood at attention, removing their caps and saluting, as Ankum's body was taken from the hospital and put in an ambulance. A police escort led the ambulance to the medical examiner's office.
A similar procession with a dozen department vehicles left Northwestern shortly after noon with the body of the firefighter who died there.
The fourth firefighter buried in the rubble, and as many as 12 other firefighters with undisclosed injuries, were also taken to hospitals. Fire officials and sources said 10 were stable and six were taken to hospitals in serious to critical condition, including the two who later died.
Four of the firefighters were taken to University of Chicago Hospital, where they were listed in fair condition and were expected to be released later today, said hospital spokesman John Easton.
The firefighters' deaths came on the 100th anniversary of a huge fire at the Union Stockyards that claimed the life of 21 Chicago firefighters, the single greatest loss in U.S. history of professional big-city firefighters until Sept. 11, 2001.
A dozen or fewer firefighters were in the building when the roof above them collapsed, said Fire Department spokesman Larry Langford. Firefighters searched through rubble for more than an hour as four trapped firefighters were pulled out and rushed to hospitals.
"They worked hard, got them out fast," said Fire Commissioner Robert Hoff at the scene.
He said the search was continued, with dozens of firefighters digging through rubble, because of the possibility that homeless people may have been in the building seeking shelter from the cold. Neighbors reported that squatters have been staying in the building, but no others were found in the rubble.
Firefighters -- their faces and uniforms covered in soot -- shook their heads as they embraced one another after the search was called off.
At Northwestern, about half a dozen police cars and several fire vehicles were parked in front of the emergency room. Truck 122 pulled up and three firefighters walked in, including a lieutenant. One firefighter from Truck 122 was on a cell phone and wiped away tears with his jacket.
Robert Smart, owner of the Smart Bros. Car Wash and Detailing next door to the burned building, said he arrived at his business at 7 a.m. to find the block swarming with firefighters.
He saw two people being brought out on stretchers, followed by two firefighters. He got a good look at one fireman. "He looked pretty bad," said Smart, adding the firefighter did not appear conscious.
Rescuers appeared to be trying to revive the injured firefighter in the middle of the street as they waited for an ambulance to arrive.
Jorico Smart, who with his father Robert have owned the car wash for 16 years, said he has called police at least a dozen times in recent years to report people trespassing in the abandoned building next door.
Smart characterized the trespassers as squatters. Last month, Smart's brother called police to report a break-in.
Chuck Dai, who co-owns the building with a younger brother, said he has been struggling to keep squatters from entering ever since his laundry business at the site failed about six years ago and he stopped paying property taxes on the site.
"It's been a tiresome battle just to keep it buttoned up and everything," said Dai, 61, speaking from another laundromat he owns nearby.
Though the property has been boarded up several times, he said, "somehow they managed to break in."
Dai said he had no idea how the fire started. He learned about the dramatic rescue attempt and the death of two city firefighters while watching the morning news in horror, he said.
"I'm pretty down right now," Dai said, his voice growing hoarse with emotion. "I'm at a loss for words about the whole situation. I feel bad about the firemen getting hurt."
The fire broke out about 6:54 a.m. in the abandoned one-story brick building in the 1700 block of East 75th Street.
The fire was raised to two and then three alarms to save the trapped firefighters. A "mayday" was called. Firefighters also reported having problems with frozen hydrants.

Our thoughts and prayers are with the families.

BOGUS CALL

Man accused of making bogus 911 call for faster police response

A 57-year-old man called 911 this morning and told them a police officer was hurt to make Chicago police respond quicker to some sort of disturbance at his South Side home, authorities alleged.
The man, Tommy Boston, will have his day in court at 9 a.m. Jan. 27 after he was arrested for allegedly calling in the bogus report.
Boston, of the 700 block of East 92nd Place, was charged with misdemeanor disorderly conduct/filing a false police report.
Police said Boston called 911 about 6:25 a.m.and told a dispatcher that an officer was down. When police arrived, they discovered no officers were injured at the location.

They should increase the penalty for these calls. A misdemeanor will not stop these clowns. Make him shovel his snow. He'd never do it again.

CABRINI GREEN

Good riddance. The buildings may be gone but the problems remain. They're just more spread out.

CARPET WAREHOUSE FIRE

IMPRESSIVE WIN

I have to admit I didn't think the Bears could win this week. They seem to have improved their offensive line enough to get the job done. With a performance like that against a blitz crazy team like Philadelphia and the awesome play of the defense, it might be time to start looking forward to another Superbowl run. The game against New England in two weeks will be another big test. We'll have to get through Detroit next though. Still it could be time to get excited about the Monsters of the Midway again.

HAPPY THANKSGIVING

EMANUEL

Emanuel formally announces run for Chicago mayor

By DON BABWIN, Associated Press

CHICAGO – Former White House chief of staff Rahm Emanuel officially announced his candidacy for mayor of Chicago Saturday, promising to fight any tax increase for city residents.
"We cannot ask taxpayers for more when families are struggling to stay afloat in this economy," he told supporters packing an elementary school auditorium on the city's North Side. "We cannot price Chicagoans out of their homes, their schools and their communities."...
"We cannot keep putting off hard choices and hoping things will get better, while drawing down each year on rapidly diminishing reserves."

You know what that means. If he wins, the front line city workers are in trouble. Politically he cannot cut services. He needs to go after personnel costs. 80% of those expenses are for police and fire. Another political hot potato. That leaves the 20% of us who have already taken furlough days and no pay for overtime. We're an easy target. My guess is lots of privatization. Of course this won't really save the city any money. But it's easier to hide the costs. And the kickbacks are tremendous. Then there's the pension. Don't plan on getting anything more than you would have gotten if you were eligible for social security. He has connections all the way up to the White House. He can get the laws changed and interpreted any way he likes. The shortfall is $600 million. We need new revenue. But they won't admit that until they are in such a deep hole there's no way out. In the meantime the city workers will pay for all the corruption, mismanagement and other sins of our politicians. And no city employee will be immune from the dismantling of our hard fought pensions.

OPEN POST

THE CHICAGO CODE - PROMO

HAPPY HALLOWEEN

TIME FOR SOME HOUSE CLEANING

Porn, short days, kickbacks in inspector general's report

By FRAN SPIELMAN City Hall Reporter

 
City of Chicago Inspector General Joe Ferguson had a full plate again in the past few months, and those investigations — outlined in a report Monday — were among the reasons why.

One of the most troubling irregularities Ferguson uncovered: contract irregularities at the city’s Office of Emergency Management and Communications that pose a “significant risk to the city’s emergency preparedness.” OEMC was accused of improperly routing a $23 million sole-source contract to a company — identified by City Hall sources as Schaumburg-based Motorola — when the deal should have been competitively bid.
To justify the no-bid contract, OEMC officials cited an earlier, $2 million deal with Motorola for similar technology. In fact, the earlier expenditure was $350,000. And that, too, was spent “without any contract or procurement process whatsoever,” Ferguson wrote.
“As a result, the city is now committed to a digital radio system that has never been the subject of any competitive procurement process,” Ferguson wrote.
The inspector general noted that his investigation was “ultimately frustrated” by the “debilitating combination” of “high turnover, endemic finger-pointing, poor or non-existent internal controls and missing paperwork.”
“OEMC’s long-running failure to effectively manage the procurement and contract process presents a significant risk to the city’s emergency preparedness, fiscal security and grant compliance,” the report states.
“The IGO is not suggesting that the city’s current emergency preparedness is substandard. We did not evaluate that. We merely note that bypasses of competitive bidding and purchase and contract protocols increases the risk of substandard outcomes in his critical realm.”
read more...

Wow. Who the hell keeps this scheme going? JA was involved the first time. Would AR and his crowd be dumb enough to do it too? Or was it someone else? With all the turnover and new faces on the tech floor it's hard to guess. I'm sure the whole management team is on their way out via the new mayor anyway. Looks like some of them will be gone sooner rather than later. What an embarrassment. We must have the most incompetent management personnel of any major emergency department in the country. They hold us up as the gold standard when the tours are shuffling through. It's all lies. We are no doubt on the edge of complete failure. Why were the zones forced over to the citywides last week? How long before we have a major meltdown? I just hope they hold the right people responsible.

2011 CITY BUDGET

They always seem to be able to cut a few communications operators and tradespeople. Why can't they ever eliminate management positions? I assure you, the place would run just fine without half of the dead weight that pass for bosses around here. read more...

THE RAISING OF THE BANNER

At last. Something Chicago can be proud about.

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA

John Garcia

October 4, 2010 (CHICAGO) (WLS) -- Cook County Board President Todd Stroger's deputy chief of staff was arrested Monday afternoon in the Loop in connection with her alleged role in a series of no-bid contracts, including one that went to a company she owned.
Authorities say deputy chief of staff Carla Oglesby is charged with three felonies and is being held on $75,000 bond.
Oglesby had no comment as police brought her to Area 4 headquarters Monday night.
read more...

That's awesome. What a pleasure to watch an arrogant puke like that with her hands cuffed behind her back. These people are unbelievable. They raised our sales tax to the highest rate in the country and then proceeded to take the money for themselves and their friends. I hope this ruins her. I bet she'll sing like a canary. Todd must be shittin' in his pants tonight. This is great.

EMERGENCY DRILL

 Loop Buildings Evacuated in Emergency Simulation

By ALLY CLARK and ANTHONY PONCE

Complete with realistic looking head wounds and burns, officials and volunteers conducted the first evacuation drill from the city's central business district in four years.
"The purpose of this exercise is to enhance the public and private sector relationships in order to coordinate and strengthen response capabilities," explained OEMC's Executive Director, Jose A. Santiago.
The drill was put together by Chicago's Office of Emergency Management and Communications and included roughly 500 volunteers from AON and Blue Cross/Blue Shield.
read more...

It must have gone pretty well. If there were problems the news media would have been all over it. As it was I had trouble finding a story about it. I guess that's a good thing.

WILL SANTIAGO LEAVE?

Mayor's political workers ponder future

Most of the 956 likely to lose jobs as Daley leaves

BY FRAN SPIELMAN City Hall Reporter fspielman@suntimes.com

For 21 years, they've been the most stable jobs in town -- assuming you can stand the taskmaster boss and stomach the unpaid furlough days he imposed recently.
But now the 956 city policymakers who can be hired and fired at will by Chicago's mayor face the prospect of dusting off their resumes at the worst possible time.

Mayor Daley's decision to choose political retirement over the quest for a seventh term has left so-called "Shakman-exempt" employees -- who lack protection from the federal ban on political hiring and firing -- in the lurch.
Now they have to decide whether to stick around until the end -- and hope they can defy the odds and be retained by whomever succeeds Daley as mayor -- or start the exodus now.
It's not an easy decision in the midst of a jobless recovery that could soon see an influx of state workers in the same boat. ...

Two other veteran firefighters, who had been elevated to top jobs in other city departments, could be returned to the Fire Department before Daley departs, courtesy of the mayor's chief of staff, Ray Orozco, a former fire commissioner, sources said. They are O'Hare Airport security chief Richard Edgeworth and Jose Santiago, executive director of the city's Office of Emergency Management and Communications.
  read more...

It looks like we're in for big changes no matter who wins. I'm not sorry to see some of these ass kissers scrambling for jobs. They were never sorry about the people they laid off or let go. As long as the new regime doesn't mess with the front line workers, I'll be glad to watch city management replaced. As long as you're non-exempt, you should be safe. The rest are SOL.



Chicago 3-11 1326 S Michigan

PENSION PROBLEMS

How to Cheat a Retirement Fund

By ORIN S. KRAMER

A FEW weeks ago, at the insistence of the Securities and Exchange Commission, New Jersey agreed never again to fraudulently hide its underfunding of the state’s public pension system. Meanwhile, in Albany, Harry Wilson, the Republican candidate for state comptroller, has asserted that — if you do the math the way any ordinary financial analyst or economist would — New York’s pension system is underfunded by tens of billions of dollars and that, as a result, the state is essentially insolvent.
These little tempests are likely to soon recur in many other states and cities nationwide, because so many governments have invested far too little money in their public pension funds. Retirement promises made to public employees represent a huge hidden liability for future taxpayers — helping ensure recurrent deficit crises for state and local governments.
The S.E.C. is now making inquiries about the underfunding of other public pensions, and its assertiveness is welcome. But this effort cannot ultimately fix the problem, because all the S.E.C. can do is force states to follow the budgeting rules that are set by the Governmental Accounting Standards Board. These rules offer, at best, only the illusion of transparency, because they allow governments to base their budgets on economic fictions.
Consider, for the sake of comparison, how private corporations, in measuring the value of the assets in their pension systems, are required to use real portfolio market prices. Government accounting standards, in contrast, allow public pension systems to measure their assets based on average values looking back over a period of years. In most instances those average values add up to a figure that is much higher than the amount of money the pension plan actually has.
Public pension funds are also allowed to make assumptions about future investment returns that many of us would regard as overly optimistic. And since those assumed returns are incorporated into measurements of the fund’s status, as if they had already been realized, states that come up with the most rosy market forecasts look, on paper, to be better financed.
This government accounting mirage adds up to an enormous national problem. If you use the most recent data from government accounting standards, the collective shortfall for state and local governments nationwide appears to be about $1 trillion. If you use corporate accounting standards to estimate the value of those public pensions, however, you come up with a shortfall two and a half times as large — about $2.5 trillion. Employing a third approach that assumes, as economists generally do, that even corporate accounting standards in this area are too lenient, public pension underfunding is about $3.5 trillion, or one-quarter of gross domestic product.
To make matters worse for state budgets, hidden underfunding of public employees’ health retirement costs is even greater than that of their pensions.
Ideally, managers of public pension funds would not only work with realistic budgets but also recognize that they have intergenerational obligations — to optimize returns over decades so that the fund can responsibly pay retiree pensions long into the future. There’s a rising understanding among thoughtful pension fund leaders, for example, that sustainable investment performance must permit consideration of the environmental, human rights and other public-interest effects of investments. In practice, however, pension fund managers tend to focus on narrow economic criteria and short-term performance.
Ultimately, to respond to their fiscal imbalances, many state and local policymakers will need to make painful cuts in financing for state universities, hospitals, local schools and municipalities. Increasingly, they will make controversial decisions to privatize roads, parking meters and other public services.
When a government allows its fiscal problems to become too great — as New York City’s did in the 1970s — it reaches a point where it can no longer borrow money. Municipal bondholders may comfort themselves that the federal government would never allow a state to default. But the federal government should not be expected to provide special aid to states that do not address structural budget deficits. New York’s crisis allowed it to conduct some unprecedented budget-cutting — but the price of austerity is greatest if you wait for crisis to strike.
Accounting is inevitably an artificial language that can distort some economic truths. But at the least, government accounting should aim for greater transparency and consistency, allowing outsiders to compare one jurisdiction against another. At the same time, the social contracts that exist today in many places among taxpayers, beneficiaries of public services and public employees need to be renegotiated before a crisis arrives.

They say cities and states will have to start selling assets like tollways and parking meters to balance their pension funds. Ha. We're really screwed. Better load up on your 457b and whatever else you got. You may not have much else at retirement time. What a mess!