Editor

Former Streets and Sanitation Superintendent Anish Eapen was sentenced to a maximum jail term of 364 days in the Cook County Jail after being convicted on multiple misdemeanor counts of attempted vote fraud violations stemming from the 2007 50th Ward aldermanic race.

Two former political workers for Ald. Berny Stone (50^th) were sentenced to jail terms after both were found guilty on multiple misdemeanor counts of attempted mutilation of voting materials and attempted absentee ballot violations stemming from the 2007 aldermanic election in the 50^th Ward.

Anish Eapen, Stone’s handpicked Streets and Sanitation Ward Superintendent, was given the maximum jail sentence of 364 days in the Cook County jail for his part in a scheme to engineer absentee ballots favoring Stone that targeted the ward’s mostly immigrant and elderly voters.

Armando Ramos, a paid campaign worker in Stone’s 2007 aldermanic campaign, was sentenced to 270 days in the Cook County Jail. Both men were immediately taken into custody after their sentencing hearing on Wednesday morning.

In 2007, Stone faced three challengers in the general election, but was forced into a contentious runoff against Naisy Dolar. Stone narrowly won the runoff by 700 votes. Dolar has since moved out of state with her husband and family.

Eapen and Ramos were indicted on multiple felony counts of vote fraud after a joint investigation by then-Chicago Inspector General David Hoffman and the Cook County State’s Attorney’s Office in January 2008.

Both were found guilty in June on first-degree misdemeanor charges after a nearly six-month long bench trial marked by delays and postponements.

Eapen and Ramos stood in front of the judge’s  bench with their hands clasped tightly behind their backs. Eapen’s father and two of his brothers, including Ajib Eapen, whose name came up in the trial, sat in the back row of the courtroom.

Ramos’s uncle who suffers from Parkinson’s disease and needs assistance walking, stood behind a table reserved for family members and crime victims.

Arguing for more lenient sentences of probation, Eapen’s attorney, Tom Breen, told Cook County Judge Marcus Salone that Eapen was untrained in election law and acting on the direct orders of Stone and his senior legislative aide, Alan Crown, to go out and muster absentee votes. Stone and Crown have not been charged with wrongdoing.

“Mr. Stone was always a for-sure candidate for alderman but in 2007 there was stiff opposition,” Breen said. “In past years, absentee ballots were negligible.”

Lead Cook County prosecutor Lynn McCarthy said that jail sentences were necessary to serve as a deterrent in to politicians and campaign workers who might cook up similar plots to steal votes in future elections.

“Absentee ballots are part of the democratic process and they put the system in jeopardy,” McCarthy said. “The public trust was violated.”

Rohit Saghal described his client Ramos as a family man with two children and an active community member with no prior criminal record. He praised Ramos’s volunteerism in assisting in the construction of community center for Zam’s Hope, an organization that provides assistance to low-income persons, immigrants and their families in West Ridge.

“There’s no doubt the consequences are serious but his life has been seriously affected by these charges,” Saghal said. “His hopes for pursuing a career as a firefighter are gone.”

Saghal added the Ramos was not “an insider” in Stone’s 2007 aldermanic campaign, but a productive member of the community. He also pleaded hardship, stating that an aunt and uncle, whose son committed suicide last month, were dependent on Ramos to drive them to doctor’s appointments and other errands.

Breen pled similar hardship, describing Eapen as a family man with three children whose wife is currently in India tending to a sick mother.

“[Eapen is] a good member of the community, he’s a hardworking guy,” Breen said.

Attorneys for both men suggested probationary sentences on the condition that neither participate in a political campaign or election.

Salone told attorneys both sides that he had read the state statutes relating to the charges several times.

“I understand your argument [for incarceration] suggesting that we send a message to others,” Salone told prosecutors. “But I believe that sentences should be an individual process. I do know urban America. Murder cases are sentenced every day and we still have murder cases. Even our most publicized violent crimes escape our recollection.”

Explaining how he had sought an “equitable” resolution to the case and didn’t believe that both men should be forced to pay for the balance of their lives on findings of guilty for non-violent felonies, Salone said given that reality he knocked the charges down to misdemeanors.

“This is a kiss,” Salone said. “I think the evidence is overwhelming. The reality is that Mr. Eapen and Mr. Ramos attempted to steal democracy and they did it in a vicious way.”

The judge then sentenced Eapen and Ramos to jail terms. Eapen and Ramos were escorted by a Cook County Sherriff’s police officer out of the courtroom into a back room where they turned over personal effects and began serving their jail terms effective immediately. .

Family members of both men appeared stunned, Ajib Eapen wiping a tear from his eye. Eapen and Ramos were stoic as they were taken away and did not turn back to look at family members.

After the sentencing, assistant state’s attorney Mark Brown said it was conceivable that both men could be released early from the county jail based on good behavior at the discretion of the Cook County Sheriff.

Stone, who has maintained his former ward superintendent’s innocence since his indictment, has not yet announced whether he will run for re-election as alderman in 2011. According to Sun-Times article published earlier this week, Stone said he hasn’t yet made up his mind, but may announce his intentions on Aug. 24, the first day for circulating nominating petitions.

The alderman, who at 82 is the oldest member of the Chicago City Council, already faces opposition. Losing candidate Greg Brewer, who ran against Stone in 2007, has already announced another run. Also, Debra Silverstein, wife of State Sen. Ira Silverstein (8th District) who beat out Stone in his long-held post as the ward’s democratic committeeman, is said to be jumping into the fray.

Stone has yet to comment publically on his former ward superintendent’s vote fraud conviction.

Editor

In an all too familiar scene that is being played out across city neighborhoods in Chicago’s bucket-of-blood summer, this time it was Uptown’s turn to gather in front of street shrine of holy candles and stuffed animals for a murdered neighbor.

More than a hundred residents turned out for an uneasy peace vigil on the 4500 block of North Magnolia on Friday evening where a 21-year-old man was shot to death earlier this week.

Aaron Carter was gunned down around 4:30 p.m. Wednesday, along with a 27-year-old man who was shot in the legs, according to published reports. Carter, who grew up on Magnolia, was pronounced dead early the next morning at Advocate Illinois Masonic Hospital.

Carter and the older man were arguing with a group of men inside an unidentified car when shots rang out, striking Carter twice in the chest. Police have no suspects in custody.

According to Cook County jail records, Carter was incarcerated in 2009 and was in the criminal courts system on an unlawful use of weapons charge.

Word of the shooting reverberated quickly through the Uptown neighborhood which maintained a heavy police presence throughout the rest of the week, including a Chicago police helicopter that hovered over the neighborhood for most of Wednesday evening.

Johnny King, the organizer of Friday’s peace vigil and the CEO of a new community group called Commissioned For The Community, said that he and board members were planning an event for next month when his office started receiving phone calls from residents almost immediately after the shooting happened.

Johnny King, CEO and founder of Commissioned For The Community, addresses residents at candlelight peace vigil on Friday evening.

The community organization, which purports to mentor parents and at-risk youth in Rogers Park, Edgewater and Uptown, turned its attention toward organizing Friday’s candlelight vigil. Residents gathered on the troubled block of vintage apartment buildings with a high gang presences, and an equal number of low- and middle-income residents. 

“I’m sure you know that the community has been divided,” King said. “You got the money and you got the poor folks. If you got money you want things to go your way. We want to get them to build a relationship.”

The event drew all four aldermanic challengers for the 46^th Ward, James Cappleman, Michael Carroll, Don Nowotny and Molly Phelan. Each was careful not to politicize the event.

“I wanted all four candidates there,” Cappleman said. “I wanted to take all the talk out of who was present and who wasn’t, and put the focus back where it should be, that there was a death in this neighborhood of a community member.”

Volunteers wearing bright yellow, CFC shirts held signs, including one that read “Please don’t kill, let’s chill,” in front of a tree decorated with red balloons and candles placed around the trunk.

LaQuita Cooper, a staff member with Commissioned For the Community, spoke of the continual violence plaguing Chicago’s neighborhoods. Also on the minds of residents was the death of 13-year-old Robert Freeman Jr., who was shot 22 times in the Pullman neighborhood the same day as Carter.

“Violence, violence, that’s all we hear on the news,” Cooper said. “A lot of us don’t even watch the news anymore because we’re sick of hearing about the same old things happening. When are we going to change and create change in our community?”

Solutions to curtailing the city’s summer of violence were not easily at hand.  A woman yelled at reporters taking pictures of the shrine before the vigil started, saying that Uptown’s middle-class residents were blaming those who lived in the block’s affordable housing for the neighborhood’s violence. Another man who didn’t want his name used suggested a takeover of the federal government and legalizing all drugs.

Derek Davis, the son of Shiller’s chief of staff, Denice Davis, said more events such as Friday’s peace vigil, need to take place in Uptown.

“Let’s start having town hall meetings,” Davis said, who grew up on Magnolia. “Let’s go back to where we can just take the community to a whole other level where everyone’s opinion is heard from each class of individuals where their needs can be taken care of and their concerns addressed.”

One of the problems, Davis said, is that many of the neighborhood’s youth already have felonies affecting their abilities to get jobs.

“Some of these kids don’t feel they have a way out,” Davis said. “There are programs out there that can help. I feel like God is putting me on earth to understand their purpose.”

Community members, he continued, also withhold information that may help police solve crimes out of fear of gang retaliation.

“Who’s going to protect them?” Davis asked. “It’s a safety issue or lack thereof.”

Asked if he would go to police if he witnessed a murder, Davis responded that he would go to God first and ask for his advice.

“I honestly can’t answer that,” Davis said. “But what I can tell you is that living in this area and being raised around gangbangers, I’ve literally seen people with their heads shot out and their brains on the ground. It was a lot worse [in Uptown] in the early 90s.”

Commissioned For The Community is setting up programs to educate families about basic life skills, such as budgeting and parenting, and the impact of poverty and racism.

“Right now children are raising children,” Cooper said. “Some of these parents don’t have parenting skills. We have to look at the drug addiction that is flooding our community to where parents don’t even care. Some of them are so high and drunk it doesn’t matter to them as long as their kids are bringing in the money.”

Many residents lingered after the prayer vigil, offering comfort and support to Carter’s family. An older woman rubbed the shoulders and prayed with Carter’s girlfriend, who is pregnant with the couple’s child.

Staring into the sea of candles was Carter’s stepbrother, Jason Gonzalez, 15, who has been spending the summer in Chicago from Florida.

“I was in the house and my stepmom called and said that my brother just got shot,” Gonzalez said. “They was wrong to take him out because he was a good person. He did nothing to nobody.”

Gonzalez said the family doesn’t believe Carter’s death to be related to a gang violence, but rather the continuation of an escalating argument that began at a party.

“It was taken too far,” Gonzalez said. “The person shouldn’t have come back and shot him. They could have went up to him and discussed it.”

Scenes from a vigil.

Editor

There’s a stiff sea breeze blowing across the Land of Lincoln from an auditorium at Loyola University off the shore of Lake Michigan on a day when former-Gov. Rod Blagojevich’s balls suddenly receded up into his underpants.

About a hundred, average, everyday folks from across the Chicago region gathered last Tuesday at the Quinlan Life Sciences Building in Rogers Park for the first of two Citizen Watchdog training sessions hosted by the Better Government Association.

You’ve seen them: those pesky dissident neighbors who sit in the back of the room at village board meetings, the local school council, or the community town hall, asking the hard questions that make local politicians and other muckety-mucks squirm.

Harnessing the room’s energy was Andy Shaw, the former ABC-7 political reporter and now executive director of the BGA, the gold standard for honest government. Standing in front of the projected images of Gov. George Ryan and Blago, Illinois’s poster boys for political corruption, Shaw and the BGA injected some new hope into the room for changing the status quo.

“It’s thrilling to see a room full of people who realize that we’re never going to change the system unless we do it together,” Shaw said.

The mission is simple: equip citizens with the tools of investigative journalism and send them out to be the eyes and ears of the BGA and start eliminating the corruption tax. The second goal is a little more complex, restore faith in government.

Meeting the digital realities of the 21^st Century, the BGA is working to build a web site that will serve as a good government town hall and hopefully engage citizens in telling their own stories about local corruption in an effort to help them advocate for themselves.

Shaw and the BGA are convinced that if local aldermen, village trustees, county board commissioners and all the way up to the mayor’s and governor’s offices start receiving 5,000 phones, 5,000 e-mails and 5,000 Facebook messages, they may back off from squandering taxpayers’ money on some inside deal.

“We’re not going to turn you into Woodward and Bernstein, that’s not the idea,” Shaw said. “But if we give you a few tools and some ability to tell stories and work with us … [on] whatever you’re interested in, if we send you out there with the ability to look at an agenda and look at a budget and listen to a debate and have your ears perk up with something that doesn’t pass the smell test … you can write about and we’ll help you get on our website or give us tips that we can investigate and follow.”

“I submit to you,” Shaw continued, “the only way we’re going to change this is if we put the heat on 24/7 and the only way we can put the heat on 24/7 is if we’re in this together.”

Citizen watchdogs in training got some pointers in the Illinois Open Meetings Act and filing freedom of information act or FOIA requests from Bob Herguth, a former transportation reporter for the Chicago and now the acting director investigations for the BGA.

Herguth emphasized the importance of attending governmental meetings, telling audience members to start with their neighborhood CAPS and local school council meetings.

Relaying a story of a missed CTA board meeting, during which a member tried to pass a measure that would guarantee him a fat, early retirement pension, Herguth said when citizens don’t go to meetings, that’s when the shenanigans usually happens.

All government and municipal meetings involving the spending of public tax dollars are required by state law to be open.

“You can go the meeting,” Herguth said. “They just can’t close the doors and say you can’t come in. You have a right to go in and witness proceedings, and you have a right to know about meetings in advance. Meetings can’t be held at the last minute or in secret at some bar up the street.”

Already audience members were offering tips to the BGA. David Jenkins, who runs a citizens advocacy website that tracks the doings of Cook County government, claimed that average Joes were often shut out of board meetings because the chamber was stacked to capacity with Cook County employees.

 “There will be so many Cook County employees at board meetings that citizens aren’t about to go in because they are told it’s over capacity,” Jenkins said. “In my opinion, these employees should probably be doing something more productive like what they are paid to do. Any way we can call them out on this or get our way into that meeting because as a citizen, it seems awfully unfair.”

After being told by Shaw that the BGA could work with Jenkins on investigating the Cook County Board’s alleged violations of the Open Meetings Act, Jenkins responded, “I got video.”

Citizens watchdogs-in-training also got hear from a whistleblower, Tammy Raynor, an Illinois Secretary of State employee who noticed improprieties taking place at the state driver vehicle license facility where she worked under Ryan’s watch when he was the Secretary of State. Raynor blew the whistle that eventually launched the Operation Safe Road investigation.

Raynor stepped forward after six children were killed in a fiery car accident resulting from a trucker who paid a bribe in order to get his commercial driver’s license when he did not meet state requirements.

“Tammy had the nerve and the courage and civic responsibility to realize she had to tell the story,” Shaw said. “She told the Willis attorney and Channel 7 and when the story broke all hell broke loose.”

The second BGA Citizen Watchdog training session is scheduled for 7 p.m. Tuesday, July 27, at Loyola University’s Quinlan Life Sciences Building at 1060 W. Sheridan Road.  The second session is expected to review filing freedom of information act requests and journalistic standards, such as avoiding libel, in greater detail. Those interested in going to the second session need not have attended the first.

Shaw promised that the citizen watchdog training sessions in Rogers Park are the first of many being planned for around the Chicago region and statewide.

“It’s a work in progress,” he said. “This is an ongoing dialogue.”

Editor

Campaign donations for the Chicago City Council's longest serving alderman, Berny Stone, of the 50th Ward, are down according to his July 1 campaign finance statements.

Aldermanic challengers are raising copious amounts of cash hoping to intimidate entrenched incumbents and each other.

The deadline for candidates to electronically file their campaign finance statements or “D2s” with the Illinois State Board of Elections came and went on Tuesday. The latest reporting cycle covers Jan. 1 through June 30, 2010.

Some of the challengers are running campaigns on shoestring budgets, relying more on the  energy of supporters and social media to carry them over the mountaintop come Feb. 22, 2011 rather than matching aldermanic Goliaths dollar for dollar.

Still, others have posted impressive sums of cash during the first half of the year, even if some of that money comes out of  their own pockets.

The most recent reporting cycle also shows shrinking war chests of some long-time incumbent aldermen who faced tough races in 2007, possibly indicating diminished clout or else lying in wait to start up  the truck in the next pre-election reporting cycle.

Architect Greg Brewer is staging another run for 50th Ward alderman. Brewer finished third in a four-way race for Berny Stone's seat on the Chicago City Council in 2007.

Greg Brewer, the architect who took on Ald. Berny Stone in 2007 and finished third in a four-way race for the 50^th Ward aldermanic seat, filed a statement of organization to form a new political campaign committee on July 6, after the June 30 reporting deadline.

Brewer posted no donations for his new campaign committee, Greg Brewer for Alderman. His 2007 campaign committee, Citizens for Brewer, still carries debts of  $115,000, mostly to himself, and his available campaign funds were $85.11 as of July 1.

He explained that Citizens for Brewer is an inactive campaign committee.

“All it’s doing is holding my personal loans to the campaign,” Brewer said. “Now I’m on the phone everyday fundraising.

Stone, the Chicago City Council’s oldest alderman, showed $8,033 in campaign cash as of July 1. During the same reporting cycle in 2006, available cash in Stone’s campaign fund was double that amount at $16,499.

Contributions to the Bernard L. Stone Campaign Committee during the 2007 election cycle surged to $309,045, when Stone won a contentious runoff.  In 2008, Stone lost the coveted democratic ward committeeman post to State Sen. Ira Silverstein (8^th District).

Silverstein has said that he is mulling a run for the ward alderman in 2011. Silverstein reported $47,552.00 in available campaign funds on July 1.

In past campaigns for the 8^th District state senate race, Silverstein had $136,586 (2002), $126,536 (2004) and $43,677 (2008) at the close of election reporting cycles.

State Sen. Ira Silverstein (8th District) is mulling a run for 50th Ward alderman.

So far, Brewer is the only announced challenger for 50^th Ward alderman in 2011. Another resident who’s mentioned interest in the race is Ahmed Kahn, a Muslim Pakistani, but Kahn has not yet filed a statement of organization with the IBOE.

Jason Honig has been campaigning heavily Facebook on his “Empowerment for the 40^th Ward” group. Honig told Lake Effect News that he intends to take on Ald. Patrick O’Connor (40^th) in 2011.

The principal of a Lutheran high school, Honig said that his statement of organization is in the mail to the state.

O’Connor reported $71,491 in available campaign cash as of July 1. The powerful 40^th Ward alderman has run unopposed in the past two aldermanic elections. Honig acknowledges that ward residents are fairly happy with O’Connor, as long as the garbage gets picked up and the streets cleaned.

“People haven’t had a choice in the last several elections, and when people don’t have an option they don’t go out to vote,” Honig said. “Now, we’re going to give them a choice.”

 State Rep. Harry Osterman (14^th District) is also rumored to be considering a run for his late mother’s, Kathy Osterman, 48^th Ward aldermanic seat, where Mary Ann Smith has served as the ward alderman since 1991.

Since 2002 when Osterman was first elected to the state house, he has handily trounced weak Republican opponents or run unopposed.

As of July 1, Osterman racked up $97,528 in campaign cash. He also spent $40,025 for food, beverages and parade float rentals for such name-building community events in Edgewater as his kid-oriented play days at the Broadway Armory, holiday festival and senior health fair.

State Rep. Harry Osterman (14th District) is rumored to be considering a run for his late mother's, Kathy Osterman, old seat on the City Council in the 48th Ward.

Smith, who knocked three challengers off the ballot in the 2007 aldermanic race, reported $19,043 in available campaign funds at the close of the recent reporting cycle. A statement of organization filed on July 15 appears to have been removed or an error in filing.

The biggest horse race is in the 46^th Ward, where four challengers are vying for Ald. Helen Shiller’s City Council seat, fresh off her fait accompli with the opening of the controversial, TIF-funded Wilson Yard development.

Shiller raised $15,930 in itemized and non-itemized campaign donations and $2,450 in transfers made to her campaign committee, Citizens for Shiller, as of July 1. The embattled alderman also spent $10,200 in consulting fees paid to First Decade Consulting.

Compared to the 2006 pre-election and 2007 election reporting cycles, Shiller raised $71,121 and 80,445 respectively. Shiller retained her seat winning by 700 votes over challenger James Cappleman in 2007. Shiller has not yet declared her 2011 re-election plans.

In this last reporting cycle, Cappleman raised almost $60,000 in campaign contributions, including $20,000 in self-donations. Cappleman also loaned $4,000 to his 2011 aldermanic campaign fund. About 80 to 90 percent of those contributions came from ward residents, Cappleman said.

Compared to his 2007 campaign, when he raised $52,964 in campaign contributions, Cappleman claims to have raised more money this past election cycle.

His own $20,000 contribution, comes from a nearly $25,000 severance package that he received from Comer’s Children’s Hospital where he worked as a social worker.

“I can’t get it back,” Cappleman said. “That’s because I believe in it and that’s why I’m working my butt off because I want to make this ward better and it means a sacrifice.”

Ald. Mary Ann Smith (48th) pictured at last year's opening of the Foster Avenue bricolage mural, doesn't appear to have made up her mind if she will run for re-election in the 48th Ward ...

Cappleman thinks it will be easier to raise money for his 2011 campaign because he has greater name recognition, despite tough economic times.

Don Nowotny, the current Streets and Sanitation Ward Superintendent, posted $96,163 in available campaign funds as of July 1.

Nowotny loaned himself $49,000 this reporting cycle, as well as Karen Boehning, wife of 46^th Ward Democratic Committeeman Tom Sharp, who loaned Neighbors for Nowotny $35,000. Both Nowotny and Boehning share officer roles on their condominium board.

Money that Nowotny loaned to his campaign came from the sale of a family business in Iowa last year, where his now deceased parents had owned and operated a grain elevator for many years.

 “I know my parents would approve of [using the money from the sale],” Nowotny told Lake Effect News. “I believe in the people of this ward and I believe in myself in helping people in the ward move forward. I feel the money is well used.”

As for Shiller making a top-secret loan to her ward superintendent campaign fund, Nowotny said that all the money in his fund is legal.

“If [Shiller] did do something like that there would have to be transactions recorded,” he said. “I wouldn’t do anything like that.”

... neither has Ald. Helen Shiller in the 46th.

Molly Phelan, who led Uptown residents in suing the city over the Wilson Yard TIF in 2008, has managed to raise $41,450 in donations. Most of Phelan’s campaign contributions came from her “personal contacts” outside the ward in ten days before her campaign announcement on July 14.

“I didn’t get the benefit of being promoted on [neighborhood blog] Uptown Update,” Phelan said. “On the other hand, I wasn’t actively seeking donations from the community but it doesn’t mean that I’m not going to.”

Phelan, a property tax attorney, has demonstrated a past talent for fundraising. To help fund the residents’ lawsuit against the city and developer Peter Holsten for alleged abuses of state TIF laws, Phelan raised close to $80,000 under the auspices of the Fix Wilson Yard group. Litigation has since been put on hold with the option of renewing legal action before the end of December.

Challenger Michael Carroll reported $7,477 in available campaign funds as of July 1. The Chicago police officer is hosting Lake Michigan and Cubs’ rooftop fundraisers this month.

The 46^th Ward aldermanic race lost a challenger this week, bringing the number of challengers to four. Gerald Farinas, a social worker and a one-time consultant to former U.S. Senate candidate Alan Keyes, announced that he was bowing out on his blog:

“It is with deep regret that our campaign has come to an early end. Since Gerald’s October 11, 2009 announcement … We know there were many who had no confidence in what we were trying to do …  Still others have shared that this is the year for a dark horse. But the odds are against us. Our community is not ready for real, bold, innovative change that it needs. It looks like it won’t vote for something that’s too new to them. The field is too crowded and our good message is being drowned out by well-funded veterans of Chicago ward politics with massive appetites for the title of “Ward Boss” and deeply entrenched divisions among neighbors.”

Editor

"It was worth it," Ald. Helen Shiller (46th) tells invited guests at the long-awaited opening of the new Target store at Wilson Yard.

After 12 years of planning, stutter steps, community blowback and an attempt by residents to seek a temporary injunction to halt the construction of the TIF-financed Wilson Yard development, a beaming Helen Shiller threw open the doors to what may be the lasting legacy of her nearly 25-year reign as the 46^th Ward alderman.

Shiller was joined by Mayor Richard M. Daley, State Rep. Greg Harris (13^th District), Wilson Yard developer Peter Holsten and a host of other luminaries in cutting the ceremonial ribbon for the soft opening of the new Target store on Tuesday morning.

“By way of thanks there were many people involved who put a great deal of effort into realizing this development for the community,” Shiller told the crowd of invited guests, flanked by the 311 red-shirted “fast, fun and friendly” new hires at the Target store.

“There were times when it seemed it wasn’t going to happen because of the controversy of the affordability,” Shiller added.

Daley praised Shiller for bringing the “CTA, retail and [Truman] college together with affordability.”

“Anything you do in life in development is controversial. You have to be on a mission,” Daley said. “Anybody would have given up just like that, but Helen had the objective.”

Daley vowed that residents would soon forget about the controversy surrounding Wilson Yard with the opening of the new Target and affordable housing, which is now completely filled.

“People will look back and say this is one of the best things to happen to Uptown,” the mayor said. “[Shiller] took a lot of flack up here from a lot of people.”

“It was worth it,” Shiller said.

Touting the benefits of the city’s tax increment financing program, Daley praised Wilson Yard as a successful development and that “represents one of the best and most important uses of tax increment financing funds today.”

Daley said that Wilson Yard provided 260 temporary construction jobs and 350 permanent jobs at the new Target. He placed the total TIF funds used for development projects within the Wilson Yard TIF district at $54 million.

In addition, the development includes a $32.3 million affordable senior apartment complex with 98 one-bedroom units for residents age 55 and over earning at or below 50 percent of the area median income. The city invested up to $20 million in tax exempt bonds, which helped leverage $12,2 million in tax credit equity; $6.8 million in loans and $11.7 in TIF assistance for the Wilson Yard project, according to a press release distributed at the morning ceremony.

The 80 affordable family units at 1026 W. Montrose were funded by the Illinois Housing Development Authority, an Aldi store and ten smaller store spaces, four of which already have signed leases with three others in the works, also make the massive mixed development.

Another $14 million generated from the Wilson Yard TIF is also being used to fund two other projects in Uptown, including the renovation and preservation of 59 units of affordable housing at the Clifton-Magnolia Apartments on the 4400 block of North Clifton and the construction of a new 7-story student center and parking garage at Truman College.

Target associate Kristy Butler (from left to right), Wilson Yard resident Yolanda Holmes, Mayor Daley, Peter Holsten and Ald. Helen Shiller get ready to cut the ceremonial ribbon at Wednesday's opening of the new Target store at Wilson Yard.

As if speaking to the development’s many community critics, Holsten, the developer, stating that “Target didn’t come here free – they had to pay.”

Holsten defended the length of time it took to get the project off the ground. He thanked the dozen or so financers of the project, including LSC, IDHA, Bridgeview and other private banks for floating loans and buying tax credits to realize Wilson Yard in the midst of economic turmoil and escalation of construction materials and costs.

“When you work closely with an elected official there’re a lot of constituents out there that you have to please,” he said. “That’s why these projects take so long.”

About 85 percent of Target’s 311-strong work force come from the Uptown neighborhood or live within two miles of the community.

Kristy Butler, a Target team member and Uptown resident of 16 years who transferred to work at the new store, declared she was happy to be working closer to home.

“I can now live and work in my community and save money on public transportation,” Butler said.

Jubilantly waving a remnant of the ceremonial ribbon, Shiller looked every inch the aldermanic candidate for her seat on the City Council, putting the lie to her detractors who said the Target store wasn’t opening. Shiller is said to be making an announcement about her re-election plans the week of August 8, a source told Lake Effect News.

“Target is going to create the critical mass for smaller businesses in the neighborhood to feed off of that,” Shiller said.

The grand opening for the Wilson Yard Target store is Sunday, July 25, however, the store is open to neighborhood shoppers starting at 8 a.m. Wednesday.

Editor

Molly Phelan after announcing her candidacy for 46th Ward alderman on Wednesday at Nick's Uptown in Buena Park.

Painting her candidacy for 46^th Ward alderman in wide, broad strokes, Molly Phelan took her campaign beyond ward confines and presented the “big picture” of what is needed to reform City Council and get the city back on track.

Phelan, who engineered the Fix Wilson Yard residents’ 2008 lawsuit against the City of Chicago for alleged TIF abuses relating to the planning of the Wilson Yard TIF District, announced her candidacy for 46^th Ward alderman before a packed room of 200 supporters at Nick’s Uptown on Wednesday.

“My name is Molly Phelan, and I want to be your alderman,” the property tax attorney announced.

Phelan was introduced to the crowd by Uptown resident Judy Glazebrook, one of the plaintiffs in the Fix Wilson Yard lawsuit. Glazebrook called Phelan “tenacious” and “courageous” in her approach to tackling community issues.

 “My husband and I have lived in Uptown since 1978 and for most of those 32 years this community has suffered under misguided leadership and a host of problems that resulted,” Glazebrook said. “Not only does the 46^th Ward need this independent and energetic councilwoman, the City Council needs her also.

Phelan is one of five challengers in the race so far for Ald. Helen Shiller’s seat on the City Council. Shiller is said to be making an announcement on whether she intends to run for another term in early August.

“A lot of you have asked me why I’m running for alderman,” Phelan said. “The short answer is I’m sick of it. I’m sick of the lying, I’m sick of the kids getting killed in our streets, and I’m sick of money being taken from our schools and given away in backroom deals in city hall. I’m sick of it.”

Describing a college internship with the Better Government Association, Phelan talked of participating in investigations targeting ghost payrollers at Chicago City Hall, and stopping land-based casinos from getting licenses in Chicago because of corruption concerns.

“My passion has always not been politics but good government,” she said. “That’s the underpinnings of why I’m here today.”

Phelan touted her background in commercial real estate and technology, before joining her family’s law firm Kearney and Phelan  She said that law school taught her a lot about “municipal law, realty law and property tax law,”

“Being a property tax attorney gives me great insight into the abuses of TIF laws and how it affects everybody in this room on a day-to-day basis about where your money is going and why property tax dollars are going up,” Phelan said. “It’s this background that’s going to allow me be the best alderman for you because I have the business, technical and legal experience.”

Condensing her campaign themes down to business development, transparency and the need for community, Phelan jabbed Shiller, stating the alderman wasn’t interested in bringing businesses to the ward.

“Now if I had $58 million in my pocket, I could get anyone to come to this ward,” Phelan said, mentioning the new Target store that was developed with public tax dollars from the Wilson Yard TIF. “I think we can get businesses to come to this ward without paying them, they should be paying us.”

Phelan also accused the City Council of “starving” Chicago Public Schools, calling it “irreproachable.”

“What company wants to transfer to Chicago if their employees can’t get their kids the education that they need and deserve,” she said.

The Chicago Police Department is also understaffed by 1,000 to 1,500 patrol officers, Phelan said she learned from a meeting with Ald. Scott Waugespak.

“Cops go out alone in patrol cars and can’t respond to calls right away because they need to wait for back up,” Phelan said. “We can’t have that in the 46^th Ward. We need immediate response; we need our cops to have better funding and better resources to fight crime.”

Saying there was “a difference between transparency and putting something up on a web site because a city ordinance tells you to do it,” Phelan vowed to bring “active transparency” to Chicago.

“I’m going to tell you what’s going to happen before it even happens. I’m going to tell you what’s in my mind and I’m going to have my open community meetings video-taped so that if you have to work late you didn’t miss it. You can go home and watch it on your computer,” Phelan said. “You’re not going to miss a thing because I’m giving it to you. You don’t have to find out anything about me because it’s going to be right there.”

Phelan chastised the ward’s current political leadership for “a lack of community,” a prevailing theme among this election’s crop of challengers.

“It’s my biggest concern in terms of winning this election,” Phelan said. “For several years our community has been polarized. We’ve been taught that it’s always the other person’s problem and not ours. I don’t believe that. We really, really need to reach out to neighbors and join together as a community because the thing that divides us right now is the thing that’s going to make us stronger in the long run.”

Phelan said the key to business development is in the ward’s cultural diversity.

 “The business community can absolutely thrive if we take all the cultures represented in the 46^th Ward and celebrate them,” she said. “That’s the underlying goal of my business development plan.”

She acknowledged that it would be a tough election, but said she would be knocking on doors and listening to voters’ concerns.

“This isn’t your ward, this isn’t my ward, this is not anybody’s ward,” she closed. “It’s our community.”

Everyone from the Uptown and Lakeview communities is welcome. To find out more about Phelan’s candidacy, click here.

Editor

Susan Lofton (left) accepts a bouquet of roses after being elected the new contracted principal of Senn High School.

Members of the Senn High School local school council elected a new contracted principal to replace retiring principal, Richard Norman.

Lincoln Park-resident Susan Lofton was awarded a four-year contact on July 1. Prior to coming on board as Senn’s interim principal in May, Lofton was an assistant principal at Steinmetz High School.

Senn is an open enrollment, neighborhood school drawing students from Rogers Park, Edgewater and Uptown. While the school offers many accelerated paths for students, incoming freshmen living within the school’s neighborhood boundaries do not have to test into the school, unlike magnet high schools.

Lofton’s appointment signals the LSC’s intentions to keep Senn as a neighborhood school. The controversial introduction of the Rickover Naval Academy in the school building’s upper floors in 2005 spurred the Senn LSC into creating a long term strategic planning committee comprised of teachers, parents, students and community residents to pick up the underperforming school by its bootstraps.

In 2007, Ald. Mary Ann Smith (48^th) footed a proposal to close Senn and divide it into four separate schools offering different academic tracks because of the school’s high dropout rate and a perception of violence.

Lofton said she intends to continue working with the LSC and other stakeholders that want to preserve Senn’s neighborhood roots, which boasts one of the city’s most ethnically diverse student populations with over 60 different languages are spoken at home.

 “Senn is a neighborhood high school and that’s important to me,” the new principal said. “I graduated from a neighborhood school, Calvin Park. Steinmetz is a neighborhood school. What is particular about Senn is that it’s a neighborhood school that provides a lot of internal options for students.”

Among those “internal options” is Senn’s International Baccalaureate Program, a rigorous international program that allows students opportunities to study abroad. The program also allows students to earn college credits enabling them to place into higher level courses during their first year of college.

“The program emphasizes community service and individual growth,” Lofton said. “It develops students’ sense of global mindedness and gets them to think beyond Thorndale and Broadway.”

Lofton plans to continue molding the AVID program that is open to all students in grades 9-12. The program focuses on study skills and college field trips so that students have a career and college plan in place by their senior year.

Senn also offers an MYP or Middle Years Programme that builds upon Senn’s connections with sixth- through eighth-grade students at one of the neighborhood feeder schools, Pierce Elementary. The program allows students to earn certificates to enter the IB program in their junior year at Senn.

Lofton would like to see more students who live in the neighborhood choose Senn as their high school.

“I’d like to see Senn improve on its relationships with elementary schools,” Lofton said. “Partnerships are a two-way street and we will be reaching out to neighborhood schools.”

She acknowledges that much work still needs to be done to help incoming freshmen remain in high school all four years. According to city-data.com, a national firm that compiles realty, school and other government data, Senn’s 2009 graduation rate was 45 percent. CPS data placed the graduation rates of incoming freshmen in 2008 at 43 percent.

“The [graduation rate] is not as high as I would like,” Lofton said. “I really want students once they walk through the door to be focused on graduation and going on to college.”

To combat the dropout problem, Senn will be ramping up its freshmen orientation by introducing a mentoring program, including earlier field trips to colleges for first- and second-year students, and more interventions, such as early progress reports.

“We know by the third week if a student is struggling,” Lofton said. “Very often it’s a kid that did well eighth grade. The transition from elementary school to high school is quite difficult. There will be opportunities for tutoring and a homework room.”

Senn continues to develop new strategies to enhance public safety in the school.

“The thing people need to know is that Senn is like any high school included in the top tiers,” Lofton said. “We have an overwhelming majority of good, decent kids who want to do well in life, and then there is the small percentage who have a different agenda. We know who those kids are and we’re going to deal with them one on one and they’re not going to interfere with anyone else.”

To fund these strategies, Lofton said the school will pursue grants to add more security staff and preventative mentoring programs for troubled students.

“We are understaffed,” Lofton said of school security guards. “Part of what we’re working on are strategies and incentives for students to get them to class in time and on time so there will be no desirability to be in the hall.”

Presently, Lofton is working with LSC to sync school stakeholders’ long range strategic plan with the district’s and state’s improvement plans. Student enrollment in 2009 was 1,162, about 95 percent of whom are designated low-income based on participation in the free federal lunch program.

“What we have done is identify all the areas where the plans overlap and to get all three government documents to support the same common vision,” Lofton explained. “The area strategic plan and the one that stakeholders did are astonishingly similar.”

Lofton calls being a high school principal a “lifestyle.”

“You’re on all the time,” she said. “For me that means a lot of community involvement. I was at the Thorndale Community Center, talking about improving safe passage for Senn students to and from school. Students will be going out into to community to sing and perform.”

The Better Government Association is hosting two Citizen Watchdog Training sessions from 7 to 8:30 p.m. on July 20 and July 27. Both sessions are free and will be held at Loyola University’s Quinlan Life Sciences Building, Auditorium 142, at 1032 W. Sheridan.

The big dogs at BGA will train everyday citizens how to monitor government in their communities, publicize what they find and advocate for real change in government. Veteran investigative journalists, political reporters and legal experts will share their tricks of the trade with watchdogs to identify stories, research and analyze government reports, writing bullet-proof FOIAs, develop sources and report on their findings in all areas of government. More importantly, watchdogs will be equipped with the tools to advocate for change and demand better government.

 Former ABC 2 political reporter and BGA executive director Andy Shaw will make an appearance. Citizens will also have the chance to meet a real government whistle-blower and learn how she stopped corruption in her own government agency.

Both sessions are identical so watchdogs-in-training need only sign up for one session. The sessions are expected to fill up fast so RSVP early at mfoconnor@bettergov.org.

Dick Simpson

The colonnades that grace the exterior of the City-County Building at Clark and Randolph are a reminder that the structure is the seat of two local governments, an architectural gesture to the classical republican traditions of Rome.

For years, however, county government’s elected officials and administrative functionaries haven’t lived up to best tribunes of that ancient society. To say the least. Cook County government officials have, more often than not, resembled Rome’s worst.

Last February, my research team at the University of Illinois-Chicago and the Better Government Association co-authored “Corruption in Cook County,” a report that detailed the patterns of corruption in county government over the decades. The report compiled a partial roster of nearly 150 businessmen, politicians and government officials who’ve been convicted in connection with Cook County public corruption scandals.

Nearly every unit of county government has been implicated, and federal prosecutors have brought us more than a few investigations, like Operation Greylord (where 15 judges, 47 lawyers and 24 law enforcement officers pleaded guilty or were convicted on various charges), Operation Gambat (another judicial corruption probe) and Operation Haunted Hall (a ghost pay rolling scheme).

Todd Stroger, the outgoing president of the Cook County Board of Commissioners, responded to our report by saying that he had done much to clean up corruption for which he hasn’t gotten credit. So the Better Government Association’s director Andy Shaw and I met with President Stroger to discuss the issue.

On February 25, a bitterly cold winter day, Andy and I walked into President Stroger’s inner chamber on the fifth floor of the county building, and took a seat in the chairs before his desk. The reforms we proposed included limiting campaign contributions, especially by county employees; strengthening the ethics and lobbying ordinances by stopping workers from holding two government jobs and ending the practice of county officials lobbying other governments for private benefit; limiting nepotism in hiring; and fostering greater transparency.

Aides members clustered to Stroger’s side, handing him paper copies of refutations of our charges. We made our arguments and then Stroger went into long monologues in response. After two hours of rather fruitless efforts to persuade him to back our reforms, the meeting ended. As we left, he promised to read the recommendations and get back to us. Staffers politely escorted us to the door.

When Andy and I appeared on the Milt Rosenberg’s “Extension 720″ radio show on WGN-AM a few days later, President Stroger called in and admitted he still hadn’t read the three page memo but railed against our charges of corruption in his administration

Follow-up calls to his staff made it clear to me that Stroger, despite his assertions, was not going to sponsor any new legislation to curb corruption in county government.

All three candidates for county board president have agreed with the changes we proposed, however.

Meanwhile, in May, Cook County Commissioner Tony Peraica introduced a series of amendments to help curb unethical and corrupt practices.

The amendments would prohibit Cook County government employees from serving as a lobbyist for any entity other than Cook County. The best known conflict here is Cook County Board of Appeals member Joe Berrios, who has lobbied for the video gaming industry in Springfield while hearing — and granting — tax appeals for the clients of House Speaker Mike Madigan.

Peraica’s legislation would also prohibit former Cook County elected officials or firms in which they have a financial interest from receiving business from the county for a period of two years after they leave county employment, and tighten limits on campaign contributions.

The ordinance already has an unusual supporter and a surprising opponent. County Commissioner William Beavers, an old-guard machine guy that has President Stroger’s back, supports the legislation.

But other commissioners are worried about offending Commissioner Larry Suffredin, who usually leads the liberal reform wing of the Cook County Board. He and his law firm do a lot of lobbying in Springfield.

The trick in getting the legislation passed, which will be brought up for a vote after Labor Day, just in time for the November elections and maximum voter attention, will be whether or not the voters in the neighborhoods and the suburbs care about county government and an annual “corruption tax.”

If the public anger we’re seeing in some of the primary races in around the country — and, to be sure, here in Cook County as well — reaches sitting county commissioners, they’ll pass anti-corruption legislation this fall.

If they think they don’t have to be accountable, they’ll stiff the voters and taxpayers once more.

Dick Simpson, the former alderman of the 44th Ward, teaches political science at the University of Illinois-Chicago. This column was first published in Chicago Journal.