The junk spreads!

It’s hard to know how seriously we should take the talk that Moody’s Investors Service went ahead and dinked the financial status of the Chicago Public Schools and the park district.

One day after Moody’s downgraded the status of city government’s bonds to junk status – implying that they are a bad financial risk for investors looking to make a buck – they took the same actions with the schools and the parks.

THEY’RE ALL JUNK. It probably is the first in a series of downgrades that will impact all governmental units in the area.

Big business interests will now be eager to treat all government entities in such a negative manner.

Which makes me think they’re engaging in their own partisan politicking – trying to force government into enacting measures of harm to labor interests and ones that likely would never have been considered otherwise.

The real question, in my mind, is if the Standard & Poor’s bond rating agency decides to follow suit. Will they downgrade their own ratings of our local government entities to show some sort of overall negative perception of how weak our financial status is.

OR WILL STANDARD & Poor’s keep its level the same? Indicating it might be a mere hang-up that Moody’s has with regards to Chicago.

Considering that the two entities usually react in similar ways, it would be likely that a Standard & Poor’s downgrade would be forthcoming. Which means it’s more a kneejerk reaction than anything else.

Of course, I have always felt that the bond ratings are not some hard-and-fast ranking that ought to be taken for granted. It’s almost like those baseball fans who think the batting average, a mere percentage carried out to the thousandth of a point, is an absolute indicator of how good a ballplayer truly is.

 

Nothing has truly changed between last week when the bond ratings were still of some sound standard, and this week when we’re supposedly worthless financially.

EVERYTHING IN CHICAGO remains the same. In fact, it is likely that things won’t get significantly better when our government officials do figure out some mathematical formula that enables the pension funding mechanisms to be resolved and our bond ratings will increase again.

I noticed that Mayor Rahm Emanuel went about saying on Wednesday that it was “irresponsible” for Moody’s to lower the bond ratings. Just as Chicago Teachers Union spokeswoman Stephanie Gadlin issued a statement calling such actions “reckless.”

Could it be that the bond rating fiasco is the common ground that can bring two otherwise-openly hostile sides together? I don’t know if this is the first step toward avoiding a teacher strike later this year.

But that could become the one positive that arises from all this mess.

OF COURSE, WITH the teachers’ union also saying it believes Emanuel and the big banks are in cahoots with each other to misrepresent the financial status of our governments, it’s probably not realistic to expect anything to bring the sides together.

Actually, I’m wondering how long it will be until Illinois government also has its bond ratings dinged down to junk status. Or is there a sense that business interests don’t want to do something to embarrass the political stature of Bruce Rauner – the governor of Republican persuasion who claims he wants to run the state like the investment banker he once was.

That would be blatantly partisan. I’d like to think such a thing would not happen.

 

But this kind of big-business trash-talk about junk bonds does have a certain stink of partisan politics about it; perhaps concocted by the same kind of partisans who are desperate to spew the nonsense that Chicago is the next Detroit.

 

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Are we destined to be “blessed” by being picked for site of Obama library?

In the ongoing dispute over where President Barack Obama would choose to have the legacy museum and library meant to enhance his historical reputation, I can’t help but wonder how long until we get the big announcement.

Because to listen to the various reports that have emanated from assorted places, Chicago has done everything that has been asked.

WE CAME UP with a site with proximity to the University of Chicago and put on the political pressure to make those individuals who hate the idea of a presidential library being built on Chicago Park District land feel uncomfortable.

Heck, some 332,171 of us even went so far as to vote for Rahm Emanuel to be our mayor for the next four years – out of the ridiculous belief that having Jesus Garcia as nuestra alcalde (that’s “our mayor” for those of you who are linguistically challenged) was somehow a deal-killer for the Obamas.

That supposedly was the reason why the Obama Foundation that technically is deciding this issue (in reality, it’s the president himself, deferring to the best judgment of first lady Michelle) held off on making an announcement about a museum and library location back in February.

We needed to see if Chicago voters cast their ballots properly in order to deserve such a facility.

YES, I’M BEING very facetious in writing this, because I honestly believe if the Obama interests were being shallow enough to decide their library location based on a municipal election outcome that ought to be the deal-killer for anybody with sense.

In which case, let the facility go to Honolulu – which you have to admit would provide for a most-unique location for a facility that usually winds up in places like Abilene, Kan., or Grand Rapids, Mich.

Then again, Ike and Jerry Ford aren’t Obama by any means.

I got my amusement from the Chicago Sun-Times Wednesday, which gave us a “Sneed Exlusive” that says it’s just about a done deal – the presidential library will be located in Chicago.

THE CLINCHING ACTION was the resignation of Cassandra Francis of the Friends of the Parks organization. That is the group that always complains about over-commercialization of the public parks, and was threatening to tie the Obama library/museum proposal into legal knots if they tried to put it there.

They may still be opposed, technically. But having a hole in leadership hurts their effort to put up much of a court fight.

Although considering how political people have their ways of influencing the courts, I’d have to wonder what judge out there would want to be remembered as the guy who ruled against Obama.

This isn’t South Texas where a federal judge was only too eager to put a hold on Obama’s attempt to impose some common sense to the nation’s immigration policies – rather than the ideological nonsense that comes from the kind of people who are likely to want to demonize the library/museum project for years to come.

IN CHICAGO, THIS project is going to be a big deal.

The part of columnist Michael Sneed’s report Wednesday that caught my eye was her claim that the Business Leadership Council and other African-American community leaders were preparing to take on Friends of the Parks by claiming that their no-parkland stance was denying the black community of Chicago a chance to have a significant facility.

Even Emanuel seems to realize this. In Washington this week, he told reporter-types who asked if Chicago would consider bidding for a future Olympic Games that he was more interested in attracting the library/museum for the man whom he once served as chief of staff.

He called a presidential library, “an Olympics with an annuity that gives every year,” the Chicago Tribune reported.

EVEN THOUGH THERE’S a good chance that such a facility would be visited once by locals, then become the site where future generations of schoolchildren from the city (if not the more Republican-oriented of suburban communities) would go on field trips.

Which is what we have to look forward to when the announcement is made.

As I look up from my keyboard, I see a plastic mold figure of the U-505, the Nazi Germany submarine that was captured intact and has been on display for decades at the Museum of Science and Industry. The mold is a souvenir from a long-ago trip to the museum.

Will future generations go to the Obama museum and wind up coming home with a plastic mold bust of the president’s head – big ears and all?!?

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EXTRA: Chuy said what??!?

“The monument to Darth Vader, I oppose,” is not something I thought I’d ever hear coming from a political person’s mouth.

Yet it was part of the official stance that came forth from mayoral hopeful Jesus Garcia when discussion during a Thursday night debate turned to the proposed construction of a pair of museums in Chicago.

THE DEBATE, BROADCAST on WFLD-TV, was directed to that topic by long-time political reporter Mike Flannery, who tried to get Garcia to clarify why he initially wasn’t enthusiastic about supporting the idea of putting a future presidential library and museum for Barack Obama on land owned by the Chicago Park District.

The talk then shifted to talk of the ongoing legal battles over whether to permit filmmaker George Lucas to develop a pop culture museum on a lakefront site just north of Soldier Field.

Lucas has repeatedly insisted the museum will be about much more than the “Star Wars” films he produced. But Garcia apparently feels differently, in quickly dismissing the current proposal – although he said he hopes the museum winds up being located somewhere in Chicago.

Just as he also said his bottom line for an Obama museum and library is to have it in Chicago – even if it has to go on the one-time park district land that recently was turned over to the city government to make it available to the Obama foundation that soon will decide where the facility will someday be located.

EITHER WAY, IT seems like Garcia wants to appease the voters who get hung up on certain details while also pleasing those who want the larger project.

And after publicly dissing Vader, I wonder if a Garcia-run Chicago would need those 1,000 extra police officers to defend the city against the Imperial Stormtroopers who are now destined to invade us as retribution.

With the Sith lord who gives in to his evil impulses using the almighty “force” to take over Chicago and run it in ways that will make incumbent Mayor Rahm Emanuel seem like the cutesy, cuddly teddy bear whose image is portrayed by our city’s National League baseball club.

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EDITOR’S NOTE: My apologies to those who find the “Star Wars” allusions overbearing. Personally, my favorite Lucas film is “American Graffiti” – although the soundtrack LP (or CD, for those of you too young to appreciate the values of vinyl) is worth more than the film itself.

Why does Chicago have to beg to be site of Obama presidential library?

Wednesday is the second day of hearings this week concerning proposals to transfer land to the Chicago Park District to compensate it for public parks land the city wants to offer up as the future site of the Barack Obama presidential library and museum.

Such a facility would be a significant site to bolster Chicago tourism, along with a way of memorializing the time period during which Chicago had influence over the White House and Washington-type activity.

IF ONE LOOKS at the other presidential libraries that exist in this country, one sees that it is a way in which men who work their way up to the presidency wind up acknowledging the people back home – paying tribute to the people who knew him when he was a nobody, yet voted for him anyway!

Yet Chicago is being made to beg to be the site of the future Obama facility in a way I doubt any other city has ever had to do.

I don’t doubt that the people with Columbia University who have put together a proposal to attract the museum/library to New York City have an enticing plan that would be worthy of the future facility.

Yet an Obama library and museum located in New York would be unique amongst all the other facilities – by which U.S. presidents dating back to Herbert Hoover have their legacies on display to the public.

THEY USUALLY GET located in home towns, capital cities or college towns significant to the particular president’s home state.

While I understand Barack and Michelle Obama have already said they do not plan to immediately move back to Chicago upon the completion of his presidency early in 2017, the city still has so much of a tie to Obama’s career path.

Even the President William J. Clinton library and museum got put in Little Rock, Ark., even though the former (and potentially future) first couple never returned to live there – instead preferring the New York suburbs.

But for Obama, we’re being put through a circus routine – being forced to “up our bids,” so to speak, to benefit the presidential foundation that ultimately will choose the future Obama library/museum site this spring.

WHICH IS WHY the park district had to hold hearings Tuesday and again on Wednesday to determine how to appease the people who hate the idea of park district land being used in any way for any Obama project.

It almost feels like Chicago is being extorted for more, more, more!

When it’s over, you just know many people are going to think this is some sort of political fix – as though Chicago was offered a chance to bolster its bid while interests in New York and Hawaii were being considered on the merits of their proposals made late last year.

Will we hear Columbia officials complain later this year that they would have been willing to offer more, if they had been given the chance to amend their bids?

INSOFAR AS THE desires to use sites in Jackson and Washington parks for an Obama library/museum, I’ll be the first to admit those are prominent South Side parks that are not living up to their potential.

Perhaps the future museum presence can help bolster those locations somewhat.

Although it seems like a lot of political gamesmanship Chicago has to endure – with Mayor Rahm Emanuel being put through a lot of political strain to ensure he doesn’t suffer the embarrassment of becoming the former White House chief of staff who couldn’t even keep his former boss in their shared home town.

That, most likely, is what this week’s hearings are truly all about!

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Meigs Field (finally) to become park

The remnants of Meigs Field remain in place. Photograph by Gregory Tejeda

I used to mock Detroit because of what became of Tiger Stadium.

The ballpark where the Detroit Tigers played for nearly nine decades until 1999 remained in place for another decade.

IT WASN’T UNTIL 2009 that the building finally was torn down. While there are some groups that like to go out and play ball on the old infield, Detroit still doesn’t have any official plans for what to do with the site at Michigan and Trumbull avenues.

Pretty pathetic. Except that I’m not sure Chicago is any better. Just look at the saga of Meigs Field – the air strip that for just over a half-century allowed private airplanes to land their craft within a short cab ride of downtown Chicago.

I’m not here to rehash the politics of how former Mayor Richard M. Daley wanted to shutter the air strip on Northerly Island, and finally overcame the opposition of just about everybody by having bulldozers demolish the runways during one overnight in March 2003.

We still tell jokes about the “X” shaped gouges in the runways – making it dangerous for aircraft to try landing on them.



No more need for control tower on Northerly Island. Photograph by Gregory Tejeda



BUT IF ONE happens to drive (or walk) through the area near Northerly Island, it isn’t blatantly apparent that the air strip is long gone.

The old terminal building is still in place, along with the air traffic control tower. Even though it has been just over nine years since the last aircraft left the airstrip.

I realize that part of the reason nothing was able to be developed on the site were lawsuits that were pending by groups wishing to challenge the city’s ability to shutter an airport overnight – and without getting Federal Aviation Administration permission first.

Although it has been about six years since the last of those lawsuits were resolved.



Tiger Stadium is no more, yet its remnants won't wither away



YET WE STILL sit. It’s like Meigs Field has become Chicago’s version of Tiger Stadium.

Which is why I was intrigued by a Chicago Journal report that says work on revamping Northerly Island could begin come autumn.

The newspaper reported this week that the Chicago Park District (which owns the land) and the Army Corps of Engineers have plans to turn the flat layer of grass into a varied nature preserve with various ecosystems.

Almost like we can take the airstrip desired by business interests because of its proximity to downtown Chicago and turn it into a nature preserve whose biggest benefit is its proximity to downtown.

WITHIN A SHORT cab ride of the skyscrapers, one could see what the Midwest used to be like before all the European settlers arrived just over two centuries ago.

And at only $6.65 million, it probably is one of the cheaper projects undertaken by government – particularly since the bulk of the money will come from federal grants.

This may be one of the most cost-efficient projects the Chicago Park District takes on – especially since it won’t cost them more than $1.5 million in local funds.

Of course, I realize that a project hasn’t begun until work on it actually begins. Who knows what could come up between now and September (when officials supposedly will start looking for a construction company) that could delay the project’s beginning?

EVEN ONCE WORK begins, it could take up to five years before we can seriously think of walking through the nature and assorted grasses native to our region – because officials believe it would take up to five years for the grasses to be fully grown.

There also would be one other benefit to having this project in place – it would bring an end to the talk in some quarters that the best future for Northerly Island is to develop a casino on the lakefront site.

I comprehend that a casino is going to go somewhere in Chicago. I just don’t think the gaudiness of a flashy casino needs to be so close to downtown and the lakefront.

If you need bright lights on the lakefront, go watch that giant Ferris wheel at Navy Pier!

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You’re being watched!

Buckingham Fountain, from the days when its physical condition was less delicate than it was this week when three women went for a wade, only to get arrested. Photograph provided by Library of Congress collection.

 Perhaps that is something we must all keep in mind with all the security cameras that police have erected around Chicago. You never know just when you’re being observed by the police.

That eerie feeling is the one I got from learning that three women got themselves arrested earlier this week for climbing into Buckingham Fountain, wading in the cold water, then climbing onto the fountain proper.

I’M NOT ABOUT to defend (or attack) these women, who appear to have got caught up in the spirit of summer’s end. They were at the fountain, got the urge to do something silly and fun, and now face a misdemeanor charge each of reckless conduct.

How did police catch them?

It seems that the security cameras erected around the city also are set on Buckingham Fountain – one of our city’s landmarks. Which means that an officer at the Police Department  headquarters at 35^th Street and Michigan Avenue (about 3.5 miles away) saw the women get into the water.

That officer was then able to alert police officers in the downtown area to get over to the fountain and “deal” with this problem.

WHICH IS WHY when the women were ready to get out of the fountain on their own, they found two police officers on hand – with 10 more cops quickly following them up.

Regardless of what one thinks of how stupid it was to go wading in Buckingham Fountain, there is something about the image of a dozen police officers converging on three women – one of whom is still a teenager – that is a combination of comical and oppressive.

It sounds like a Saturday Night Live sketch about bumbling bureaucratic “boys in blue.”

Whereas the image of an officer at police headquarters being able to watch so many parts of the city nowhere near himself comes off as downright oppressive. It’s eerie that we literally have no clue when we are being watched, or which of our petty actions may catch someone’s suspicion.

FOR WHAT IT’S worth, the Chicago Tribune reports that the women don’t seem too apologetic for their stunt, which Chicago Park District officials say should be illegal because Buckingham Fountain is 83 years old and could easily have been damaged by their behavior.

One of the women literally talked about “youth” and how free spirits lead to “a transformation of a society and an individual for the best.”

Which strikes me as a lot of empty-headed hooey. When combined with the fact that I’d question how clean the Buckingham Fountain water is and whether I would want to wade around it it, I can’t help but think she may be a goof, but the police reaction still strikes me as a bit much.

But this is the trend in our city. Too many people seem willing to accept these cameras.

WHICH REALLY ARE all over the place in certain parts of the city.

The other day, I had a reason to drive through the South Side – specifically along 79^th Street from the Dan Ryan Expressway west until I got to Damen Avenue. I lost track of how many times I looked up at a lamp-post and saw one of those boxes with the Chicago Police Department logo and the flashing blue lights replicating a squad car Mars bar – letting people who live in those neighborhoods know what the women at Buckingham Fountain apparently did not.

You’re being watched.

Seriously, I think it was six such cameras erected in that 20-block stretch of Street, although I may have missed some. I feel like my drive along 79^th Street has been preserved for posterity – should the police suddenly feel the whim to look at it.

IT MAKES ME wonder just how many people the Chicago Police Department employs to sit in front of video screens and watch the content being produced by all those security cameras. It must be a virtual army of officers.

Either that, or more likely there is a good chance that much of what is being filmed never gets seen.

Which means that these three women who will have to go to court in coming weeks to learn just what the Cook County State’s Attorney’s office intends to do with them likely just had the dumb luck of having a police officer catch a glimpse of their particular camera at the exact moment they decided to take their dip.

A moment sooner (or perhaps later), and their wading in the murky water in the fountain would have gone unnoticed.

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Will Chicago-less bid cost World Cup?

I still remember the summer of ’94 in part because of watching the World Cup soccer tournament that was played in the United States.

While that year’s championship game was played at the Rose Bowl in Pasadena, Calif., it was we here in Chicago that got to see the opening ceremonies of the month-long international tourney, along with the first couple of matches.

LITERALLY FOR A couple of days, the eyes of the world were on Chicago and Soldier Field in a way that the Bears (who may be the only people happy to learn that someone won’t tread a decade from now on the “precious” turf they use eight Sundays a year) could never attract.

But if it turns out that the United States does manage to get to host the World Cup again when it is held in 2018 or 2022 (this year will be in South Africa, while 2014 will be in Brazil), we in Chicago are going to be irrelevant.

The U.S. officials who are putting together the bid that FIFA officials will consider later this year in determining where to hold the World Cup released a list of 18 cities that could wind up hosting games.

The closest that list came to Chicago was the thought of playing matches in Indiana-noplace (the city that earlier this week thought it cute to have government officials bet against Baltimore officials and require that an Indianapolis Colts banner be flown in the Maryland city. What next, the L.A. Dodger banner in Brooklyn?)

READING AROUND THE Internet, there have been people all week who have been wondering who was behind the “snub” to Chicago. What reason was being used for not having any of the matches (it’s not like we’re demanding the championship game proper) in the Second City?

Now, we’re reading in the New York Times (or at least those editions that include stories off the Chicago News Cooperative news service) that it was the city itself (specifically, the Chicago Park District) that insisted that Chicago not be included as part of a U.S. bid to stage the World Cup.

If one wants to believe the city’s rhetoric, the tough economic times our nation has faced during the past year makes this a bad time to engage in the politicking necessary to stage an international sports event.

For those who like to believe whatever conspiracy theories are available, particularly if they make Mayor Richard M. Daley look bad, this is about Hizzoner Jr. being a big baby over the fact that Chicago was rejected to be the host city for the summer Olympic games in 2016.

IF THE INTERNATIONAL Olympic Committee can’t see how wonderful Chicago is, then we’re going to snub everybody (including FIFA, the governing body for soccer around the world).

Regardless, it is unlikely that the process could be altered now to suddenly include Chicago, which means the U.S. is going to have to try to appeal to the world without one of its few cities that includes so many international elements.

Some of the pundits whose “world” revolves around international soccer are saying the United States is a favorite to be awarded the World Cup tourney for one of those years (2022 seems to be the concensus). But how serious are world-wide officials going to take a list of countries that includes places like Indianapolis, Nashville, Tenn., and Tampa, Fla., and where some U.S. officials are seriously pushing the idea of San Diego as the perfect place to stage the championship game (in Qualcomm Stadium, quite possibly the worst corporate name in use on an athletic building).

Maybe I’m just overestimating the international significance of Chicago. But with an event such as the World Cup (where officials pick a host country and spread the games among many cities, as opposed to the Olympics where officials pick a host city), one needs a good mix.

WHILE THE GAMES themselves will be attended by people who travel to the cities from around the world, one is going to need to have a local interest as well. That is what the city’s strong ethnic composition in so many different ethnic groups has to offer.

So has the city crippled the U.S. bid?

I think it’s possible, although it could wind up that FIFA officials will be so eager to have the event in the United States (which will translate into higher U.S. television ratings for the games, which means bigger broadcast bucks) that they may overlook the lack of Chicago.

Which means that in the end, I think Chicago officials may have done the equivalent of shooting themselves in the foot by thinking that the city can’t accommodate the event because of economic concerns.

EXCUSE ME FOR believing that by 2018 (or 2022), the current economic struggles are going to be ancient history. Heck, by then Barack Obama will be history – even if he wins two full terms. I don’t buy using that as a reason.

There is one sense that the city’s current behavior is historically reminiscent. Take the political nominating conventions, where Chicago used to be a regular player for hosting the Democratic event and also used to host the Republicans (we are in the Land of Lincoln, after all) now and then.

But after 1972 when Democratic officials offended then-Mayor Richard J. Daley by deposing part of the Chicago delegation, he made pronouncements that the city would “never again” seek to host the events that make a city the center of the U.S. political universe. That view lasted for more than two full decades, until Daley-the-younger went ahead and sought the Democratic National Convention for 1996.

Could this be Daley-the-younger’s “never again” statement that some future political official will have to do an about-face on in order to bring such an event – and the potential for economic perks that goes along with it – to Chicago?

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