Bilandic Building the eventual Chicago home of Illinois state government?

Be honest! It would be hilarious if significant parts of Illinois state government wound up being headquartered in the building named for Chicago’s accidental mayor – the guy whom history recalls as the ones who couldn’t keep the trains running in black neighborhoods during winter storms.

Chicago's Thompson and Bilandic buildings

As in Michael Bilandic, the one-time 11^th ward alderman who became mayor following the death of Richard J. Daley, then wound up redeeming his legacy by becoming a state Supreme Court justice – even serving a stint as chief justice of Illinois.

THE LATTER STORY is the reason why Bilandic’s name is on the building at the northwest corner of Randolph and LaSalle streets. Not because of anything he did as mayor.

But the one-time State of Illinois Building (the structure now named for James R. Thompson technically is the State of Illinois Center) technically is the home of the Illinois appellate and Supreme courts in Chicago, as well as the Illinois attorney general’s office and other legal-oriented state agencies.

And if Gov. Bruce Rauner were to have his way, it could soon someday become the home of the governor’s Chicago office – which currently occupies half of the top floor of the Thompson Center (the four legislative leaders occupy the other half).

Both WBBM-TV and the Chicago Sun-Times have reported that Rauner would want  make the move as a gesture toward the eventual disposition of the Thompson Center from the state property rolls altogether.

IN PART AS a gesture to those political partisans who see the idea of a block-sized building in Chicago devoted to state government as some sort of slap in the face to the idea that Springfield, Ill., is the actual seat of state government.

With legislators who usually keep the public 'in the dark' symbolically, how would they react to literally being with no electricity?

This, it seems, is one of Rauner’s ideas of how to shake up government activity and tradition. That is, when he’s not pushing for various measures meant to undermine the authority of organized labor within state government.

I can’t help but think Bilandic himself would be appalled by these actions, and the inability of our state to get its finances together for purely politically partisan reasons.

Back in his mayoral day, mayors knew the idea of being able to work with Republican governors. The whole “D” vs. “R” concept was not an obstacle to getting things done – as it is now by a political generation who defines politics as telling your opposition party they’re entitled to nothin’!!!!!!!!

THAT IDEA IS why we are now into month seven of a budget stalemate for state government, which has prevented many government expenses from being paid.

Including the utility bills for the Capitol building itself! The State Journal-Register newspaper in Springfield reported that state government now owes some $9 million to the city-owned City Water, Light & Power company – of which some $6 million of that is past due.

Just think how quickly the utility would have cut off electricity to anyone else who incurred that much back debt? Instead, the City Council in Springfield is saying it will pass a resolution meant to urge the state to pay up – because that big of a debt to the city is causing financial problems at the municipal level as well.

Actually, my own memories of life in Springfield was of a utility company that offered up cheap bills (some $15-20 per month, I seem to recall in my case). To incur that much debt literally means the state is consuming a lot without paying up.

SO WHAT WOULD happen if the city had to cut off electricity to the Statehouse building?

BILANDIC: Is his spirit snickering at us?

Would we be in the predicament where state workers in the Chicago office (the one that Rauner wants to do away with as some sort of extravagance) would wind up becoming all-the-more important to state government operations?

Or would ComEd and other utility companies decide they could play hardball with the state?

And would Mr. Bilandic be looking down upon us from the skies laughing at our political ineptitude – which in some ways makes his own “blizzard of ‘79’ ineptitude seem downright petty by comparison.

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Was Chicago ever really that white?

There’s a new piece of video now publicly available for those people who want to rant and rage about Chicago race relations and just how segregated a city we really are.

The Chicago Film Archives took a nearly 15-minute promotional film and put it on YouTube – so we can now see how the city’s establishment wanted to view itself back in 1977.

NOW I WAS 12 years old back in that year – notable because it gave us Michael Bilandic as mayor (whose reputation hadn’t been whacked by snow yet) and actually had a “July 31” with both the Chicago White Sox and Chicago Cubs in first place and many fantasizing about an all-Chicago World Series.

Richard J. signature, even though he was gone

Of course, that didn’t happen. Now, the Internet is filled with assorted people complaining about the distorted image that film gave of the city as a whole.

After watching the film myself (the DNAInfo.com website for Chicago published a feature Friday about it), I have to admit my initial reaction was to wonder how a city that was roughly split equally between white and black people (and not quite as many Latinos as there are now) could appear to be so white?

Then again, I think back to the mentality of the era and remember how little attention official Chicago paid to the South Side neighborhoods that had in the mid-to-late 1960s developed majority African-American neighborhoods.

Despite all the South Side Hit Men homers ...

ALMOST AS THOUGH they had sunk into a black hole when all the white people left places like South Shore or Gresham to live in suburbs like Oak Lawn or South Holland.

So the idea that the people who shot the video for the film sponsored by the Chicago Convention & Tourism Bureau and the Illinois Tourism Bureau naturally looked for images of white people is predictable.

The part of the film where then-WBBM-TV news anchor Bill Kurtis narrates copy talking about Chicago’s diversity gave us footage of all kinds of people in ethnic garb – and several intense seconds of a Greek belly dancer in a particularly-skimpy costume.

There were shots that look like they came from Chinatown, and also some footage of Asian ethnics who appear to be a part of a tourist group – as though these “foreigners” were checking us out (and also spending their money in Chicago).

... '77 was just a 3rd place finish

WHICH WAS KIND of the point of this whole exercise.

In fact, the only signs of black people I saw was one quick glimpse of a taxi driver, and an extended sequence of a parade with black people as spectators and participants.

Which makes me think it was from a Bud Billiken Parade from the early 1970s – check out all the afros (the hairstyle) amongst the male participants.

Then again, that wasn’t the only sign that this was the era following the Age of Aquarius, but prior to the Reagan Years.

MANY PEOPLE WILL laugh about the presence of “discotheques” and the sight of so many white people trying to “get down and boogie.”

Although what I noticed was the idea that few of those people had any real dance moves. They were just sort of waving their hands about and trying to writhe and wriggle in time to the music.

The film “Saturday Night Fever” really was a fantasy in terms of the idea that anyone looked like John Travolta’s “Tony Manero” character. At least as far as Chicago was concerned.

As far as those people who were ranting on Friday that the film was “too white,” I’d have to say that this is the image of Chicago that Richard J. Daley would have wanted the world to see.

Then the latest models, now most likely scrap metal

IT WAS ALSO the image many white Chicagoans had of their city – which is why there were so many people who were thoroughly, and utterly, shocked on that day in the spring of 1983 when Harold Washington actually won a Democratic primary election for mayor.

We are better off for acknowledging the larger Chicago; a city where white, black and Latino are headed toward parity, with a sizable Asian population as well.

Although I can’t help but think that whenever I hear people complain about Chicago being too dominant (Gov. Bruce Rauner made such comments earlier this week) over the rest of Illinois, I wonder if they’d have less of a problem with that concept if the city were more truly like this decades-old PR image in the video.

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Todd Stroger doesn’t want to be the next Mike Bilandic. Will it matter much?

It has become the Chicago political tradition,. Government officials who have any desire to get themselves re-elected react fiercely when there is even a hint of snow.

So when it became apparent earlier this week that we in the Chicago metropolitan area were going to get hit with one heck of a snowstorm on Thursday, Cook County Board President Todd Stroger wanted to make sure that his critics didn’t find a way to blame him for the event.

SOUND RIDICULOUS? IT is, but no more than a lot of the Stroger criticism, which comes from people who are miffed he won election to begin with four years ago (in short, sore losers).

But I was among those who got a statement late Wednesday detailing the extremes to which Stroger was going to have the road crews out plowing the streets that are controlled by Cook County government. A heavy snow will always cause a slowdown in the traffic patterns, and I guess Todd could imagine all the potential motorists who would be uttering his name along with some choice obscenities when they got stuck in the snow.

It also helps in that most of the county-maintained roads are suburban in nature -- which means they are in areas where the local populace is not as inclined to give Stroger a break as some inner-city residents might be.

So trying to keep the 1,500 lane miles of county-maintained roads clear was the investment of county resources to try to bolster his reputation at a time when his reputation is shot. Anyone who doubts it ought to check out the Chicago Sun-Times, which made a point of publishing a story Thursday about the session he scheduled with reporter-types from African-American oriented news outlets – only to fail to show up.

OF COURSE, STROGER allies spent that time with those reporters badgering them for ignoring his accomplishments as county board president. So the “message” got out anyway.

I don’t know how bad things will be for Stroger next month come come Election Day, although I am inclined to think he deserves a little more credit than his sore-loser critics are willing to give him. Just a smidge, however.

After all, it probably was usefull for Stroger to remind us this week where the local county Highway Department offices are located (Schaumburg, Des Plaines, LaGrange Park, Orland Park and Riverdale) in case people have complaints about the roads after Thursday’s snowfall. Although I am inclined to think that the following paragraph was just a tad too much information:

The proportion of salt to water is critical to the effectiveness of the brine. Too much or too little salt affects the freeze point depressing qualities of the brine. The proper brine mixture is 23.3% salt content by weight. This is the concentration at which salt brine has the lowest freezing point, -6°F. It is known as the eutectic point. This percentage is measured with a salometer, a specialized hydrometer. Salt is added to the water until a 88.3% measurement on the salometer is obtained. This results in the proper 23.3% salt content.

HOW MANY WOULD-be chemists does Stroger think are reading his government-issued statements? How many people think that Stroger himself would understand those sentences that were issued this week in his name?

But this is the extreme to which our political people go ever since Mike Bilandic came along.

We all remember how a heavy snowstorm hit Chicago in those winter months leading up to the mayoral election that saw Jane Byrne beat Bilandic. The perception was that B ilandic focused limited resources on keeping certain neighborhoods clean, and Byrne was able to stir up resentment among voters – along with the perpetual image of herself being the woman who dug us out of the snow (even though that would be a gross exaggeration).

At the very least, Stroger doesn’t want to get buried in the mess that hit our metro area and likely will continue into Friday.

I JUST CAN’T help but think that the true legacy of that 1979 mayoral campaign is to cause government officials to pretend they are weather experts who can pretend to give us the proper chemical composition of salt while ensuring that the city streets remain clean.

All most people truly care about is that their own side street is plowed, and that usually is the last thing that gets done this time of the year.

And even if Stroger does keep those suburban county-run roads perfectly clear, I would guess that many people will be determined to be miserable and still find a reason to gripe about “the Toddler.”

-30-

EDITOR’S NOTES: When weather people analyze political campaigns (http://www.weathernotebook.org/transcripts/1999/03/02.html), the language can become intriguing. When would-be comedians analyze the weather/politics combo (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m9wlVL40BJs), it can become humorous.