Now it’s Burke’s spouse who’s paying for his purely political ‘sins’

Is Anne Burke now as much a political … 

Illinois Supreme Court Justice Anne Burke, the spouse of the alderman now under criminal indictment, is coming under her own partisan fire from people upset with politics-as-usual – rather than actions meant to benefit themselves instead.

Burke is the alderman who is going to push to the limit a defense that his actions in the City Council are merely the way things get done. It seems his wife will wind up having to make the same arguments over-and-over.

… target as husband Ed?

FOR IN THE case of Anne Burke, she has the authority to make appointments to fill vacancies within the judiciary of Cook County. It would seem that she used her power to place people with whom she has political ties.

Which has more activist-types offended that Anne Burke didn’t give preference to “their” people instead of “her” people.

Her first offense occurred earlier this month when she used her authority to appoint a white attorney to be a judge in a sub-circuit meant to cover much of Chicago’s West Side. The intent when the sub-circuit was created in the 1990s was that it would somehow result in more judges of an African-American persuasion being picked.

Now, politicos of Latino ethnic origins are offended.

THEY SEE A different sub-circuit – one meant to cover city neighborhoods such as Pilsen, Little Village and Back of the Yards (all of which have become Spanish-speaking enclaves) and stretching out to Cicero. Where there also is a predominance of people who habla en Espanol.

Yet as various Latino aldermen and legislators are pointing out, that judicial post was given to Cara Smith, whose qualifications were serving as an aide to the Cook County sheriff’s police, where Sheriff Tom Dart is a long-time ally of Alderman Burke.

There also are signs that she gave Burke’s aldermanic re-election campaign last year a significant campaign contribution, which has those of a more criminally-conspiratorial mindset thinking she bought the judicial post. Anyway, she was sworn in to the post on Monday.

GARCIA: As critical of her as much as him

It wasn’t given to an attorney of Latino origins. For all I know, there were no such attorneys who were even considered for the post.

THE LATINO POLITICOS, including Rep. Jesus Garcia, D-Ill., who sent along a letter of support, are trying to make this an issue of ethnic prejudice, just as those interested in the initial appointment wanting to see it as a case of black political empowerment being undermined.

Of course, there’s also the fact that the Latino activist types tried seriously in the aldermanic elections this year to undermine Ed Burke and get him defeated from the City Council post he has held for half a century.

Garcia was prominently behind that effort – which failed, as voter turnout was particularly strong in the precincts of his ward that still have sizable white-ethnic populations – rather than the parts that have become solid Latino (mostly Mexican-American) neighborhoods.

So I don’t doubt this is partisan politicking, just as much as the Burkes’ activities may have its own political taint.

THEY COULDN’T BEAT him on Election Day (Ed solidly won re-election as alderman without a runoff, while Anne won a 10-year term to her Supreme Court post last year), so they’ll dredge up other dirt.

The image the alderman may be giving off

Which may, or may not, be true. In politics, “dirty pool” is downright fair – or to be expected – from all sides.

So I don’t doubt that much of these allegations is about trying to make up for Burke electoral victories – which some of those of an activist mentality likely regard as defeats for the good of the people. At least their people.

And taking a few pot shots at Ed Burke’s wife may hurt him just as much as anything they fire off directly at him. Although it does create the possibility that Burke will take great offense to Anne being criticized and could add people to his personal ‘enemies’ list.

WHAT’S THAT OLD cliché, remembered by many as a line from the film The Godfather? “Revenge is a dish that tastes best when it is served cold.”

The bottom line is that we could be in for an ugly political war, with Ed Burke doing his best to be none other than “Don Corleone” himself.

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Survival of Ed Burke? Or the creation of a new Latino political power couple?

So what’s going to be the outcome of this year’s aldermanic elections for Chicago’s 14^th Ward – one of those Southwest Side bastions that likes to think its all politically powerful because its alderman for the past 50 years has been Ed Burke.

BURKE: Latinos to decide if he stays, or goes

Because he’s the council Finance chairman and has been around so long, he has developed a certain undue influence as the aldermen other aldermen seek out for support, and whom mayors themselves think twice about before double-crossing.

BUT BURKE HAS the rumor mill running overtime in thinking he’s under the microscope of the FBI. Nobody knew for what until Thursday, when federal prosecutors filed extortion charges against the long-time alderman for allegedly trying to get the owners of a Burger King franchise to throw legal business to his law firm.

Even before the charges were known, Latino activists who have long noted the area’s growing population shifting from the white Irish of old to a growing mix of Mexican-Americans were thinking this is now the time to dump Eddie and replace him with “one of our own,” so to speak.

But the one thing Burke has going in his favor is that the ethnic vote could wind up being split. It seems that five candidates of Latino ethnic backgrounds have declared their candidacies to challenge Burke come the Feb. 26 election – and April 2 runoff, if necessary.

The last official population count of the city showed the ward with a 79.89 percent total of Latinos. This is NO longer a part of the white ethnic class that three decades ago rewarded Burke for his vocal opposition to Harold Washington’s time as mayor.

Patino and Ortiz (below), … 

WITH SOME 54,000 residents roughly, only 16.87 percent are white. Although many of them are the ones who have lived in the area for decades – if not all their lives. They may also be the ones who most strongly identify with the ward’s old identity – and could easily be swayed into thinking this is an election to keep things the way they were.

Theoretically, a 78.89 percent group ought to be able to mop up the floor with the 16.87 percent group. Particularly if one thing they have in common is that it’s not a black-friendly environment (only 1.5 percent African-American population).

But then we get back to the idea of there being five candidates who will be making the political appeal that it’s “time for change.” Split that majority up five ways, and the white minority becomes large enough to win. Especially if many of the Latino voters can be swayed into thinking that casting a ballot is not worth their time.

… the couple who topple the Burkes?

It was to that end that new Rep. Jesus Garcia, D-Ill., who wants to be viewed as the most-powerful Latino in Chicago politics, felt compelled to intervene in this particular election – making an endorsement of a 28-year-old neophyte to beat Burke.

TANYA PATINO HAS never held elective office before. Her education was in engineering, and Garcia said she could bring an interesting perspective to the City Council – where most aldermen merely think of construction projects as something that brings jobs to their district and puts sizable contributions into their campaign funds.

Patino also is, according to the Chicago Tribune, the woman who is dating Aaron Ortiz, the man who next week takes over the Illinois House seat that was held for many decades by Burke’s brother, Dan. The same elements that took down Dan’s re-election last year are now being turned on Ed.

So is the Ortiz/Patino pairing going to go into the books as the one that knocked the Burkes out of the local political scene altogether? Or will Ed Burke figure out a way to stretch what likely will be his backers’ enthusiasm into a large-enough group to win?

Don’t think this can’t happen. I still recall the 1990s when Republicans got control of the redistricting process and took the Illinois House map for the southwest side and tried to create a whole series of districts meant to bolster the number of African-American legislators.

Some things haven't changed since days of Harold

IN THEORY, THEY did. But in reality, a then little-known lawyer named Tom Dart (I first met him years ago when he was with the state’s attorney’s office at the courthouse in suburban Markham) decided to use his white ethnic Mount Greenwood neighborhood base up against the black majorities that comprised the surrounding neighborhoods within the legislative district.

That 1992 election saw Dart defeat a half-dozen African-American candidates and serve in the Legislature for a decade – eventually building up the greater kind of support that has enabled him to rise to his current post as Cook County Sheriff.

I’m also aware of many suburban communities where majority African-American populations have developed, but that the local governments are run by white people who’ve been around for decades and keep getting re-elected because the long-time residents care enough to turn out to vote on Election Day – while others don’t bother.

So I’d say it’s uncertain as to what the ultimate outcome of the aldermanic election will be – Burke’s continued political survival? Or Ortiz having to accept that his girlfriend could get elected to a position that (within the local political pecking order) outranks his?

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Who will make GOP bid for AG?

With Lisa Madigan making it public that 20 years of public service in state government is enough (for now) for her, it will be intriguing who decides to try to fill the state attorney general vacancy she has created.
 

MADIGAN: Who will replace her?

Various reports are speculating on the same names of government officials with ambition – the state Sen. Kwame Raoul (whom some like to think of as a Barack Obama clone), former Chicago Public Schools and Illinois State Board of Education official Gery Chico and Cook County Sheriff Tom Dart are amongst the predictable picks for this post.

YET ALL OF the speculation is coming on the Democratic Party side – who will get the AG nomination for the right to try to replace Madigan. I’ll have to admit to being more intrigued by what will happen on the Republican side of the equation.

Thus far, there’s only one person indicating a desire to run for the GOP nomination for attorney general. That’s Erika Harold, an Urbana-based attorney who has one major credential to her name.

Some 15 years ago, she was chosen as Miss America (the last time someone from Illinois won that beauty/scholarship pageant title). She’s the one who (based off the impression she gives of herself on her Facebook page) expects those old photos of her in sash and tiara to create a lovable image that people will cast ballots for her to be Illinois government’s attorney.

 
I remember a few months ago when I first heard Harold was in the running I checked out their Facebook and Twitter account images, and found the dueling visuals of Harold with a U.S. soldier in uniform – compared to Madigan marching in Chicago’s Pride Parade.

HAROLD: Will GOP replace her?

WHICH HAD ME wondering if the conservative ideologues who have come to dominate the Republican Party in Illinois were planning on a borderline sexist and homophobic campaign style to try to knock votes off the Lisa Madigan tally.

Considering that Harold herself has made several unsuccessful electoral bids in the past for congressional seats from her central Illinois native region, it gave me the impression of Harold as someone intended to fill a ballot spot running against someone the Republican Party didn’t really think it had a chance of beating.

 
It certainly isn’t Harold’s legal credentials that will inspire many people to vote for her. The University of Illinois alumna is also a Harvard Law School graduate, and also is a member of the state Supreme Court committee on equality and the commission on professionalism.

Is there a yet-to-be-determined GOPer in race?

Which isn’t irrelevant. But it’s not exactly the standing in the legal community that’s going to make people think she ought to be the chief attorney who defends Illinois state government when it gets into trouble.

THAT TIARA AND sash are going to be the primary images that will get her whatever political support she manages to gain.

She certainly was named publicly this summer as the Republican preference for attorney general at the Illinois State Fair, when the GOP had its own political rallies to drum up support for the ticket.

But now that it won’t be a four-term incumbent (who also served a term in the Illinois Senate from the Ravenswood neighborhood) to run against, it has me wondering how quickly the Republican Party’s political operatives will try to come up with an alternate candidate.

RAOUL: Wanting to move up pol ladder?

I know the Republican Attorneys General Association issued a statement last week indicating that Harold is the GOP choice for the post and spewed predictable rhetoric about “lead(ing) the fight against public corruption and bring(ing) integrity to the Attorney General’s office,” I can’t help but think it is empty rhetoric.

PARTICULARLY THE LINES about how Lisa Madigan supposedly dropped out in fear of Harold’s pending campaign, which is, “so strong, in fact, that Lisa Madigan has decided she doesn’t want to run a campaign for re-election.”

DART: Giving up sheriff post for attorney?

A line that was the chuckle of the week last week for political operatives across Illinois of all persuasions.

Of course, Republicans do have to show some care in the way they handle this. Because if they’re too blunt in their approach, they could wind up triggering a brawl within the party ranks that could wind up making everybody look foolish and wind up tainting whoever does manage to win the GOP AG nomination.

Which may well be the ultimate fantasy of Raoul or Dart (whom I can remember the days decades ago when political people speculated he’d probably try to be Chicago mayor someday, along with Lisa Madigan as Illinois governor) or whoever ultimately winds up being chosen in the March 20 Democratic primary for the nomination.

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It’s no wonder Rauner and Madigan don’t play nice. Pols don’t like each other even when they’re alleged allies

I still remember a former television reporter at the Statehouse in Springfield who quit the news business for a time to become a government spokeswoman.

Sheriff Dart doesn't really speak to the mayor ...

Because she took me out for lunch one time, and then proceeded to tell me about her biggest shock in the new job – her boss didn’t really like being around all the Republican government officials who theoretically were allies.

... nor the police superintendent

AND THOSE OFFICIALS really didn’t like having her boss around. These government people whom some of us thought of as being in some sort of ideological conspiracy with each other actually barely tolerated each other.

It’s probably naïve of us to think these people like each other.

So it probably shouldn’t have been any surprise that Cook County Sheriff Tom Dart gave an interview to Crain’s Chicago Business recently where he said he and Mayor Rahm Emanuel “probably haven’t spoken for four years.”

EMANUEL: Who does mayor talk to?

Also, it seems that Dart doesn’t have much of a relationship with Chicago Police Superintendent Garry McCarthy. Instead, district commanders for the Chicago police usually meet with their equivalents with the Cook County sheriff’s police.

THAT’S THE DEGREE to which there is cooperation within the two top law enforcement entities that serve and protect (sort of) the state’s largest (by far) county.

QUINN: How long did he not speak to gov?

The Chicago Sun-Times went so far as to publish an editorial blasting the two officials, claiming they’re letting personal differences interfere with performing their sworn duty.

How sweet! They probably also believe in unicorns.

It is a shame that the leadership lets itself get thwarted by such political concerns. Then again, it’s not surprising in the least.

BLAGOJEVICH: Did he have any allies?

LET’S NOT FORGET that Dart is an ambitious sort who back in the 2011 election cycle gave serious thought to running for mayor himself. He ultimately backed off and settled for the sheriff’s post – citing the fact that he and his wife had so many young children (five) who needed their attention.

But it wouldn’t be surprising if Dart has some thoughts of running for mayor in the future – particularly if/when the day arrives that Emanuel decides to step down from being the “Man on Five.”

I suspect Dart doesn’t want to do anything that might make Emanuel look good and prolong his time in the fifth floor City Hall office to a point where Dart would be too old to be a credible candidate for mayor.

More importantly, he probably doesn’t want to get himself tied to Emanuel or McCarthy (who is, after all, a mayoral appointment) so closely that when the day comes Rahm steps down, Dart gets tagged with all of the current mayor’s misfortunes.

Do the governor and speaker have ...

IT MAY BE petty, but it is real. It also is not unique.

Let’s not forget the days when Rod Blagojevich was governor and, in the midst of all the turmoil, it came out that it had been years since then-Lt. Gov. Pat Quinn had been able to speak directly to the governor.

I remember even Howard Stern (whose attention span usually doesn’t go beyond lesbian sex) feeling compelled to mock Quinn for being unable to pick up a telephone and give his governor a call.

... the most honest political relationship?

Of course, that may have been more of an example of how Blagojevich didn’t trust anybody else – not even the guy who was supposed to be his running mate. Even though if we’re honest, Quinn was the guy whom circumstances forced upon him – there was no reason to think the two ever thought very highly of each other.

BUT THAT SHOULD have been the odd exception. Instead, it’s the rule. Which may make the relationship between Gov. Bruce Rauner and Illinois House Speaker Michael Madigan, D-Chicago, the real exception.

The two men don’t even put up pretenses of trying to work together, openly showing us how they’re more interested in their own political power grabs than the good of the people.

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So much for the dream of “Gov. Schock,” which withered away more quickly than ‘Mayor Jackson’

I was as stunned as anyone could be when I learned Tuesday that Aaron Schock had chosen to give up his seat in Congress representing Peoria and other parts of central Illinois.

Of course, I had read the many stories that had cropped up about such offenses as having his Congressional office redecorated in an overly nancy-boy manner and about the trips to New York by he and his staff that were supposedly paid for out of government accounts.

IT ALL STRUCK me as too trivial to think of in a way that would warrant federal investigators to come in and contemplate criminal charges. More like the kind of material that would lead to snickering about Schock behind his back.

But now there is speculation by some people (most of whom are determined to believe the worst) about whether there is some other potential crisis that could crop up – something so severe that he would want to get out now.

Which may be why Schock chose Tuesday to resign his congressional post – likely bringing to an end any political aspirations he (or others) might have had for him.

Those people who figured he’d someday be the Republican nominee for governor of Illinois? It probably ain’t gonna happen now.

SO MUCH FOR the man who, at age 33, already had served six years in the House of Representatives, along with a stretch previously in the Illinois House of Representatives.

That legislative post was something he got elected to at age 23, after also having served on a high school board of education in Peoria prior to that.

The fact that Schock got such an early start in electoral politics (people in their late 30s to early 40s are more typical of first-time office holders) is why some people thought he was destined to be a future governor. By the time he would be ready age-wise to run for such a post, he’d have so much in the way of government experience.

He’d have quite the political resume!

INSTEAD, BY THE time he hits his early 50s (which was about the age Rahm Emanuel was at when he was elected mayor, while new Gov. Bruce Rauner is 58), Schock is likely to be a long-forgotten pol, perhaps remembered like some choose to remember Carol Moseley-Braun!

Maybe we’ll remember that Downton Abbey-inspired congressional office and think it was some sort of political joke?

It may well be that starting out too early in electoral politics can turn out to be a negative – it certainly didn’t turn out to be a plus for Jesse Jackson, Jr.

The civil rights activist’s son got elected to Congress at age 30 and represented that far South Side/suburban district for 17 years. He had all the speculation that he would someday try to become mayor, or perhaps a U.S. senator. Remember the speculation that he tried to “buy” the post from then-Gov. Rod Blagojevich when Barack Obama became president?

NOW I’M NOT claiming Schock did anything that ought to be regarded as illegal. Just pointing out that the political downfall of Jackson (who turned 50 last Wednesday while still serving a federal prison term) is what came to mind when I heard about Schock.

Yet another pol destined for great things whose actual career will wind up falling far short of what was expected. They flamed out before they could achieve the ultimate political goal.

Which makes me wonder if perhaps the ultimate young pol is someone like Tom Dart, the Cook County sheriff. As a reporter-type person, I have known Dart since he was an assistant state’s attorney at the Cook County courthouse in suburban Markham.

He then went to the state Legislature at age 29, where he served for 12 years before coming back home. There was an unsuccessful bid for state treasurer and his contemplation of running for mayor back in 2011 – although he has been sheriff since 2006.

MAYBE SOMEDAY HE’LL shoot for that top political post; probably if Emanuel were to actually be knocked out and he could run in ’19 against a ‘Mayor Garcia.’

Or maybe his personal restraint on political ambition could be what keeps him from doing something in the future that would cause him to whither away and die like Schock and Jackson did?

  -30-

EDITOR’S NOTE: I want to know what becomes of the Aaron Schock congressional office once he steps down March 31 – and how quickly will the future occupant go out of his/her way to redecorate it into some drab, dreary space that truly reflects the government bureaucratic mentality?

Dart the enemy? Or the only one showing sense on concealed carry?

I have no doubt that Cook County Sheriff Tom Dart has become the new “enemy,” so to speak, amongst the people who are proponents of more firearms amongst the populace.

DART: Watching out for firearms?

For years, the man that those people tried to demonize was Richard M. Daley. But he’s gone now, so they need a new public official whom they will claim is trying to take away their weapons.

IT PROBABLY WILL be Dart, whose agency, it turns out, is challenging significantly more applications for concealed carry permits than any other law enforcement entity. Permits that likely will actually be issued beginning in March.

Yet when one looks at the numbers realistically, it isn’t so much that Dart is trying to deny people their right-wing judge-given “right” to carry a firearm in public, as that other law enforcement entities are making little effort to deny anyone the state-issued permit that is required for someone to carry a pistol on their person in public for alleged self-defense purposes.

According to the Chicago Sun-Times, some 33,631 applications for concealed carry permits are now pending. Of those, only 236 are facing objections by a law enforcement entity on grounds that the applicant has a significant criminal record or a history of mental illness.

Dart will get trashed by some because of those 236 pending objections (which a special panel created by Gov. Pat Quinn will now rule on), 120 of them are from the Cook County Sheriff’s police.

BY COMPARISON, ONLY seven objections were filed by the Chicago Police Department. Twenty five more were filed by suburban police departments in Cook County – with nine coming from the southwestern municipality of Oak Lawn.

Which means the other 84 objections were filed in the other 101 counties across Illinois, although 49 of those were filed in the surrounding counties that make up the outer suburbs.

So yes, the phenomenon of law enforcement being skeptical about who should be allowed a permit that gives them permission to carry a pistol in a shoulder holster or in a purse seems to be an urban one.

DALEY: The old "enemy" for firearms

Although when one considers that some 7,974 permit applications were filed in Cook County, the fact that local law enforcement is only challenging 152 (not quite 2 percent), it really can’t be argued that our law enforcement is running amok over anyone’s alleged constitutional right.

PARTICULARLY, SINCE ONLY about one-quarter of the applications across the state came from Cook County (which accounts for about 45 percent of the state’s population overall).

It just really can’t be argued that Tom Dart is behaving like some sort of tyrant when it comes to wanting to make sure that people who shouldn’t be having firearms don’t somehow get them with the consent of the state.

Of course, when it comes to the type of rhetoric used by the firearms advocates, I have no doubt they will try to blast the sheriff for not kissing up to their attitude when it comes to pistols.

Not that Dart – who isn’t a career law enforcement-type – isn’t all that different from Chicago police-types on this issue.

I HAVE ENCOUNTERED many police officers who were more than supportive of the ordinances the city had in place for three-plus decades that made it a criminal offense for most people to even have a firearm within the city limits.

Nobody is hunting within the city (unless they’re going out in search of other people, which is most definitely something we should discourage). There really isn’t a need for another pistol around 63^rd and Halsted streets.

And for those people who are insecure enough that they can’t venture outside without carrying a weapon, I’d wonder what worse will occur if, by chance, you feel threatened and fire – only to miss your target and hit someone else who just happened to be nearby!

In fact, about the worst thing I can think of to say about Dart these days is that he identifies as a Chicago Cubs fan. Which, in the overall scheme of things, is something that can be forgiven, since it's a self-inflicted form of agony.

  -30-

Political maneuvering, not real policy

Why is Chicago supposedly the “Windy City?”

When Tom Dart speaks ...

It’s because of all the hot air that our political people bloviate every time they open their mouths and spew forth any types of rhetoric.

ANYBODY WHO THINKS that viewpoint is an exaggeration is missing the point, because I’d say that Cook County Sheriff Tom Dart gave us the latest example of a political person feeling compelled to speak for no real reason.

Dart recently made a point of saying that he’s coming up with a “concealed carry” ordinance that would dictate under what conditions people living in Illinois’ most-populous (by far) county could actually carry a pistol on their person for their protection.

Of course, if the Illinois General Assembly actually succeeds in coming up with something by month’s end (as a federal Court of Appeals has ordered them to), then anything that Dart or the Cook County Board chose to do would be a moot point.

But there are times when Dart is exactly the kind of political person who likes to hear himself talk. And I’m sure that in his own way, the former member of the Illinois Legislature was also interested in trying to influence the thoughts of those people in the General Assembly who are working on this issue.

AS ENVISIONED BY Dart, people interested in having a permit to carry a pistol on them legally would have to pay a $300 fee. But they also would have to provide justification for why they NEED to have a firearm.

The sheriff also pointed out that someone like a business owner who thinks they may be robbed doesn’t necessarily need a firearm – they could hire a security firm and have guards who are trained in firearm use, rather than having to hold the pistol themselves.

Perhaps that is something along the lines of what Dart would like to see the Legislature pass into law. Which means we ought to take Dart’s talk about “concealed carry” as more of an endorsement of a policy – rather than any kind of legitimate attempt at creating county government policy.

... does anyone in Legislature listen?

And I’m also sure that there are those elements of the Legislature who will hear what Dart has to say, then instantly do the exact opposite.

HECK, HE DOESN’T even have strong support within the metropolitan area.

Because the newspaper accounts about Dart’s pronouncement made a point of stating that a county policy would apply to Chicago, since the city would not have a specific policy concerning the “concealed carry” issue.

That is unique, since city officials usually go out of their way to state that county government is JUST the suburban parts of Cook County with no authority over Chicago proper.

Which is why Chicago police had their PR types tell reporter-type people that city officials will enact their own “concealed carry” policy if the state Legislature fails to act. The city doesn’t want the county to think any precedent is being set for who governs what!

WHICH MEANS EVEN city officials aren’t fully behind Tom Dart getting involved with this issue.

In fact, there’s only one reason that we ought to take anything Dart says the least bit seriously. It’s the fact that he’s absolutely correct when he says the General Assembly isn’t all that reliable when it comes to meeting deadlines.

So June 9 being the absolute limit for the Legislature to act on “concealed carry?” As Dart put it, “Deadlines sometimes don’t mean anything. We have to be prepared in the event something does not get done.”

How many years in a row have we had “absolute” deadlines for pension funding reform? How many decades have we seen a Legislature contemplate casinos or new airports? Doing nothing is something our state’s Legislature is good at.

  -30-

Obama vs Dart – who’s the focal point as Chicago copes w/ urban violence

First Lady Michelle Obama was in Chicago this past weekend; partaking in the public mourning for Hadiya Pendleton – the teenager who has become the symbol for innocent victims getting caught in the crossfire of urban violence.

OBAMA: The "big" gun, so to speak

She met with the family, and tried to create the impression that the president himself hasn’t forgotten his home city of the past three decades. He cares!

THAT’S PROBABLY WHY Obama himself plans to be in Chicago on Friday. Just three days after he gives the State of the Union address (with Hadiya’s mother, Cleopatra, expected to be present in Washington), Obama will be present in Chicago to give a State of the City, so to speak.

It will be interesting to see if Obama merely reiterates his recent rhetoric of the need for stricter laws concerning firearms – particularly when it comes to weapons with magazines that hold dozens of rounds of ammunition at a time.

Or will he come up with something genuinely relevant to Chicago? While the firearms restrictions might be a legitimate point, the fact is that they are a divisive issue. Keeping the focus there might solely turn Hadiya Pendleton’s smiling face into some sort of symbol that the conservative ideologues will demonize.

They’ll probably argue that if Pendleton could have had some sort of weapon, she could have shot at her attacker (even though that attacker likely wasn’t within clear sight of the girl).

BUT THIS IS a case where I’m not sure Obama is the official who needs to be most active. I realize that the South Side activist types have been crying and whining for days that Obama needs to be a physical presence in Chicago to counter the violent images, and that this visit on Friday will go a long way toward appeasing them.

But when Obama is in Chicago that day, I’m wondering if more significant activity will be taking place in Gary, Ind.

DART: Getting overshadowed?

That is where Cook County Sheriff Tom Dart says he plans to be on that day. What he says he hopes to accomplish is some sort of meeting with law enforcement officials.

Because while many Indiana residents like to denigrate Chicago and Illinois by claiming we’re a violent cesspool, Illinois people like to think that all the firearms being used for this violence are coming from Indiana.

SPECIFICALLY BECAUSE THE Hoosier state has lesser restrictions on actually purchasing a weapon – making it possible for people to legally buy a weapon there, then surreptitiously allow them to “fall into” the hands of people who could not legally get a weapon.

Dart’s office uses the statistic from the University of Chicago Crime Lab that 20 percent of all firearms seized by Chicago Police since 2008 could be traced back specifically to Indiana.

I’m not saying that’s true or false. There probably is an element of legitimacy to it – yet I also realize that a statistic can be found to verify the legitimacy of just about anything that someone wants to believe.

The idea that law enforcement officials in both states are ignoring the tendency to blame each other, and are actually getting together to possibly work on the problem is something of significance.

PERHAPS MORE SIGNIFICANT than the idea of the president making an address that will get public attention for a few seconds – until the news cycle spins on and we become more concerned about whether or not the Chicago Bulls will actually matter this season!

Personally, I’m interested to see the public reaction to the dueling events.

For the Associated Press reported that Mayor Rahm Emanuel and Police Superintendent Garry McCarthy were invited by Dart to join him in Gary in meeting with that city’s police chief, Wade Ingram, and Lake County Sheriff John Buncich.

Why do I have a hard time envisioning Obama’s former chief of staff venturing to Gary to be with Dart when the president himself is in town? And why do I suspect he won’t be alone – in that a lot of people will be lured into the pomp and circumstance of the president rather than substance?

  -30-

Some people just don’t get the concept of doing things more efficiently!

We’re in a new year, and it seems that the Cook County Board has a resolution – they’re going to try to run their twice-a-month board meetings more efficiently.

At least that’s what their intent seems to be. In actuality, the board on Wednesday managed to plod its way through its public business in as inefficient a manner as possible.

FOR THE RECORD, the news reports that will come out of the Wednesday session will focus on gun control – particularly the fact that the county board approved a resolution telling the General Assembly to approve a bill now pending to restrict firearms even further.

The board also will consider a measure to make it a crime to fail to report a firearm missing. Cook County Sheriff Tom Dart says too many people who resell firearms to people who shouldn’t have them try claiming that “oops, I forgot” to report that weapon stolen!

But that activity managed to take up about, at most, a half-hour of a four-hour session. And it came at the very end of the session.

Anybody sitting through the county board activity on Wednesday had to endure hours of minutia – particularly a full hour on the subject of when it is appropriate to use electronic monitoring on someone rather than keeping them confined in the Cook County Jail.

THE CHANGE IN policy is that county board meetings now officially will start one hour later than they used to. While all the committee meetings that previously took place simultaneously with the board meeting will take place in the first hour that used to be the county board session.

It is good in one respect. It used to be a pain in the derriere to have to keep straight whether the board was acting as a board, a finance committee or some other entity.

But on Wednesday, it meant that the committees were done within 15 minutes. And that was delayed because the bulk of the commissioners couldn’t be bothered to show up on time.

Although they eventually straggled in and a quorum was reached, I couldn’t help but notice Commissioner John Fritchey, D-Chicago, showing up for business two minutes AFTER all the committee activity was over.

NOT THAT HE missed much! Although I think Commissioner Peter Silvestri, R-Elmwood Park, hit it right on the nose when he said, “the first time we do this new schedule, there’s no business.”

Even county board President Toni Preckwinkle was off a little bit, as she initially started the formal part of the county board meeting with an announcement that committees would now meet – only to be told by Commissioner John Daley, D-Chicago, that the committee business was already complete.’

"I’m going off the old script,” she quipped.

Actually, if there’s something that the county board could do if it were seriously interested in shortening its board meetings, it would be to do away with all those ceremonial resolutions they feel compelled to debate and discuss at will.

ON WEDNESDAY, THERE was but one (by Commissioner Jesus Garcia, D-Chicago, honoring the memory of a long-deceased doctor of Mexican ethnic heritage). But there have been times when they feel compelled to honor a half-dozen people at a time – which stretches out the pomp and fluff into hours of mind-numbing activity.

Then there are all the little tidbits of business – such as the awarding of a contract to Finer Foods of Chicago to provide all the poultry products that will be fed to inmates at the Juvenile Temporary Detention Center, or the deal that says county jail inmates will now be used to clean and feed the animal population at the Animal Care Facility, 2741 S. Western Ave. The city will pay the county just over $323,000 per year for that detail.

Daley might have been right technically when he said that making the change would allow the board meeting proper to “blow right through the agenda.”

But it still is a mind-numbing place to watch politicking take place – not truly gross enough to be classified as sausage-making.

BUT STILL NOT the most refined of processes to watch.

Which is why listening to Daley in response to the county board’s invocation might have been Wednesday’s highlight.

The pastor in question who gave the prayer recently transferred from a Bridgeport-neighborhood church to one in Hyde Park.

Which Daley – the life-long Bridgeport native himself – said amounts to, “leaving a great ward to go to a good ward.”

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Give it a rest, already!

It has been nearly 18 years since the date that I went into the old Stateville Correctional Center to watch a homicide committed in the name of “justice” – as in the execution by lethal injection of John Gacy.

That date was some 16 years after Gacy went from being a respectable citizen who once met first lady Rosalyn Carter (left) and was a clown at children’s parties, to the guy who abducted and killed young men and stuffed their remains in the crawl space of his home.

AND SOME OF those incidents were nearly a decade old by the time police got around to arresting Gacy.

My point? This is an old case, one so old that I question how much of the physical “evidence” remains in a state solid enough to be worth anything to a credible investigation.

So I really have to wonder what the point is in terms of any law enforcement entity thinking that there is more to be found at this late date some two score after the original incidents.

Which is why I was kind of pleased to read the reports on Friday about how the Cook County state’s attorney is refusing to let the county sheriff do some more digging at sites where they think more bodies, more remains or more evidence could be found.

OFFICIALLY, THERE ISN’T enough “probable cause” to believe that anything would be found by such digging.

Although I believe even if they found “something,” it would be so weak that it wouldn’t be worth the effort.

So excuse me for thinking that the idea of continuing to investigate the “crimes” of John Gacy is something amounting to a waste of time. I’d like to think our law enforcement people have more important things to worry about.

Perhaps there are some unsolved cases that could get their attention, rather than delving into a case where the prosecution took place more than three decades ago and where the ultimate punishment has already been served.

DOES ANYONE THINK Gacy will come back to life so he could be put on trial again?

Even if that were physically possible, it’s not like we have a death penalty in this state any longer. And propping up the corpse of John Gacy in a prison cell for eternal incarceration strikes me as being even more incredibly twisted than continued investigation.

Heck, would Gacy corpse tampering qualify for prosecution under the bill being reviewed by the Illinois General Assembly this spring that makes necrophilia a crime? Because it would be corpse tampering!

But let’s get serious.

WE MAY WELL have to accept the fact that we already know all we’re ever going to know about the Gacy crimes. Too much time has passed for us to figure out the remaining unknown details.

Evidence deteriorates with time. Which may well have been the ultimate strategy of William Heirens, the longest-serving Illinois inmate who died earlier this month for a trio of slayings in 1946.

He claimed in recent years that he “didn’t do it” and that he was pressured into making the confession that prosecutors threw in his face every time he sought parole. Perhaps he thought that the fingerprints and lipstick smudges on mirrors didn’t mean as much now that they didn’t physically exist anymore.

If you want the truth, it wouldn’t shock me to learn that someone, someday tries to argue for the innocence of John Gacy himself. Not that I expect anyone of any real sense to buy into it.

BUT I WOULD give such a legal effort about as much credibility as I would any further results found in an investigation into Gacy’s guilt.

DART: Idle time?

Even if the latest effort is being inspired by a now-retired Chicago cop who claims he recalls seeing Gacy once with a shovel digging in a certain area – the area that officials checked in 1998, found nothing of substance, but want to check again.

It all comes off as too much of an effort to get one’s name in the papers (or in the 21^st Century, one’s name all over the Internet search functions).

Does Tom Dart really need any more public attention? Perhaps we should focus our attention on trying to find things for him to do that will keep him busy.

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