Who benefits from casino locations?

Chicago is finally going to be able to have a casino operating within the city limits, yet that doesn’t mean the politically partisan infighting is anywhere near to being complete.

Where, oh where, in Chicago will this become a reality?

Because Chicago is a big city. Now we get to fight about just where it ought to be located.

JUST ABOUT EVERYBODY is prepared to make an argument about how their neighborhood is the choice location that ought to provide Chicago with the potential economic benefits that a casino can create.

Of course, those arguments are going to be countered with quarrels about how putting a casino in somebody else’s neighborhood is a sure-fire way to ensure that a casino would fail to produce any benefits.

After all, nobody wants to go there!

We’re going to be hearing a lot of these arguments in coming months. Because while people will talk about city-wide benefits from gambling and a casino, they’re going to want to have the perks coming from their own neighborhood. Chicagoans aren’t really united enough to work together for our collective betterment.

WE’D JUST AS soon see each other get screwed over, if it means we can be the ones who come out on top.

That’s why I wonder if the debate over locating a casino will be as long and drawn-out as the fight has been over whether to let Chicago have a casino at all.

There are those who always argued the whole point of casinos was to provide economic benefits to isolated communities that can’t attract any other kind of economic development projects.

They’re the ones who took their opposition to a Chicago casino all the way down to last week’s Legislative vote that permitted the city to have gambling somewhere within their limits.

IT’S INTERESTING TO see Gov. J.B. Pritzker argue against putting a casino anywhere near downtown or the McCormick Place convention center. He said this week he wants a Chicago casino put out in one of the isolated neighborhoods that otherwise wouldn’t have any kind of attraction to draw people within their boundaries.

In short, he’s following the line of logic that Illinois originally had back when it placed casinos in places like East St. Louis or Metropolis.

Although there are other people who think that placing a casino downtown or near the convention centers is the way to ensure that large numbers of Chicago tourists have easy access to the place. Why place a casino at an isolated location where it would be difficult for anybody except for those who already live nearby to attend?

It’s the argument I’ve heard about developing a casino at a South Side location, particularly if we’re talking about the far Southeast Side 10^th Ward.

WHO’D MAKE THE trip to the East Side neighborhood if they weren’t already there. Although there are others who argue that the neighborhood’s proximity to the Illinois-Indiana border and the casinos that have cropped up in Hammond, East Chicago and Gary, Ind., would mean we’d be able to steal away business from Indiana.

In short, get people to quit venturing across the state line when they feel the urge to gamble. Stay in Illinois, and keep your losses here.

Of course, consider that other casinos would be permitted in the nearby south suburbs, Waukegan, Rockford, Danville and Williamson County in Southern Illinois. We’re bound to wind up putting casinos just about everywhere – making it all to easy for people to blow their money on games of chance.

Which could result in the notion of true economic development coming about from drawing real businesses to one’s community – instead of a chance at a job parking cars at the casino or keeping the casino’s buffet well-stocked. Because those are the kind of jobs most likely to be made available from a casino construction somewhere.

  -30-

You might as well build a ‘border wall’ from Legos for all the security a U.S./Mexico barricade would provide

Donald Trump has long been on a kick out of building a physical barrier to separate the United States from Mexico, going so far in recent days as to make the “compromise” gesture of building a wall out of steel slats – rather than concrete blocks.

Let's make Internet 'gag' a reality!

The Trumpster, who is quite deluded on so many issues, seems to think that would be more likely to placate the people who speak out against a border wall.

NOT THAT IT matters one bit. It’s the very concept of thinking we ought to have a physical barrier between the two major nations of North America (sorry Canada!) that so many people find offensive.

Particularly since it would involve the spending of so much money -- $5.7 billion is the most recent figure I have heard tossed about. In fact, the only thing more absurd than spending that much of taxpayer funds on this pathetic project is to keep being deluded that ANY other nation would pick up the tab, in any form.

No, the government of Mexico is not paying for this. Nor are they under any legal or moral obligation to pay for this Trump boondoggle of a project.

Of course, even if Trump himself were to use his personal wealth to pay for construction of a border barricade, I and most other people would still find the concept morally abhorrent! We are one continent – no matter how much ideologues want to split us apart.

Lego 'Trump' looks no more ridiculous … 

IN FACT, IF one seriously studies the southwestern portion of the United States, they’d see how obvious it is that we are one – even if all those white Texans want to think their presence in the region is something special.

Rather than something the rest of the nation often finds to be a cultural embarrassment to us all.

It’s why I almost get a chuckle when I see the gag image on the Internet that suggests Mexico will gladly pay for a border wall – if it means restoring the southwestern U.S. back to Mexico.

… than the real Trump

No more confusion about Texas or Arizona, Utah or Nevada or Colorado. And no more confusion about whether New Mexico ought to be regarded a “foreign” land.

TRUMP ON THURSDAY tried to advance the cause further by using Air Force One to take a trip to McAllen, Texas – which put him in sight of the U.S./Mexico border. And probably gave some Mexican citizens the laugh of a lifetime if they caught a glimpse of his absurd pompadour.

But Trump staged a border event that I’m sure was meant to scare the bejeezus out of ideologues of a particularly xenophobic bent – citing what he says are all the illicit items that get smuggled across the border.

He literally had federal agents set up a table containing assorted firearms, bags of illicit cash and heroin and meth bound with black tape into bricks. Which bears a strong resemblance to the same kind of presentation local cops make whenever they want to make their latest local drug bust seem much more significant than it really is.

A real southwestern 'restoration'

Of course, this stunt occurred one day after Trump walked out of a meeting with Democratic leadership of Congress to try to negotiate something serious. Not that Trump himself is about anything serious – he was just determined to tell people he rejected anything “that woman” (House Speaker Nancy Pelosi) put forth to him.

IN REALITY THOUGH, it showed Trump is more interested in playing games with this border barricade issue than doing anything involving serious public policy. Seeing Democratic leadership refuse to give in to Trump’s inanity may well give them political points.

So since this has become nothing more than a game with public officials acting like children, I suggest that if a border wall is to be built, we do it from Legos. As in those plastic bricks children use to construct so many structures from their imaginations to reality.

Envision all those kids working along the border with their Legos

Seriously, a Lego-built wall wouldn’t be any less secure than a concrete- or steel-built one that Trump suggests. It wouldn’t stop anything or anyone from being able to get across the border. Just envision the image of children from all over the 1,900-mile border region combining their Lego building blocks to assemble a wall.

And since we’re talking about a child’s toy, it would make us admit that only someone with a child-like sensibility would in any way take this project seriously, no matter what form the 'wall' took!

  -30-

Fixing up the governor’s mansion; that’s Rauner’s one kept promise

If we’re going to be fair, we have to acknowledge the one accomplishment of Bruce Rauner’s time as Illinois governor – the state completed a necessary rehabilitation project of the Governor’s Mansion, work that was desperately overdue.

The governor's mansion -- old enough Abe Lincoln would remember it

The repairs needed to the structure that dates back to 1855 were so extensive that Rauner and first lady Diana actually had to move out of the official state residence provided for our governor.

FOR THE PAST two years, the Rauners have used the state-owned house that is part of the Illinois State Fairgrounds in Springfield as their official residence. While more spacious (4,000 square feet) than what is essentially an apartment on the top floor of the mansion, it doesn’t quite have the aura of the structure in downtown Springfield located a block from the Statehouse.

Close enough that I remember the sight of then-Gov. Jim Edgar routinely walking to work every morning that he needed to be in the Capitol Building.

Definitely a step up from the livestock barns of the fairgrounds, whose aroma could carry over to the director’s house (built around 1945) if the winds were blowing the right way.

But the governor and first lady got to return to the mansion that had some $15 million spent on upgrades including a new heating and air conditioning system, a new roof (the old one leaked badly) and a new entrance.

RAUNER: Will he get credit for rehab?

FOR WHAT IT’S worth, many of the problems with the aging structure became apparent during the years of Pat Quinn as governor.

Not that I’m saying Quinn & Co. trashed the place.

But like any structure, constant upkeep is necessary to ensure the building doesn’t rot away. During those Quinn years, there often were higher financial priorities that had to be placed ahead of the official mansion.

Particularly since during the Quinn years, state government undertook a very pricey rehabilitation of the Statehouse itself. The structure dating back to 1877 had its own share of problems that needed to be fixed.

QUINN: Will he get blame for condition?

BECAUSE OF THE structure’s age and historic significance, there are certain standards that have to be met. Certain details that must be fulfilled.

Meaning the expense became so high that many people complained. Just think how much more they would have ranted and raged if Quinn had tried to proceed with a mansion upgrade?

Which is why I think Rauner deserves some praise for getting the mansion project done. Particularly since he managed to put together a group of private donors who took an interest in the building’s historic significance and came up with the cash to get the needed work done.

Which became obvious on Monday, as Rauner himself could be seen carrying boxes of personal possessions into the rehabbed mansion.

A PART OF which will include a display of some of the historically significant people who worked there on behalf of the people of Illinois.

No word on how prominent such as display will be about The Rauner Years – which thus far are much more significant for all the things that didn’t happen and the degree to which partisan politics have dominated the way government worked.

The degree to which people will place the blame on Rauner for the inability of things to get done will depend largely on one’s own ideological leanings and whether one wants to “Blame Bruce!” or “Blame Madigan!” for everything that is wrong in Illinois these days.

The official Rauner residence the past two years

Although one has to admit that if fixing up the mansion is Rauner’s one significant achievement as governor, then something is significantly wrong with the way our state operates and the fact that we seem willing to tolerate such lack of activity from the officials doing “the People’s business.”

  -30-

How long it can take (sometimes never) for municipal projects to become reality

I once wrote a commentary essentially praising Chicago Transit Authority officials for moving forward on a long-discussed project to improve mass transit access to the far South Side by extending the Red Line trains from 95^th Street all the way potentially to within one mile of the city’s southern border.

A Red Line stop of the future. Perhaps some day by 2026. Image provided by city of Chicago

As one who was born in the far southeast corner of Chicago, still has relatives there and thinks of the 10^th Ward as the “old neighborhood,” I was pleased to see that something could happen to make it easier for those people to have access to the rest of Chicago.

SO I SUPPOSE I’m pleased once again to learn the CTA took actions to advance the project a little further. They have picked a specific route for the trains to follow once they get to the current end-of-the-line at 95^th Street and the middle of the Dan Ryan Expressway.

It is one that will take people all the way to 130^th Street (at the Bishop Ford Freeway), giving residents of Altgeld Gardens and the Hegewisch neighborhood some train access. It also will make stops at 103^rd and 111^th streets – adding further access to people who live Far South in Chicago.

Will it ever arrive?

Yet that original commentary I wrote was back in August of 2009. I also have written about various community forums throughout the years in which those of us who regard a Sout’ Side neighborhood such as Bridgeport as just another place up north expressed our support.

Yet here it is, some nine years later, and still no earth has been turned toward the eventual goal of “el” trains connecting places like Hegewisch and Pullman to downtown.

IN FACT, THE Chicago Tribune reported Friday that the soonest actual construction could begin would be some time in 2022, with the actual project taking about four years for completion.

This will NEVER arrive

Meaning that if I’m lucky, I might see this project become reality some time after I hit the age of 60. This project is taking time to complete, and keep in mind that the opposition to this isn’t as intense (some argue that doing anything on the South Side is a waste of time and money, but they’re nitwits) as some other projects have become.

One could easily see the ongoing debate over the need of a third major airport for the Chicago area, where proponents have sort of settled on Peotone, Ill., in Will County, while critics have argued for doing nothing and thus far have been successful.

That project has been under speculation since the early 1970s and had the process narrowed down to four sites by the late 1980s when the opponents really stepped up their hostile talk.

I REMEMBER ONCE hearing then-Peotone village President Richard Benson tell me he had given up even following the airport talk about his municipality. I thought he was being short-sighted and silly.

Heck, that was back in 2000. Some 18 years later, nothing is closer. Perhaps he really WAS wiser than I. In that particular project, it seems that everybody is determined to have nothing happen that a political opponent could take credit for.

Resulting in the lack of activity. Never mind the actual issue of whether Chicago’s aviation needs would benefit from another full-scale airport.

Of course, a Peotone airport theoretically could be revived. Moreso than the one-time Crosstown Expressway – the route that supposedly would vastly improve transit through Chicago.

BACK IN THE 1960s and 1970s, there was serious debate about a highway following 75^th Street to Cicero Avenue, eventually merging into the Kennedy Expressway. There are those who argue it would have significantly reduced the constant jams along the Dan Ryan.

How many would have viewed it as victory if they could have thwarted construction altogether?

But that project never got off the ground, and eventually the federal government withdrew its support in the early 1980s.

Perhaps by that definition, we ought to consider the late 1980s construction of a Chicago White Sox ballpark a success. Talk had been going on in the mid-1980s, and threats in 1988 to move the ballclub to St. Petersburg, Fla., motivated the politicos to act. The ballpark now known as Guaranteed Rate Field is 28 years old.

It's too bad that Hegewisch can't do some political blackmail like the White Sox did to speed up the process toward a Red Line extension. Because I'm sure there are some political people who, if they could have had their way, would still have the ballpark construction argument continuing to this day.

  -30-

Chicago makes 1st Amazon.com cut, but does that mean one makes the team

I wonder if Chicago, along with places such as St. Louis, Detroit and Gary, Ind., felt the same way I did some nearly four decades ago when I actually tried to make the baseball team back in high school.

Could the one-time Michael Reese Hospital on the South Side become the site of Amazon.com corporate dream?

I still remember the day a bunch of us would-be ballplayers were lined up outside a coach’s office, checking out the list to see which of us were still in the running to be on the team and which of us just weren’t deemed worthy enough to play.

FOR THE RECORD, I didn’t make the cut (which really wasn’t surprising, since I was never much of a ballplayer in my youth).

Which means perhaps I can identify with what is going through the mindset of some of the other Midwestern U.S. states that learned Thursday that Amazon.com’s dreams of building a second corporate headquarters do not include them.

Chicago learned that it is among the 20 municipalities still under consideration, as is Indianapolis. But the other places that had hoped they could get an economic boost learned they were out of the running.

Detroit’s rejection had many observers somewhat surprised. It was speculated that Amazon.com might find it a challenge to be a part of the revitalization of a major city – which would put that city’s officials in eternal indebtedness to their corporate priorities.

THE ONE REJECTION that caught my eye was that of St. Louis. Since that was the bid that had the endorsement of Gov. Bruce Rauner, who supposedly also was backing the Illinois-based bid of the Chicago area – which officially says there are 10 possible sites within the city or suburbs that Amazon.com could choose from.

Which means we’re not setting up the chance of an Illinois political civil war, with a governor trying to figure out whether his best interests involve supporting his state’s major city or the portion of another state’s major metropolitan area that happens to fall within Illinois’ borders.

Sears used to be retail giant; could structure regain significance by becoming part of Amazon.com complex downtown?

There are those who wonder if Rauner secretly would have rather seen a St. Louis bid prevail because he could take some credit amongst Southern Illinois voters while undermining the Chicago interests he sees as his politically partisan enemy.

The fact that Chicago made the cut means Mayor Rahm Emanuel was able to boast of “Chicago’s great strengths, access to talent, transportation, higher education, affordability and quality of life, which are the keys to growth and prosperity.”

WHETHER THOSE ISSUES will remain relevant as Chicago now has to go up against 19 other municipalities (three of which are the District of Columbia and nearby suburbs in both Virginia and Maryland) will remain to be seen.

As I recall from several decades ago, there were still several somewhat talented ballplayers who made that first cut, but wound up not making the roster when springtime came around and the baseball season began.

Personally, I wonder if the fact the city hasn’t united behind one single location may be a factor that goes against us (although I know the conservative ideologues amongst us are determined to believe that it will be Chicago’s Democratic leanings that will harm our city’s bid in the end).

Oak Brook campus that used to train McDonald's managers could become part of Amazon

If we can’t even decide where it should be, why should we expect Amazon.com officials to be capable of picking a place. Maybe they really will want proximity to the nation’s capital city, or a spot in Atlanta, Austin (as in Texas) or Boston for the headquarters campus they want to supplement the existing facilities in Seattle, Wash.

BUT FOR THE time being, Chicago can still dream about the possibility of a downtown complex that might even incorporate part of the formerly-known-as Sears Tower. Or maybe the old Michael Reese Hospital, or the suburban Oak Brook campus that once served McDonald’s.

U.S. Steel still dominant presence in Gary, Ind.

Unlike St. Louis or Detroit, who now will have to move on to other projects to dream about as a way of revitalizing their communities and creating jobs.

Or a place like Gary, which although Hoosier-based is close enough to the Illinois/Indiana border that Chicago could dream of some spillover benefits.

But instead will now have to set new ambitions for their existence, just as many a failed athlete has had to accept the fact he wasn’t good enough to make the team.

  -30-

EXTRA: Amazon to Chgo – Forget it?

If it's true, will it be governor or speaker ...

There are many municipalities across the nation, including Chicago and even nearby Gary, Ind., banking their economic futures on being able to sway Amazon.com to build their proposed second corporate headquarters building within their city limits.

The Boston Globe reported that it has learned of ongoing talks to lease 500,000 square feet of offices in a Boston neighborhood that already has many other tech companies located there.

... who takes the blame for Amazon loss?

THE LEASE ALSO would have options to double the amount of space in the future. Which the newspaper points out would be enough space for the early phases of the corporate structure Amazon.com wants to build somewhere to supplement their existing headquarters in Seattle.

Would this make an announcement that Boston will be the site of Amazon.com’s dream campus an inevitable event? Can we forget the talk of an Amazon campus being built somewhere along the north branch of the Chicago River? Or at the site of the one-time Michael Reese Hospital? Or anywhere in northwest Indiana or St. Louis (with gubernatorial help)?

And will we soon be getting overdoses of the cheap political rhetoric about how our state’s unsettling partisanship scared off Amazon from even thinking of Illinois?

Will talk of turning the one-time downtown Post Office become yet another Chicago fantasy that never will be?

Which, of course, leads to the next topic of political debate. Who’s to blame – Gov. Bruce Rauner, or Illinois House Speaker Mike Madigan! As if we don’t argue that point enough on so many other issues.

  -30-

‘Safe roads’ amendment one of those things you ignore ‘til it's too late

You probably received a little booklet printed on light blue paper a couple of weeks ago, and promptly tossed it into the trash (or your recycling bin if you’re environmentally conscious).
 

Story in the red box easily dwarfed by Cubs

If you bothered to look at a printed copy of the Chicago Tribune on Monday, your attention was dominated by the full-color photograph and copy about the Chicago Cubs’ 1-0 loss to the Los Angeles Dodgers. The fact that there was a news story also on Page One above the fold probably got lost in the Cubbie trivia.

AS A RESULT, you’re going to walk into your polling place on Nov. 8 (or perhaps earlier if you’re conscientious-enough to show up at an Early Voting Center) and suddenly be hit with a referendum question that you won’t have a clue what it’s about.

You may well let out a little curse and exclaim that “Nobody Told Me About This!!!” You may well think of people to blame for this lack of information.

So because I’m going to want to throw your cluelessness back in your face, I’m going to take a crack here at trying to explain the Safe Roads Amendment, which is the measure that all voters across Illinois will be asked to say “yes” or “no” to when they also decide whether they detest the concept of “President Hillary R. Clinton” so much that they’d vote for a lame-brain like Donald Trump instead.

It’s actually a simple concept. There already are taxes being charged whose purpose is to raise money for road maintenance projects in communities across the state.

THOSE GAS TAXES that make the price of gasoline for your car cost more in Illinois than if you fill up your tank in Indiana (which some Chicagoans insist on doing) are among those taxes.

But what happens sometimes is that political people, in order to fund special projects, divert some of that money. What officials want is for an order that says all money raised by these taxes for road repairs must actually be used for road repairs and related projects.

No diversions whatsoever!!!

If you buy into that line of logic, vote “yes.” In fact, a group called Citizens to Protect Transportation Funding has come up with new television spots that may catch your attention (unless you’re the type who deliberately blanks out when you see partisan political advertising on TV) that tries to say the only sensible vote one can cast on this measure is an “aye.”

AFTER ALL, THE reason those particular taxes are in place is to provide the state with money it then distributes to local communities to pay for the road resurfacing projects it needs to do in any given year.

Unless you happen to live in one of those communities (usually more rural places) that believes pot holes are a part of nature and it’s not normal to have a perfectly-smooth road surface on a road that has a few years accumulated on it.

Yet I have to admit I haven’t fully made up my own mind how to vote, largely because I wonder how much this initiative is motivated by the lobbyists for the construction industry – people who want to view those road fund monies as their own private source of income and resent the idea of officials tapping into it for something else.

I do think government officials ought to have a certain amount of discretion to decide what to do with funds, and am not sure that anyone is entitled to a guarantee of tax revenue proceeds.

AS IT IS, the Chicago Tribune report acknowledged that the lobbyist group pushing for this amendment is one that represents the International Union of Operating Engineers – which represents the construction workers who would be employed by future road repair projects.

The Citizens to Protect Transportation Funding has raised some $3.3 million thus far to support their lobbying efforts, of which about $1 million will be spent to air those partisan commercials on television in coming weeks.

You’ll have to decide for yourselves who you back, and which way that swings your vote. Keeping contractors busy, or trusting your local government official to be able to decide when discretion should be used and funds should be shifted elsewhere?

It’s something to think about. The real losers will be those people who keep themselves clueless all the way through Election Day, then try to figure out whom they can blame for their lack of information about the issue.

  -30-

Maybe that’s why some fans think of Wrigley Field as ‘the Urinal’

A part of me wishes I could dump all over the Chicago Cubs organization for their Opening Day festivities that kicked off the entire 2015 baseball season Sunday that clearly had inadequate toilet facilities for the fans who attended.
                    

But if I’m to be honest, I have to admit that washrooms are a persistent problem at large-scale events, including at a ball park where there are some facilities built into the place.

THERE SHOULDN’T BE a need to have port-a-potties on the premises, although it seems the Cubs organization on Monday admitted there were problems sufficient that they’re going to have to install the portable toilets for the next month or so.

At least until the renovations are complete – and that could be mid-May.

Which is going to make Cubs games an even more unpleasant atmosphere than the quality of baseball being played on-field usually makes them.

And before any of you starts giving me the line that the Cubs are now a quality organization that is in serious contention for the National League championship of 2015, I’d point to the Sunday night scoreboard and the fact that the arch-rival St. Louis Cardinals have the “W,” which ultimately is the only statistic that matters!

ACCORDING TO THE reports, the problem stemmed from plumbing problems that have left half of the toilet facilities in the ballpark’s upper deck unusable.

That caused those fans to have to come down to the lower deck of the 101-year-old building, which meant they were jam-packed. There were reports of people having to wait up to an hour in line before they could walk up to one of the troughs and do their business.

Yahoo! Sports even included pictures of empty beer cups left on the floor – except that the cups had been refilled with what appeared to be urine of people who just couldn’t wait to get in the rest room proper!

I write “appeared” because I wasn’t there, and even if I had been, I wouldn’t have been bold enough to walk up and take a whiff of the cups to sense what was actually in them.

ALTHOUGH I SUPPOSE I could come up with some sort of joke about the content of those cups not differing significantly from the ballpark beer usually offered up for sale.

The conditions on hand Sunday night were severe, and made worse in the context of a ballpark undergoing a major renovation to make it a more modern facility.

Instead, we got to see that Wrigley really is a building lingering into the 21^st Century with 19^th Century toilet facilities. Perhaps the attention ought to be on an upgrade to restrooms, rather than to installing a video board that will merely let the fans see replays of all the plays that the Cubs players botched up on the field?

Perhaps that would bring an end to the stories I have long heard from Lake View neighborhood residents about how obnoxious of neighbors Cubs fans can be with acts of public urination – particularly in the alleys of the buildings directly surrounding the ballpark.

YET I HAVE to admit to having seen similarly disgusting moments while attending Chicago White Sox games. I remember one incident a few years ago when an inebriated fan walked into a rest room, saw the lines of people waiting for the proper urinals that exist at U.S. Cellular Field, and decided to relieve himself right into a public sink!

I wish I could say he was a Cubs fan who simply didn’t know how to behave in public, but I can’t say for sure.

Then again, it actually reminded me of a moment during the first ball game I ever attended as a kid at the old Comiskey Park. At game’s end, I went to the rest room and used a trough similar to what still exists at Wrigley, then went to a sink to try to wash my hands. At which point, another Sox fan told me I was crazy to do that because of the generations of people who had used the sinks for disgusting purposes.

I suppose it means that Sunday night at Wrigley could have been much worse than the sight of piss-filled beer cups scattered all over the floors!

  -30-


EDITOR'S NOTE: Yeah, yeah. I know -- 10-1!?! All across Missouri, baseball fans are filled with glee, while we count down the 161 remaining games of 2015.

EXTRA: Want a piece of the Cubs?

Have you ever fantasized about owning a piece of the Chicago Cubs?

Helping to pay to fix up Wrigley Field could get you a minority partnership in the ball club?

 

Personally, I can’t comprehend why anyone in their right mind would want to. But to each his own, and now it seems there’s a chance you might actually be able to buy a bit of the ball club that represents Chicago in the National League.

NOT THAT YOU’D get your chance to do anything in the way of changing the way things work at Clark and Addison streets.

For, as reported by Comcast SportsNet and Crain’s Chicago Business, nothing is definite yet. But the Ricketts family that owns majority control of the team reportedly is considering selling a few shares of the team.

Their intent is to come up with the $500 million it is estimated it will cost to do a series of renovations on Wrigley Field to ensure that the building will be structurally sound enough to be in use for several more decades, while still having amenities that will allow it to compete with the newest stadiums and all their special (cash-generating) features.

The Ricketts family is wealthy. And my guess is that part of the reason they got so much money is because they don’t go around spending it if they can get someone else to.

SO THE FACT that the Rickettses want a remodeled stadium doesn’t mean they’re going to mortgage the family fortune to get it done.

Get a series of investors to put up the cash, and reward them with shares of the ball club. Not enough for them to have control. But enough that they can go walking around with their chests puffed out saying, “I own the Chicago Cubs!!!”

I suppose it’s no different than the Chicago White Sox situation, where there are many people who own a part of the ball club – some of whom have been around since the days when Bill Veeck ran the team. But they’re all pledged loyal to Chairman Jerry Reinsdorf, and they don’t try to run anything.

I suppose it’s the next step up from those personal seat licenses some professional sports franchises sell to people. You have to cough up a significant amount of cash in order to have the right to buy tickets to individual games.

SO THE NEXT time you venture to Wrigley Field (I want to say that the last time I went there, they played the Montreal Expos – it’s been awhile), just think. You may wind up finding yourself sitting next to an “owner” of the team.

You can guzzle back your Old Style-brand beer (why some people feel such a love for it that the ball club reached an agreement to keep it, despite the dominance of Anheuser-Busch products throughout the ball park is something I’ll never comprehend) while listening to him tell you what he’d do differently – if only he had a real say in the team.

Just something to think about, if you’re amongst those willing to put up with the predicted 48-degree temperatures and overcast skies just to see the Philadelphia Phillies give the Cubbies a Friday afternoon Opening Day pounding!

  -30-

When will we start hearing demands for a new stadium on the South Side?

Perhaps it’s just because I’m desperate to ignore the first snowfall that hit Chicago on Monday – more than a month before the official start of winter.

Already obsolete?

 

But I couldn’t help but be shaken up by wire service reports emanating from Atlanta; where the Braves plan to move their ball club from their city-based stadium to one based in the suburbs in just a couple of years.

THE EXISTING BALLPARK – Turner Field – came about in the wake of the 1996 Olympic Games staged in that southern city, then reconstructed into a modern ballpark beginning with the 1997 season.

Turner Field might not be among the stadia that gets people’s hearts all atwitter (like the ballparks in Baltimore and Pittsburgh). But it is among the modern round of construction – sports teams that saw themselves get new buildings in the 1990s and early 2000s that were meant to be more than just a place to sit while a ballgame is played in front of you.

There’s nothing structurally wrong with the current Braves’ building. It’s just that the officials in suburban Cobb County are willing to give more amenities to the ball club, if they can steal away some baseball business for themselves.

Now why should I care about this southern politicking taking place? It’s because these stadiums always seem to get built in groups. Which means that now that the current set-up of stadia can start to be thought of as obsolete, it makes me wonder how many more ball clubs are going to start screaming for new facilities from their home communities.

How soon will calls for "the Cell's" replacement start?

 

EVEN IF, IN some cases, those current facilities aren’t fully paid for yet.

And if that happens, how long will it be until our own city’s ball clubs start screaming.

Renovate Wrigley? This action by the Braves may convince the Cubs they’d be better off at a location in suburban Rosemont (since the Cubs could claim the same line of logic that the Braves are using to justify their move – it puts them closer to the geographic center of their fan base).

In need of replacement before it's rebuilt?

 

Or what about the White Sox? The building now known as U.S. Cellular Field cropped up in 1991. Making it possibly the oldest of these new-style ballparks.

BY THE BRAVES’ line of logic (Turner Field’s stint as a major league stadium will last exactly 20 years), the White Sox ballpark is an antique.

It’s also an antique that has never gotten much love from amateur architectural aficionados.

Will the White Sox get it into their heads that it’s time for them to get a building that will gain admiration – instead of mere functionality – from outsiders?

Now I realize the political reality locally is that the process leading to the construction of U.S. Cellular Field ate up a lot of political goodwill. There are people who are still bitter that the building was ever constructed and that they were unable to kill the bill that back in 1988 ensured that the 2005 World Series was played on the South Side – and NOT in St. Petersburg, Fla.!

BUT THE BUILDING is now part of an era that is being replaced. It’s just a matter of time before officials want to start talking up the replacement of “the Cell.”

I recently read an essay written by someone trying to have some fun – speculating about what professional baseball would be like in the year 2114. He guessed that the White Sox would have a new stadium by then – perhaps built across the street on the site of the old Comiskey Park – because the new building would last the same 80-year stint as the old.

Will the "Old Roman's" statue gather pigeon poop at another ballpark?

I doubt it! The cycle of replacement of the current stadia has now begun.

My guess is that U.S. Cellular will see its demise some time around the year 2030. By then, the demands to replace it with something “more modern” will just be too intense.

THE 2033 MAJOR League Baseball All-Star Game (the 100^th anniversary of the original All-Star game played at Comiskey Park) could well be the first moment of glory for a new White Sox stadium somewhere.

The real question is will 2005 be the only World Series championship won in the current building, or will there be a few more before its demise? A part of me thinks that is more likely than a championship at Wrigley any time soon!

  -30-

Is the shopping mall concept dead? Or do I just have a knack for "killing off" all of my former employers?

The current court fight taking place over whether or not to shutter a shopping mall in suburban Matteson had a personal hit in my memory – I actually once had a job in one of the stores in that mall.

Actually, not just a store as in one of those generic shops that sell tacky trinkets that can be found in any mall.

MY STINT IN suburban Matteson was at the Carson, Pirie, Scott store that was one of the Lincoln Mall shopping center’s anchors – and will potentially be the only survivor of the 40-year-old mall on Lincoln Highway at Cicero Avenue (just a mile or so from the Cook/Will county line).

In my case, the very first job I got out of college was a part-time gig for a few months at the then Chicago Heights-based Star Newspapers. The pay wasn’t great, and the hours weren’t excessive, so I needed more money.

So for a few months, I worked as a sales clerk in the men’s clothing department at Carsons a few days a week, combined with the night shift work I did for the newspaper.

Eventually, I moved on to a full-time news reporting gig (the now-defunct City News Bureau) that paid barely better, but enough that I could do it fulltime.

MY MEMORIES OF working at Lincoln Mall are about 26 years old, and are similar enough to those of anyone who has ever done a part-time job in retail to come up with extra money.

Personally, I always felt sorry for anyone who had to do retail full-time to earn a living. It’s not easy work, and it contains its frustrations from dealing with customers who prove on a daily basis that people like Harry Selfridge and Marshall Field didn’t have a clue what they were talking about when they said, “The customer is always right.”

The customer usually doesn’t have a clue what they want, yet they don’t like having anyone try to guide them because it exposes their ignorance – so to speak!

I actually have more intense memories of my co-workers from those days, even though I barely remember their actual names and haven’t seen most of them since the day I quit in disgust during the first week of a new year.

I REMEMBER QUITTING because of all the negative sales commissions I was getting in the days following the Christmas holiday of 1987. All those “presents” I sold to people for the holiday were being returned. Any commission bonus I received prior to the holiday was being taken back.

There’s no way Carsons was going to lose out from the fact that somebody didn’t like the tacky yellow sweater I sold some woman as a gift for her brother.

But I also remember the crowds that would stream through the mall proper, which I would usually wander about during my breaks. I was never the type who wanted to spend time in a break room or employee lounge. Why stay cooped up when I can check out the surroundings.

Only it seems now that there just aren’t any surroundings to check out.

FOR AS I understand, Carsons is the only anchor retailer remaining in Lincoln Mall. The Sears, Montgomery Wards and J.C. Penney’s that I remember are gone.

In fact, more than half of the little storefronts inside the mall are now empty.

Yet the mall is closing down because its current structural condition has become so decrepit that Matteson village officials contend it is unsafe. It is in need of significant repairs. And they don’t think the mall’s current owner (a New York-based developer) is acting quickly enough to make such repairs.

Which is why this fight is now in the courts. A hearing is scheduled for next week, and it is possible that a judge could issue some sort of order that could force the mall to close until repairs are made.

THAT BIG A structure sitting empty would be such a money-loser that it would force repairs to be made. Unless the owner (who isn’t the easiest of people to reach these days) somehow decides to just write off his financial losses.

Which I would hope does not happen.

I already have a string of news organizations (the Star Newspapers, City News Bureau, United Press International) in my work history whose offices no longer exist. A part of me wonders if I personally have become a “kiss of death” to a news outfit.

I’d hate to see it come to the point where the only place I could go to, point to it, and say “I once worked here,” is a Subway Sandwich franchise in suburban Calumet City.

  -30-