Business interests still come to Chicago despite Trump trash talk. Maybe he doesn't know of what he speaks?

I remember during the times of my life I lived in downstate Illinois (Bloomington, while in college, and Springfield for a stint working at the Statehouse), the locals would always refute my Chicagoness by pointing out the major corporate entities that considered central Illinois to be home.

Could this road symbolically lead to Chicago for Caterpillar?

There was Archer Daniels-Midland in Decatur. Then, the big gun, Caterpillar, in Peoria, the manufacturer of farm machinery and vehicles used by agriculture interests the world over.

ANYBODY INTERESTED IN farming or food or eating ought to know of Caterpillar. Or ADM, which processes grains and soybeans into products that can be turned into food.

I don’t deny those are significant corporate entities in their own right. But I can’t help but note that ADM left Decatur a couple of years ago; following the lead of the central Illinois city’s one-time National Football League team, which came to Chicago and became the Bears many decades ago.

Now, Caterpillar seems to be following their lead.

Corporate officials said this week that their top executives are moving from their offices at the main plant in Peoria to a yet-to-be-determined site in Chicago. They want access to life in a large city like Chicago, rather than small-city life of Peoria. They also like the idea of being a short drive away from O’Hare International Airport, from which they can go anywhere in the world!

IT MAY ALSO be that corporate types want to be able to follow the Chicago Cubs themselves, rather than rooting for their local Midwest League ball club and spending their time reminiscing of the days when it was a Cubs’ minor league affiliate (it’s now with the St. Louis Cardinals).

 

No longer dreaming of Cubs' one-time affiliate

One bit of consolation for the Peoria people – corporate officials say it’s just the corporate offices. The actual plant in Peoria where equipment is made will remain there. Few of the 12,000 people employed in Peoria will be out of work because of the move.

Who knows? They may come to like having the top brass located elsewhere. While we in Chicago will love being able to say we’re the corporate offices of yet another business entity. Not bad at a time when President Donald J. Trump, for purely partisan political reasons, seems determined to come up with weekly attacks on Chicago.

As though he wants the world to think that our fair city is as ugly as that 1,389-foot tall building he erected along the Chicago River.

If Chicago Bears could once play a season at Memorial Stadium, why not Fighting Illini games in Chicago?

ALTHOUGH THE MOVE makes me wonder now what business entities rural Illinois types will be able to cite when they tout their region? Perhaps they’ll start boasting of the many state universities located in the rest of Illinois – particularly the University of Illinois.

Though one could argue that all you’d have to do is move the Big Ten athletic programs of the Fighting Illini to the Chicago campus, and the UI-C would take over that school’s niche in the state.

Although I’m sure that to the people of Urbana-Champaign (or should it be Champaign-Urbana), that very notion constitutes “fightin’ words” worse than the notion of Caterpillar sending a piece of itself to Chicago.

Could one-time U.S. Steel plant along the lakefront ...

Yet this isn’t the only outside interest we’re seeing these days. I couldn’t help but notice the talk this week of a company ultimately based in Barcelona, Spain, wanting to take the one-time site of U.S. Steel’s Southworks plant and convert it into homes.

SPECIFICALLY, SOME 12,000 homes, to be built in four phases of 3,000 each – with certain communal amenities meant to try to create a spirit of community.

Not that the area, which is adjacent to the South Chicago and South Shore neighborhoods, couldn’t use some freshening up. South Chicago in particular (the neighborhood I was born in, for what it’s worth) has old housing stock.

... truly become the 8080 Lakeshore housing development.? Image provided by Barcelona Housing

But any chance this project by Barcelona Housing Systems (with offices in San Francisco) and WELink has of succeeding depends on whether they can make the existing surrounding working-class residents feel like they’re not being rejected for potentially upscale newcomers. That is a large part of why a past developer’s talk of turning the 430-acre site along Lake Michigan from 79^th Street to the Calumet River never got off the ground.

Yet still interesting to see that at a time when Trump wants to undermine our city by making it appear too much of a hell hole to want to have anything to do with, interests as diverse as Caterpillar and Barcelona see money to be made in Chicago; which makes me think we ought to be questioning Trump’s own business instincts – instead of taking anything he says all that seriously.

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What would we have thought some half century ago with building lit for MLK?

I happened to be in downtown Chicago on Friday night, along Michigan Avenue to be exact, when I noticed the downtown buildings that like to light themselves up for special occasions were at it again.

Celebrating King memory similar to a sports victory. Photograph by Gregory Tejeda

For amongst the many colors intended to give the city skyline a touch of whimsy was the Blue Cross/Blue Shield building at 300 E. Randolph St., which was lit up in blue and white with giant several-stories high letters spelling out “MLK.”

SURE ENOUGH, IT was the beginning of the weekend in which we commemorate Monday the birthday anniversary of civil rights leader Martin Luther King, Jr., who come April of next year will have been gone from our midst for half a century.

King is one of those names that has ceased to be a living, breathing human being. He’s just an image that people use for whatever purpose they choose – rather than for anything King may have said or done during his lifetime. I encountered one news story published this weekend whose point was to say that King as a child was an ordinary person, and something of a prankster.

I once heard an activist say that King had become nothing more than a marketing image. It wouldn’t shock this activist to someday see someone try to sell blue jeans with the King image.

Truly gaudy. But not out of line with the way some marketing campaigns for various products have gone.

SO WHAT SHOULD it mean to us that Monday is King Day across this nation – even though in some Southern states they try to rebrand it as Great Americans Day with people like Robert E. Lee being included in that list?

 

KING: More than just a hedshot

It’s not a surprise that some people would feel that way. Just look at our recent presidential election that some amongst us will never get over or accept.

For some, that idea of “Make America Great Again” may very well include the idea of downplaying this day because they’d rather not recall the images of half a century ago when King felt compelled to challenge the segregated way of life that existed in part of the country – and that many in the rest of the country was more than willing to accept as just the way things were.

We in Chicago can’t really claim to have been any better. We were, after all, the place where King, himself, got hit in the head with a brick (the Marquette Park rallies).

King drawing a crowd to Soldier Field for a 1966 housing rally. Photograph provided by Richard J. Daley collection at University of Illinois-Chicago.

AND WHERE MANY of us have parents and/or grandparents who fondly remember the image of then-Mayor Richard J. Daley standing up to King and his demands for equal housing for all. As though King's political defeat in Chicago was something to be proud of.

Unpleasant images. We’d rather not have to be reminded, if at all possible. And it’s definitely not something that many of us want to be called out on.

Just like many of those who a couple of months ago cast their votes for Donald J. Trump’s presidential bid. They either support the racial hang-ups of the most extreme Trump-ites, or they’re willing to be on the same side as those people and certainly don’t want anyone criticizing them for it.

This King Day is one coming at a time when some people might have fantasies about turning back the clock to an era when certain types of people were supposed to know their place (which was secondary).

NOT THAT I think we’re going back that far. But it is something that ought to be contemplated by all of us. Lest we wind up forgetting the significance of what happened some 51 years ago when King himself spoke in Grant Park – located just south of the building now lit up with his initials.

 

A tragic day for many

I can’t help but wonder what King himself would have thought of the image of one of the giant Chicago skyscrapers that overlook where he spoke bearing a tribute to himself.

But then again, keep in mind those same buildings light themselves up for just about any occasion – most recently back in November when the Chicago Cubs managed to win the World Series.

I also don’t doubt that for some people, the Cubs’ victory (the first in 108 years) was something far more significant than anything King ever said or did. It’s no wonder Trump won!

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EXTRA: Jr. relegated to office couch?

When I learned Wednesday that Rep. Jesse Jackson, Jr., D-Ill., was putting his house in the District of Columbia up for sale, the first thought that came to mind was that of the representative for Chicago's Far South Side and surrounding suburbs joining that “fraternity” of congressmen who literally live in their Capitol Hill offices so they can save themselves money.

JACKSON: Needs a new place to live



Could we someday get the sight of Junior in a t-shirt and shorts, lounging on the couch at 1 a.m., watching something trashy on television because he’s having trouble getting to sleep?

HOW ABOUT JUNIOR opening his office door in the morning to pick up his paper, encountering the janitors who keep the Capitol building clean?

It is one of the quirks of life for the members of Congress that some of them choose not to get themselves a house or apartment to live in during the time they must spend in Washington, D.C. They literally live in the offices.

Some do it because Washington is an expensive urban area, while others are trying to score political points by being snotty about the idea of actually LIVING in the District of Columbia.

Jackson had long ago moved beyond that, getting himself a house (that he’s now asking $2.5 million for) in the district to go along with his Chicago residence.

DURBIN: Will Jackson follow his lead?



OFFICIALLY, HE LIVES in the district during the week and returns home to Chicago on weekends and other congressional breaks – although the cynics claim that the D.C. house is HIS and the Chicago house is the residence of spouse Sandi Jackson – who uses that address to justify her political post as alderman of the 7^th ward.

But I also noted that the reports on Wednesday indicated that the couple’s children use the D.C. address to justify their enrollment in private schools in Washington.

That address is to become history, because Jackson aides say the congressman needs the money to help cover the medical bills he’s incurring from his treatment for a bipolar condition.

BLAGOJEVICH: Had a 'home' for sale



It also has me wondering what the living conditions will be for Jackson in coming years (since he probably can remain in his congressional post for as long as he likes – even though circumstances make it likely he’ll never be able to get elected to any other government office).

WILL HE LITERALLY become like that breed of representatives and senators who sleep on the office couch – unless they feel like splurging and buying themselves an air mattress so they can sleep on the floor in semi-comfort?

He wouldn't be the only Illinoisan go go that route.

Or is he going to become more like Sen. Richard Durbin, D-Ill., who in political circles became famed for the “frat house-like” atmosphere of the home he and several other senators rented so they would not be homeless in the District of Columbia?

It’s too bad Jackson couldn’t have made the decision to sell and cut his living expenses a bit sooner. Let’s not forget that the Blagojevich family had a condominium for sale REAL CHEAP from Milorod’s days as a member of the House of Representatives.

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Just another step in the federal effort to break Blagojevich in any way possible

Perhaps Friday was the day that reality finally registered with Rod Blagojevich.

A reality check ... 



If it didn’t, then I don’t know what it will take for him to realize the predicament that his life has devolved to.

BLAGOJEVICH HAD TO appear in court on Friday, where U.S. District Judge James Zagel set bond for him at $450,000 – unless he’d rather spend his time incarcerated at the Metropolitan Correctional Center until the time comes that he is sentenced to a prison term for his convictions on 18 assorted charges.

Since I doubt Blagojevich wants to live in the triangle-shaped building that allows residents only a thin slit window view of the South Loop, he’ll come up with the money to post bond, whose point is to ensure that Rod and Patti don’t decide to take a European vacation, then suddenly decide NEVER to return to the United States.

It is to ensure he doesn’t flee.

Now it is true that Blagojevich is busted financially. The only reason he’s going to be able to keep himself out of a jail cell while awaiting sentencing is that the book value of his home in the Ravenswood Manor neighborhood and a condominium in the District of Columbia (from his six years as a member of Congress; he doesn’t live there anymore) is sufficient enough that he can put them up as bond.

IN FACT, THE reason for Friday’s court hearing was that Blagojevich had not followed the letter of the law when it comes to filing paperwork with the federal government indicating the value of his assets – which these days are little more than the house and the condo.

Now I know there are those individuals who want to think that Blagojevich somehow “won” on Friday, because Zagel refused to go along with the bond request that prosecutors wanted.

... for both Blagojeviches



One Million Dollars!!!!!!

That is the kind of bond that is set for the most vicious criminals who go on serious crime sprees. It would have added to Blagojevich’s notoriety, and may have been so high that Blagojevich wouldn’t have been able to achieve it.

HAVING A BOND so high might well have turned Blagojevich into a guy who makes his court appearances in prison garb, rather than in a nice suit with his loving wife at his side.

Which I’m sure the most intense political ideologues would have been completely happy with.

But this was a blow for Blagojevich. Since the fact that has come out in all this talk about Blagojevich’s housing is that he and Patti are trying to sell both of them.

Speculation is that the couple would like to buy a condominium in Chicago, which is where Patti would live with the couple’s two daughters while Milorod serves whatever time he ultimately receives in prison.

EXCEPT THAT IF the house and the D.C. condo are committed to his bond, there’s no way the couple can even think of selling them.

And when one considers that the federal government likely will try (and succeed) to confiscate both pieces of property once Blagojevich is sentenced, there isn’t going to be anything left to allow them to find something respectable in the way of housing for the Blagojevich family once the former governor’s address changes to a federal correctional center.

The people who have their twisted thoughts of Patti Blagojevich (who herself may be so tainted these days by her husband that she’s probably unemployable) being forced to beg her alderman father for permission to live with her daughters in his basement may well find that reality comes very close to what ultimately happens to Illinois’ former first family.

Considering that Blagojevich is the man who seriously claimed to be “stunned” at the thought that a jury could find him guilty of so many charges, I wonder if the reality of how intensely he is going to be busted financially is the jolt of reality that gets through to the man whom so many of his political colleagues considered to be “delusional” during his time in office.



NOT THAT THIS phenomenon is unique to the Blagojevich case.



Where some wish ex-Gov. currently resided



I have always believed that people watching legal proceedings should pay more attention to the fines imposed against defendants than to any prison time. Because the fine is something that the federal government can collect upon even after the sentence is served.

If set high enough (and one can be assured that it will be in the millions of dollars for Blagojevich), it can ensure that anything of any financial value is lost, and that they remain in debt even after getting their freedom.

That alone could be a significant factor in the likelihood that Blagojevich and family will leave the Chicago area after his anticipated prison sentence is complete. He may not be able to afford to live in the city any longer.

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