Bilandic Building the eventual Chicago home of Illinois state government?

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

Chicago's Thompson and Bilandic buildings

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

BILANDIC: Is his spirit snickering at us?

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

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

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

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Mother Nature reminds us periodically of who really runs things – it ain’t us!

Never before in my life have I been thankful to be woken up at about 3 a.m. by a sudden surge of noise and light.

No, I didn't see ...

That’s what happened to me early Tuesday, because I was among those who managed to get their electrical power knocked out for a few hours by Monday night’s sudden storm.

I HAVE TO confess that the storm itself didn’t seem like much to me – a heavy rain is all.

I happened to be in my broken-down (but fully paid-for) automobile when the hard rain and stronger-than-usual winds suddenly came. My instinct told me that trying to drive in it could be risky.

So I pulled over and parked the car, then sat in the vehicle for about 20 minutes until things settled down to the point where it was just a normal rainfall.

I finished my trip (work-related) a few minutes later, and by the time work was “done,” the rain had stopped altogether. So I drove home not thinking much about it.

IT RAINED. RAIN is a part of our normal weather. It helped cool off the humidity somewhat.

But when I got home, I discovered that my home neighborhood had been devastated by those stronger-than-usual winds. There were branches blown all over the place.

Many of those branches managed to hit things. In my case, they knocked out the electrical power.

Which in my case was professionally devastating, because I had some work-related writing to do. It was on deadline. And the lack of electricity meant I didn’t have the wireless Internet connection at home that enables me to work there at my convenience.

... either of their big-game goals

AS I SEARCHED for a place with a wireless connection that did NOT lose electricity, I couldn’t help but notice how darkened the neighborhood was. Particularly odd since we’re at the time of year when daylight is at its longest.

My neighbors wound up using the weather as an excuse to party. The whole extended family swarmed their way out of the air conditioner-less home (no electricity), pulled out the barbecue grill, and the kids were running up and down the block in play.

I felt like I had to avoid hitting both fallen branches AND little children. Fortunately, I succeeded.

And when I got about one mile from my humble abode, I found a Starbucks’ coffee house. I’m not usually one to spend big bucks for their pretentious cups of coffee. Nor do I think much of people who spend hours on end with their laptop computers or other electronic devices – leeching off the wireless connection.

She can be mean when she wants to be!

BUT ON MONDAY, I became one of them. Although I made a point of getting my essential work done within a half-hour, then leaving (not long before they were getting ready to close).

When I returned home, the place was still dark. It was humid. It was miserable.  And the answer is "no," I didn't see any of the Chicago Blackhawks' Stanley Cup-winning victory over Boston. But in the dark, there was nothing one could do – other than stumble my way through my humble abode to the bedroom. Where I laid in my sweat, and ultimately drifted off to sleep.

Until! My alarm clock suddenly lit up (3:11 a.m., it was), the air conditioning kicked back on and a couple of lights that had been on when the power went out suddenly flickered to life.

The rest of my night was a little more comfortable. But I have to confess I struggled to remain awake Tuesday morning. It was NOT a good night’s sleep.

AS I WRITE this, I still have a few gadgets whose inner clocks are going to have to be re-set.

Although I learned that a colleague of mine who also lost power still had not had it restored as of the noon-hour Tuesday. And as I drove around my neighborhood, I still see some crews working to clear fallen brush and restore electricity to those whose power-less experience extended into a Day Two!

So as much as I want to gripe and grouse about a miserable night, a part of me can’t help but feel fortunate that it didn’t turn out worse. That’s something we all should keep in mind.

One little twist of wind can revert us back to the conditions of the days when all of this land around here was nothing but open frontier.

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Quinn not making friends in S.E. Chicago

I’m not as upset with Gov. Pat Quinn as many residents of the 10^th Ward were on Wednesday, but only because his actions didn’t surprise me in the least.

QUINN: No friends on East Side!



I had myself braced mentally for the fact that Quinn eventually would find a reason to justify signing into law a measure allowing for a new plant in the East Side neighborhood that would convert coal to natural gas.

THE LOCALS OF neighborhoods such as South Chicago, Hegewisch and South Deering have been against this project since it was first proposed because they are convinced it will cause even more pollution to the part of Chicago that housed the steel mills and factories of old and still has a lot of the crud that those facilities left behind.

Heck, one of the reasons that it is difficult to talk about economic development and new construction in that part of the city is because anybody wanting to come in and build something there would have to deal with the expense of cleaning up old pollution.

Local residents don’t want anything that will create new pollution to pile up on top of the old pollution.

Now some people are going to claim that those residents are merely being overly sensitive. I have heard countless public relations people employed by Leucadia National Corp. – the company that wants to develop the new plant at 116^th Street and Burley Avenue – who have told me that modern technology will keep pollution to a minimum.

THEY’LL ALSO ACCUSE the local activists of distorting detail, talking about coal plants with smokestacks as they existed decades ago. That seems to be the sense that Quinn is agreeing with when he ventured to the site of the proposed plant to sign the bill that alters Illinois law so that the plant would be legal.

Now I’m not about to try to refute anybody. I also have to admit to being of the 10^th Ward by birth, with many relatives who still live in those neighborhoods where Indiana is that place just a few blocks to the east – the other side of State Line Road.



The old Republic Steel site back in 1951, which now is the vacant site that Leucadia would like to turn into their coal to natural gas plant. Photograph provided by Southeast Chicago Historical Museum.


In fact, I have an aunt (mi tia Charlene) who has circulated postcards that people could fill out and send to Quinn to express their opposition/outrage with the idea of a coal-to-natural gas plant being built anywhere near their homes, and her friends have been among those people who have picketed various places to express their disgust with the idea.

So maybe I’m biased. But I also can understand the local opposition to industrial-type development in the area. It reinforces the idea that the 10^th Ward is the garbage can of Chicago – the place where all the high-pollution (but essential) activity can be placed so that it doesn’t taint the rest of Chicago.

EVEN WITH THOSE old factories being long-gone, the air in the 10^th Ward still has Illinois’ highest levels of toxic heavy metals and sulfates – which isn’t good for the human body.

As much as the area would like to have something that creates 200 jobs that could be filled by local residents (many of whom could walk to work similar to how their grandfathers walked to the steel mills that used to exist in the area), the locals would just like to have something else come to the area.

Now I know Quinn previously vetoed a bill that would have approved the plant, which caused the General Assembly this spring to pass a new version – one that includes restrictions on utility rates that limit the amount of increases that people face as a result of the new plant.

It also imposes serious fines on Leucadia if pollution reaches the levels that neighborhood residents fear – up to $20 million if less than 85 percent of the plant’s carbon dioxide emissions are not properly captured and sequestered.

YET AFTER DECADES of pollution, I’m sure the idea that the company will have to pay millions of dollars in fines isn’t comforting to those who live in the 10^th Ward, who would have to live with the residue.

But like I wrote earlier, I always figured that something eventually would be passed that Quinn would be willing to go along with. I have accepted that this will happen, even though I’m sure the most-intense of the activists are now banking their hopes on a legal fight that could still stop Leucadia from ever opening in the East Side.

Leucadia is trying to figure out how to get rid of the carbon dioxide emissions it does generate, and is looking for legal loopholes that could give them some permission to pollute the area a bit more – even though the Illinois Environmental Protection Agency is opposed.

In fact, there’s really only one mystery to me about this. Why did Quinn sign the bill into law during ceremonies in Chicago?

FOR THERE ALSO are provisions that would allow for a similar plant to be built in Southern Illinois. He could have gone there and given approval and talked about the larger issue and still approved the plant.

My guess is that he would have faced a more sympathetic audience in Southern Illinois rather than Chicago’s East Side.

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EXTRA: Justice in the dark

For those Chicago-area residents who remain without electricity or who had strong winds blow a tree into their house or onto their car or some other personal piece of property, my tale will seem trivial.

But one of the odd effects of the severe storms that hit metro Chicago this week was that it caused a moment of Justice in the Dark.

I HAPPENED TO be in Joliet Monday morning at the Will County courthouse. A newspaper I do some work for had an interest in a particular defendant.

Which is why I happened to be sitting in the courtroom of Judge Daniel J. Rozak, watching him go through his court call and waiting for the case to be called when the lights went out in the building.

Suddenly, the courtroom I was sitting in was pitch black, and the air conditioning immediately went dead.

Now this particular outage didn’t last long. I’d say power was fully restored to that courtroom within about 10 minutes. Lights flickered on bit-by-bit after a while.

BUT EVEN THOUGH court bailiffs quickly opened some doors so that outside light could creep into the courtroom, it didn’t change the fact that nobody could see much of anything.

What I will remember about this moment is that Rozak didn’t let the lack of light stop him. The case that was before him continued. I couldn’t see anything, but I could hear perfectly as the judge went through all the legalese that ensured the defendant who was pleading guilty did so in a manner that would make it impossible for him to claim at a later day that he was being coerced.

For the record, the case in question was a man caught driving under the influence of alcohol. He got 24 months of court supervision, all done in the dark. About the only thing notable about his case is that he was a Mexican citizen (and yes, he had a valid “green” card indicating his “resident alien” status).

Which means that if Immigration and Customs Enforcement someday wants to be hard-nosed about this case, this man who has lived in the United States for two decades and has family here could face deportation.

I COULDN’T HELP but wonder what this man (who had a court-appointed interpreter at his side) thought about what was going on around him – having a lot of legalese spoken to him in the dark!

American “Justice” at its finest? Or just a humorous moment, since I have to admit that the hearing I heard was in no way memorable. Just another of the thousands of court cases that arise every year from people who get caught imbibing a bit much.

And perhaps I should feel thankful that I was indoors when the most severe weather struck, and that I had electricity functioning when I returned home later that day.

Because some people won’t be able to make that claim for several more days.

  -30-

Did you spend the weekend in the dark?

As a reporter-type person, I fully appreciate the reason why the big headlines during the weekend related to the severe storm that pushed through the Chicago area Friday night were related to mass transit and the one-time Sears Tower.

The latter structure that for many years was the world’s tallest had some of its windows knocked out by the winds that reached speeds of about 70 miles per hour. That’s a lot of shattered glass on the streets of the south Loop (and around the area, depending on how far the high winds blew it about).

WE SHOULD BE thankful that no one who happened to be in downtown Chicago Friday night was killed or severely maimed by glass shards flying through the air.

There also were the delays in running the Metra commuter trains for people trying to get home during the Friday evening rush hour – which is when that storm that spread across the United States and has now worked its way to the East Coast managed to hit Chicago.

It was an inconvenience experienced by many as crowds trying to get on board delayed trains meant a human backup that must have been unpleasant to experience – particularly on a night when most people were just eager to get home following yet another week of hard work.

Yet I also realize that when most people recall this weekend, they’re not going to think of it as the time that glass flew through the air above the Loop. Nor will they think much about the delay they experienced in getting home Friday night.

IF ANYTHING, THEY’RE going to recall the conditions they found once they got home.

Because those storms managed to play havoc with the electrical power lines, which meant that many people got home to find they had no electricity. Some people had to endure the entire weekend without electricity.

Considering that temperatures also reached the high-80s at times, that meant no air conditioning.

Which means it was a miserable weekend for many.

NOW I HAVE to confess that I was lucky. Where I live, our inconvenience was minimal.

When those winds hit our area at about 4:30 p.m. Friday, they created a situation where electrical power kept fading in and out.

At the time, I was using my laptop computer to try to write a story for someone willing to pay me some money for my work. While my laptop had a battery that immediately kept it going continuously, my electrical “loss” was that the lights kept going on and off, and the device that gives me a wireless connection to the Internet kept starting and stopping.

Which meant that one moment, I had Internet access, while another moment, I did not. I had to wait about a half-hour before I was able to verify a couple of facts I was using to write a story.

I WAS LUCKY in that power never was lost for more than a few seconds, and after about a half-hour it quit misbehaving. I didn’t lose power. Some 555,000 customers of Commonwealth Edison can’t make the same claim

That is more than I can say for many Chicago-area residents, some 64,000 of whom still hadn’t had their electricity restored as of Sunday morning. ComEd officials said the utility company expected most of those to be restored by day’s end.

But there were some people who came home Friday night without electricity, and never got it back. Perhaps they had to leave for work Monday morning, wondering what they would come home to (even though theoretically, they knew it was likely it would be restored by then).

In my case, the closest I personally came to such a case involved my father, who lives in a nearby town but happens to be on a vacation trip with my step-mother. His house lost power at about 5 p.m. Friday and did not get it restored until 11 a.m. Sunday.

HE PICKED THE perfect time to be away from the house, which as far as I can tell did not sustain any other weather-related damage. He will return Monday having to do little more than figure out which items in his refrigerator went bad because of the forty-plus hours it endured without electrical power. Not that everybody in the Chicago area was lucky enough to be on vacation when the storm struck.

For those who couldn’t find a friend or relative to impinge upon, it must have been a primative weekend – on account of how dependent our society has become on having a steady source of electicity to keep us going.

They get my sympathies because I recall the time I experienced a lengthy power outage in my residence. But that was for about 19 hours – most of which was overnight while I slept. I’m sure the sweaty, clammy conditions I woke up in that morning without electricity were nowhere near as bad as what some people experienced this weekend.

Which is why I almost wonder if those stories emphasizing the Willis Tower windows went so far as to trivialize the weekend. It may be a significant building in Chicago (and the United States), but I doubt it had much to do with what most people experienced during the weekend.

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