Is there really a difference between a city neighborhood and a suburb?

That’s the question bopping through my brain these days, what with the questions being brought up about the mayoral aspirations of Paul Vallas.

VALLAS: Chicago enough to be mayor?

The one-time CEO of the Chicago Public Schools who also has worked in education in Philadelphia, New Orleans and Bridgeport, Conn., has had quite a life in many places.

BORN IN CHICAGO, it seems that Vallas is like many a Second City native in that he regards Chicago as home and his life always manages to bring him back to us – even though his work life has managed to take him to several places.

In fact, Vallas had his long-time home in the Chicago area in suburban Crestwood – which was his residence when he ran for lieutenant governor back in 2014.

Which is why it shouldn’t be shocking that some people are already trying to take Vallas’ mayoral aspirations down for the count by trying to make it seem that Paul has no right to think of himself as a Chicagoan.

WMAQ-TV this week reported how Vallas’ mayoral campaign doesn’t seem to have an office in Chicago. Campaign literature does offer up an address in the Chinatown neighborhood, but the television station couldn’t find local people aware of any political presence.

THEY DID FIND evidence that Vallas’ brother, Dean, has business interests at that address, and also in Crestwood. It also seems the Vallas for Mayor campaign, as it exists, does have a bank account – at a financial institution out in Plainfield.

Which, for what it’s worth, is a suburb not even located in Cook County (it’s most definitely Will, where locals consider Joliet to be the BIG city nearby).

So is Vallas unfit to even think of running for mayor of Chicago? Are we going to get something similar to the political strategy back in the 2011 election cycle – when people tried arguing that Rahm Emanuel wasn’t really a Chicagoan.

EMANUEL: Residency issue didn't work

After all, he was raised in the North Shore suburbs near Wilmette and did live in Washington, D.C. back when he was working for presidents Bill Clinton and Barack Obama and also serving in the House of Representatives – albeit representing a district that covered the Northwest suburbs of Chicago proper.

THAT EFFORT ULTIMATELY failed, in large part because the courts ultimately found that Rahm was registered to vote at the residence where he continues to live – even during much of the time he was working in the District of Columbia.

While Vallas made a point of moving to the Lincoln Park neighborhood several months ago – so as to establish city residency so he could even consider being on the mayoral ballot for the 2019 election cycle.

It may be a lame issue. But then again, when there are roughly a dozen people talking seriously about trying to get their names on the ballot next year to run for mayor, perhaps they hope it will stick.

Particularly if it only manages to sway a few potential voters into erasing Vallas from their mental consideration for their vote. A few is all it will take in an at-large election in which no one will come close to a 50-percent-plus-one majority.

NOW I REALIZE why municipal elections are open only to city residents-proper. Suburbs have their own local governments. People ought to have a stake in the communities whose government business they want to do.

But there is a part of me who wonders if we ought to think of places like Calumet City, Cicero or Evanston as being similar to Hyde Park, Austin or Lake View. In terms of being small communities that comprise the greater entity otherwise known as the Chicago metropolitan area.

The idea that the Vallas campaign is at such an early stage it really hasn’t set up a full-time campaign office or established bank accounts for itself within the city proper for an election cycle that remains some eight months off (and we still have to vote for governor first) comes across as a non-issue.

Besides, if the Vallas campaign really is uncoordinated enough that it can’t put together a proper campaign office and account at one of the city’s bigger banks, then it likely is destined to become one of a fringe nature that we’ll most likely forget all about a year from now.

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Is broadcaster Stephen A. Smith the ‘voice of reason’ standing up for our freedom to express ourselves?

Remember the Jackie Robinson West youth baseball program on the city’s South Side? They’re the ones who nearly won the Little League World Series a couple of years ago – only to have their accomplishment officially erased from the Little League Baseball record books.

SMITH: Voice of reason?

League officials contend their rules were violated and that the Morgan Park neighborhood-based Jackie Robinson West program put its team together from talented youth across the South Side and surrounding suburbs – rather than just their respective neighborhood.

JACKIE ROBINSON OFFICIALS have finally filed their lawsuit against Little League Baseball, contending the league acted unfairly to taint the on-field accomplishments of those 12-year-olds who brought international glory to Chicago back in 2014.

But what also is interesting is that the lawsuit also includes ESPN and one of its announcers – in the form of Stephen A. Smith.

For those of you who aren’t sports junkies compelled to watch the blatherings of the many people who offer their opinions on ESPN, Smith is one who has a particular record of irritating people.

I’m sure he’ll say he just speaks his mind and says what he believes to be true. Others say he’s just a donkey (insert more crude term here) who doesn’t know what he’s talking about.

IT SEEMS THE Jackie Robinson West officials take Smith more seriously than I do. I rarely think anyone’s commentary – other than my own – is worth anything. And even my own is only worth the price (gratis) you had to pay in order to read it!

But because his opinion was carried forth on ESPN and all the sports nerds of our society were watching (except for those who might have been tuned into a Fox Sports channel at the time), the local officials want to believe they’re forevermore tainted.

How many 'cheaters' wind up with an Oval Office appearance?

As for the offensive comment that has local officials upset, it seems Smith said it bothers him that a baseball program named for Jackie Robinson would play loose with the rules concerning eligibility and residency.

Which if you think about it, isn’t an outrageous thought at all. Even if you believe, as I do, that much of the outrage concerning the Jackie Robinson West residency issue is a lot of sour grapes from people who couldn’t beat the ball club on the playing field.

THE MODERN-DAY family structure isn’t the same as it was back when Little League programs became organized some 80 years ago. There are families with split residences – with one parent living in the area proper and the other does not.

But I’m not about to get into trying to justify the way the Jackie Robinson West program operates – other than to say I am aware it is a highly-structured program that attracts young people from across the area who want to play baseball.

And a part of me does wonder if the people who object to Jackie Robinson West’s accomplishment are really bothered by the fact it is an all-black organization in a Little League that all-too-often is dominated by white people?

I’ve already seen some reports about the lawsuit saying that it is the portion against Stephen A. Smith that will draw public attention and news coverage.

WHAT IF IT is capable that Jackie Robinson West can do what many people in sports have tried to do and failed – that is, put a gag of sorts on Smith’s mouth!

The simple fact is that he’s a blowhard who spouts off on anything and everything, and for his good fortune has found someone willing to pay him to do so. If anything, facing a lawsuit may wind up creating friends for Smith of all the people who want to rant about “those cheatin’ black kids from Chicago.”

Personally, I don’t think much will become of their lawsuit. Particularly if it turns Stephen A. Smith into the voice of reason whom we all stand up for to protect the concept of freedom of expression.

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Where does Napoleon Harris live?

Napoleon Harris is an Illinois state senator representing a south suburban district consisting of many municipalities that have seen better days economically and socially.

HARRIS: Moving up too far?

Yet he’s also a one-time professional football player and a businessman (he owns a string of Beggars’ Pizza franchises) who has the kind of money that he can afford to live in places that aren’t quite so desolate.

SO WHERE EXACTLY does Harris live?

Officially, he gets identified as “State Sen. Napoleon Harris, D-Flossmoor” because of a home he owns in that upscale community. It is a majority African-American population community.

But it is a place where black people with money are able to shelter themselves from some of the realities of urban life that other black people have to deal with on a daily basis.

It would also seem that Harris’ children are enrolled in schools based off that Flossmoor address.

YET THERE HAS been speculation in recent months that the Chicago Tribune picked up on this week that Harris doesn’t really live there.

The catch is that Harris’ primary pizza franchise is based in Harvey, an African-American dominated community that may be as bad as things get. There is speculation that the senator is actually living in a townhouse located right near the strip mall that contains the restaurant AND his legislative district offices.

The Tribune reported that Harris’ driver’s license indicates the Flossmoor address, and that he also received a homestead tax exemption on that property.

But that property is located just outside of his legislative district, whereas the Harvey address is squarely within the district.

NOW I KNOW I have heard stories in recent months about this uncertainty and how Harris was reluctant to give a straight answer. I also know there are politically-motivated people who wanted to try to challenge Harris’ nominating petitions for this year’s election cycle to get him knocked off the ballot on grounds that he doesn’t really live in the district.

 

Back in days when nobody cared where he lived

Not that any of it succeeded.

Those people were never able to come up with the kind of money needed to file the court challenge required to do that. All of the candidates who filed nominating petitions to challenge Harris were so weak that they wound up dropping out of the race before they could be knocked off the ballot for insufficient support.

That is why Harris ran unopposed in the March primary, and doesn’t even have a token Republican challenger for the Nov. 4 general election cycle.

NO MATTER WHAT becomes of all this residential speculation, it would seem that Harris is returning to the Statehouse in Springfield for a four-year term.

The part of this that never made much sense to me was about why Harris would be secretive about a Harvey address. If anything, it would better his image in the lower-income district to claim to live in Harvey, rather than Flossmoor where someone might try to make it stick that he’s somehow out-of-touch with those he claims to represent.

For Harris is a native of Dixmoor; another nearby community with a dominant African-American population. Albeit one who has done well in life – probably better than anyone else he grew up with.

But he can’t afford to appear to be too wealthy, or else he risks getting taken down by the activist types – the kind of people who used to go around claiming that Barack Obama wasn’t “black enough” to be an African-American candidate for president.

I’M SURE A Harvey image fits better into who Harris would like to think he had become. This can be one of the complicating factors for a political person – having to account for where one lives.

For Harris once was a resident of southwest suburban Orland Park, where he has another of his Beggar’s Pizza franchises. He gave up that home many years ago for the Flossmoor address that allowed him a chance at running for office.

For it is very possible that if he had run for the Legislature from that district, the fact that he is a one-time NFL player might not have been sufficient to get the locals to overcome their racial attitudes and vote him into office.

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Doing business elsewhere for tax benefits not legal; why should it be acceptable for electoral purposes?

Perhaps I’m the only person who finds it ironic we learned this week that the wife of now-U.S. Senate candidate James Oberweis specifically moved out of Illinois for tax purposes at the same time that the Supreme Court of Illinois ruled against business interests that tried to pull off a similar maneuver.

OBERWEIS: Still Illinoisan, but not spouse

Specifically, the court ruled that the companies that deliberately tried to evade paying Cook County tax rates by locating an office in some low-tax rate rural county were behaving improperly.

THOSE COMPANIES ARE now going to have to start admitting that they’re Chicago-area businesses and pay the local tax rate. No more trying to claim they’re Kankakee-area companies!

So what should we think of Julie Oberweis, who apparently officially moved to Florida three years ago and has taken actions to set herself  up as a Florida resident who just happens to spend time in Illinois – where her state Senate member husband still claims his residency.

When the word got out earlier this week (reported by the Chicago Sun-Times), it brought up an issue that is bound to be used over and over during the upcoming campaign season by those wishing to trash the man who is making his third attempt to run for the U.S. Senate.

Oberweis admits his wife did the move so she could qualify for lesser tax rates on her income.

SHE’S JUST LIKE the companies that try to create a rural office for themselves (in some cases, just a little storefront used to maintain an address, while all the real work is done at the so-called subsidiary office in the Chicago area).

It comes across as an attempt to dodge taxes. Which many of us would regard as someone thinking they’re not supposed to pay their fair share.

Ct said businesses can't claim fake offices

Except to those with the corporate mentality who honestly believe their fair share is nothing – and that any government official who can’t accept that viewpoint is “anti-business.”

Personally, I’m not terribly offended by the Oberweis maneuver – so long as the letter of the law is complied with strictly.

IF THEY WANT to go through the hassle of filing separate state tax returns (he in Illinois and she in Florida), that’s their business. Their federal return is a joint effort, according to the Sun-Times. But it has to be prepared to acknowledge their split life.

DURBIN: Will he use tax issue in campaign?

I believe it’s a lot more effort than its worth, just because one wants to believe they’re being over-taxed in Illinois and they don’t want to pay the going rate. And if there's even one technical slip-up, the feds will be sure to get themselves involved.

Which I honestly believe is because one gets more benefits from being in Illinois, and in the Chicago-area portion of the state. You get what you pay for. Places that go out of their way to boast of their low tax rates usually offer up next-to-nothing for their local residents and corporate interests.

Take the tax avoidance situation.

A COMPANY SUCH as Hartney Fuel Oil, Co., which tried claiming it was based in Mark, Ill., rather than its real corporate offices in suburban Forest View, wouldn’t hesitate to ACTUALLY move to Mark (population, 550) if they thought they could gain real benefits or savings from being located in the Putnam County village.

It will be intriguing to see how this particular issue plays out, and if it will be added to the litany of gaffes Oberweis (the candidate, not the spouse) has made in past campaigns. A helicopter circling Soldier Field, anyone?!? Will she have to “move” back to Illinois so her husband can run, yet again, for federal office?

One other point should be made. Oberweis tried to minimize the idea of his wife being a Florida resident by implying that Sen. Richard Durbin, D-Ill., has the same situation – his spouse, Loretta, is a lobbyist in Springfield.

Except that, technically, so is Durbin, the senator, whose D.C. living situation is that of the famed four Congress-members who live in a grungy frat-house style home (inspiring the new program “Alpha House”) because they’d rather not maintain real homes in the District of Columbia along with their REAL houses back home.

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Pay me to live in city, Police say

I realize that living in the city of Chicago proper can be more costly than living in one of the suburban communities that surround it.

Personally, I’d argue that the sense of isolation one can feel living in a suburb makes the additional cost of city life worthwhile. But I also realize that is a viewpoint not shared by all.

IN PARTICULAR, IT does not seem to be shared by the people who are supposed to be patrolling the city streets and keeping them safe for us – the Police Department.

For it seems that those police officers (who by city ordinance are required to live within the Chicago municipal limits) seem to think they’re entitled to more money, on account of the fact that they’re being forced to live in the City of Chicago.

The Chicago Sun-Times reported Thursday about the negotiations now taking  place between the city and the Fraternal Order of Police on behalf of police officers.

It seems that the police union not only wants a significant pay increase and a reduction in the amount of money they have to contribute toward their health insurance benefit package, they also want a $3,000 annual stipend to compensate them for the residency issue.

IN SHORT, THEY seem to think they are being burdened by the city that gives them employment. Talk about an attitude that is bothersome.

It really makes me want to respond by telling them if they despise urban life so much, perhaps they ought not to be working for the city in any form.

Now I realize that “residency” is an issue that all governmental units have to confront when it comes to hiring people to actually do the work that allows government to function and provide services for us all.

I also realize that this is likely an early offer in contract negotiations. This is the point where one asks for “the moon” (and the city does its best impersonation of Ebenezer Scrooge), and then the two sides try to work toward a middle ground that will become the eventual contract.

SO PERHAPS I shouldn’t take it too seriously that the police are saying they want more money if they have to live in the city.

But it’s just the kind of attitude that makes me wonder, at times, if we need to be protected from our police – rather than view them as an entity that will protect us from those elements of our society that want to strong-arm us into submission.

When it comes to our city’s cops, we all have heard the jokes about those “cop enclaves” on the city’s far Southwest and Northwest sides – people living as close as they possibly can to the city limits without actually being residents of Alsip or Norridge or some other community.

And yes, in the interest of disclosure, I should admit that I have two uncles who were with the Chicago police (one is now retired, while the other is deceased) who when they were working lived near Midway Airport and in the Mount Greenwood neighborhood – both on the city’s fringes).

IT’S JUST THAT this is one issue where I don’t have a problem accepting the view that a city employee ought to live in the city he (or she) works in.

I know some suburbs don’t have strict residency requirements (and in an odd quirk, I know of at least two suburban cops who live in Chicago) because they think they need to reach out to a larger pool of employees than their residents could ever provide.

But that is different in Chicago, which is capable of attracting people who view the place as offering so much in opportunities that cannot be matched elsewhere.

So as for those cops who think they ought to be paid more to live in Chicago, personally I’d rather see us pay them off to get lost. We’d be better off without them if they can't appreciate the perks of living in the Second City!

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Living in D.C., or back in Midwest?

I have never been one to get worked up over the whole issue of residency for our members of Congress.

JACKSON: South Shore, or Foggy Bottom?



After all, we expect these officials to represent our interests in Washington, D.C., which means they need to spend significant amounts of time on Capitol Hill.

WHICH MEANS THEY’RE not going to be on hand for every Podunk political event “back home.” Unlike state legislators who need to spend about two or three months in Springfield while living their lives in their home districts, our members of Congress need to have some sort of D.C.-area residence.

It’s called being practical.

Then again, no one ever accused political people of being practical – particularly when their only goal is to take someone down on Election Day.

Which is why we have heard some rhetoric this election cycle devoted to the concept that some incumbent local official really isn’t local – they’ve “gone Beltway.”

WHICH MEANS THEY live within (or near) that Interstate highway that circles the nation’s capital city. They’ve forgotten about us. They’re really not one of us. So they shouldn’t represent “us” any longer.

Although it can be argued that the legislators who don’t spend enough time in D.C. have so little influence that maybe their constituents gain nothing from their presence.

Rep. Jesse Jackson, Jr., D-Ill., has been hit with some of that talk. His opponent in the Democratic primary, former Congresswoman Debbie Halvorson, has said that Jackson does not really live in the South Shore neighborhood any longer.

LUGAR: Not 'Hoosier' enough?



He lives within the District of Columbia, and it is only his wife, Sandi, who lives in Chicago. Or so Halvorson has hinted (Jackson aides deny this).

WHICH MAY BE a subtle way of reminding us of alleged marital difficulties the couple has had, without actually coming out and spewing sorry stories of infidelity.

But it remains the fact that the Chicago residence is still the legal one for Jackson (and where he lives whenever he has time to spend in Chicago proper) and the primary one for his wife – which is good because she serves as an alderman in the City Council.

The real “controversy” would be if there was a D.C.-residing alderman in the Chicago City Council. Sandi Jackson as the go-between of city and federal government. The daughter-in-law of the Rev. Jesse Jackson being the one who passed messages between President Barack Obama and Mayor Rahm Emanuel.

Then again, that image would be nothing more than ludicrous. Although it wouldn’t necessarily be the most ludicrous one created during this campaign cycle.

BECAUSE I THINK that might involve the allegations now being made against Sen. Richard Lugar, R-Ind.

The long-serving senator from the neighboring Hoosier State is going to have to cope with a complaint filed this week by which his political opponents contend that his presence on the ballot in Indiana amounts to voter fraud.

He doesn’t live there.

They claim he sold his Indianapolis home decades ago, and is now a full-time resident of the D.C. suburbs that spill over into Virginia.

WHICH MAY BE true. After all these decades and his time spent working his way through the Senate ranks, his real “home” may well be on Capitol Hill – although it seems he’s not one of those legislators who’s so low-budget that he chooses to live in his government office.

Rather than following the lead of Sen. Richard Durbin, D-Ill., who is notorious in political circles for sharing a D.C. apartment with some of his colleagues that has all the ambiance of a “frat house.”

But we’re talking Tea Party-types here, who are more interested in pushing ideology than anything else. The fact that Indiana gains from having “one of its own” embedded in the D.C. establishment doesn’t seem to matter much, because they’re merely interested in ramming their own agenda down everybody else’s throats.

That is why the Tea Party types want Indiana Gov. Mitch Daniels to take actions that would boot Lugar from the ballot in that state’s May 8 primary elections.

THE PROBLEM THEY face is that Indiana law, backed up by the state Attorney General's office, is fairly explicit. Members of Congress can vote in Indiana even if they have given up their home after being elected initially. Which makes this Tea Party-type activity nothing more than a whiny statement.

Then again, Tea Party-type activists have made it clear all along they want Lugar gone (officially, they prefer Indiana state Treasurer Richard Mourdock). He’s not enough of an ideologue for them – even though in the past year Lugar has gone out of his way to reinvent himself from a practical politician to an ideologue, and has taken back his one-time strong support of measures such as the immigration reform-related DREAM Act.

Maybe those Tea Party-types realize that Lugar is too much for them to defeat on Election Day. So they want to dump him by other means prior to the elections.

Which strikes me more as the actions of sore losers, rather than those of anyone interested in participating in true democracy.

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Residency for mayor, but not employees?

CHICO: Easing residency for public safety?

I find it ironic that mayoral hopeful Gery Chico this week came out for easing the residency requirements for city workers, at a time when an overly strict interpretation of “the law” when it comes to mayoral candidates could work to his benefit.

There are those people who believe that Chico, the one-time head of the Public Schools board, the City Colleges of Chicago and the Park District, would become the new front-runner, should Rahm Emanuel be unsuccessful in convincing the Illinois Supreme Court to keep his name on the ballot for the Feb. 22 municipal elections.

AFTER ALL, SAY the legal critics, Emanuel can’t run for mayor because he has NOT been a Chicago resident for a long-enough period of time – in accordance with that strict reading of relevant law.

There are those who think the people pushing this view are Chico’s backers (including Alderman Edward Burke), if not quite Chico himself.

So we have a case where overly-strict residency requirements are good for Chico if they bump off his most serious Election Day opponent. Yet he’s going around getting the endorsement of the International Association of Firefighters local that represents the Chicago Fire Department employees.

The way he’s doing that is by telling them this week he’d ease the residency requirement. I’d say that the move would also get Chico the endorsement of the Chicago Police chapter of the Fraternal Order of Police – except for the fact that the cop union has already endorsed him! But to keep the cops from feeling neglected, he made pledges Wednesday to put 2,000 more officers on the streets by the end (if elected) of his four-year term.

NOW I DO see the one major difference. “Mayor” is an elected position. We don’t pick our police officers and firefighters, or their leaders, at the voting booth. So I’m not quite calling the Chico campaign hypocritical when it comes to the concept of residency and government.

But at a time when political observers watching this particular election cycle are engaging in debates over what, exactly, does Illinois law have to say about residential status for an elected official, the whole concept of demanding proper residency for a city official has risen to a new level of attention.

EMANUEL: Easing his residency?

So it seems odd that at least one of those candidates for mayor is choosing this moment in time to get a little bit lax with the residency requirements for other city personnel.

Now I realize that residency has been a long-festering issue, particularly when it comes to employees of the agencies that are supposed to ensure the public safety of city residents.

WE MAKE JOKES about those “cop enclaves” in neighborhoods such as Jefferson Park on the Northwest Side or Mount Greenwood on the Southwest Side – the latter of which bears so much resemblance to neighboring Alsip that one can’t easily tell where city ends and suburb begins. (For the record, I have two uncles who were Chicago police – one who lived in Mount Greenwood, just three blocks from the city limits, and another who lived out near Midway Airport, although upon his retirement, he found himself a literal country estate in Arkansas to escape what he had come to see as the urban zoo).

I’m sure there are many police officers and firefighters who would have no qualms about moving those few blocks out further into a suburban town – if not for the residency requirement that has been in place for decades.

There are those people who make arguments in defense of residency requirements by claiming they are needed to keep the “middle class” living in the city. Without them, they say, Chicago would become a home address for very wealthy people who live in or near downtown, and the rest of the city would become for the very poor.

Actually, I think it is the quality of the public school system that is more important in that regard. A lot of people, if they don’t already live here, make a point of moving to the city in early adulthood. It is the belief that the local public schools are too low quality (and the parochial or other private schools too expensive) that causes too many people to leave – creating a case where roughly two-thirds of the Chicago-area’s population lives in a suburb, rather than the city itself.

MY REASON FOR thinking the residency requirement has merit is because it would be nice to have the public safety employees on hand.

I know there are suburban towns that are forced to ease up on residency requirements – or else they wouldn’t be able to hire and keep qualified public safety employees. The mode in those places seems to be requiring their workers to live within something like a 10-mile radius of the home town, or requiring them to live in town for a few years, then easing up on residency once they become veteran employees.

I’d like to think Chicago has enough to offer that it doesn’t have to ease up on residency in order to find qualified workers. People who talk about easing the requirement seem, to me, to be surrendering on a certain level. If Chico really does believe that residency for those city workers isn’t all that important, then perhaps he should make some sort of statement telling the people who are eager to boot Emanuel from the ballot based on residency technicalities to ease up.

Fat chance that will ever happen!

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