How much is really gained from having public participation during govt mtgs?

The City Council in Chicago began Wednesday to permit public comment during its meetings, which really shouldn’t be a big deal.
 

Hot air emanates from da Hall, although not from pols

Illinois law actually requires municipal entities to set aside a portion of their meeting time to allow people to make statements about what their officials are doing. So the City Council really is just complying with the law.

IN FACT, AS reported by the Chicago Tribune, the City Council’s action was motivated by the courts – a lawsuit was filed and a judge issued an order requiring Chicago to permit some sort of public comment.

But as I have learned in writing about other government entities where public comment questions arose, Illinois law actually does not dictate what form the public comment must take.

Government entities are allowed to set their own rules.

I know that in my years as a reporter-type person, I have covered entities that strictly limited people to 3 minutes of talk and only on issues that were already on the council’s agenda. No trying to bring up anything else that might be of public concern, but that officials didn't want to discuss.

OTHERS HAVE PERMITTED people to bring up issues not on the council agenda, but usually in a portion of the meeting held at the end once all the actual business is complete and public officials are feeling antsy and are more interested in adjourning so they can go home.

I also know of one entity that requires people to submit their questions in writing, so that theoretically city officials can have their attorneys review them so that a proper answer can be provided. Although they’re not always rigid in enforcing that.

In Chicago, it seems the significant rule (as evidenced by Wednesday’s conduct) is that up to 30 minutes will be provided for public comment – with individuals allowed up to 3 minutes each.

If, by chance, there are too many people to fit within that half-hour, then it’s ‘tough luck’ for those individuals who lose out. We’ll have to see whether the courts accept this limit, since the people who filed the original lawsuit against the City Council indicate they intend to continue their court fight over this issue.

FROM MY OWN experience, I know that these government hearings usually attract characters. People who actually work for a living don’t have the time to spare to express themselves publicly.

We often get people who see it as their place in society to be the verbal pain in the political behind. I know one person who routinely shows up at Common Council sessions in Gary, Ind., who thinks his public comments are just as significant a part of the municipal process as the votes the council members take.

At the City Council, the Tribune reported that the first person to make a public comment to the City Council was George Blakemore. Although anybody who pays attention to local government knows Blakemore isn’t a stranger to speaking out.

Back when I used to write for a different newspaper, I covered the Cook County Board (amongst other things) and Blakemore’s presence was a given. He’d always have something to complain about. It would have been newsworthy if he hadn’t spoken.

PERSONALLY, I REMEMBER a time his rant turned into a diatribe against Latinos and how he saw them taking from black people – which caused President Toni Preckwinkle to cut him off and publicly denounce him for making racist remarks.

Of course, he insisted on perceiving the issue as one of being censored by the county board president. I suspect we’ll get lots more rants like this in coming weeks and months.

Personally, I have no problem with the idea of people being able to express themselves at a government meeting. Those officials, after all, are doing “the people’s business,” and the people ought to have a chance to say just what they think.

But now that we have public comment at the City Council sessions, we’re going to learn that the act of being a bloviated buffoon in public isn’t something necessarily limited to the elected officials.

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EXTRA: Guv withholds allowance?

I got my chuckle for the day Wednesday from reading Gov. Bruce Rauner’s public schedule of events for the day.
 

RAUNER: He tampered w/ Lege money

Among the three events either he or his spouse, Diana, will do during the day is to sign a bill “freezing legislative per diems.”

AS IN THE $111 daily payments that members of the General Assembly receive when they are at the state Capitol. The money is meant to cover the cost of their meals while in Springfield (not that the Illinois capital city has much to offer in the way of fine dining) and housing – whether they choose to rent an apartment or stay at a hotel.

Since another Rauner public event for the day will be to offer up public comment when the General Assembly completes its activity on what is supposed to be the beginning of another special session related to the education funding bill, it really comes across as though the governor is docking legislators their allowance because they’re being bad.

As in refusing to advance the education funding bill to him so he can impose the amendatory veto that Democratic leadership of the General Assembly is trying to thwart.

Now I’m not necessarily feeling sorry for legislators losing some money (although I know if I had a job requiring me to travel to another city, I’d expect some financial help in coping with the added expense).

BUT THIS MOVE really does come across as being so petty a gesture.

 

MADIGAN: How will Lege retort?

It almost makes me wonder if Rauner is trying to show he can be more petty and juvenile than our president – the guy whom his campaign has desperately tried to keep distance from for the past year.

Does this mean our legislators will feel compelled to behave in an equally childish manner as a retort to losing their money?

And then we wonder why the non-ideologue segment of the electorate (a.k.a., real people) just shudder in disgust at the very thought of the nitwits who they sent to the capitol to do “the people’s business.”

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Should we still think it a novelty to play night baseball at Wrigley Field?

I’m old enough to remember Citizens United for Baseball in the Sunshine – the activist group of Lakeview neighborhood residents who resented the notion that the Chicago Cubs wanted to erect light towers at Wrigley Field so as to make obsolete the concept of a Game Called on Account of Darkness.

That baby-blue sky could become a rarity. Photos by Gregory Tejeda

Those people fought tooth and nail (to dredge up a cliché) against Cubs management, which put its political pressure on City Council officials to ease up on the laws that specifically prevented sporting events from being held after dark at certain specific locations in Chicago (ie. Wrigley Field).

SO I’M SURE there are some aging residents of Lakeview (assuming they haven’t long been priced out of the neighborhood) who are feeling like the world they fought to preserve has gone down the tubes.

Or maybe their time has passed them by, and they’ll find out the outrage just doesn’t exist anymore.

For the Cubs this week asked the City Council for a change in the limits on night games in their ballpark. They want to be able to play up to 54 games after dark out of the 81 games they play at home each season.

That figure was derived from the fact that the 29 other major league ball clubs play an average of 54 night games per season.

TO THE POINT where professional sporting events are ones that take place at night. Day games are truly the exception – unless you’re a denizen of Wrigley Field and want to believe that it’s natural to have time on a Tuesday afternoon to go to a ballgame.

People who work for a living can take in a ballgame after hours

As many did the past two afternoons to see the Cubs take on the Chicago White Sox. The Crosstown Classic – which resumes Wednesday and Thursday with night games to be held at Guaranteed Rate Field.

That’s actually a key point – White Sox fans have always thought the whole debate over day vs. night baseball was stupid, and further evidence of the illogic of those individuals who persist in rooting for the Chicago Cubs.

Sign one of few relics of Wrigley old days?

The White Sox have been playing night games since 1939 – the Sox beat the St. Louis Browns 5-2 in that first game after dark at Comiskey Park on Aug. 14. It seems absurd that it took the Cubs until 1988 to finally get around to installing light towers (the Detroit Tigers were next-to-last, and they lit up Briggs Stadium in 1948).

PERSONALLY, I THINK it just makes sense to play a ballgame in the evening, particularly for baseball since teams play virtually every day (it’s not like football with their weekly games every Sunday). People do have to work for a living, and unless you happen to be on a nightshift or have some sort of job where you can get away with taking a day off, a regular diet of day games is a relic of a past way of life. Then again, Bill Veeck in the books he wrote about his time in baseball once said this attitude was the very essence of the difference between White Sox and Cubs fans.

Light towers on Sout' Side ...

Which is why in modern times other teams reserve day games for weekends. And why the Cubs are viewing this as an issue of being able to run their ball club the way other teams do.

The Chicago Tribune reported how Cubs management talked of other teams questioning how a city had the right to impose restrictions on when a team plays, with business operations President Crane Kenney saying, “We’re one of the few teams that not only has to beat everyone in our division, we also have to beat the city that we play in to try to win games.”

Aw, poor babies! Everybody picks on the Chicago Cubs. Even though the Cubs have made their unique circumstances into such a novelty that they benefit at the box office – they do draw well, as Cubs fans insufferably state over and over whenever discussing the state of the White Sox in Chicago.

... and their lack of existence up north

IT WOULD SEEM like the days of the Cubs having just a dozen or so night games per season (the way it was in the early 1990s) is gone. Those people who chose to live near a sports stadium will have to learn to cope with the crowds of people cramming into their community on game nights.

In short, the Cubs have come fully into the 20^th Century – and it only took about one-fifth of the 21^st Century for them to do so!

Personally, I can’t help but be reminded of one-time Cubs manager Lee Elia, who once gave us an obscenity-laced tirade about those weekday Cubs fan crowds. Remember, “85 percent of the world works for a living, the rest of them come out here.”

Another element of the baseball past – which also includes a Wrigley Field where the people in apartment buildings across the street can easily see into the ballpark on game days. And where the frosty malt was about as exotic as the Wrigley concessions offerings became.

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Here we go again playing Blame Game

It took Gov. Bruce Rauner about one hour following his drop-dead date threat of Noon on Monday to issue the order saying the General Assembly will have to return to Springfield on Wednesday and remain until they follow his demands.

Not happy unless there's infighting?

Those demands are to allow him to put his grubby paws all over the education funding bill that he's made it clear he hates, and wants to alter through his amendatory veto powers – something the General Assembly most certainly doesn’t want to have done.

RAUNER LAST WEEK set the Monday at Noon deadline, with the threats that there’d be a special session of the Legislature called to force them into action.

Monday morning, he said such session would begin Wednesday and could run through July 31 if legislators don’t act promptly.

Not that I don’t doubt Rauner was sincere in his threats. It’s just that they seem so ridiculous.

Because as we saw during the end-of-June special session mandated by the governor over the budget dispute, just because Rauner orders their presence in Springfield doesn’t mean that anything will get done.

HECK, EVEN AFTER the sides reached agreement (over Rauner’s objections) on the budget, the final action still had to wait a couple of days because not enough legislators were present for them to legally do any government business.

So the idea that something will happen by July 31 just because Rauner says it must? Hah! That’s such a laughable notion.

The fact is that Rauner wants alterations to the proposal for education funding spending because he officially claims it gives too much to the Chicago Public Schools – particularly in the aid it provides to help cover costs of pensions for retired school teachers from the city.

Are they really at fault?

Not that I think he really cares much about any such inequity. He’s playing the typical urban vs. rural game of Illinois politics, going around to rural communities and claiming he’s merely trying to keep Chicago from taking too much. Implying they’d get a little extra in funding if he succeeds.

THAT MAY GET him a few extra votes come Nov. 6, 2018 when he seeks re-election. But it will also harden the desire of Chicago voters to dump his sorry behind come next year’s Election Day.

Although one has to admit the touch of politicking being played by Democratic leaders of the Legislature with regards to holding back on the education funding portion of the budget, where the money exists but it is a matter of approving a measure allocating how it gets spent.

Schools are going to be desperate to have their funding by Aug. 10 if they’re to open for the new school year come mid-August. Legislators are hoping that by delaying Rauner’s ability to act, they will give him so little time and the pressure from public schools will be so intense that he’ll have to just go ahead and sign the bill regardless of what he really thinks.

Anybody who thought the politicking was over early this month when a budget agreement was finally put in place for the first time in over two full fiscal years is seriously misguided.

THE FACT IS that our political people, at times, only seem happy when they’re in a crisis mode and all hell threatens to break loose if they don’t act promptly on something – even though the crisis is usually one of their own making.

So for as much as I want to blame Bruce Rauner for being a hard-head and a pathetic ideologue, I also have to confess that the politicking is being aggravated by the people he opposes. Or maybe they’re being driven to their own hard-line stances by Rauner’s ideological leanings.

Or maybe it’s just like in that song “Blame Game” that includes the lyric, “At the end of it, you know we both were wrong.”

You have to admit we’re in a pretty sorry state of affairs when one can find words of wisdom in the lyrics of Kanye West.

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A DAY IN THE LIFE (of Chicago): Ice Cube needs to make up his mind which Chicago ball club he backs in public

Ice Cube, the rapper and actor, now has a place for himself in local musical lore – but not one he’d want to have.
 

Cubs fans offended by singing, or wearing this jersey

He managed to blow it big-time Saturday at Wrigley Field when he took on the niche of filling in for Harry Caray (who has been gone from this mortal realm of existence for some two decades now) in singing “Take Me Out to the Ballgame” during a Chicago Cubs game.

CARAY HIMSELF WAS pretty awful at singing in public, so it’s not a requirement for someone to have any talent in performing the little ditty (which actually just requires one to sing the chorus – since nobody knows all the actual lyrics about “Katie Casey” being “baseball mad” and all that other jazz.

But Ice Cube was so out-of-tune and off-key that his performance in mid-seventh inning is being considered the worst take ever. Worse than the time former Chicago Bears Coach Mike Ditka showed up. Or the time that heavy metal rocker Ozzy Osbourne was present in the ballpark. The Chicago Sun-Times says he “completely destroyed” the song.

The only real question may be whether Ice Cube’s performance was more obnoxious than the time actor Roseanne tried singing the National Anthem prior to a San Diego Padres game and gave such an obnoxiously-screechy performance that she was booed and heckled by the crowd.

Causing her to grab her crotch and storm off the field in response.

AS FAR AS I can tell, the Cubs crowd on Saturday wasn’t quite so rude. They seemed more amused by how bad Ice Cube was. Laughter, of a slightly derisive tone, seemed to be the mood of the afternoon.

Actually, I suspect that the Wrigley scene was probably more offended by the idea that Ice Cube, when he appeared in those “Barbershop” films, was clearly a Sout’ Sider who even, on occasion, wore Chicago White Sox jerseys and back in his early days of rapping would wear the Old English style cap of the White Sox.

While Sox fans will wonder what Ice Cube was doing hanging around that “ivy-covered burial ground” (remember Steve Goodman) in the first place. They might consider it gaudy along the lines of the late actor Bernie Mac, who always claimed to be a White Sox fan but attended the playoff games of the Cubs in 2003 and said he switched allegiance because of disappointment with the Sox.

What else was noteworthy as we felt the “hot time, summer in the city” on the shores of Lake Michigan? And how many remember it was the Lovin’ Spoonful who came up with that lyric?

Trading political epithets

WHO SINKS LOWER ON THE POLITICAL SCALE FOR VENALITY?: We’re now waiting until Friday to see if a Cook County judge will allow for the penny per ounce tax on sweetened beverages to take effect.

A lawsuit is pending that challenges the legitimacy of the tax, and the courts have issued assorted injunctions against the tax’ implementation – which was supposed to be back on July 1.

... across Illinois

Cook County Board President Toni Preckwinkle has said the county needs the money from the tax to avoid having to lay off some 1,100 county employees – and some 300 layoffs already have been announced. Actions that some consider to be particularly venal on Preckwinkle’s part.

Although Preckwinkle herself told the Chicago Sun-Ties recently how she considers Gov. Bruce Rauner to be “profoundly inept,” “mean-spirited” and “evil” for the way he imposed cuts in state programs for people with autism on what was National Autism Day. Much of that funding has since been restored.

THE CHI-TOWN WEEKEND BODY COUNT: Some 24 people were shot between Saturday morning and early Sunday, with three of them being killed.

The Chicago Tribune indicates the fatalities occurred in the neighborhoods of Humboldt Park and Marquette Park – the latter of which is a place known to a generation of Chicagoans for the racial hostilities that occurred there.

In fact, all of the fatalities and even those merely wounded by gunfire were in neighborhoods that often get ignored by those people who are more than comfortable dismissing the city’s level of violence because it merely happens to “other kinds” of people.

Then again, the Chicago Sun-Times came up with its own report about how police once tried paying extra attention to a police beat north of Roosevelt Road on the city’s West Side because it had the highest rate of violent crimes. The extra attention did cause the rate to drop – but the high crime rate wound up shifting across the street to south of Roosevelt Road.

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For Ill. government, it’s time to play another episode of, “Who’s to Blame?”

I almost feel like I’m a kid again watching daytime TV and one of those tacky old game shows. Maybe “Let’s Make a Deal” with Monty Hall – the only thing is that we, the people of Illinois, are the ones getting “zonked.”

RAUNER TO LEGE: Back to Springfield?!?

Remember the “zonk,” the booby prizes that were hidden away amidst the real gifts, and if one wasn’t careful they’d give up that all-expenses paid trip to Hawaii and get stuck with something like a rotted, old Model T Ford.

THAT’S WHAT I feel like we’re about to get hit with in Illinois, what with the way the ongoing battle over a state budget has managed to find a way of continuing on – a sequel, so to speak.

When the General Assembly approved a budget that Gov. Bruce Rauner tried to veto – only to have the legislators override him – there was one piece of the puzzle that was put aside.

It was the measure that outlines the portion of state funding provided for public education. Known this year as Senate Bill 1 (nice symbolism), it has been approved by the General Assembly, but hasn’t been formally sent to Rauner for his consideration.

With the budget approved, the money for the schools for state Fiscal Year 2018 exists. But without the separate bill’s approval, it hasn’t been settled how it will be allocated.

SO UNTIL THAT happens, the schools remain unsettled. Having talked with a few school administrators in recent weeks, I know they are wary of what could happen. They know there is a possibility the state funding that local school districts rely upon for their operating expenses could get caught up in a partisan political squabble.

Now the reason why the General Assembly’s leadership (ie., Democrats, as in Illinois House Speaker Michael Madigan, D-Chicago) are holding off on sending the bill along to Rauner is that the governor has already made clear his intentions.

MADIGAN: How little could Lege do?

Veto!!!!!

The governor objects to provisions included in the bill to have the state try to make sense of the mess that is the pension program for retired Chicago Public School teachers. Dems representing Chicago interests don’t want to give Rauner a chance to issue such a veto.

INSTEAD, THEY WANT to hold off on giving him a chance to act until later this summer, when the beginning of the new school year (about mid-August for most districts) will be so imminent that the governor would feel the pressure to back off his veto threat.

Rauner, of course, is on what he’s calling his “downstate tour” of rural municipalities where he’s going about claiming the bill is nothing but a “Chicago bailout” and that all he’s trying to do is provide a little extra funding for the school districts in those rural communities.

The usual urban vs. rural, or Chicago vs. the rest of Illinois brawl that all too often is what issues devolve down to in this state.

To Rauner, it’s greedy Chicago trying to stall things, while I know from my talks with those local school officials they’re going to be more than willing to “Blame Bruce!” if something occurs that causes state aid payments to schools to be delayed so long that the public schools won’t be able to open on time.

ONE INTERESTING MOVE is that the governor is now saying he’s giving the General Assembly until Monday at Noon to send him that bill so he can veto it – or else he’s prepared to issue the order for a special session.

Is this what Ill. in for in coming days?

Meaning back to Springfield for the legislators, as though he thinks a dose of “Capital punishment” (ie., having to spend time in Springfield during the otherwise lazy days of summer) will force the rank-and-file of the General Assembly to hand him the bill.

Of course, we saw during the final weeks of the budget debacle that just because the Legislature is in session doesn’t mean they’re doing anything meaningful. It’s only when the two sides come together that things get done, and Rauner is making it clear he’s not coming together with anybody.

So if the General Assembly winds up back at the Statehouse next week, why do I suspect we’ll get a lot more action on measures such as the one approved earlier this month that renamed a portion of Interstate 55 for former President Barack Obama? At a time when we have serious issues to address, that would be our “zonk!”

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Does GOP in Illinois of Rauner era not take candidate recruitment seriously?

I’m not sure whether to be intrigued or offended by the rumor mills that say the Illinois Republican Party is contemplating running black people for the posts of Attorney General and Secretary of State come next year’s elections.

GRIFFIN: Is that medal his sole credential?

I’d like to think it means that Republican officials in our state have reached a certain level of enlightenment, and perhaps have even managed to look past a person’s melanin content to see the whole person. But then I think realistically, and snicker at the very notion.

BECAUSE THE CYNIC in me thinks the particular individuals allegedly under consideration for the posts were picked because of specific characteristics in their backgrounds that somehow makes them acceptable to the hard-core of GOPdom who otherwise wouldn’t consider casting a ballot for such a person.

For attorney general, the Republicans reportedly are considering Erika Harold (the one-time Miss America from Illinois) to run against incumbent Lisa Madigan. She is, indeed, a graduate of Harvard Law School (just like Barack Obama).

While for secretary of state, 19-year veteran of the post Jesse White may be challenged by Josh “J.C.” Griffin.

Who’s he?

IT SEEMS HE served five years in the Air Force, served a combat stint in Iraq, and worked a little bit for state government during the era of Pat Quinn as governor.

 

HAROLD: Rumored to challenge Madigan, L.?

But Republicans seem willing to disregard that potential character flaw (at least that’s the way they’d perceive it) because Griffin, a one-time native of suburban Olympia Fields, declared himself a Republican when registering himself to vote following his military service.

So what we’re basically saying is that Republicans are putting up Miss America and G.I. Joe to challenge two long-term state officials. They’re putting up stereotype images because they don’t necessarily have candidates in mind who could run credible campaigns for those particular posts.

Republicans will be asked to cast ballots for those images, and against any kind of government experience (although I’m sure that at age 83, they’re going to make a serious argument that the people of Illinois ought to send the one-time Cubs minor league ballplayer into political retirement).

WHITE: Will GOP make age an issue in '18 campaign?

IF ANYTHING THIS may be the evidence of how low the Republican Party has declined in Illinois. They have the governor’s post, and Bruce Rauner seems determined to blow a large chunk of his personal wealth to remind us to “Blame Madigan!” for everything and vote for him.

Beyond that, what are Republican-types casting votes for? The same old nonsense pitting Chicago against the rest of the state? Which really does little more than to persuade Chicago voters to cast ballots against the rest of Illinois?

Which means we all lose with that line of logic. To really revive Illinois, we have to move beyond such parochial ways of thinking.

As for Harold, I’ll say the same thing I’ve written before. It’s a shame she isn’t developed into a credible candidate – instead of one who has to rely upon the fact she wore a sash and tiara some 15 years ago.

AND AS FOR Griffin, I can’t help but think that his so-called credentials (five years of military service and a stint in a combat zone) actually matches up with my own cousin Carlos, who did five years in the Army and had his combat stint during that “first” Gulf War (remember 1990 in Kuwait?).

RAUNER: Does he like being lone GOPer?

Somehow, I don’t think anybody would take seriously the notion of my cousin returning to Illinois to run for elective office. I suspect the snickering would be deafening.

So here’s hoping that the rumor-mill (for what it’s worth, Griffin was non-committal when he was interviewed on the subject by WCIA-TV in Champaign) turns out to be erroneous.

Unless the GOP really is surrendering any chance of winning government posts other than that of governor. Does Bruce Rauner fantasize about a government where he’s the lone official – and everybody just shuts up and does what he says?

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