Chicago Daily Observer

Why…Would Anyone Want to Go to the Taste of Chicago?

A good number of years ago when I was a regular panelist on the Bruce DuMont radio show, the show would go one night to the Taste of Chicago and broadcast from the WBEZ booth. The first year we were there, I was sickened as we talked of public affairs on the mike, watching the army of vandals chewing, spitting and mulching, here a gross woman in gingham chomping her jaws on something, the juice trickling down her chin; there an oaf pulling on a chicken leg shouting to his fellows with a monotonous, unintelligible chant, now a child being tugged along by a mother unaware that her charge has just emptied her bladder. Following the show, I took a walk around the grounds. It was about 90 degrees with nary a breath of air stirring. What I saw ... Read More...

Two of the world’s leading architects will design temporary pavilions in Millennium Park as focal points for the regional celebration of the 100th anniversary of Daniel Burnham’s influential Plan of Chicago next year.

London-based Zaha Hadid and Ben van Berkel of UNStudio in Amsterdam will create innovative structures that symbolize Chicago’s commitment to cutting-edge design and bold thinking about the future. The temporary pavilions will be centerpieces for the Burnham Plan Centennial, which includes hundreds of educational programs, arts events and open-space projects to recognize the 1909 Plan’s strong influence and to inspire new ideas for the 21st Century.

“The Olympics can no more have a deficit than a man can have a baby.”

Mayor Jean Drapeau of Montreal, Quebec Province, Canada (1970)

Barack Obama modestly announced that he was looking forward to Chicago’s
hosting the 2016 Olympics which would coincide with the final year of his second
presidential term. Obama also waxed melodically about how the new stadium
near Washington Park would be only a short distance from his palatial home
(alternatively known as “The House that Rezko Bought” to discerning sports
fans). Senator Obama was merely paying homage to his patron, Mayor Richard M.
Daley, by touting the Olympics.

Apparently, none of the besotted followers of Obama have stopped to
contemplate the oxymoronic character of seeking to nominate and elect a reform
politician who was nonetheless a product of the Chicago ... Read More...

Chicago is a big city that often seems like a small one, especially when you realize how many of its powerful political and business interests intertwine. The relationship between the city government and the Illinois Restaurant Association, the nonprofit organization that helps run the Taste of Chicago, is yet another example.

The Trib reports that among those in attendance at the epic Plan Commission meeting Thursday were Children’s Museum “proponents” bused in by the Woodlawn Organization, which is led by plan commission member Leon Finney Jr.

You and I and every other taxpayer in the state helped finance the organizational efforts and transportation costs needed to get the Woodlawn cheerleaders downtown.

Here’s how: the Woodlawn Organization is a tax-exempt, 501c3 nonprofit organization, and according to its most recent filings with the IRS, the vast majority—more than 80 percent—of its annual revenues come from government grants, most of it federal money handed out by the state and city. That amounted to $4.6 million in taxpayer money in 2006, the most recent year available.

First the good news: The city deferred action on its latest proposal for licensing concert promoters, originally set for tomorrow’s City Council meeting.

Some people have been naive enough to call it a victory, but don’t be fooled. The delay doesn’t protect all the small promoters and club owners and not-for-profits who want to throw fund-raising bashes. It’s merely what one alderman calls a “tactical retreat” on the part of the mayor.

Here’s the deal from several good City Hall sources, including an alderman or two.

The vendor’s licensing bill (commonly known as the promoter’s ordinance) has been resurrected because Mayor Daley wants it, and no one in City Hall has the guts to tell the mayor he can’t have what he wants.

The Metropolitan Planning Council (MPC) does not support the Chicago Children’s Museum’s proposal to relocate from Navy Pier to Grant Park. In a letter to the Chicago Plan Commission, MPC noted the absence of a “thoughtful planning process,” as well as a lack of public information about the Museum’s consideration of other locations, as central to its opposition.

(Full Story Opens in PDF File)

The Chicago Plan Commission is set to take up the Chicago Children’s Museum’s plans to move into Grant Park at its May 15 meeting, and the safe bet is on the museum getting its way. Why? Well, the commission rarely sees a high-powered zoning change it doesn’t like. Then there’s the rather vocal position of its most important member, Mayor Daley. And finally there’s the matter of the individual loyalties and ties of all the other commissioners:

• Linda Searl, chair: A partner in the respected Searl Lamaster Howe architectural firm, Searl is ten-year veteran of the commission, a donor to Daley’s campaign committee, and a longtime adviser to Daley and the city’s planning department.

• Mayor Richard M. Daley: Didn’t we hear something about how he’s going to look out for the children?

• Arnold L. Randall: As the commissioner for the city’s planning department, he reports ... Read More...

The ruling halting construction of the soccer field the Latin School is underwriting at the south end of Lincoln Park might keep a similar project at the north end of the park from getting under way. Soccer fields #1 and #2, two sloped dirt fields laid out side by side just east of Lake Shore Drive and south of Foster Avenue, have been used for about a quarter century by Region 418 of the American Youth Soccer Organization (AYSO). They’re the two biggest fields 418 plays on, and “the conditions are unsafe, terrible,” says 418 commissioner Rich Costello. Region 418 decided its kids deserve better. So 418 approached the Park District and struck a deal: It would pay $500,000 up front—which would cover the next four years of annual permits —and the Park District would grade the fields and install artificial turf.

Today’s Tribune offered former governor Jim Thompson’s promise of a solution to one of most baffling mysteries of our time: How the state can buy and fix up Wrigley Field without spending any public money.

Thompson, now head of the Illinois Sports Facilities Authority, claimed to have solved what the article termed this “seemingly intractable puzzle.”

Unfortunately, Thompson offered few specifics, nor did he give up much of anything to the Sun-Times. In essence, his message amounted to “Trust me, you’ll see, there are ways . . .”

In a rebuke to the Chicago Park District, a judge Friday afternoon handed a partial victory to a citizens’ group that has been fighting the district’s deal with Latin School of Chicago to build a soccer field in Lincoln Park.

Cook County Circuit Court Judge Dorothy Kirie Kinnaird ruled that construction of the $2-million field, which is mostly complete, will be allowed to finish by the scheduled May 26 opening. But the judge put at lest a temporary halt to work on the field’s lighting, bleachers and scoreboard, and said that once work is complete, Latin will have to stand in line with any other group that wants to use the facility at about 1800 N. Cannon Drive — at least for now.

The revelations keep coming in the lawsuit to keep the Latin School from building a soccer field in Lincoln Park.

North-side residents have formed a group called the Committee to Keep Lincoln Park Public and are suing the city, the Park District, and Latin, asking Judge Dorothy Kirie Kinnaird to issue a restraining order to block further construction, in part because the field was never approved by the Chicago Plan Commission, as required by the city’s lakefront protection ordinance. The field’s already about 60 percent completed.

Last Friday, during day one of the proceedings, it was revealed that the city hadn’t even acquired a building permit for the project. A lawyer for the city claimed that the Park District and Latin didn’t need one to build a large Astroturf field with bleachers, a scoreboard, and drainage pipes. A back porch would be another matter.

Did you know you can dig a huge hole in Lincoln Park without a permit?

That’s just one of the revelations that came out of Friday’s opening hearing in the lawsuit filed by the Committee to Keep Lincoln Park Public, a group of north-side residents looking to keep the Latin School from building a soccer field just east of the zoo.

The residents say there are many reasons to oppose the soccer field deal the Park District struck with Latin back in October 2006. But on Friday they asked Cook County Circuit Court judge Dorothy Kirie Kinnaird to issue a temporary restraining order to block further construction on the grounds that the Park District never got a building permit to construct the field.

Maybe we’re asking the wrong question when we debate whether the $100 million Chicago Children’s Museum should be built in Grant Park.

A better question is: Why is anyone spending $100 million on a children’s museum in the first place?

When the civic good hearts go about raising the $100 million in private money for the controversial museum in Grant Park, they should ask themselves: Isn’t there a better way to help the children? The answer is: Yes there is. Especially when Chicago’s children have a crying need for better schools. Think of what $100 million could do by duplicating the demonstrable successes of, say, Marva Collins Preparatory School on the South Side.

he Chicago Park District is so short of funds it’s cutting programs, raising fees, and telling community groups that if they want a playlot, soccer field, or running track, they’ll need to raise the money themselves. Nevertheless, it has somehow found roughly $22 million to spend on Streeterville real estate for its central office. The district has been renting there since 2001, and officials say the conversion to ownership, which the board approved in February, will save about $720,000 a year in property taxes.