Progress Illinois

On Tuesday night, the Reader's Ben Joravsky stopped by the first of Chicago's three mayoral budget hearing to find out how the city was planning to deal with it's $400 million budget shortfall. While talk shifted between city service cuts, political hiring, and the police budget, Joravsky highlighted a question from a concerned resident about the possibility of Chicago taxpayers footing the bill for the 2016 Summer Olympics. Daley's response echoed earlier claims: There will be "no public money for the Olympics," he said. "There will not be any money used for the Olympics."

Joravksy isn't buying it:

Whew, what a relief. Silly me, I'd thought we were on the hook for at least $500 million ever since last year, when Daley, at the urging of the United States Olympic Committee, got the City Council to, you know, authorize up to $500 million for the games. I believe the USOC called it putting some governmental "skin in the game."

Of course, there's always the possibility that Mayor Daley forgot about that $500 million authorization. Just as it's possible that he forgot his more recent proposal to borrow $85 million to buy and demolish Michael Reese Hospital so he can eventually build the Olympic Village there.

Daley's lack of transparency and consistency on this issue is why the work of groups like Communities for an Equitable Olympics 2016 is so badly needed. If the cash for an Olympic village is ultimately coming out of our pockets, let's make sure there's some guarantees about jobs and housing for our own.

Yesterday evening, a coalition of a dozen community groups and labor unions from Chicago's South and West Sides held their second press conference in two weeks near the recently-closed Michael Reese Hospital to voice their concerns about the city's bid for the 2016 Summer Olympics.  Dubbed Communities for an Equitable Olympics 2016 (CEO 2016), the coalition does not oppose the idea of hosting the games; rather, they're demanding that the city sign on to a legally binding "benefits agreement" that lays out a plan for protecting affordable housing and living-wage employment in the communities potentially affected by the games.

Following is a five-minute video we put together on the event:

On the eve of the Olympic games, Mayor Richard Daley flew to China to test out Beijing's state-of-the-art mass transit system. Back in Chicago, residents are using the possibility of the 2016 Olympics being held in Chicago to advocate for better services as well.

Members of Communities for an Equitable Olympics 2016, a coalition of South Side community and labor organizations, are rallying today outside the now-closed Michael Reese Hospital -- the proposed site for the Olympic Village -- to pressure the Olympic Committee to protect jobs and housing on the South Side if the city is awarded the games. WBEZ's Eight Forty-Eight caught up with Jay Travis, executive director of the Kenwood-Oakland Community Organization and one of the leaders of the new coalition, who provided some more detail about the effort:

We have a list of things that include education, public space, public finances and public services. But most importantly, community folks are concerned that our voices are heard, that we're at the table, and that we are the key people that create a benefit's agreement process.

Travis says that members of the coalition have been meeting with elected officials, officials from various city departments, and the 2016 committee for over six months to voice their concerns. They aren't the only ones: as Mischa Gaus wrote last summer, South Siders know the risks associated with the Olympics and refuse to be left out of the discussion.

Today, Amnesty International used Chicago's standing as a possible host for the 2016 Summer Olympics to shine a light on the city’s “flawed approach” to probing incidents of police brutality. The Sun-Times' Fran Spielman has the details:

At a news conference outside the mayor’s office, civil rights activists reiterated arguments they made last summer, when the City Council approved Daley’s plan to sever the Office of Professional Standards from the Police Department.

They argued that the landmark ordinance is undermined by a union contract tailor-made to protect rogue officers.

The contract bars the agency now known as the Independent Police Review Authority from investigating anonymous complaints about “anything short of criminal conduct”—even though many victims “fear retaliation” from police—and limits the use of past complaints needed to establish a “pattern of conduct, said Wendy Park, a staff attorney for the American Civil Liberties Union.

“These … contract provisions and others tie IPRA’s hands … which may allow officers to escape discipline in many cases. We demand that the city drop these provisions from the next FOP contract, currently under negotiation,” Park said.

The activists highlighted several individual cases of brutality and Mayor Daley responded by "highlighting the changes he has already made to restore public confidence in investigations of police wrongdoing," including: "the appointments of career FBI agent Jody Weis as police superintendent and Los Angeles attorney Ilana Rosenzweig to head an OPS [Office of Professional Standards] that now has subpoena power and a six-month deadline to complete investigations."

Of course, despite these reforms, the city still refuses to make public the list of 662 police officers who amassed more than 10 citizen complaints between May 2001 and May 2006. A group of 27 aldermen requested that the list be furnished to them last year, but were rebuffed by the city's corporation counsel. A lengthy court battle has ensued.

As Ald. Toni Preckwinkle wrote in a Progress Illinois column on the matter back in April: "The reestablishment of trust will come only after the department accepts its responsibilities and begins to discipline, rather than shelter, officers who abuse the citizens they are sworn to protect."

Here's The Reader's Ben Joravsky on the underlying reasons for Mayor Daley's insistence that the Chicago Children's Museum move to Grant Park:

Compared to the waste and destruction promised by the Olympics, the Children’s Museum is chump change. After all, the museum only affects one little part of one park. And if it gets built after the inevitable court battle, it’s going to cost the public just $4 million or so a year in the form of a Park District subsidy. The Olympics, on the other hand, threatens to devour prime lakefront parkland from Irving Park Road on the north side to 63rd Street on the south and will undoubtedly cost the public hundreds of millions of dollars. Furthermore, the Children’s Museum will at least be open to Chicagoans. The only way average residents will get into any Olympic events is if they’re selling popcorn. The games’ real legacy will be the bill.

Let’s put aside for a moment the pros and cons of moving the museum to Grant Park. The fight waged in the City Council last Wednesday was really about Mayor Daley flexing his political muscle to assure the IOC [International Olympic Committee] that his word is law in Chicago. If there was ever any hope for a check to keep the mayor from exercising unlimited power it was the council, which by law has the final say on just about every major project he proposes. But that hope died during the June 11 debate, as alderman after alderman rose to affirm his subservience.

Read the whole thing here.

On Wednesday, we learned that Chicago was one of four finalists chosen by the International Olympics Committee to host the 2016 Summer Olympics. Yesterday, The Chicago Reader's Ben Joravsky gave Mayor Daley some advice on how to make sure the city is chosen in the end. It's worth a read.