If you haven’t heard already, DePaul University and Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel are collaborating in a plan to build a home for the DePaul Blue Demons at McCormick Place Convention Center. This plan will be, of course, funded by taxpayer dollars. DePaul will have to cough up 70 million, but the City of Chicago will be on the hook for roughly 100 million. The city claims this will all be magically covered via bonds backed by heavily-taxed McPier business and slush, err, I mean TIF funds.
I find it interesting that Mayor Emanuel could on one hand complain that the City of Chicago is in bad financial shape, while on the other hand attempt to compel the taxpayers in Chicago to cover over half of the costs for a stadium that would serve a school owned by the Catholic Church, one of the country’s wealthiest tax-exempt 501©3 organizations.
It pains me to know that $100 million deals are being handed out like popcorn to certain people when sizable numbers of Chicago City employees and their families have been nearly ruined by a recent epidemic of layoffs. Money is supposedly so tight that large numbers of Chicago Public Schools have closed or are scheduled to close, 87% tax hikes in water/sewer services have been made, Chicago Police stations are closing. We’ve been cursed with an ever-growing swarm of revenue-generating and accident-causing red light cameras and a plague of costly parking meters in the name of raising revenue, and a new stadium is how we’re going to spend our hard-earned money?
Some would say that DePaul has finally come out of the closet as a Catholic-clout-heavy operative serving the Chicago Machine. The backdoor dealings of DePaul University’s political power brokers have been a subject of quiet controversy for some years.
One cannot deny the sheer number of political heavyweights that have DePaul as their alma mater. Former Chicago Mayor Michael A. Bilandic, Illinois Supreme Court Justice Anne Burke, former Illinois Appellate Judge Joseph Burke and former Chief Federal Prosecutor Samuel Skinner (who also served as U.S. Secretary of Transportation and Chief of Staff to President George H. W. Bush) are all DePaul alums. There’s also Chicago Outfit associates like McCormick Place Convention Center contractor William Daddono III. Then there are Chicago Mayors Richard J. and M. Daley, both of whom graduated from DePaul University Law School. Richard M. purportedly received special “assistance” from the now late Cecil Partee (former Treasurer of the City of Chicago, Cook County State’s Attorney and Illinois State Senate President) in passing his bar exams.
5 Comments
Dear Frank,
Here are a couple of links to some very interesting articles
about the Hynes Family:
http://americannewspost.com/joseph-fosco/655/a-practical-joke-on-the-people-of-illinois-hynes-hires-anthrax-hoaxer/
http://americannewspost.com/frank-coconate/6169/millionaire-gets-his-way-with-benignos-office/
Dear Frank,
I noticed that you revised this article to include a member
of the infamous Daddono Family. Great work! J
After years of doing nothing with my life, I got serious and was ‘made’ a probation officer (some may not think that was serious) by some local politicians. The O’Brien family was very close to me before their older son died and he referred me to another pol who got me a job as a probe land officer. Despite my arrests and no convictions, I was shot to the top of the list and became a law enforcement officer of sorts; which was strange considering my checkered past that I will not go into.
I didn’t like the job, hated sending anyone to jail and thought probation was more of a violation of a persons life than prison but that is another story. While at Probe-land central 26th and Cal, I knew more people coming in to see their Probe-Land officers than I knew in the office. That was strange. Then I began to notice that a lot of other officers had names I had heard before in books like Captive City. It seems there were an awful lot of probation officers with relatives in organized crime. One was even caught selling keys of cocaine to the DEA. Of course, we were all cheering for him to get off. I am glad I had this experience and now know more Oufit guys than ever before.
The glory days are gone guys, we had our day, and now the Outfit has gone the way of Billy the Kid as piece of American mythology. After all you can’t plan a Brinks job when the Feds have wires up your ass and drones disguised as dragon flies zipping past your windshield. Any dinosaur-style heist like an out and out crash or takeover needs to be done by unknowns because it is just too easy to keep who ever is left on the Federal radar screen.
One other thing, the guys who robbed Purolater weren’t the brightest bulbs in the box. They took six when they could have taken it all, all but one had enough brains to get the money to the Caymans fast, and finally, it doesn’t take much to realize a fire will go out if deprived of oxygen.
Happy New Year, Joe, and keep up the great stories of old…they are sure helping me complete my book.
Good luck to you and your book Mr. Zake. I’m looking forward to reading it! 😉
THANKS