Chicago - A message from the station manager

The [Friday] Papers

By Steve Rhodes

“Former CEO Barbara Byrd-Bennett will plead guilty in a federal corruption case connected to the no-bid principal training contract for SUPES Academy,” Catalyst reports.
“The federal case was launched as the result of a Catalyst investigation in 2013.”
Here is how the first story began:


“Without fanfare, CPS board members recently approved a three-year, no-bid $20 million contract to provide extensive professional development for principals and network chiefs in what is being dubbed the Chicago Leadership Academy.
“The size and the circumstances surrounding the contract have raised eyebrows among some outside observers. The contract with Wilmette-based Supes Academy is by far the largest no-bid contract awarded in at least the past three years, according to a Catalyst Chicago analysis of board documents. In addition, CEO Barbara Byrd-Bennett worked for the company as a coach up until the time she came on board at CPS as a consultant.
“There’s also conflicting information about Byrd-Bennett’s involvement with another company owned by the same individuals who run the Supes Academy.”
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And how the reporting itself began:


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Here’s Karp in April talking about the investigation on Ken Davis’s Chicago Newsroom:

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Back to present day:
“A former head of Chicago Public Schools plans to plead guilty to planning a scheme to take hundreds of thousands of dollars, airfare, meals and baseball tickets in exchange for steering more than $23 million in contracts to her former employer, her lawyer and a federal prosecutor said on Thursday,” the New York Times reports.
“The former head, Barbara Byrd-Bennett, 66, was charged Thursday in a 23-count indictment. An appointee of Mayor Rahm Emanuel, she served as chief executive of Chicago’s beleaguered public school system from October 2012 until her resignation in June.”
Baseball tickets, too? Cubs, White Sox, Indians or Tigers?
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“The indictment describes a plan in which Ms. Byrd-Bennett conspired with her former employers, Gary Solomon and Thomas Vranas, to provide her with bribes and kickbacks. Mr. Solomon, 47, of Wilmette, Ill., and Mr. Vranas, 34, of Glenview, Ill., the former owners of Supes Academy, an educational consulting firm, and Synesi Associates, a subsidiary, were also criminally charged with fraud, bribery and conspiracy.”
Once again, suburbanites making bank on the city’s schools. (Byrd-Bennett lives in this suburban Cleveland home.)
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“When positions of authority and accountability in government are dominated by the hand-picked designees of one man – in Chicago’s case, the mayor – essential checks and balances against public corruption are greatly weakened,” the Sun-Times opines about the person they endorsed twice and provide generous Op-Ed space too.
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“Even before she was hired to run Chicago Public Schools, Barbara Byrd-Bennett set up a scheme to get a 10 percent kickback on all the CPS contracts she could steer to a former employer, in part to set up a college fund for her twin grandsons, authorities said Thursday,” the Sun-Times reports.
“The feds found damning, detailed e-mails between her and her ex-boss, Gary Solomon – apparently so damning that Byrd-Bennett will plead guilty in the case involving $23 million in CPS contracts. U.S. Attorney Zachary Fardon, in an unusual move, announced Byrd-Bennett’s intention to plead as he announced the charges.

“I have tuition to pay and casinos to visit :)” the feds say Byrd-Bennett wrote in one of many e-mails discussing the alleged kickbacks.

That, of course, is the money quote, now inscribed for all eternity into the Chicago Testament, placement to be determined later by the Council of Elders, but probably somewhere between Arenda Troutman’s “Most aldermen, most politicians, are hos” and Miriam Santos’s “Now it’s time for people to belly up.”
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Two jobs wouldn’t cover Byrd-Bennett’s nut?
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Beachwood Photo Booth: At The Corner Of Glad & Happy
Intersecting in Edgebrook.
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CTU: Please Call Bank President Tim Maloney. Here’s His Number.
Let him know: Bank of America profiting from the risky toxic swaps that they sold to our schools is a fraud that must end.
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By the way, the number works. I tried it very late last night and got Maloney’s voice mail. (Sorry, Tim, that was me.)
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Fixing The (Racist) Legal System For Debt Collection
Commonsense reforms – and the black neighborhoods in Chicago hit the hardest.
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Impact: Plan To Scam Retired Indiana Coal Miners Is Dead
The deal was especially striking given that the unionized miners had themselves never worked for Patriot. Instead, they were having their benefits stripped of their value through an elaborate bit of financial engineering.
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Cute Kiddie Cubs Cuddle With Champagne, Complicate Feelings
Explaining my particular strain of Cubs fandom.
Keywords: Bruce Springsteen, Deacon Blues, Homi Bhabha, Kevin Coval, Mark Grace, Rod Beck, Sarah From The Real World Miami, The Chicago Board of Exchange, The Ricketts’, Wicker Park, Wrigley Field.
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The Week In Chicago Rock
Featuring: Deaf Wish, The Well, Kadavar, Archie Powell & The Exports, Regular Fucked Up People, Wolf Alice, Genevieve, Jamie XX, Kristin Hersh, Franz Ferdinand & Sparks, Lianne La Havas, Mike Krol, Norma Jean, Hanson, Frank Turner & The Sleeping Souls, Chris Cornell, and Taylor Pearl.
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BeachBook

Posted by The Beachwood Reporter on Thursday, October 8, 2015

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Posted by The Beachwood Reporter on Thursday, October 8, 2015

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Posted by The Beachwood Reporter on Thursday, October 8, 2015

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TweetWood


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The Beachwood Tip Line: Boom shaka laka.

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Posted on October 9, 2015