By Steve Rhodes
“Suburbia in Wrigleyville?”
Sure. Why should that neighborhood be any different than the rest of Chicago?
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Same story: “End Of A ‘Hip’ Hood?”
Is the Sun-Times the squarest paper on the planet?
If Wrigleyville is hip, that was a mini-skirt Sarah Palin was wearing the other night.
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“Bar, theater and restaurant owners lambasted Ald. Tom Tunney (44th) on Thursday for endorsing a $100 million mixed-use development across the street from Wrigley Field that will sweep them out of the ‘cool, hip neighborhood.’
“Roughly eight neighborhood businesses would be displaced to make way for ‘Addison Park on Clark,’ a project at Addison and Clark that includes a 137-room Hyatt Hotel, 135 residential units, 145,000 square feet of retail space and 399 underground parking spaces.
“The displaced include iO Theater, formerly known as ImprovOlympic, 3541 N. Clark; Bar Louie, 3545 N. Clark; Salt & Pepper Diner, 3537 N. Clark; Goose Island Beer Co., 3535 N. Clark, and Red Ivy, 3519 N. Clark.
“Earlier this week, Tunney endorsed the project and took it to a final community meeting. M&R Development revealed that prospective tenants include Best Buy, Dominick’s, an Apple Store and a CVS Pharmacy.”
Now if they could only get rid of that damn ballpark . . .
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“It’s not just about the Cubs,” said Charna Halpern, owner and director of iO Theater. “Now, there’ll be nothing. It’ll be Best Buy. How exciting is that on a Saturday night?”
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“Halpern directed her anger at Tunney, owner of Ann Sather’s Restaurants.
“‘We’re the people who elected him because we thought he was a man of the people – that he wouldn’t be bought out by big business,’ she said.
“‘If some business owner bought up his property and wanted to throw him out for a Friday’s chain, we would have his back.'”
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Give Tunney a break – he’s just auditioning for the job of Mayor of Chicago’s Lame-Ass Developers.
That’s Carla!
“A top aide to Cook County Board President Todd Stroger, back to work after a 5-day suspension, admits she signed off on a no-bid county contract with her own private public relations firm,” the Sun-Times reports.
Wait. Let me read that again:
She signed off on a no-bid county contract with her own private public relations firm.
Um, okay.
“She also admits fast-tracking the $24,975 payment to her firm.”
Wait. Let me read that again:
She also admits fast-tracking the $24,975 payment to her firm.
Um, okay. So she resigned, no? She was fired? Indicted?
“But Carla Oglesby, Stroger’s deputy chief of staff, said those actions were simply mistakes made by someone brand new to government work.”
And from reading the papers, she thought that was how government worked.
“She notes that Stroger’s other executive staffers signed off on the contract, too.”
And they’ve been in government for a long time.
“Oglesby, who joined Stroger’s county staff a little more than two months ago, said this is her first government job and better training may have helped her avoid this.”
For example, it would have only taken a few seconds of training for someone to have told Oglesby that awarding no-bid contracts to your own company isn’t a good idea. Without that training, though, how would he have known?
“Her name also appears on payment vouchers and directs a check to be cut and sent to herself.”
I mean, nobody trained her not to!
“Despite the controversy, she doesn’t regret taking the $120,000 job. She believes some of the controversy can be traced to county staffers upset that she is calling for streamlining departments and recommending layoffs.”
Gee, why would anyone be upset about that – especially when everyone else is getting raises?
Meanwhile, Todd Stroger remains clueless to the end.
“I’m the reason that the government is in better shape than the state and the city and all that,” Stroger said. “That’s my hard work that I get no credit for.”
Rainbow Shades
* Song of the Moment: By The Time I Get To Arizona.
* Highland Park Hacks: I’d call for a boycott of Highland Park but we’d have to pretend there was a reason to go there in the first place.
Preakness Preview
It’s Howlin’ Time.
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The Beachwood Tip Line: Howl.
Posted on May 14, 2010