By Steve Rhodes
1. City Stickers Will Actually Stick This Year.
And parking tickets will actually tick.
2. The Schockuation.
3. The Chicago Code canceled.
Less interesting than reality.
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After all, how can the Code compete with this?
Or this?
Or this?
Or this?
Or this?
If Fox – or any network – wants a ratings winner, they should just air a Chicago newscast every night.
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And by “newscast,” I mean newscast, not the Newsotainment For Dummies that currently airs on our local stations.
4. “A Cicero school board president says he has no recollection of a conversation with a childhood friend, who’s an Outlaw motorcycle gang member, in which the gang member worries that he’s going to be arrested for a mob-ordered bombing that gutted a Berwyn business,” the Sun-Times reports.
Well, when you have so many conversations like that it’s hard to remember just one.
5. Pfleger Says He Will Preach At Other Churches If Not Reinstated.
Is that a promise or a threat?
6. Schaumburg Twp. Elementary District 54 assistant superintendent earns $340,000
Let’s blame the teachers.
7. “Bringing new meaning to ‘haute cuisine,’ KFC will give lunch an extreme makeover by dispatching its KFC Colonel to personally deliver new $5 Everyday Meals to window washers working nearly 40 stories up at Chicago’s ‘River Bend’ building,” Yum Brands announced.
“At noon today, the KFC Colonel will strap on a harness and descend 38 floors with food in tow, demonstrating KFC’s commitment to taking lunchtime meals to all new heights.”
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But does he do windows?
8. “In 2008, the city devised a way to keep neighborhoods from turning into junkyards as the nation’s foreclosure crisis roared on,” the Chicago Reporter reports. “The city passed an ordinance forcing owners of vacant properties – mostly financial institutions – to register them with the city. That way, the city could inspect the properties to make sure they weren’t falling into disrepair.
“But an analysis by The Chicago Reporter found that many financial institutions aren’t registering the properties. The Reporter analyzed records of 11,500 single-family properties that have been reclaimed by lenders since 2008 and have likely been vacant since that time.”
Among the findings: At least 50 percent of these bank-owned homes were never registered; The city lost at least $2.2 million in revenue from fees lenders skirted by not registering the homes; just about one-third of all bank-owned properties.
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“And yet, banks that are lenders have continued to receive city business, a point of contention for some officials. In a single bond deal in 2010, Bank of America Corp. collected $5.3 million in underwriting fees from the city when it structured a $1 billion issue to finance bonds to cover capital projects, including work at O’Hare International Airport, a Bloomberg investigation found.
“The Reporter found that nearly 76 percent of Bank of America’s single-family properties were not registered, meaning the financial institution owed at least $103,000 to the city. ‘It’s like being a scofflaw,’ said 3rd Ward Alderman Pat Dowell, from the city’s South Side. ‘Individual scofflaws that don’t pay taxes or parking tickets can’t do business with the city. Banks should be treated the same way.'”
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“We provide the financial resources and expertise to help communities achieve their full potential as desirable places for people to live, work and raise families,” Bank of America says.
But fees may apply – for you, not them.
9. Chicago’s Poetry Brothel.
10. Free Comic Book Day in Chicago.
11. Who will throw major league baseball’s next no-hitter? A surprising Chicago pitcher makes our list.
12. “Monday’s $100,000 ticket marks the third Little Lotto winner sold in Arlington Heights in less than two weeks, according to the Illinois Lottery, which adds that two of those tickets were sold at the same newsstand,” the Daily Herald reports.
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The Beachwood Tip Line: Fee-free.
Posted on May 11, 2011