By Steve Rhodes
1. The Procrastinator’s Guide to Last-Minute City Sticker Purchases.
2. A Textbook Lesson In How Politics Really Work.
3. “Grammy Award-winning R&B artist R. Kelly is facing a $2.9-million foreclosure suit on his Olympia Fields mansion,” Chicago Real Estate Daily reports.
A “Trapped in the Closet” joke would be too easy, right?
4. “Just a few months after launching a campaign for the Republican nomination for governor, strongly touting his business experience, James Wallace is facing an unclear future for his company, TWG Capital of Indianapolis,” the Indianapolis Star reports.
“The company’s biggest investor, Chicago venture capital fund Cardinal Growth LP, is being taken over by the federal government after failing to repay $21.4 million in loans from the Small Business Administration.
“The ties between the two firms run deep. Cardinal Growth owns about 80 percent of Wallace’s company, based on East 75th Street. Both of TWG’s board members are principals with Cardinal Growth.”
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Earlier:
“A Chicago venture capital fund whose projects paid more than $1.2 million to former Mayor Richard M. Daley’s son has been taken over by the federal government, which says the fund owes taxpayers $21.4 million,” the Sun-Times reported.
“Cardinal Growth L.P. – which was run by attorney and former federal prosecutor Robert Bobb Jr. and accountant Joseph McInerney, a close friend of Daley’s son, Patrick Daley – borrowed nearly $51 million from the U.S. Small Business Administration over the past decade but has been unable to repay $21.4 million, court records show.
“U.S. Attorney Patrick Fitzgerald filed the civil lawsuit on behalf of the federal agency on June 15. The SBA is seeking to liquidate Cardinal Growth L.P. because of mounting losses that threaten the fund’s ability to repay the taxpayer money it got from the agency.
“According to court papers filed with the U.S. District Court in Chicago, Cardinal has borrowed $50.9 million from the SBA over the past decade but has had trouble paying off the loan.”
5. “Chicago’s tax-increment financing program is designed to eradicate blight, create jobs and promote economic development in neighborhoods that need it most,” AustinTalks reports.
“But TIF – which diverts property tax dollars to private developers in an effort to spur growth – appears to be doing little to help the residents of Austin.
“Of the 184 private-sector TIF projects authorized in Chicago since 2000, just four were for Austin – one of the city’s more economically distressed neighborhoods and its most-populated community area.”
6. “The Chicago Marriott O’Hare hotel in Chicago, Illinois, has commenced work on a $40 million renovation project,” the World Interior Design Network reports.
7. “A state judge ruled Tuesday that the University of Illinois at Chicago does not have the right to block a faculty union from representing both those on the tenure track and adjuncts,” Inside Higher Ed reports.
8. “A baby-faced art student who traveled from Chicago to the Big Apple to scrawl his tag and a few pointed statements on subway cars will serve 25 days of community service,” the New York Post reports.
“Zebadiah Arrington, 20, pleaded guilty in March to plastering ‘ZEB,’ ‘BOMB THE SYSTEM,’ ‘NOW OR NEVER’ and other slogans on several A-, F- and 7-line trains in Brooklyn, Queens and Manhattan.”
9. Little Village Dispatch: They Just Want A Park.
10. You Shoulda Been There: West Fest 2011.
11 Chicago Man’s Bedroom As Nightclub.
12. The Portage Theater Comic Book Fair.
13. Second-Half Sleepers. Including one Cub and two Sox.
14. “Ryne Sandberg was passed over as Chicago Cubs manager last fall, but the Hall of Fame second baseman said he won’t rule out a return to his former team if the position opens up in the future.”
15. A tribute to the original pedi-cabbers of Chicago.
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16. “Jake Leinenkugel in the red canoe to the left leads the Friendly Float to raise awareness to the deplorable state of the Chicago River.”
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The Beachwood Tip Line: Wide awake.
Posted on July 13, 2011