Dateline: Chicago

Emanuel Considering Obama Drug Czar to Run Chicago Police Department
Mon, 04/18/2011
President Barack Obama‘s drug czar is among the contenders to become the first Chicago police superintendent in Mayor-elect Rahm Emanuel‘s administration, the Chicago News Cooperative has learned. Gil Kerlikowske, whose formal title is director of the White House Office of National Drug Control Policy, met last week with Emanuel in Chicago and was...

Obama Drug Czar Contender to be Top Cop
Mon, 04/18/2011
President Barack Obama‘s drug czar is among the contenders to become the first Chicago police superintendent in Mayor-elect Rahm Emanuel‘s administration, the Chicago News Cooperative has learned.   Gil Kerlikowske, whose formal title is director of the White House Office of National Drug Control Policy, met last week with Emanuel in Chicago...

Monitor: Patronage Still Not Punished Under Daley
Tue, 04/12/2011
Despite years of pressure from a court-appointed hiring monitor, retiring Mayor Richard M. Daley’s administration has resisted disciplining many high-ranking city officials who were implicated in the massive patronage scheme at City Hall, the monitor alleged in documents filed in federal court last week. The monitor, Noelle Brennan, has asked a...

Emanuel Seeks Donations up to $50K for Inaugural
Tue, 04/12/2011
For a $50,000 donation to Mayor-elect Rahm Emanuel‘s inaugural committee, you can enjoy “co-chair” status and receive four tickets for a concert, a reception, a dinner and the inauguration itself next month. Details of the inaugural festivities — and the prices for access to the events — are listed in invitations that the committee sent this week...

Deposed 36th Ward Alderman Blasts Challenger
Wed, 04/06/2011
Just a few years ago, the 36th Ward Democrats were an important cog in Mayor Richard M. Daley’s machine who essentially enjoyed control over Chicago’s real estate boom. After Tuesday’s election, though, the once-formidable patronage army no longer could claim even the alderman’s seat in the middle-class ward on the western edge of the city....

Rahm Emanuel’s City Council Runoff Scorecard
Wed, 04/06/2011
Mayor-elect Rahm Emanuel will have reason to be satisfied with the outcome of his initial effort to shape the City Council, although the voting in wards across the city also showed that his influence has its limits. Emanuel’s scorecard after Tuesday night showed that seven of the 10 candidates that he endorsed in the runoff election were among the...

What To Watch For in the City Council Runoffs
Mon, 04/04/2011
Voters in 14 wards did not give a majority of support to any City Council candidate in the February election, setting the stage for the busiest runoff election in 20 years on Tuesday. Not since 1991, when there were 18 runoff fights, has so much of the council’s make-up hinged on the contests between the top two finishers in first-round balloting...

Incumbency Little Edge in Runoffs, History Shows
Mon, 04/04/2011
Of the 14 City Council runoff races Tuesday, 10 involve incumbents who are fighting to save their jobs. If history is any guide, incumbents who fail to receive an outright majority in first-round voting only have a slightly better than 50 percent chance of winning another four years in office. Forty-two incumbents have been forced into runoffs in...

As Cabrini is Demolished, Art Project Lights Up
Mon, 04/04/2011
The demolition of the last high-rise at Cabrini-Green, which began last week, has been accompanied by an art installation twinned to the building’s destruction. Poetry recorded by young people who lived in and around the project cues a series of custom LED lights inside the high-rise. As the 15-story high-rise comes down, the lights will be...

As Cabrini is Demolished, Art Project Lights Up
Mon, 04/04/2011
The demolition of the last high-rise at Cabrini-Green, which began last week, has been accompanied by an art installation twinned to the building’s destruction. Poetry recorded by young people who lived in and around the project cues a series of custom LED lights inside the high-rise. As the 15-story high-rise comes down, the lights will be...