House of the rising Moonglum

So I am kind of loving this “crazy elections for everything” vibe that Joe Moore has going right now. We did the participatory budgeting earlier in the year, and one of the items that won was funding underpass murals. So how to decide what to put up? Another election of course! Well, my wife and I went down to the Roger’s Park art fair, and voted, and it looks like a number of our choices won! It is very interesting to see these (admittedly small) items that we vote on actually go through. This is a really good start on opening up the process in Chicago. Now if we could only open up the TIF process we could actually get some real accountability around here.

The Cook County Board has closed the barn door after the cow has left the barn, spent millions on hiring his friends and family to make work positions, and worse to actual positions that they weren’t qualified for, and generally let county services fall apart.

Way to go Cook County Board. And to think we are going to get Berrios as assessor. Ugh. I’d love to have Claypool instead, but that is a pipe dream.

Health Care Reform – Vote Yes

Dear Congresswoman Schakowsky,

I am a constituent of yours who is very concerned about health care reform in this country. I work for myself and as such need to buy my own health insurance. As you are well aware, the options in Illinois are not particularly diverse. I am in my mid 30s and active and healthy, and yet am still unable to obtain health care. I can go with Blue Cross and pay tens of thousands of dollars a year for insurance that will not cover me should I ever need it. However I opted for Unicare for $100 a month and prayer.

This is not the way insurance is supposed to work. I feel guilty that I am not contributing to the general insurance pool while I am young and healthy, but there is only one financially responsible choice, and now they have left the state.

There are many problems with the bill as it currently stands. There is not enough in the way of cost control. There are too many special interest items included. The healthcare bill being promoted by the president also does not go far enough in terms of providing universal health care. However, it is the only chance I have of being able to continue to run my own business. Please vote yes for this step in the right direction, as I fear if it fails I will have to wait another decade before we get another chance at reform.

Sincerely,

Moonglum

Well, I just got my endorsement flyer from the Democratic Party of the 49th ward and the union, which means I am super late getting my own out. This is an especially important election peoples, so I hope you all are registered already. This is our chance to knock Stroger off his pedestal. He just keeps getting better and better. The latest horror, is him saying he’s going to thank himself if he gets reelected. We have to get rid of this self important idiot who doesn’t even understand the meaning of service.

One very useful tool for this election is the sample ballot generator that the trib has made available. You can read about each candidate and pick the one you want, then print it out. Very handy.

Enough with the preaching, on with the elections.

State/National Positions

Senate: Hoffman and Giannoulias are the front runners in this race. The links are to the Trib profiles and I have to say that I pretty much agree with them. Hoffman is someone who I think would be a good anti corruption candidate, and I worry about Giannoulias not only in terms of his experience, but also in terms of skeletons that might be hiding in his closet. The union and the 49th also endorse Hoffman. Plus I have to hand it to anyone who can survive as the IG as well as Hoffman did.

Governor: Hynes and Quinn are the front runners. The trib didn’t even make an endorsement, but the Sun Times and the 49th have called for Quinn. I’m not sure I can agree with that assessment, however there were a few good steps forward that Quinn made that Hynes fought against as comptroller. In general I like Hynes as comptroller because he was an advocate for reigning in spending which this state sorely needs, but this action stands out against that record. In the end I’m siding with the union and going with Hynes on the “throw out the old guard” ticket. I’ll be heppy either way though.

Lt. Governor: Heh, I couldn’t find anything about any of the candidates here, but the trib endorses Art Turner with a single sentence. I don’t think the Sun Times even has that much. I got a polling phone call about all the different candidates yesterday, but nothing from any of them. The 49th endorses Boland and the Union doesn’t endorse anyone. In the end I’m going with the Trib on this one. (Update: the Sun Times endorses Turner now as well.

Secretary of State, Attorney General, our US congress rep and state rep are all running uncontested in the primary.

Comptroller: Reading Krishnamoorthi’s responses to the Trib’s questionnaire is like a breath of fresh air. I don’t know if he’ll be able to win a statewide office, but it would be exciting if he could. Both the Trib and Sun Times seem happy with the other candidates as well, but both and the 49th endorse him. The union endorses Miller.

Treasurer: Neither one stands out to me, but Kelly is endorsed by both the Trib and the Sun Times, as well as the 49th ward democrats. The union makes no recommendation.

Cook County Positions

President: This is the one we have all been waiting for. I swear, if Stroger is still on the ballot after this primary I will cry myself asleep at night with a bottle of gin. In that vein I am going with Preckwinkle. I think she is by far the mostly likely to be able to beat Stroger, and thus she gets my vote. This is why you are going to go vote in this election. GO VOTE! And if you are really thinking of voting for Stroger, remember he is going to thank himself if he wins. This man is insane. (All three cook county endorsers endorse Preckwinkle.)

MWRD: Spyropolous, Connor & Steele. Everyone agrees on this.

Assessor: Unfortunately Houlihan dropped out of this race. He has done an amazing job making the process more transparent, as well as acting to help the general, non connected, population. I really believe that Berrios will roll back many of those changes. The problem is neither of the other two candidates running for the position seem to be the clear heir for continuing Houlihan’s work. The Shaw family is a little too well connected for my tastes though and I have to go with Figueroa. Plus he says all the right things. All three county endorsing parties agree with me, with the Sun Times making a particularly strong plea. I really am sorry to see Houlihan go though, and am somewhat scared to be a homeowner in Cook County without him in charge of assessments.

Board Member: I’ve liked Suffredin in the past, and at other times he’s made me so mad I could spit. I’m really sad I missed the debate in Evanston, because it sounded really good, and all my knowledge about it is second hand. But given what I have heard, and given that I always prefer the challenger, I have to go with Keefe over Suffredin. Obviously the 49th is going to disagree with me, the sun times argues for him as well, oh man and the trib endorses him now as well. This is a tough one, do I still hold the tax hike and his name was on that letter backing Stroger in the last general election against him? Will it actually matter? There is no way on God’s green earth that Keefe is going to win, but I really like what he has to say, and this vote will be cathartic for me. When Suffredin goes on to win, I can go back to liking him as my rep on the county board.

Sheriff: I can’t find anything at all about Baker, so I’m going to need to go with Dart. Everyone endorses him anyway.

Judges:

I know the 49th ward has some recommendations coming out stemming from a meet and greet that they recently held, however I can’t wait for that so I am left with the green guide (large pdf). The Trib also has some recommendations from the sample ballot as well. I know some of you have direct contact with these people, if you have strong thoughts about some of them, let me know! Rather than repeat what you can read for yourself in those places, I simply offer up my choices: (ed to add: now I have the 49th ward endorsements and have updated appropriately.)

Appellate Court

McNulty Vacancy – Epstein
O’Malley Vacancy – Hogan
South Vacancy – Rochford

Circuit Court

Berland Vacancy – Hooks
Bronstein Vacancy – MacCarthy
Dolan Vacancy – Pauel
Hayes Vacancy – Mitchell
Kelley Vacancy – Callahan
(McCarthy and O’Malley Vacancies only have one candidate in the primary.)
Riley Vacancy – Stokes

9th Sub Circuit

Otaka Vacancy – Kull
9A Vacancy – Bender

Dear President Obama,

As a citizen of the state of Illinois, home to Abraham Lincoln, I would be proud to accept any and all prisoners from our current conflicts in Illinois prisons. For too long our country has operated outside the rule of law with respect to those who have wronged us. We have laws in place with which to punish them, and if we ever hope to regain the trust of the world we must use them. The first step is to find a place within the bounds of the US to house our most dangerous criminals, and we have at our disposal an empty maximum security prison. The citizens of that town seem happy to help out. Once in place we can bring them to trial and finally have justice done. This country has waited for too long, and the rest of the world begins to doubt our sincerity.

Thank you for your attention in this matter,

Moonglum

p.s. Ignore Mark Kirk, he seems to prefer keeping one prison empty while the rest are overcrowded, when opening this one, while providing local jobs could also relieve some of the overcrowding in the rest of the prisons in Illinois. How this reduces our safety I have no idea.

This is the problem with participatory budgeting. The City is already good at hiding where the money goes, and assigning it to oversight-less pools controlled completely out of sight of the citizens. Putting the completely visibly controlled pools of money in the hands of the citizenry seems like closing the barn door when there is a stampede heading your direction.

Eliminate TIFs now, and return the monies to the general fund. Then putting effort into this sort of thing might be worth while.

So, I went to the Participatory Democracy meeting put on by the 49th ward tonight because there was a flyer on my door, and it was close to where I live. I didn’t really realize what I was getting myself into. Turns out this is actually a bit of a big deal. It is a type of budgeting that has been done in many other cities all over the world, but never before in the United States. So because of that, besides the alderman and the steering committee, there was a professor who studies this and helps implement it from Brown University, along with a bunch of other people including someone making a movie about this process. Not to mention about 20 people from the ward. And about 8 from the area that this meeting was supposedly for. Guess it is good I went after all.

So actual attendees were vastly outnumbered by organizers and hangers on. But the alderman was there and the ideas were shared. And it is a reasonably neat idea. Basically the alderman is giving up authority over his capital improvements fund for the ward, and allowing this community based process to drive it. The other neat thing is that the vote when the final budget meeting (open to the entire ward) is actually binding.

The main problem with this is how limited it is. The aldermanic “menu”, the money for capital projects in the ward, is such a small part of the over all city budget, that it is unclear to me how much light this will shed on where the money is really going. Also, there is a difference between saying “we want money spent on X” and actually getting that money spent efficiently. I bet that the breakdown of capital project that we actually get will be very very close to what we would have had under the old system. And finally, even if we did do this on a city wide basis, we would still have the TIF districts. The alderman does a reasonably good job at capital projects and there is pretty good accountability there already. It is the off budget items like TIF spending that really wreck this city.

So, all in all the meeting didn’t really do it for me, but it is an interesting idea. I will certainly be watching this going forward, and if it takes off for more of the city’s budgeting bodies it could actually make a difference.

Oh, and I did get an awesome Joe Moore quote, “I’ve been acting like a benign dictator, if you will.” said in reference to what he is trying to change by switching from the “aldermanic menu” to this “participatory budgeting” system. Hah! You only wish, Joe. There is only one dictator in this town, and it is not you.

Useful tip for Chicago residents: start dialing 1 + ten numbers.

We are getting a new overlay area code in the 773 (and surrounding) areas. This means that starting November 9th, we all need to dial 1 + area code + phone number for ALL phone calls, even if they are still in the same area code that your number is.

The Trib claims that there is some problem with the funding of the Morse theater. If true that would make me really sad. That really brightens up the street and makes the whole place feel more livable. Not that I spend a lot of time on Morse, but seeing that bright theater sign lets me know I am almost home.

Arresting a sitting governor?! I LOVE Fitzgerald! Loks like a-Rod was a bad bad boy. Selling off a senate seat. Pretty awesome. Trying to get a critical editorial team fired for cash money? Priceless. But doesn’t Fitzgerald know you are supposed to wait until they are out of office to do this? Could Daley be next? Will this actually have any impact on pay to play politics in Illinois and Chicago?

Exciting times.

Edited to add: If Fitzgerald is looking for ideas of what to do now, I’d say Stroger should be next on your list.

Morse Hellhole points to some very good arguments for and against a constitutional convention. I still believe that the cost factor is the most important thing, but there are some very strong arguments on both sides. SCC also chimes in against the Con Con. They think that Blago and Daley will use their super powers to give themselves more powers. I’m still suggesting voting against the Con Con.

As requested here are my choices for this race. (Mmm, think I’m gonna go vote early today. Skip the lines on election day.)

Federal

President – Obama/Biden – C’mon, if you are reading my blog to figure out who to vote for for president, you have real issues. But since you are here, I’ll give you my number one reason. I truly fear the transition from a petro energy economy to a post petro economy. Obama seems to understand the problem infinitely better than the Drill, Baby, Drill crowd. He seems to be able to do basic math. 20 billion barrels of oil of proven reserves in the US. We use 10 billion barrels of oil a year. Yes we need to drill, no it will not solve anything. (And the Trib endorsed him!!)

For congress and senate, I am pissed at our current members for giving into Bush’s fear-mongering (especially on this most recent financial crisis). I also seem to be having a general distaste for the established power structure. Because of this I present, the green party. At least they will back alternative energy funding, without any need for pork to help it down. Update: Shakowsky wrote me back explaining her position (in I assume a form letter) and I feel a bit better about it. I’m feeling a bit more generous to her today than I was when I first wrote this right after the vote. Take these opinions with a grain of salt, as I might change my mind before I get to the polls.

Senator – Cummings. No way she will beat Durbin, it’s just a message. Though I have to say everything I have been able to find about her indicates that her concerns closely match my own. I am especially pleased with her energy stance and, interestingly since it doesn’t really have anything to do with the green party, her stance on the supremacy of the constitution.

Congresscritter – Shanfield. He’s basically running to stop the war. He will lose to Shakowski, but I am so disappointed in her recent complete lack of spine (as well as the rest of the democratic party I suppose) that I can’t bring myself to vote for her.

State

State Senator – Silverstein (only) State Rep – Lang (only) Why no competition for the state reps? I guess I’ll list them for completeness sake. Still annoys me.

Metro

Metro Water – Meany (inc., been there forever), Avila (inc., likes poop), Santos (inc., married to govt worker). I actually think the current metro water has done an incredible job. Thus for this one I change my normal for this election and go with the incumbents. The sun times swaps Meany for Bopp, the green candidate, who they feel is a good addition. I might actually vote that way too on a little further consideration.

County

The trib has a great quote from their endorsements:

Yes, we know you’re eager to oust Cook County Board President Todd Stroger and the 10 board members whose sales-tax increase is hurting local consumers and employers. That crowd won’t be on the ballot until 2010. This autumn, though, voters are choosing five other county officials.

But what is on the ballot (out with the old in with the new Stroger memorial edition):

State’s Attorney – Alvarez. I think Peraica would have been an excellent Cook County president. I think he would be a terrible state’s attorney. He has a tendency to attack before thinking. Good for trimming a bloated government and taxes. Bad for a prosecutor. This is the one place where I go against my out with the old in with the new. Alvarez has been on the county payroll for too long to be considered new.

Court Clerk – Shapiro. She’s an ex Dem who got fed up with the Democratic system in Chicago. That seems like a great reason to leave the party. And it means that she is probably someone that actually agrees with most of my thinking. Also, she wasn’t party to the current county government.

Recorder of Deeds – Goldstein. This is another out with the old, in with the new recommendation. Moore is simply not doing his job properly. I preferred Smith in the primary and now I prefer Goldstein. He is currently a customer of the office and will hopefully bring an understanding of what needs to be fixed.

Board of Review (2nd Dist) – Not Berrios. He is a Stroger stooge, so I can’t vote for him. Problem is I have no idea who the other candidates are. The sad thing is how important this position is. Now that I am a home owner, I realize how much power the ability to review assessments and that kind of thing gives, and how easy it is to abuse that power. This is one of the places where the pain from the taxes comes from. Give out lots of revaluations to politically connected people, and everyone else pays more. I’m voting for the opposition, if for no other reason than to send a message to Stroger et. al.

Courts

For the empty positions on the courts, there is only one choice for all of them?! I wonder why that is. Fortunately the bar associations seem to like them all, marking them as qualified or highly qualified.

And THE MOST IMPORTANT SECTION, judicial retention if you aren’t going to bother, at least mark them all NO. If you are going to bother, mark them all yes with the following exceptions:

Appellate: Both appellate judges are recommended to be retained by all 10 reporting bar associations.

Circuit: Multiple bar associations don’t like Brosnahan (209), Pietrucha (171), McCarthy (165), Hayes (149), Hopkins (151), Garcia (145) and Lewis (221). Mark all them no.
The Chicago Council of Lawyers doesn’t like Bender (127), Clay (133) or McGury (121), Turner (239).
The Cook County Bar Association doesn’t like Fabri (141).
The Gay Bar Association doesn’t like Stuart (185) or James Riley (179).

Questions

Question: Should we be able to recall the governor? I’m not actually sure what I think about this one. On the one hand, it seems like it is necessary at times. On the other hand it seems like it shifts the balance of power considerably and I could easily see it getting in the way of the operation of the government. Besides, given the number of ex governors who have spent time in jail, I’m not worried about justice not being served.

Question: Should we have a constitutional convention? I think yes. Ed to add: um… NO I MEAN NO!!! One thing among many that I forgot to take into account was how expensive this thing is going to be. Over $100 million is a bit much to see if we decide that we need to make some changes. Especially given the current economy. And I am allowed to sleep on the bed tonight. We need another referendum before any changes are approved, and the convention might decide that no changes are needed. But the opportunity for a review won’t happen if we vote no. The Trib says yes though the Sun Times strongly disagrees.

The news report said it was the worst 24 hours ever in terms of amount of rain on the ground. It was also pretty consistent from one day to the next. And in two days almost made it one of the rainiest Septembers ever. However, my wife and I were driving around, and saw the madness, but it didn’t effect us directly, so my thinking was that the deep tunnel project worked. In fact we even went to a party the next day. Not so for the entire county. Albany Park in Chicago was completely flooded. We managed to bypass it by sheer luck. Des Plaines was also hit hard. Makes the lakes we drove through in Lincolnwood seem downright tame by comparison. All of a sudden I am feeling that the money spent on that new ejector pump was well spent. Still given that this is a once in a 150 years rainstorm, the city did pretty well for itself. Gotta say that deep tunnel project paid itself off last weekend. All the flooding seemed to be constrained to areas near natural waterways.

At least I know why we couldn’t get on at Pratt. I wish I’d known that there was so much trouble in Albany Park. That isn’t too far away and I could have helped make sandbags or something. At least it is dry this week. Give the sewers time to empty.

What I want to know is why the town couldn’t simply pay TDS to build and maintain the local interconnect, but maintain ownership. In this way TDS still gets that last mile business, but the town can force the ability to interconnect and choose through that last mile. Obviously TDSneeds to protect its investment through lawsuits, but if the town paid for that investment instead, that seems like a much easier way at administering choice. Ever since AT&T won the right to keep competitors off their last mile network I have really come around to thinking that data access really is a utility style service. Run a fiber to every house and lease it out to service providers: cable, phone and internet. No need for trucks to come to your house, and certainly no need for new wires to be run. I wonder if it would be possible for single blocks to build out as a co-op? Ultra high bandwidth loop through the alley with an interconnect at the corner that any service provider can access? This is similar to how a condo works, only no more infighting for pole space and service access.

In fact the first major study done on them concluded that they are a hidden tax on drivers. Study after study shows that red light cameras cause an increase in accidents. So the tax is paid out to: city governments, auto body repair shops, and insurance companies. Interestingly the only body that generated studies that believed that red light cameras did any good were funded by the insurance companies which stand to profit from them. So they do not work.

Or do they….

Tin foil theory: the government in its infinite wisdom is trying to wean us off of automobiles as early as possible in anticipation of peak oil, and red light cameras are just another way of making car ownership more prohibitive. Ok, probably not, but I like it.

The Trib recently ran an excellent five part article on the zoning situation in Chicago. It is a bit long, containing way too many personal anecdotes for my preferences, but it does go into a good amount of detail on how the zoning process is supposed to work, and how it actually does work. Some of the Rogers Park bloggers show up in the final part. One of the most elucidating quotes from the entire series though, points out what I think the real problem with the zoning situation in Chicago is:

City officials in the Zoning and Planning Departments review proposals and issue recommendations before aldermen vote. That review involves determining if new construction would be an “intrusion” to the neighborhood.

But aldermen pay little heed. City staff objected to about 40 percent of the zoning changes that the council approved over the last three years, city records show.

If the city’s zoning department actually managed to form official objections to 40% of the zoning changes, but only 10 or so didn’t go though, there is a real problem in this city. We pay professionals to determine the proper city planning, but then they are simply ignored. If the aldermen are just going to have the final say, why do we even bother with the city planners in the first place? Save some money and get rid of the whole department.

It appears that the federal marshals shut down a fake diploma ring. I am personally excited about this because it should make a significant dent in my junk e-mail. But the article is great. They not only shut down the ring, they also have a list of 10,000 people who bought the fake degrees. I am personally hoping for a nice housecleaning coming the Chicago direction. Plenty of government jobs pay according to the degree you have. I could see lots of demand for fake degrees in our state, county and city governments.

There was a recent attempt to repeal the Cook County tax hike. It failed of course (same people same time, not sure how they expected it to go through), but we got a great Stroger quote out of the deal: “Until this place falls apart, then I’ll step up and say ‘I screwed that up.’ Until then, I’m doing a damn good job.” There is a world of difference between “good job” and “screwed up”. Couldn’t he at least say he is doing ok? A damn good job though. The man is completely deluded.

Edited to add: And the hits keep on coming.

I’m glad to see that the CTA is trying out serial hybrid busses. While cars are really too small to use current technology in, busses are large enough that the different drive train makes sense. A similar system has been in use by trains for years. The addition of a moderating battery and regenerative braking turns the diesel electric drive train into a true serial hybrid. The advantage of this over a standard hybrid is that you only have one drive-train and the gas powered engine can always run at optimal efficiency since it is just running a generator. This also means no more busses idling downtown for a half hour at a time.

I appear to be on a gun ownership kick lately. In any case it appears that in the most anti gun city in the country, city council members own guns. Not only that, but since the laws they passed on gun ownership are impossibly difficult to comply with, when they screw it up they change the laws so that they can keep their guns.

The only thing that surprises me about this is that anyone is surprised.