What next for Bring Chicago Home?

& Visual Tweet Madness continues with the last set of finalists

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Eric Zorn is a former opinion columnist for the Chicago Tribune. Find a longer bio and contact information here. This issue exceeds in size the maximum length for a standard email. To read the entire issue in your browser, click on the headline link above. Paid subscribers receive each Picayune Plus in their email inbox each Tuesday, are part of our civil and productive commenting community and enjoy the sublime satisfaction of supporting this enterprise.

Tuesdays at 11:30 a.m. I talk with WGN-AM 720 host John Williams about what’s making news and likely to be grist for the PS mill. The WGN listen-live link is here.

Democracy interrupted

I’m all about extending the franchise, but it doesn’t seem too much to ask that those who vote by mail have their ballots postmarked by the Friday before the Tuesday election. Most of those ballots will be delivered by Election Day and we’d be spared much of the interminable counting in close races that we’ve been seeing over the past week in the race for the Democratic nomination for Cook County state’s attorney.

It’s a small gripe, I guess, given that both Eileen O’Neill Burke and Clayton Harris III have, through their spokespeople, expressed confidence in the ongoing process and given that there’s no particular urgency to determine the winner. The general election won’t be until Nov. 5. But still. This feels like one of those interminable replay reviews.

Civic Federation President Joe Ferguson used the occasion of the delay and conflicting, sometimes confusing numbers to re-up a 2011 report from his agency, “Cook County and City of Chicago Election Functions Should Be Merged.”

Currently, the City of Chicago Board of Elections administers elections in the City and the Cook County Clerk administers elections in suburban Cook County. … The Joint Committee on City-Collaboration convened by Cook County Board President Toni Preckwinkle and Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel agreed in its June 2011 report that the election functions should be consolidated into the office of the Cook County Clerk. The Joint Committee concluded that this would streamline services for voters and eventually produce annual savings of $5 million to $10 million. Savings would come from eliminating redundant positions, joint purchasing of supplies, reduced need for outside legal counsel and reduction in early voting sites and precincts. State legislation is necessary to make this change.

Nearly 12 years later and, of course, nothing like this has been done. $10 million in 2011 is close to $14 million in 2024 dollars. Multiply the annual savings by 12 and you’re talking real money.

‘The time has come. The time is now. Just Go. Go. GO! I don’t care how’

U.S. District Judge Steven Seeger spoke for many of us when, addressing former Gov. Rod Blagojevich in a ruling last week, he wrote:

Read generally Dr. Seuss, “Marvin K. Mooney Will You Please Go Now! “(1972) “The time has come. The time has come. The time has come. The time is now. Just Go. Go. GO! I don’t care how. You can go by foot. You can go by cow. Marvin K. Mooney, will you please go now!”

As I’ve written several times before, I don’t particularly want to see the felonious peacock behind bars. I simply want never to hear from the lying, sorry, self-pitying narcissist ever again.

Seeger’s ruling — nixing an effort by Blagojevich to run for office again — will go some distance in keeping him off the political stage.

Blagojevich fired back with a social media video in which we see that he’s once again dying his hair dark brown. Probably figures if a dye job works for Donald Trump it might work for him.

In comments, I invite subscribers to add to the list of pols and celebs to whom they’d like to give the Marvin K. Mooney treatment.

Notes and comments from readers — lightly edited — along with my responses

The heroic life and heartbreaking death of Jayden Perkins

Beth Bales — The authorities who released the domestic abuser from prison only to have him stalk and attempt to kill his former girlfriend while allegedly stabbing her 11-year-old son to death as he tried to defend her should all be fired. How could they not have taken testimony and evidence from the woman he was explicitly threatening? danger? We all know orders of protection frequently are not worth the paper they're printed on, but they wouldn't even go that far. It's infuriating and heartbreaking. And I'm glad for the information about Jayden Perkins, her slain son. Looking at the video of his dancing ability I found myself wondering if he ever could have been cast as Billy Elliott.

Zorn — Monday came news that Illinois Prisoner Review Board member LeAnn Miller, who conducted the parole hearing that set the alleged killer free, has stepped down. Shortly thereafter came news that PRB chair Donald Shelton also resigned. It certainly is a good start, but there is at least one more person who needs to be held accountable.

Looking at you, Cook County Judge Thomas Nowinski.

A little less than three weeks after the suspect reportedly stalked and threatened Jayden’s mother, she asked Nowinski for an emergency order of protection

From a Tribune editorial:

The judge made no effort, it appears from the transcript of the brief proceeding in which she made her case to him, to determine how long Brand would be confined or why he was there. Jayden was clearly a singular talent.

Jayden was clearly a great talent.

Cate Plys — The tragedy of how badly we protect domestic violence victims — even when they do everything society asks like getting (or trying to get) an order of protection even though all studies show that abusers generally become more violent and dangerous at that point — is so old. It seems nobody even tries to fix it anymore. And then to see a glowing young man like Jayden's life ended as part of that whole vicious cycle, which likely could have been avoided, is just heartbreaking. I hope one of the papers takes up Jayden's and his mom's case and pushes for meaningful changes in the domestic violence system.

Jake H. — The Jayden Perkins case reveals incompetence, yes, but it also reveals the absurd leniency of our criminal justice system when it comes to repeat violent offenders. This is a person who, given his record, should have been separated from the public. Whenever I read a story that contains some litany of multiple violent offenses (or, as in this case, multiple violations of an order of protection), my thought is, huh? Why the hell was this person out?!

David Leitschuh — Jake is absolutely right. But that was exactly the point of the Kim Foxx social justice approach to the county prosecutor's office. Most people would be horrified to hear about all the tragic victims of violent crime at the hands of offenders who were released on little or no bail. CWB Chicago reports on this regularly, but the mainstream news prefers to ignore it.

Zorn — The problem isn’t bail or lack thereof so much as it is judges who don’t seem all that canny about identifying those who are highly likely to continue victimizing others. I support not locking up shoplifters, but those charged with good evidence for violent crimes plainly need more pre-trial detention.

The failure of the Bring Chicago Home referendum

Michael Gorman — Real estate interests, 1. Chicago homeless, 0. The obfuscation and inaccuracies put out by the real estate lobby brought this referendum down. As far as I know, the rich are still buying their expensive houses/other properties and paying big commissions and the poor are still sleeping in the streets and alleyways of Chicago.

Zorn — Yours is one of the few comments I received in defense of the defeated referendum that would have authorized an increase in transaction taxes for properties that sell for more than $1 million in order to generate an estimated $100 million a year to address the problem of homelessness. I expected a more robust defense given the general leftward lean of this site’s readership. But “no” voters were not simply siding with the real estate interests. They had genuine concern and mistrust about the potential negative impact of the change on renters and home builders, and they doubted the city would use the windfall wisely.

Bob Fry — Homelessness is a problem. The humanist in me says we should do all we can to help our fellow humans find, among other things, adequate, permanent shelter. The economist in me posits that it is less expensive to help folks with shelter than it is to allow them to languish in homelessness.

Either way, I am persuaded that we, as a society, have a responsibility to solve the homelessness problem. The pragmatist in me says solving this problem requires a plan. When I tried to discern how the money from the Bring Chicago Home initiative would be deployed, I found no detail. What I did find on the City of Chicago website was Chicago's Plan to End Homelessness 2.0 announced by then Mayor Rahm Emmanuel in August 2012.

I was disappointed to see the last Plan 2.0 Progress Report showing up on the City's web site was completed in April 2017. Granted, a little more digging led me to the point-in-time reports and the 2023 DFSS Annual Homeless Report. Whatever happened to Plan 2.0? Mayor Johnson said he planned to form a committee for the deployment of the transfer tax funds. How would that be different from the City’s Interagency Task Force to Reduce Homelessness, launched in 2016?

The dizzying number of foundations, coalitions and city programs aimed at homelessness in Chicago made it impossible for me to figure out (a) how much is currently being spent (privately or publicly) (b) what real progress has been made over the last, say, 12 years (since Plan 2.0), and (c) what specific new ideas does Mayor Johnson's administration have that will move the dial, and by how much?

It looks to me like a lot of redundancy (waste) so, absent a real, transparent plan for all homeless funding, I was not inclined to support more taxes.

Garry Spelled Correctly — I have no doubt that the proposed change would have caused huge rent increases for people in apartment buildings.

Zorn — Increases, yeah, but probably not huge ones. This one-time higher tax would likely be amortized over the life of the mortgage for the buyer. Proponents did a lousy job of explaining this.

Ted B. — Among the news stories Chicagoans viewed before heading to the polls to vote on a tax referendum that may raise $100 million, with no specific plan:

1) The city needs $300 million to address the influx of migrants.

2) The mayor is moving forward with a plan to revamp empty downtown office buildings at an estimated cost of $1 billion.

3) The City Council agrees to a $45 million settlement for a family whose child was left with severe lifelong disabilities as the result of an unauthorized car chase by a cop with a bad track record.

4) Chicago Teachers Union president Stacey Davis Gates jokes about how many billions of dollars will be required to meet the union’s demands, and directed reporters who want to know where the money will come from to “ask another question.”

Marc Martinez — From page 45 of the 2024 city budget overview : "The 24 TIF districts throughout the City are used primarily to fund infrastructure, affordable housing, and economic development activities to revitalize once blighted parts of the City". The budget declared $434 million of TIF funds as “surplus,” meaning they didn't have anything to spend it on and it could be transferred to other uses in the budget. This is in addition to the $44 million in Covid homeless funds that the city has not spent, and the roughly $200 million currently spread over city homeless/housing programs. Of the estimated 6000 homeless in Chicago, roughly 1000 have no shelter nightly. Is it too much to ask the city to explain this before asking for more?

Zorn — Many other letter writers and commenters made similar points, which leads me to think that a more specific and perhaps better targeted initiative to generate revenue for the homeless might get the OK from votes in November, if the mayor decides to risk his political capital on it.

Virginia Gilbert of Andersonville made some excellent suggestions in a recent letter to the Sun-Times:

The problem with the measure … is that it did not differentiate between commercial and residential sales and especially did not differentiate between the sale of single-family homes and multi-family homes. It’s one thing to consider $1 million-plus single-family home sales as high-end, but an entirely different classification of multi-family or commercial properties at the same dollar amount. …

Another problem with the discussion of the proposition was not differentiating between annual property taxes, which affect all property owners, and the transfer tax, which is only levied on real estate sales. Most property owners who don’t buy and sell frequently wouldn't have been affected at all …

A better plan would be to apply the transfer tax increase to sales of single-family homes worth more than $1 million and multi-family buildings at two or three times that amount. … That might not raise as much money, but it would be a more workable tax increase.

A true “mansion tax” that dug into the pockets of those paying more than $1 million for single dwelling units seems like a good place to start. And a very clear, comprehensive explanation of where the additional revenue would go would be likely to assuage voters’ fears that the money would just in effect be thrown into general revenues.

The City Council’s Progressive Caucus released a statement Monday that suggested an understanding of the situation and seemed to point a finger of blame at the mayor:

When voters send a message through their vote, we have a responsibility to listen, even if we disagree. Throughout the campaign to pass the referendum we spoke with voters who agreed that homelessness is a serious problem that must be addressed. They agreed with the proposed progressive tax structure, but they had real questions about whether or not they could trust the government to spend the money in the right way. Voters who opposed the referendum told us their vote represented their current distrust, frustration and disappointment with city government. Collectively, city leaders can and must do better to earn and maintain our constituents’ trust. From how City Hall spends pandemic relief funds to the migrant response, Chicagoans deserve a transparent and responsive government that gets things done.

Progressive caucus chair Maria Hadden, 49th, ruled out a revised referendum on the November ballot, according to the Sun-Times:

Given the heated presidential rematch between incumbent Democrat Joe Biden and former Republican President Donald Trump, she said, "Strategically, I don’t think November would be a good time."

Maybe. But on the theory that lefty voters will be very energized to turn out against Donald Trump, it might be the perfect time to repackage this idea and get it OK’d.

Obama Drive?

I gave a brief nod last week to the proposal in the City Council to rename Columbus Drive in Grant Park for Barack Obama. The proposal bought out the usual explosion of indignation from Italian American groups that, for some reason, cling to Columbus as a symbol of pride.

Deni — What I don't understand is why Italian Americans have focused on Columbus as the historical Italian to laud and name things after. He was the monster some people claim, his own diaries betray his evil deeds. Certainly there are better Italians in history to celebrate.

Zorn — I’ve floated a few suitable replacements with local connections for their ethnic pride in the past:

• Enrico Fermi. He won the 1938 Nobel Prize in physics and oversaw the first controlled nuclear chain reaction at the University of Chicago in 1942. Some fault him for playing a key role in the development of the first atomic bomb; I would credit him for playing a key role in helping the United States to be first in acquiring such dreadful weapons.

• Cardinal Joseph Bernardin. He led the Catholic Archdiocese of Chicago from 1982 until his death in 1996, and was a widely admired civic as well as religious leader.

• Florence Scala. She was a passionate community activist who led the unsuccessful fight in the 1960s to save her Near West Side Italian-American neighborhood from plans to build the University of Illinois at Chicago campus on the site.

• Ron Santo. He grew up in an Italian neighborhood in Seattle but became one of our own—a baseball player and announcer of great talent, courage and passion who carried on against the twin currents of disappointment and disease until his death in 2010.

Garry Spelled Correctly — Nothing owned by government should ever be named after a living person, ever. It should be a law that they must wait until a person has been dead for at least 10 years.

Zorn — I’m kinda there. I think a person should be off the public stage — retired or deceased — for at least five years before their name is slapped on anything. Obama has been out of office making documentaries or whatever it is he’s doing now for more than seven years.

Marc Martinez — The city contributed park land to the Obama Center and hasn't finished paying for the infrastructure improvements around it. Do we really need to name a street for him too? I also thought this was a thinly veiled sop to the progressives that dislike Columbus. Surely there are more important things for the City Council to do.

Zorn — The City Council spends a lot of time on less critical matters than this.

JakeH — I don't mind changing Columbus Drive, and we could argue about whether it's a little soon to be honoring Obama with streets and such, but if you are going to change a street name to Obama, I nominate Wabash. That way, Trump Tower's address would be 401 N. Obama Ave.

Mad about the madness

Rick Weiland — I love everything about your Tweet Madness 2024 bracket competitions except the way they’re conducted. I hate having to choose between two really good tweets and then between two meh choices. I’d rather have voted for both the good ones and against the two mehs. Next year, how about letting us pick our 16 faves from the 32, our 8 faves from the surviving 16, etc? Surely a surer way of assuring that the best tweet wins.

Zorn — That’s not a bad idea! In previous years I’ve seeded the entries by the size of the victories they had during the weekly contests, but that was a lot of extra work. Some version of your idea — top several tweets from a larger field advancing to the night might simplify the contest and result in fewer painful choices.

A voice from the right

Steve Roess — You cheapen your publication by including links to the strident, far-left articles promoted in Chicago Public Square by Charlie Meyerson. It only makes it less likely that you'll have anything other than an echo chamber going forward.

Zorn — Meyerson does lean left, for sure. And he sells Chicago Public Square T-shirts with Leftist claptrap” and “Too far left for me, sorry I ever signed up” on the back. Write to claptrap@chicagopublicsquare.com. for details. But he digs up and promotes lots of intriguing non-political and newsy content and readers tell me they find it valuable.

In a 2017 open letter to a friend concerned about his credibility, Meyerson wrote,

I got into this business partly because I was inspired by journalists like Mike Royko, who did nothing to hide his opinions; and by Woodward and Bernstein, who were committed to seeking the truth but who were condemned at the time by people using rhetoric disturbingly similar to yours.

As I've said many times, I'm far more worried about reporting by journalists who (incredibly and impossibly) pretend to have no opinions than by those who are open about their position and let an audience decide, story by story, which reporting is fair and which isn't.

I continue to welcome right-leaning commenters to the board and am more than happy when reasonable people disagree with me and post links they think are illuminating. Sometimes those links show up in the Picayune Sentinel.

My rooting interests

Beth Bales — I am flummoxed by your method of choosing with teams to root for when you don’t have a particular connection to either one. I completely understand rooting for Big 10 teams. But when you say you root for teams for blue states over teams from red states, all other things being equal, I’m stunned. I’ve never heard of that before.

Zorn — How else are you going to choose? Some people always root for the underdog when they don’t have any other interest in a game. Others hew as closely as possible to regional loyalties or religious loyalties. My Big 10 loyalties will be sorely tested when Oregon, Washington, USC and UCLA join the conference, as the whole idea of a conference starts to feel absurd.

Ya gotta see these tweets!

This week concludes the first elimination rounds in the visual division of Tweet Madness 2024. All the entires below won a previous contest or, to fill out the brackets, are runners-up/honorable mentions. Pick your favorite in each set of five. Those winners along with winners of Rounds 1-3, and 4-7 will advance to the semifinal rounds next Tuesday. The top two winners in the semifinal rounds will be in the Final Four in the April 4 Picayune Sentinel.

ROUND EIGHT

ROUND NINE

ROUND TEN

Usage note: To me, “tweet” has become a generic term for a short post on social media.

There’s still time to vote in the Tweet 16 brackets in my annual Tweet Madness tournament.

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