Showing posts with label City Services. Show all posts

Thursday, October 31, 2019

In hindsight, there is always a better way....

Chicago is trimming fewer trees at a higher cost because city crews rely on 311 requests, instead of proactively using a grid system to trim trees on a regular basis, Inspector General Joe Ferguson concluded Wednesday.

Ten years ago, a consultant hired by the Department of Streets and Sanitation concluded that switching to a grid system — already used for garbage collection and graffiti removal — could reduce travel times by 35 percent, cut costs by 60 percent and increase the daily productivity of tree trimming crews by a whopping 147 percent.

That would reduce a “significant backlog” that has forced parts of the city to wait ten years for tree trimming services.

On Wednesday, Ferguson chided the Department of Streets and Sanitation for ignoring the Monitor Group’s “overwhelming findings in favor of a grid-based approach” and continuing to

Mayor Lightfoot seems to be flustered

Exasperated Lightfoot appeals to CTU to match her offer with ‘comprehensive’ counterproposal

CTU is playing the mayor. Advice to the mayor, you care very much and have been more than considerate, ....now is the time to play rough, so rough they can't believe it. Reverse course, withdraw all offers and demand concessions. All the other unions are watching. Words of a wiseman.

A grim-faced Lightfoot stood before a pair of charts to underscore her point that the Chicago Board of Education is still waiting for the CTU to bargain in good faith.

By Fran Spielman Oct 7, 2019, 11:49am CDT

A grim-faced Mayor Lori Lightfoot holds a City Hall news conference on Monday. Behind the mayor are, from left, Chicago Board of Education President Miguel del Valle, Chicago Public Schools CEO Janice Jackson, Chief Education Officer LaTanya McDade and Ald. Michael Scott Jr. (24th), chairman of the City Council’s Education Committee. Fran Spielman/Sun-Times

An exasperated Mayor Lori Lightfoot on Monday urged the Chicago Teachers Union to share her “sense of urgency” about avoiding a teachers strike by countering the city’s “comprehensive offer” with

Seems to me that this is just a reward for something, I though Lightfoot was going to end that practice

Lightfoot defends six-figure job she gave alderman who lost re-election bid
The mayor says she won’t allow Ald. Jim Gardiner (45th), who defeated John Arena, to ‘dictate to me how or when or under what circumstances somebody gets hired.’

By Fran Spielman Oct 1, 2019, 5:00pm CDT

Mayor Lori Lightfoot defends her decision to reward defeated Ald. John Arena (45th), who supported her, with a six-figure job in the city’s Department of Planning and Development. Fran S:pielman/Sun-Times

Mayor Lori Lightfoot on Tuesday defiantly defended her decision to reward ousted Ald. John Arena (45th) with a $129,996-a-year job in the Department of Planning and Development over strenuous

Eradicated, obliterated, absentiated and confiscated

$220,000 in ‘routine repairs’ underway in Mayor Lori Lightfoot’s City Hall office suite

Calm before the storm?

Gov. J.B. Pritzker’s aging office suite in the Thompson Center just got a $275,000 face-lift, courtesy of the billionaire governor’s own deep pockets. Lightfoot’s installment of ‘Windy City Rehab’ is being paid for with $220,000 generated by tax increment financing.

By Fran Spielman Aug 22, 2019, 2:55pm CDT

Repair work at Mayor Lori Lightfoot’s City Hall office suite.
City tradespeople in partnership Kenny Construction working Thursday on “routine repairs” in the room inside the mayor’s suite used for press conferences. Fran Spielman/Sun-Times
Days before lowering the boom on Chicago taxpayers to erase a $1 billion shortfall, Mayor Lori Lightfoot has signed off on a $220,000 remodeling of the mayor’s office on the fifth floor of City Hall.

Gov. J.B. Pritzker’s aging office suite in the widely despised Thompson Center just got a $275,000 face-lift, courtesy of the billionaire governor’s own deep pockets.

Lightfoot’s installment of “Windy City Rehab” is funded by $220,000 generated by tax increment

Streets & San to be privatized?

soon to be gone

Mayor Lightfoot has been reviewing every city governmental function and has identified huge cost savings that can be achieved by privatizing Streets & Sanitation. Long a haven for patronage, there are private companies that can do it cheaper and better. A final decision will be made before month end.

Friday, August 2, 2019

Next time you are drinking a glass of water, think of this story

‘Take a water hose and clean out’ Department of Water Management, mayor is urged
Former employees contend discrimination persists two years after a white commissioner was replaced by an African American in response to racist, sexist and homophobic emails.

By Fran Spielman Aug 1, 2019, 1:56pm CDT

Katherine Ealy, former chief operating engineer at the Sawyer Water Filtration plant, wipes away tears during a news conference Thursday at her attorney’s office. Fran Spielman/Chicago Sun-Times

Mayor Lori Lightfoot was urged Thursday to “take a water hose and clean out” Chicago’s Department of Water Management where, former employees contend, discrimination persists two years after a white commissioner was replaced by an African American.

Katherine Ealy was promoted to chief operating engineer at the Eugene Sawyer Water Purification Plant shortly after a 2017 housecleaning triggered by racist, sexist and homophobic emails; gone were Water Management Commissioner Barrett Murphy and his top deputies and supervisors.

Veteran City Hall insider Randy Conner, an African American, replaced Murphy and was given carte

Lightfoot outlines plan to ease punitive ticketing, towing and booting policy

The plan includes ending license suspensions for non-moving violations and reinstating a 15-day grace period for vehicle sticker renewals.

By Fran Spielman Jul 23, 2019, 5:00am CDT

Chicago’s punitive ticketing policies have forced some people into bankruptcy. Chicago Sun-Times
Mayor Lori Lightfoot campaigned on a promise to bring equity to an overly punitive ticketing, towing and booting policy that has unfairly targeted minorities and forced thousands into bankruptcy.

On Tuesday, the new mayor will outline her plan to start delivering on those promises.

The mayor’s ticket-debt relief plan, to be introduced at Wednesday’s City Council meeting, would:

City Develops New Plan To Trap Elusive Humboldt Park Alligator

July 15, 2019 at 5:57 am

CHICAGO (CBS) — The city announced new plans Sunday night to try and trap an alligator that has so far eluded conservation police, Animal Care and Control, and a man who calls himself Alligator Bob.

The gator was again spotted Sunday night, peaking its head above the water of the Humboldt Park lagoon before sinking back below the surface.

A 4-foot or 5-foot alligator swims in the lagoon at Humboldt Park. A reptile expert is trying to trap the reptile so it can be taken to a safer environment at a zoo or animal sanctuary.

It’s been playing this game of hide and seek for a week now.

After days of trying to catch the gator with no luck, the city is changing up its strategy.

Chicago Police closed off large portions of the park Sunday evening.

In addition, they’ve closed Humboldt Boulevard to traffic between North Avenue and Division Street, and have put up fencing and barricades surrounding the pedestrian paths on the east side of the park.

Lost and Found

The city of Chicago is pleased to announce personal belongings that were lost at the Navy Pier stampede, will be available for viewing and retrieval beginning Monday July 8, at the Daley Center plaza, between the hours of 8 A.M and 5 P.M.

Such items include:

Sandals
Shoes
Purses
Hats (no MAGA hats)
iPhones
Cameras
Diaper bags
Beach chairs
Unopened cans of beer
Coolers
Wallets
Chains
Knives
Towels
Guns (FOID required)
Mace
Blackjacks
Sunglasses
Baby strollers
Ammunition clips

Wednesday, August 8, 2018

More bad news for deadbeats

Forget the Car Boot, Now There's a Car 'Barnacle'

It sucks onto the windshield and can’t be removed until drivers call to pay a fine.

Imagine arriving at your badly parked car to find some… thing latched onto the windshield like a blocky, yellow leach. That’s a reality motorists are living with in the U.S., as cities test out a vision-blocking penalty panel called the “Barnacle.”

The concept behind the apparatus, made by New York’s Ideas That Stick, is simple: It’s a rugged plastic rectangle that attaches with incredible force to the windshield, and can’t be removed until motorists pay a fine over the phone and get a release code. Adding insult to injury, drivers are then expected to return it to a drop-off

Congrats to Alderman O'Shea on being named Chair of the Aviation Committee

Won't have to go through TSA any longer.

Monday, April 23, 2018

Chicago has the best paramedics in the world

11-shot-only-1-fatally-in-sunday-gun-violence-across-chicago

Tuesday, March 27, 2018

Matt O'Shea demands that IDOT clean up cesspool along Dan Ryan Expressway

CTA Red Line trains along the Dan Ryan Expressway filled with local residents on the way downtown, to look for a job. | John H. White/Sun-Times

Fran Spielman

@fspielman | email

A pair of South Side aldermen demanded Monday that the Illinois Department of Transportation clean up the embarassing mess left behind on the shoulder of the Dan Ryan Expy. by motorists who cavalierly toss their trash out the window.

Ald. Mike Zalewski (23rd) and Ald. Matt O’Shea (19th) said the southbound Ryan in particular is a pigpen that provides an ugly impression of Chicago, even though the city is