Mayor Emanuel says he’s cut into “every one of the financial bad management practices that I inherited.” Has he really set city finances on a distant path to soundness?
Follow-Up
Posted inFollow-Up, Investigation
How CHA Rehabs Of Senior Apartments Blow Through Budgets, Cause Real Pain
Expensive cost overruns are the rule, rather than the exception, when the Chicago Housing Authority orders up renovations at senior housing complexes it runs. Inconvenience, frustration and sometimes danger for elderly residents accompany the rehab work.
Posted inFollow-Up, Investigation, PolitiFact
Fact-Check: Are Chicago’s Soda Prices Among Highest In The Country?
Calling Chicago’s soda price expensive is a little like proclaiming the sun rises in the east, but we thought it was worth a look anyway.
Posted inFollow-Up, Investigation, PolitiFact
BGA, PolitiFact Form Exclusive Partnership To Hold Illinois Government Accountable
For a fact-challenged era in a fact-challenged state, The Better Government Association has signed on as Illinois’ fact-checking referee.
Posted inFollow-Up, Investigation, PolitiFact
Fact-Check: Does The Proposed Illinois School Funding Bill Bail Out Chicago’s Teacher Pensions?
An official fact-check from the BGA, the exclusive operator of PolitiFact Illinois, here to help you find the truth in politics via the Pulitzer Prize-winning web approach built by the Tampa Bay Times.
Posted inFollow-Up, Investigation
Journey Of A Judge’s Gun From Chicago Buyback To Cicero Police Shooting
A Cook County judge turned a gun in to Chicago police as part of a buyback program 13 years ago. The gun mysteriously turned up eight years later next to the body of a young man shot to death by a Cicero police officer. Cicero officials are now poised to write a $3.5 million settlement check to members of the dead man’s family.
Posted inFollow-Up, Investigation
Aldermen Grill City, McCormick Place Officials Over Navy Pier TIF Plan
Nothing to see here, the Emanuel administration declares at a hastily arranged City Hall hearing prompted by a BGA/Crain’s investigative report of a shell game that shifted blight-fighting tax funds to Navy Pier.
Posted inFollow-Up, Investigation
Former Alderman, Internet Pioneer Fined In Emanuel Email Lobbying Case
They were among the latest group of five individuals the Chicago Ethics Board said had fined for attempting to influence Mayor Emanuel or other officials through emailed contacts that became public after the settlement of a BGA lawsuit against the city.
Posted inFollow-Up, Investigation
Alderman Calls For Hearings In Wake Of BGA/Crain’s Navy Pier Investigation
Third Ward Alderman Pat Dowell has called for public hearings into the diversion of $55 million in city blight fighting-funds to a Navy Pier renovation project.
Posted inFollow-Up, Investigation
How City Power Players Diverted $55 Million In Blight-Fighting TIF Cash To Navy Pier
A $55 million financial shell game linked to the administration of Mayor Rahm Emanuel vividly plays into a frequent complaint that the city often raids a tax piggy bank earmarked for disadvantaged neighborhoods to instead bankroll mayoral vanity projects.