First Edition Of The Chicago Current

CITY COLLEGES TV STATION GOES LIVE FROM CHANCELLOR’S PRICEY PARTY. P11 COOK COUNTY

Paging Dr. Todd Stroger MONDAY NOVEMBER 9, 2009 CHICAGO, ILLINOIS

The Cook County hospital system is becoming an important part of Stroger’s reelection campaign. But critics say his complaints about layoffs and cutbbacks are misplaced. Stroger is maneuvering to rein in the system’s independent board, while opposing candidates disagree. P9

PUTTING BRAKES ON CTA MONEY TROUBLES

CAN OFFICIALS AVOID AGENCY’S ANNUAL BUDGET MELTDOWN? P4 LINDSAY BEYERSTEIN

Twilight for Daley? Chicago Mayor Richard M. Daley is the country’s longest-serving urban mayor. Critics say low approval ratings and a string of scandals may encourage opponents in the 2010 election. P7

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CHICAGO CURRENT CHICAGO, ILLINOIS, NOVEMBER 9, 2009 www.chicagocurrent.com

TABLE OF CONTENTS

EDITOR’S NOTE

AFTER AXELROD P3

A New Voice in Chicago

W

hat you’re holding in your hands right now is a rare thing: a new newspaper. In 2009.

BUILDING A BETTER CTA BUDGET

Can agency avoid annual doomsday? P4

NEW DETAILS IN REPUBLIC CASE STROGER TAKES New court records detail alleged fraud. P8

AIM AT HEALTH BOARD. P9

CITY HALL

WILL DALEY RUN AGAIN?

His polls are lower than ever, but he’s got money and patronage behind him. P7

EDUCATION

UNION WIN IN CHARTER CASE

Teachers now have their first contract at a charter school. P10

You may have heard that things aren’t so great in the news business. The Trib and the Sun-Times both sought bankruptcy protection in the past year, and a number of others have gone under. So what, you might ask, are we doing? The answer is simple. The Current aims to cover local politics, government and public affairs with the kind of verve and depth that many newspapers once did, but no longer can. If you’re looking for sports, fashion or entertainment, you can go ahead and put this newspaper down. There’s a copy of RedEye waiting for you on the floor of a nearby “L” car. If, however, you’re passionate about politics, please stick with us. We’ll do our best to give you the expert, in-depth coverage you’re looking for. We’ll take you behind the big stories at City Hall and into the little-examined nooks and crannies of Chicago-area public affairs. Peter Sachs’ story today on some questionable spending at Kennedy-King College is a great example of the kind of reporting we’ll bring you with every edition. We’ll give you the inside dope, like what’s going on with Axelrod’s firm now that he’s working for Obama. And we’ll ask the tough questions — hey, CTA, isn’t there a better way to budget? On our Web site, chicagocurrent.com, we’ll provide you with a welcoming community and an engaging space to hash out these questions in much greater detail, along with up-to-the-minute coverage and commentary on blogs written by our beat reporters. So that’s it. We’re new. We cover the hell out of politics and government in Chicago. This is our first edition, and we’re looking forward to sharing more great journalism with you over the years. Meanwhile, let us know how you like Chicago’s new newspaper. You can email us at [email protected].

INTERVIEW

LEARNING ON THE JOB

A former CEO receives a rude awakening in the public sector. P6

QUINN NAMES CSU TRUSTEES Students fault delay in making appointments. P11

CHICAGO CURRENT

Geoff Dougherty Editor and President

Peter Sachs Correspondent

Alex Parker, Adrian G. Uribarri Staff Writers

Current Publishing, LLC 800 W. Huron, Suite 3E Chicago, Illinois 60642 Tel. 773-362-5002 [email protected]

LABOR

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NEW DETAILS IN REPUBLIC WINDOWS CASE

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THE BUSINESS

Clients say Axelrod’s Consulting Firm Is Fine Without Him AKPD founder left to take White House position after Obama’s win

AP PHOTO/NATI HARNIK

David Axelrod speaking last month at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln.

k By Adrian G. Uribarri

I

t began as a hunch, with a political strategist who thought a young Illinois state senator could aspire to more. Soon, the senator became a president, and the strategist a presidential adviser. Now, a year after David Axelrod helped Barack Obama win the presidency, partners at his old firm are learning how to work without him. Conversations with clients and Chicago politicos indicate that AKPD Message and Media is doing just fine without the old boss. “I think people may be attracted to the glow,” says Don Rose, a Chicago political consultant and longtime friend of Axelrod’s. “I think there are people who might say, even without Axelrod, it is still the Axelrod firm.” Rose met Axelrod when the nowfamous presidential adviser was a cub reporter at the Hyde Park Herald. Rose was working as a political consultant in Chicago’s South Side, and dealing with Axelrod on some stories led him to write a raving recommendation letter to editors at the Chicago Tribune. That letter helped Axelrod land an internship spot at the Tribune, Rose says. In 1981, Axelrod would become the paper’s political writer and columnist — the youngest in the paper’s history, according to a

“I think there are people who might say, even without Axelrod, it is still the Axelrod firm.” Don Rose Chicago-based political consultant

White House biography. What happened afterward could very well have changed the course of the United States. In 1984, Axelrod left journalism to eventually manage media strategy and communications for more than 150 local, state and national campaigns. Twenty years after entering politics, Axelrod helped Obama defeat six Democrats and go on to a landslide win for a U.S. Senate seat. Five years later, when Senator Obama became president, Axelrod turned from senior partner at the firm he founded, AKPD, to senior adviser for the president. Officials at the White House re-

WHITE HOUSE

CAMPAIGN PHOTO

AP PHOTO/HARAZ N. GHANBARI

Axelrod left his consulting firm for a position in the White House.

Senate candidate David Hoffman recently hired Axelrod’s old firm.

David Plouffe is senior adviser at AKPD.

ferred all questions about AKPD to the firm, but partners nor staff there responded to repeated requests for comment. Some former clients and competitors of AKPD declined interviews when reached directly or through spokespeople. This summer, former Chicago Inspector General David Hoffman hired AKPD for his U.S. Senate campaign. He is trying to fill the seat held by outgoing fellow Democrat Roland Burris. Hoffman faces stiff competition: Former Illinois Treasurer Alexi Giannoulias, a friend of Obama’s, is considered the primary front-runner with about $2.4 million on hand at the end of September. Chicago Urban League President Cheryle Robinson Jackson and attorney Jacob Meister are also contenders. Yet Hoffman says AKPD’s backing gave him greater momentum in his campaign. Inking a deal with AKPD was like a vote of confidence,

he says. “It was a significant moment for me, that a team with that experience believed in me and motivated me to be in this race.” The White House has not issued an endorsement for the seat, but both Hoffman and Giannoulias have met with Axelrod in the White House. While the presidential adviser has divested his ownership stake in AKPD, he remains acutely involved with Democratic candidates on the national level. That kind of access is part of what Rose, the longtime Axelrod friend, considers key to the firm’s continued success with clients. While Axelrod is no longer a partner at AKPD, he has not completely cut off ties with colleagues. “It’s that very sense of contact,” Rose says. “I’m sure a potential client would know that at least these guys are friends and still talk.” Dawn Clark Netsch, the former Illinois comptroller, recalls meeting

Axelrod, her “informal adviser,” about 30 years ago. She says Axelrod’s transition to full-time work in Washington may be harder on him than on his firm. Axelrod, whose daughter has a seizure-related condition, has been a key supporter of Chicago-based Citizens United for Research in Epilepsy, or C.U.R.E. Some of his family still lives in the city. “He just has such deep roots here now,” Netsch says. “It was a little hard to get over the idea that he would decide to pack up and go to Washington, which he knows is a very different type of world.” She says his colleagues at AKPD might still be adjusting to his absence in Chicago, but that she expects no dramatic change. “There are some very good people there, and if they worked with David, they’ve got to be talented,” she said. “It may be different, but I think they will be able to survive without him.”

TRANSIT 04

CITY HALL

TWILIGHT OF THE DALEY YEARS?

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CTA

Can Yearly Financial Meltdown Be Avoided? Union says federal money could eliminate service cuts, layoffs k By Ben Meyerson

F

or the better part of the last decade, CTA riders have been held hostage. Over and over again, they’ve been threatened with everything from cuts in bus service to elimination of “L” lines. After years of patchwork fixes, small fare increases and loans, in 2008 the Illinois General Assembly passed new sales and real estate transfer taxes that lawmakers thought would be a viable long-term solution for the perennially underfunded system. But they didn’t foresee the nationwide collapse of the housing market and the recession that followed, which once again left a gaping hole in the CTA’s operations budget, this time to the tune of $300 million. As the agency scrambles to balance the books for 2010, service cuts and fare hikes are on the table once again. It begs the question: What will it take for the CTA to have a sustainable operations budget? Answers are plentiful. Consensus is not. Some officials hope the recovering economy will buoy the CTA, growing enough to provide the funding that the system needs. Others say the situation demands new revenue. “With the legislation that passed two years ago, everyone assumed that we’d have the influx of operational funds that we needed,” CTA president Richard Rodriguez said recently. “The economy has

tanked” The agency expected $100 million from real estate transfer taxes, and received just $25 million. Rodriguez says the solution may be to boost the CTA’s federal capital improvement budget. That could bring down operational costs. “The newer our system, the less I have to spend on operating. I would be able to reduce my operating costs if … my bus fleet was newer, my trains weren’t 40 years old, because of the cost of maintaining them and keeping them in working order,” he says. Robert Kelly, president of the Amalgamated Transit Union Local 308, one of the CTA employees’ unions, also wants more federal money for the CTA. He would use the funds for day-to-day operations — though he’s hesitant about depleting the capital budget. “Federal money has to be changed and allocated for transportation companies to use for operating costs — it has to be done,” says Kelly. “There’s no other way around this, we cannot allow all these cars to drive into the city. Somewhere in Washington, they have to understand that the way of the future is transit, and that has to trickle down.” Currently, the CTA can opt to use as much as 10 percent of federal capital funding for operations instead. The idea of trading longterm investment in the system for day-to-day funding isn’t popular with many.

ALEX PARKER

A Brown Line train leaves the Chicago Avenue El station.

CHICAGO TRANSIT AUTHORITY

I’m optimistic ... We think that the levels of public funding that we get from the real estate transfer tax will go up.” Terry Peterson Chicago Transit Authority chairman

“We have literally hundreds of train stations that don’t have running water, or broken pipes, and they have problems,” Kelly says. Joseph DiJohn, a professor at the University of Illinois at Chicago’s Urban Transportation Center, agreed, noting that diverting capital improvement dollars can have long-term consequences. “That’s essentially like using your mortgage to buy groceries,” he says. As for funding solutions in Illinois, Kelly favors a new gasoline tax to support the CTA. “The way that gasoline prices fluctuate every single day in this country, I don’t think that 2 cents a gallon is going to hurt anybody to fund transit,” Kelly says. But it seems unlikely Springfield will move soon to provide long-term funding for the CTA. An attempt to roll back the program that allows free rides for seniors — and will cost the CTA roughly $30 million this year — foundered in the legislature at the end of October, and likely won’t be back on the table until spring of 2010, according to Illinois Rep. Julie Hamos (D-Evanston). Hamos was the chief sponsor

of the “long-term” funding plan passed in 2008. “The saddest part of this whole story was that we thought we had solved the transit crisis once and for all, and just a few months later, the whole economy tanked,” Hamos says. However, she thinks that the real estate tax revenue will grow enough to support the agency. “That is my belief and probably my hope,” Hamos says. “I don’t think we should be micromanaging the transit system from the state capital.” The agency’s current plan for 2010 is to temporarily bandage the budget by raising fares, cutting service and laying off workers. CTA board chairman Terry Peterson is confident that whatever the solution, the problem won’t last. “I’m optimistic that this economy’s going to turn around. We think that the levels of public funding that we get from the real estate transfer tax will go up, as well as the sales tax will go up,” Peterson says. He added: “If it doesn’t turn around, we’re all in a world of trouble.”

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For Former Corporate Chief, County Health Job Is Eye-Opener k By Alex Parker

When Warren Batts, a retired executive with companies ranging from Tupperware to Premark International, was nominated last year to lead the newly formed Cook County Health and Hospitals System board of directors, he wasn’t sure it would be a good fit. But since becoming chairman, he has moved to cut patronage, pushed for greater efficiency and embarked on an aggressive search for new revenue. He spoke to the Current about what lies ahead for the hospital system.

You spent your entire career in the private sector. How does government work differ? This is my first up close and personal dealing with a political body. It’s a different world. It’s harder to get things done, and you have a county president and 17 commissioners, and each one has a very strong opinion on any subject we deal with. Overall, up to this point, in spite of criticism from different directions, the county commissioners have been supportive of what we try to get done. Commissioner (Jerry) Butler is my adviser and counselor on how not to screw up too badly. Only once I didn’t follow (his advice), and it turned out he was right. When you know you don’t know, it’s best to find somebody you know and trust to guide you. And that’s what I’ve done. The board consists of a lot of people who really know health care in Illinois, and they’ve been giving me good advice as I go along. PR-wise, I’ve been a disaster because I’ve literally learned legally what I can say, should say and should not say. I’m having to learn a whole new game as to what you can say when, so I’ve become a little more subdued in the meet-

ings, and less of a loose cannon, and hopefully constructive. It’s just a learning process for me, but by the time (the board’s three-year tenure) is over, I might be pretty good at it. What have been the independent health board’s biggest accomplishments in the last year and a half? I think it’s more getting headed in the right direction in a relatively short time. After all, this board, except for me, all have regular jobs, and they’ve given a huge amount of their time to make this thing happen. We’ve got a first-class management team in place. We will have our own general ledger online which will greatly improve our financial reporting system. …We’ll get better information, so we can actually hold people accountable for what they’ve been doing. We’ve joined the group purchasing organization, which, when we get it in full swing, will save us about $20 million a year. We’re continually looking for ways to operate efficiently. The more efficiently we operate, the more services we can provide.

GEOFF DOUGHERTY

When you know you don’t know, it’s best to find somebody you know and trust to guide you. And that’s what I’ve done.” We are the safety net, and we can’t let that safety net disappear or weaken .” Warren Batts Cook County health system board chairman

The health board held a series of town hall meetings in the summer, and again last month to discuss changes to the health system. There were some pretty heated reactions. Did the public reaction to some ideas, such as ending inpatient services at Provident and Oak Forest hospitals, surprise you? The same people who show up at these meetings tend to be pretty consistent. You have the unions representing the workers, you have a few patients with individual situations, you have some community people, and that pattern doesn’t change in

the meetings. And I think people are going to be surprised that we do listen to what they’re saying. We do have consultants, but consultants are consultants. We have to make the decisions. There isn’t more and more to spend, and that part hasn’t been absorbed (by the public) yet, and I don’t think it will be. I hope they appreciate when we get through this that we are listening and adjusting accordingly … to make sure we don’t abandon any group of people that needs our help. We are the safety net, and we can’t let that safety net disappear or weaken. What do you see as the health system’s biggest challenges? Short term, we have to get our 2010 budget approved. That’s under way. The second thing is we’ve got to pin down our strategy and our three-year financial plan, and we plan to have a five-year plan. … Any major change is going to take three years, at least. The great unknown we face is what will be the affect of the health care bill coming out of Congress. As Warren Buffett says, this is not health care reform, this is adding more people to the Medicare rolls and figuring out how to pay for it. If they’re all signed up on Medicaid tomorrow, will they keep coming to (Stroger Hospital)? And

my sense is if they’re going to have to stand in line all day versus going to a local hospital and waiting for an hour, they’re going to vote with their feet. So we have to increase our patient orientation immediately to be attractive to people who have Medicare, Medicaid and public insurance, et cetera. What will success ultimately look like for the independent board? If we can accomplish the operating goals, if the board can be at least extended, hopefully made permanent, so it’s not a game of let’s wait the board out and resist what management is trying to accomplish, that would be ideal. We have a strategy, and our financial plan has been approved by the commissioners, and we have a first-class management team in place. We have information systems that actually have accurate information. If we can get a supply chain system working, where we’re getting (supplies) at competitive prices on a regular basis and still meet the (minority- and women-owned business) goal the best we can, and we continue to educate and hold responsible the management of the organization. That will not be all done at the end of our time (in 2011), but it will be under way.

CITY HALL 07

COOK COUNTY

HOSPITAL SYSTEM IN POLITICAL TUG OF WAR

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P9

THE MAYOR

Scandals, Angst Could Encourage Daley Foes in 2011 Vote

Will age, Olympic loss lead longserving mayor to bow out? k By Geoff Dougherty

I

n 1969, Richard M. Daley entered politics as a newly elected delegate to the Illinois Constitutional Convention. He’s now the nation’s longestserving urban mayor, and a Chicago icon on par with the Hancock building, Wrigley Field and another red-cheeked, syntax-challenged guy named Ditka. But Daley is now 67. He’s wrestling with the lowest approval ratings in his mayoral career, a city government hamstrung by the recession, a failed Olympic bid and a tide of ill will rising over his moves to privatize city services. Is this the twilight of the Daley years? And if so, who is Chicago’s next mayor? Few would have posed those questions just a few years ago. But Daley will soon need to decide whether he’s a candidate in the February 2011 election – a move that would keep him in office well into his 70s. “My own view, if I had to guess, is that he will run,” says Marty Oberman, a former alderman prominent in independent politics. “That’s who he is. He runs for mayor.” But Oberman and others say Daley’s age, coupled with his low approval ratings and the changing demographics of the city, may

make him vulnerable in a way that he hasn’t been before. “With each passing year, the population is shifting to younger people, to young professionals, to career-oriented people who aren’t from Chicago,” he says. “The whole Daley phenomenon is not something they’re as wedded to as old-timers. Incrementally, it applies to fewer people each year.” Dick Simpson, another former alderman who now heads the political science department of the University of Illinois at Chicago, says the mayor still has a major weapon left in his arsenal: money. “My assumption is that he still has, if he runs, vast resources. He can easily raise more than $7 milllion,” says Simpson. Daley’s patronage army would also discourage potential opponents from testing the waters. “It’s down from his father’s 35,000 to something like 5,000,” Simpson says. “But it’s still much more than anyone else’s.” In the past, those strengths have limited the competition to the rare politicians who relish an almostcertain defeat. If the 2011 election proves to be more hotly contested, it will be because Daley’s current situation attracts stronger candidates. “There aren’t a large number of people of mayoral timbre,” says

LINDSAY BEYERSTEIN

Richard M. Daley is the nation’s longest-serving urban mayor.

U.S. Rep. Jesse Jackson Jr.

City Clerk Miguel del Valle

U.S. Rep. Luis Gutierrez

Simpson. “It has to be someone who’s run before.” Among those who might fit the bill would be City Clerk Miguel del Valle, County Clerk David Orr, and U.S. Reps. Jesse Jackson Jr. and Luis Gutierrez, Simpson says. Of those, Jackson could make the most formidable candidate – but only if he’s able to clear his name in the House ethics investigation stemming from former Gov. Rod Blagojevich’s attempt to fill the Senate seat now occupied by Roland Burris. “It’s casting a question mark until he’s cleared,” says Oberman. If there is a strong opponent for Daley, that candidate will have his work cut out for him. “Someone’s going to have to cut through the sense that you can’t beat City Hall here,” says Oberman. “It’s largely a self-fulfilling prophecy.” But with the right coalition – including black and Hispanic voters, good government groups and voters upset about everything from taxes to the Olympics and crime – a solid candidate might have a chance. “It would come down to them all gelling around some meaningful opponent,” says Oberman. Marilyn Katz, a Daley ally whose public relations firm does work for the city, says the backlash against the mayor is related to the economy

more than frustration with him personally. “Everybody in the nation feels insecure about the future,” she says. “The question is the same for the whole country,” She expects the rising economic tide will lift Daley, too. But will that encourage him to run again? Or might he decide to spend his seventh decade relaxing? She noted that working late into life is something of a Chicago tradition. Daley’s father died in office. Ruth Rothstein, former leader of the county health system, stayed into her eighties. Rev. Arthur Brazier, a wellknown civic leader and pastor of Apostolic Church of God in Woodlawn, just retired at age 89, she says. “I think the best among us work until we’re bored,” she says. Simpson says he predicted Daley would bow out before the election he most recently won. That’s why he’s not guessing what will happen this time around. “It’s a long way off,” he says. “A few scandals could make a difference.”

LABOR 08

EDUCATION

UNIONS FOCUS ON CHARTER SCHOOLS

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P10

REPUBLIC WINDOWS

Prosecutors: Complex Fraud Scheme at Factory

Gillman accused of using shell companies to bilk window maker k By Peter Sachs

A

s prosecutors describe it, the abrupt shutdown and looting of Republic Windows and Doors — which put 200 people out of work last December — was in fact part of a scheme nearly a year in the making. But when the laid-off workers staged a sit-in at the factory for their lost wages, they also threw a wrench in those plans. Richard Gillman, the former president of the company, was arrested in early September on a slew of felony charges and is slated to be formally arraigned later this month. Gillman and several other company officers succeeded in taking hundreds of thousands of dollars from Republic before it shut down, prosecutors say. Recently released court documents provide a more detailed account of where that money went and how it was spent. Ed Genson, who is Gillman’s attorney, declined to comment for this story. At Gillman’s initial appearance in September, Genson blasted the charges as a publicity attempt by State’s Attorney Anita Alvarez. He noted that some of the issues raised in the indictment were the same ones Republic was seeking to address in its federal bankruptcy case. FINANCIAL TROUBLES Republic’s executives started talking as early as March 2008 about how to square the company’s mounting debts with its shrinking revenues. Low on cash, the company had stopped paying its suppliers for raw materials like window panes and vinyl, according to court records. Suppliers stopped extending credit, and banks that had loaned

BOOKING PHOTO

Richard Gillman

“I’m glad that (bail) was so high, that he couldn’t get out, that he had to do some time.” Mayor Ted Schoonover Mayor of Red Oak, Iowa

Republic money were starting to clamp down. Officials discussed selling the company or merging it with another manufacturer. Between mid-March and midApril 2008, managers also talked about buying a plant from Traco, a company that owned a similar window factory in rural Red Oak, Iowa, about two hours southeast of Omaha, Neb. At a meeting at the end of April 2008, managers sketched a timeline that included closing Republic’s Goose Island plant by early 2009. Prosecutors note that the options on the table in early 2008 were all “viable, legal and ethical” — even buying the Iowa factory, assuming that Republic’s creditors had been notified. A ‘CONSPIRACY’ By the summer of 2008, Republic’s managers turned from le-

AP PHOTO/PAUL BEATY

Republic Windows and Doors worker Dagoberto Cervantos with his son, Rafael, during a news conference last year. gitimate ways to sell or close the Partners more than $202,000. While IFP produced invoices company to fraudulent options, for things like chemicals and extruprosecutors say. Soon, Gillman was looking for a sion equipment, Republic never got way to escape Republic’s debts and those items. Prosecutors called the invoices keep the company going in another “phony” and IFP’s checking acform. Throughout 2008, prosecutors count a “slush fund” for Gillman. say, Gillman started laundering Quite simply, court documents say, money from Republic through shell the plans were a “conspiracy” to defraud the company’s employees, corporations created at his behest. In all, Republic paid a company creditors and suppliers. called International Fenestration

ECHO WINDOWS By September 2008, Gillman and Bill Smith, a friend who had also once owned a stake in Republic, were setting up a series of companies to buy the Red Oak plant and rename it Echo Windows. As Smith set into motion the property side of the deal, other employees at Republic were directed to order specialized machine parts. The supplier was paid nearly $27,000 for the work in the form of checks from the IFP account, even as Republic had an unpaid debt to that supplier of about $8,000. With the parts in hand, prosecutors say, Gillman would have been able to retool the machinery and make a different line of windows. In early November 2008, a month before Republic shut down, Gillman directed employees to start packing up some of the machinery in the Goose Island plant. The union caught on and tried to stop the relocation, but to no avail. In all, the equipment filled 10 semitruck trailers. Three of them got to the Red Oak plant the day before Republic shut down. The other seven trailers full of equipment only made it as far as a storage yard west of Midway Airport. IFP, the Ohio-based “slush fund,” paid the trucking company, court records say. WHAT’S NEXT Some of Republic’s workers got rehired when a California company, Serious Materials, bought the Goose Island factory and started retooling it earlier this year to make energy-efficient windows. In Red Oak, many of Echo’s employees left the small town because there were no other jobs in the area, Mayor Ted Schoonover says. A small manufacturer moved in near Traco’s plant in Red Oak earlier this year, bringing its 115 employees from Omaha. That’s giving the town an economic boost, Schoonover says. Gillman is scheduled to be arraigned later this month. His trial likely won’t start until sometime in early 2010. Several former Echo employees are expected to testify. For Echo’s employees in Red Oak, Gillman’s arrest and unusually high $10 million bail provided a sense of justice and closure, says Schoonover. “I’m glad that it was so high, that he couldn’t get out, that he had to do some time.”

COOK COUNTY 09

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GEOFF DOUGHERTY

ELECTIONS

County Hospital System Figures in Stroger Race k By Alex Parker

I

n the year and a half since the Cook County Health and Hospitals System was wrenched away from the Cook County Board of Commissioners, the independent board has taken drastic steps to increase revenue and improve efficiency and services to patients. But that’s included hundreds of layoffs and the prospect of ending inpatient services at Provident and Oak Forest hospitals, which critics say will harm health care on the South Side of Chicago and the south suburbs. The audacity of the independent

health board has irked Cook County Board President Todd Stroger, who has in recent weeks launched a series of attacks on its members. It’s clear the health system will take on an important role in Stroger’s bid for reelection, in which he will also defend an unpopular sales tax and scrutiny about the county’s hiring practices. The tax hike, he says, is integral to preserving health care in the county. “Right from the beginning, if it weren’t for me signing that one cent, we wouldn’t have a health system, we’d have a hospital,” he told the Current. “It’s me that’s put his

FORMER COLLEGE CHIEF’S POSH PARTY P11

Registered nurse Verline Grant treats a newborn at Provident Hospital. Officials have discussed cutting inpatient services at the hospital.

Cook leader bashes independent board over staffing cutbacks

EDUCATION

"We cannot allow and will not allow the board to pay millions of dollars to outside consultants” Todd Stroger Cook County Board President

"How can he (Stroger) take credit for things he disagrees with so strongly?” Larry Suffredin Cook County Commissioner

neck on the line to make sure the services are out there.” Can Stroger bank on the health system to prop up his campaign? Local political observers say his attitude toward the health board will

make it difficult for him to be positioned as a champion of health care. But Stroger argues that without the sales tax, health care in the county would be in trouble. Dick Simpson, a professor of political science at the University of Illinois at Chicago, says Stroger will try to tie some of his unpopular decisions to the stability of the county health system. “He’s going to try and claim the reason he had to do the sales tax increase was to save health care at Cook County Hospital and the satellite hospitals in Cook County,” Simpson says. “It’s overblown.” As county commissioners tried to eliminate the sales tax, Stroger repeatedly said cutting the tax would threaten the county’s health services. But the health system’s budget is relying less and less on

county subsidies, furthering the appearance of independence from downtown influence. “Personally, I think that the board doesn’t have any oversight, and that means they have too much power because they don’t have a constituency that they have to talk to,” Stroger says. “So I’d like to rein them in some and make them accountable to the (county) board, or at least have some kind of connection to the board.” Margie Schaps, executive director of the Health & Medicine Policy Research Group, says Stroger needs to zero in on a consistent message. “On one hand, he’s saying how great it is they’ve made layoffs in the entire county. On the other hand, he’s saying it’s bad they’re laying people off in the county health system,” Schaps says. Schaps says it’s important to keep bureaucracy away from the health system. “We believe it is important to have an independent board for this health system because the issues are very complicated,” she says. “To rely on any set of public officials to manage this system is really more than we can expect.” Management changes at the health system recently led to $200 million in savings and $160 million in new revenue. But Suffredin says it will be difficult for Stroger to claim credit for that. Stroger, for his part, says he had been discussing the possibility of getting untapped federal dollars before the independent board was created. “Had he wanted to cooperate with them and work to maximize federal dollars and maximize outreach to other people, I think he would have been in a position to take credit for them,” says Suffredin, who negotiated the creation of the independent board in exchange for his vote on the one-percent sales tax last year. “Now he’s at war with (the health board), so how can he take credit for things he disagrees with so strongly?” But Stroger says some of the credit should fall to him. That it’s not, he says, is not surprising. “I expected we would be forgotten by most as the people who really got the ball rolling in changing the system,” he says.

EDUCATION 10

INTERVIEW

COUNTY’S HEALTH CZAR IN HOT SEAT

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CHARTER SCHOOLS

New Union Charts Fresh Course for Educators

Administrators, teachers sign first contract after labor struggle k By Adrian G. Uribarri

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he battle began in Chicago, continued in Springfield and wound up in Washington. Now, it has come to a close. About a year after they began a unionizing effort, teachers at the Chicago International Charter School finally have a contract with administrators. They were the first charterschool teachers to form a union in the city, and their labor group, the Chicago Alliance of Charter Teachers and Staff, or A.C.T.S., represents a growing battleground for labor activists around the United States. Charter schools are public schools that are exempt from some Chicago district policies. Once isolated from the influence of unions, they are quickly becoming recruiting havens for educational labor organizers. In their view, the new Chicago union is a model for collaboration between organized labor and administrators at the schools. “Do we want to build on it? Clearly,” says Gail Purkey, spokeswoman at the Illinois Federation of Teachers. “This is groundbreaking and significant. It sort of sets the tone for how things could work at other charter schools.” Purkey’s view reflects how labor leaders across the nation are trying to enlarge their ranks within charter schools rather than resist them. Historically, teachers’ unions have been at odds with charter schools,

viewing them as a threat to student enrollment at traditional public schools and therefore a menace to jobs for unionized teachers. Now, thanks to federal support, the schools are sprouting up so quickly that union leaders cannot ignore them. In April, when the Chicago teachers announced their plan to unionize, American Federation of Teachers President Randi Weingarten got behind them, giving a rousing speech to delegates of the Chicago Teachers Union. Last week, she called their contract “a recognition that schools will work better for kids when labor and management work together. Charter school teachers, like all other public school teachers, want the ability to contribute to student success at their school.” Chicago A.C.T.S. was also a chance for labor leaders to test the boundaries of charter-school policy. While union organizers initially certified their bargaining unit with a state labor board that oversees public schools, executives at Chicago International Charter School prevailed in their argument that the case belonged in the National Labor Relations Board, which governs the private sector. As they saw it, CICS is a private institution because it is has a private board of directors, despite receiving millions of dollars of taxpayer money annually. Ultimately, however, the teachers

ADRIAN G. URIBARRI

Matt Karlan teaches a math class at the Chicago International Charter School’s Ralph Ellison campus.

AFT

Schools will work better for kids when labor and management work together.” Randi Weingarten American Federation of Teachers

earned recognition for a union from both the state and national boards, allowing them to launch negotiations in July and finalize a contract in late October. They also received the backing of state legislators, who passed a law that explicitly names the Illinois Educational Labor Relations Board as the proper jurisdiction for similar cases. That board is seen as friendlier to unions since it allows teachers to join a bargaining unit simply by signing a membership card, rather than by holding a ballot election. CICS Chief Executive Officer Simon Hess joined the school shortly before teachers went public with their union drive in April. He supported a ballot election certified by the NLRB, arguing that allowing teachers to take ballots home allowed them greater privacy in electing a union. When the ballots returned, 73 teachers voted for the union, and 49 against it. Hess says that since then, negotiations with the teachers’ union have been productive. Still, he characterized the union drive as an unnecessary and expensive venture.

Direct negotiations with teachers would have yielded similar working conditions, he says. “It would have been a lot cheaper for both sides,” Hess says. “There wouldn’t have been so many attorneys or negotiators involved.” Emily Mueller, who headed the teachers’ negotiating committee, disagrees. She says the negotations were amicable, and that the union was instrumental in securing a transparent wage scale, classsize limits and a voice in curricular changes. According to the union, the contract includes raises that range from 4.2 to 25.4 percent in the first year of teachers’ contracts, and raises of up to 10.55 percent in the second and third years, as well as additional merit pay. Mueller says such conditions are a stark contrast from the situation last year, when she says administrators forced teachers to teach six periods instead of their regular five, without offering them a raise. “I don’t think we would have gotten a seat at the table, period, if it hadn’t been for the union,” Mueller says.

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CITY COLLEGES

Televising Chancellor’s Dinner Cost Public Station Thousands Extra staff, security needed for Watson farewell party on WYCC k By Peter Sachs

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arlier this year, as the City Colleges pondered how to trim expenses and balance its budget – an exercise that eventually lead to 58 layoffs – technicians at Kennedy-King College were installing a $166,000 robotic camera system in the upscale Sikia Restaurant. The project, pushed by thenChancellor Wayne Watson since mid-2008, culminated in an inviteonly dinner in May that featured singer Terisa Griffin – and which was broadcast live on WYCC, the district’s PBS station. The event also celebrated Watson, who was leaving the district. The $166,000 included a highend Sony HD camera, a pair of robotic camera controllers, and the

cost of designing, engineering and installing the system. Running the show and providing extra security in the campus parking lots for the event added several thousand more dollars to the bill. In dozens of e-mails between district officials discussing the installation of the equipment and the planning of the May event, student involvement and educational benefits take a distant second place to meeting Watson’s expectations. “The Chancellor voiced to me his expectation that we will conduct a new Sikia Grand Opening featuring the ‘live’ broadcast of (a) jazz singer,” wrote Chiaka Patterson, a planning director with the district, in an April e-mail. She went on to say that a performance in May “always has been a

GEOFF DOUGHERTY

Line cook Rene Ortiz plates a dish at Sikia Restaurant. goal the Chancellor expressed over the months.” Last week, district officials said the expensive equipment was installed for the benefit of students. It is being used weekly for the taping of WYCC’s “Sounds of Sikia” show. Students gain experience operating the robotic cameras, which adds to their resumes, says Kiara Battle, the director of Kennedy-King’s media communications department. But that doesn’t seem to have been the primary goal when the equipment was installed. “The obvious goal of adding live entertainment to Sikia is to draw in more customers,” Patterson wrote in her April e-mail. Arthur Wood, who is WYCC’s general manager, did not return a call seeking comment. Watson, now the president of Chicago State University, declined to comment. He says it would be “inappropri-

CHICAGO STATE UNIVERSITY

Quinn Names Four New Trustees k By Peter Sachs After months of unexplained delays, Gov. Pat Quinn last week named four new members to Chicago State University’s board of trustees. The four new members are Lisa Morrison Butler, who runs City Year Chicago; Gary Rozier, a vice president at Ariel Investments; Julie Samuels, the Openlands Project’s outreach coordinator; and Zaldwaynaka Scott, an attorney and executive inspector general under former Gov. Rod Blagojevich.

But one thing t h a t ’s m i s s ing, faculty and other observers at CSU say, is an alumni presence. “It’s kind of Gov. Pat Quinn sad because not one of them are alumni,” says Donald Pettis, the president of CSU’s alumni board. “They’re not from Chicago State.” The lack of a faculty or alumni presence on the board is not un-

usual, says Richard Novak, a senior vice president at the Association of Governing Boards, based in Washington. But that doesn’t mean they should be excluded, either, he says. “The board can appoint nonboard members to be on (its) committees, and it makes great sense for an academic affairs committee to have faculty members on it,” Novak says. CSU’s board had been operating for most of this year with half its seats empty, and it has been two years since the board had a full com-

ate” for him to talk about the City Colleges since he is no longer associated with the district. This is not the first time WYCC has drawn attention for special programming linked to Watson. Between 2004 and 2006, Watson directed WYCC to produce promotional videos for politicians, including former state Senate President Emil Jones. The station’s former general manager said in a lawsuit this summer that she was fired in retaliation for opposing those plans. Both the Corporation for Public Broadcasting and the Illinois Arts Council, which have given WYCC large grants, forbid their grant money from being used for political purposes. If the money were found to have been misspent then it would have to be repaid, officials from those agencies have said. The board of trustees approved up to $200,000 for video equip-

ment and television cameras at its December 2008 meeting. The outlays prompted no discussion from board members. A one-page description of the spending does not specifically say why the equipment was needed, nor did it name Sikia or Kennedy-King College. In an e-mail two weeks after that meeting, Patterson wrote to several WYCC officials that, with approval in hand, “there is a need to quickly refine and nail down the scope and cost of this project.” Diane Minor, the vice chancellor in charge of the district’s facilities, said last week the installation gives broadcast students a broader range of experience. “It’s a part of the syllabus or the training program for students to learn off-site or live taping, as well as the programming for WYCC,” she says.

plement of members. The new appointees will join board members Leon Finney, Richard Tolliver, Betsy Hill and student trustee Levon James, who are retaining their seats. “I hope that it is the beginning of a new chapter,” says Yan Searcy, the president of CSU’s faculty senate. “It appears that there is a nice mix of community and business (experience), in terms of the recent appointees.” In recent weeks, critics at CSU and in the media have swatted at Quinn for waiting so long to make the appointments. When an admissions scandal rocked the University of Illinois in May, Quinn replaced all but two of its board members by the

end of the summer. But any notion that the delay at CSU was based on race is probably misplaced, says Novak. “It’s not uncommon for the flagship institution, no matter the issue, whether it’s funding or board appointments … to get more attention than the regional or urban universities,” Novak says. “That’s not uncommon, and that’s just a fact of life in any state.” Scott, who is a U of I graduate, says she is open to the concerns of people who want to see alumni and faculty given a greater role. “At this point I’m open to anything that’s going to help turn the situation around,” Scott says.