All Forum Posts by: Sid Franklin

Today's "Grand Bargain" vote in the state senate is very important to CPS' future and the state's business climate.  If the senate fails to pass a budget today, the state may have to do without a budget for 2 more years and not have one enacted during the entire time Bruce Rauner is Governor.  I'm not sure how many more years Illinois companies will tolerate a severely unstable business climate with the hope of seeing a few more cuts and reforms versus revenue hikes.

http://www.politico.com/tipsheets/illinois-playboo...

Good Wednesday morning, Illinois. So, who was expecting to find this in their kid’s backpack?: Some 380,000 Chicago Public School students were sent home with a letter blaming Gov. Bruce Rauner for the latest round of cuts hitting the state’s largest school system. CPS CEO Forrest Claypool wrote that that would have provided $215 million to the district, was akin to stealing from children. “We are writing to let you know about two of the biggest cuts that Governor Rauner has forced us to make right now,” Claypool’s letter said. He then made this comparison to President Donald Trump. “Like President Trump, Governor Rauner is targeting our most vulnerable citizens: immigrant children, racial minorities, the poor.”

This prompted a sharp reply through an “open letter” to CPS parents from Rauner’s Education Secretary Beth Purvis. “Rather than cutting services and creating a crisis to help justify a campaign to raise taxes in Springfield, it would be helpful to everyone if CPS would work with all parties to enact a balanced budget package that includes comprehensive pension reform and a new and equitable school funding formula.” The Illinois GOP

CLAYPOOL’s LETTER — “All CPS students sent home with letter accusing Gov. Rauner of ‘cheating’ kids,” “Intense rhetoric between Chicago Democrats and Illinois’ republican governor is nothing new, but some parents are upset it is now being played out in a letter sent home with their kids. Chicago Public Schools officials sent home a letter with all 381,000 students blasting Gov. Bruce Rauner and ignoring any role democrats may have played in the state’s budget woes … One CPS parent who contacted WGN wrote: ‘This is so inappropriate. How can he send political propaganda home?’ The letter, paid for by taxpayers, does not mention democrats who have been in control of the city and state legislature for decades.” Ben Bradley’s piece on WGN

PURVIS RESPONSE — “Rauner Fires Back At CPS Cuts, Calling Them 'Curiously Timed, Unfortunate’,” by DNAinfo’s Heather Cherone: “Gov. Bruce Rauner fired back Tuesday at Chicago Public Schools officials for slashing $46 million from public schools' budgets to fill the hole blown in the district's budget by the governor's veto of $215 million officials had been counting on. In a letter to Chicago parents on Rauner’s letterhead and signed by Illinois Education Secretary Beth Purvis, the governor called the cuts ‘curiously timed and unfortunate.’ On Tuesday, Chicago Public Schools CEO Forrest Claypool likened Rauner to President Donald Trump and accused him of attacking the ‘most vulnerable among us — largely poor and minority students — to score points in a political chess match.’” Story here.

TRIB WEIGHS IN — “City Hall’s CPS blame game: Why isn’t Claypool pounding on his fellow Democrats to fix their fiasco?” by Chicago Tribune’s editorial board: “Chicago Public Schools CEO Forrest Claypool is scrambling because the district’s budget is seriously out of whack and a huge teachers pension payment looms in June. On Monday, Claypool announced a $46 million 'spending freeze' that will force principals to scramble themselves to rejigger their budgets in the middle of the school year. Those cuts likely will be felt by teachers and students, not just bureaucrats in the central office. And the budget still isn't balanced. What — or whom — does Claypool blame for this budget debacle? How about the district's many years of reckless fiscal mismanagement and chronic spending beyond its revenues?” Editorial here.

That sounds so cool!  You've convinced me, I should invest in a death spiral!  I don't think the truly wealthy CME members would agree with your statement.  And watch the entire trading industry walk away from Chicago when a CTU influenced Mayor and City Council impose a financial transactions tax on the CME, CBOT and CBOE.  This moment is only one election away from happening.  What will real estate values be like after Chuy Garcia takes the helm of Chicago?

The Patch admittedly isn't the best news source and the stats came from a right wing political group with an ax to grind on property taxes.

Illinois' budget is in such a precarious state that another national recession will be very rough on everyone.  However, if Chicago's crime trend continues or grows and CPS lays off teachers rather than doing a bankruptcy, DuPage, Lake and Suburban Cook are likely beneficiaries of a population shift of families with children.

@Malcolm Douglas I'm already out.  I'll be buying deals back in the City after the crash.  There's going to be a whole lot of them.

Bridgeport, Chinatown & McKinley Park

Crime & Mayhem

https://www.dnainfo.com/chicago/20170203/bridgepor...

I would agree with the Chicago apologists on here that DuPage County's plummeting home values have something to do with millennialls leaving DuPage for Chicago.  The article, however, blames it all on high property taxes.  Unfortunately, lower home prices, better schools and no crime in the suburbs make it easier for this trend to be reversed.  Will Chicago blow it?  Gen Y might not want to live in DuPage.  That doesn't mean they won't move to a different urban area to avoid high taxes, high crime, bad schools, etc.

http://patch.com/illinois/downersgrove/home-values...

As government spending increases, home values are going negative.

If you live in DuPage County, you might not want to put your place on the market anytime soon.

Government spending, increased school tax levies and municipal debts are deflating the values of homes in Chicago’s western suburbs by hundreds of thousands of dollars, the DuPage Policy Journal reported this weekend.

According to the site, which is run by Local Government Information Services in an effort to prioritize political transparency, every single DuPage community has seen a drop in value, from the top performers (Glen Ellyn and Naperville, whose property values fell 19 percent throughout the past decade) to the very worst (Willowbrook homes saw a 48 percent drop in value).

Statistics collected by Sperling’s Best Places, whose latest numbers were updated in December of 2016, show home appreciation in DuPage has decreased by 11.43 percent over the past decade. In the past year, and even five years, those numbers were positive, seeing an increase of 3.21 percent and 1.83 percent, respectively.

The Policy Journal attributes the quickly falling numbers to increased local government spending and debt.

“The numbers are particularly startling given record-low interest rates and Illinois’ political environment, currently controlled by public employee unions poised to continue increasing government spending and borrowing,” the article states. “The net result: property taxes are pressured higher and higher, and property values lower and lower.”

Get free real-time news alerts from the Downers Grove Patch.

In Hinsdale and Elmhurst, school expenses have soared throughout the past decade, increasing steadily as local home values dropped by 25 percent in each community.

Between 2007 and 2015, values dropped by these percentages in the western suburbs:

• 48 percent in Willowbrook, from an average home value of $348,646 to $182,000
• 40 percent in Glendale Heights, from $266,342 to $161,000
• 37 percent in Addison, from $325,789 to $206,000
• 33 percent in Westmont, from $353,218 to $237,000
• 31 percent in Lombard, from $322,354 to $221,000
• 28 percent in Darien, from $397,799 to $285,000
• 28 percent in Woodridge, from $314,353 to $226,000
• 28 percent in Oak Brook, from $954,489 to $688,000
• 27 percent in Clarendon Hills, from $595,555 to $432,000
• 27 percent in Lisle, from $352,075 to $258,000
• 25 percent in Hinsdale, from $1.073 million to $802,000
• 25 percent in Elmhurst, from $484,674 to $363,000
• 23 percent in Downers Grove, from $397,799 to $308,000
• 22 percent in Wheaton, from $401,228 to $313,000
• 19 percent in Glen Ellyn, from $437,807 to $353,000

(A full list, including projections for these towns for 2023, is available here.)

According to Sperling’s numbers, the average DuPage County home is valued at $264,000 right now. If these trends continue, the Policy Journal states, a Hinsdale home worth $939,000 in 2007 will be worth just $684,988 by 2023.

Hinsdale, La Grange, Countryside, Oak Brook, Glen Ellyn, Elmhurst and Naperville are still among the most expensive places to buy in the DuPage area, as shown in a heat map produced by Trulia. Still, they’re dropping — and fast.

Fittch and Moody's rating agencies bicker over how bad CPS' debt currently is.

http://www.reuters.com/article/chicago-education-fitch-idUSL1N1FM1I7?feedType=RSS

Fitch downgrades Illinois credit rating.

http://capitolfax.com/2017/02/01/fitch-downgrades-illinois-over-unprecedented-failure-of-the-state-to-enact-a-full-budget-for-two-consecutive-years/

More "isolated" north side crime.

https://www.dnainfo.com/chicago/20170202/wicker-park/armed-robbery-kidnapping-2100-west-division-street-january-8-2017

WICKER PARK — A Wicker Park man, snatched off the sidewalk and forced into a car where he was beaten and robbed by three attackers last month, says he wants to warn others about the harrowing four-hour experience that has left him partially blinded in one eye.

Here is the statement from Ald. Scott Waugespack on the shootings.  It's not as rosy a portrait as you paint.  I don't think there would be a vibrant "Take Back Lakeview" page on Facebook if the north side was not on edge because of the spike in crime recently.

http://ward32.org/news/resident-response-to-divers...

I wanted to give everyone a quick update on the specific shooting crime that took place in front of Cardinal Bernadin School yesterday evening around 5:30 p.m. I am as angry to hear about this crime that has put families in such immediate danger and the escalation of such crimes taking place in all neighborhoods of our city.

At this time, the Police are giving us information that the person shot at 1651 W Diversey was a known gang member from the neighborhood, walking back from work to his home near Hamlin Park. The offender was an unknown male in a black vehicle. The 19th District officers responded to a call from the hospital about a shooting victim, who had gone home first and then to the hospital. More details will come out as the police investigate and question the victim.

The second shooting victim was also a west side gang member and called in the address of shots fired on the 2300 block of Diversey at Western. The Police from the 14th District on the west side of the river are still verifying this victim’s representation of the incident. There were no calls to 911 and during canvassing of the residents and businesses in the area Police found no witnesses.

We have been in touch with Cardinal Bernadin Early Childhood School, Prescott Elementary, and Alcott High School. Police have added additional cars to the area and specifically assigned a separate car for all three watches throughout the day and night. The schools have been in touch with the police to talk about the specifics of the crimes. I have asked that patrols be stepped up but the commander has limits on what he can put on the street to react to this particular incident on Diversey.

This neighborhood has improved greatly over the years, but there are still pockets of problem gang members and criminal elements they interact with that are adding to the burglaries and robberies. We have dealt with the individual gang homes over the years and the 19th District Police teams have done a good job of keeping them in check. The new Commander in the 19th is Marc Buslik and is aware of many of the crime issues related to these gang members and I think he will be proactive in going after the problem people.

While criminals are the underlying problem, our police department staffing has decreased over the past few years, including officer allocations to the 19th District that serves Lakeview, West DePaul and the Hamlin Park areas and includes three other aldermen. The 32nd Ward neighborhoods also include Wicker Park, Bucktown and Logan Square; but all primarily in the 14th Police District.

Before the Mayor’s decision to merge the 19th District (station at Belmont and Western now at Halsted and Addison) and the 23rd District in 2012, the status of staffing allocation of CPD to the 19th District was about 470 officers over three shifts. The staffing was reduced to as low as 326 and has inched back up to about 370. At the time we were promised by then Superintendent McCarthy that the closing of the Belmont district would not lead to a reduction in officers. That was simply not true. Since then, strong arm robberies and burglaries are on the increase, and while they show a slight decrease over the past year, the long term outlook for adding officers is not good. The short term fix should be to temporarily saturate areas that are seeing higher crime in areas that have been relatively quiet for the past decade and continue to put more officers back to into the 19th District.

The Mayor is hiring around 480 new police officers over the next 2 years that will be allocated to districts throughout the City. The 1000 number that has been promoted in the media actually includes hundreds of already existing officers who will be promoted to fill depleted detective and supervisory officer ranks. These 400 new officers may be just enough to match retirement attrition rates. As I have mentioned in my weekly newsletters, I did vote for this 2017 budget because we will finally see hiring of officers that a handful of aldermen have been pushing for in council for several years. I did not support the last few budgets in part because of the reduction in officers in our communities while we spent hundreds of millions on a failed police overtime policy (and continue to do so) that did not benefit taxpayers and did little to stop citywide crime. We should be bringing back some of the proven methods of intervention where funding police overtime alone won’t solve the continual drain on resources.

I do work as closely as possible with our local police to get the staffing we need but there are problems that citizens should know about that are hindering a good response to the crime in our city. The Department of Justice report released last week shows we need a lot of improvements in training, supervision and other aspects of policing but doesn’t address the problems with entities of government, including city hall, city council, and other agencies. The report doesn’t address the fact that there has been a shell game played with citizens or aldermen who want to obtain and review annual police reports, staffing allocations or manpower numbers or much of the data needed to correctly run a billion dollar city department.

So while all of us want to see more patrols each day, we cannot get there until we get more answers about how the police department operates, change policies and staff to what is needed to make our neighborhoods safer again.

My office staff or I can answer other questions you may have as well.

Alderman Scott Waguespack
32nd Ward
City of Chicago
2657 N Clybourn
Chicago, IL 60614

1.  The broad daylight shooting in front of the school was a retaliation for an earlier gang shooting a couple of blocks west near a park in a good neighborhood.  A stray bullet actually went into the school.  The north side is already on edge over a spike in violent and petty crime and a fear that it is caused by transfers of police officers to the south and west sides because the City is too broke to hire more police.  Real or not, that is the current perception in Chicago.  

2. The single family homes surrounding Cardinal Bernadin are mostly valued over $1 million.  These folks all have options in Illinois and outside of Illinois and can take a loss on the sale of their homes.  They won't tolerate gang bangers blasting away at each other in front of the schools filled with their kids.