2027 Election

A couple of social media posts allege that Conehead is currently at a 6.6% approval rating. Seems kind of high, but it could go lower after next weeks disastrous Congressional appearance. We say "disastrous" because we all know that's what it will be.

A Chicago reporter is already looking ahead to the next mayoral election:

Vallas is on record saying he wasn't running. 

Giannoulias is famous for two things - bankrupting his parent's financial institution (costing taxpayers millions in payout money) and playing basketball with Sparklefarts.

If one or both endorsed Mendoza (who's one of the louder voices against Conehead's $830 million boondoggle) she'd be running away with the election.

About Time

"Mob rule" ought to be be disavowed, and should have been long ago:

• A Chicago alderman is pushing to reinstall statues and monuments that were taken down during Lori Lightfoot's tenure as mayor. "It wasn't just the monument was gone, it was a freedom of speech, it was the respect to our community was gone," Ron Onesti, president of the Joint Civic Committee of Italian Americans said. Onesti said it was disappointing when statues of Christopher Columbus and others were removed.

  The monuments were taken down in 2020, after protests over the murder of George Floyd and police shooting of Breonna Taylor. The statues have been in storage ever since.

  "None of this was ever about actually what Columbus meant or the messaging about Columbus, it was how it was done," Onesti said. "The fact that the community was not engaged or involved with the decision-making."

  "It was selective censorship, and that's what we're doing," 41st Ward Alderman Anthony Napolitano said. "We are selecting who we're going to censor and who we are not going to censor and that is the epitome of unjust government right there."

Yeah, because a Columbus statue in Chicago had everything to do with a dope dealer's death in Minnesota and a tragic set of circumstances in Kentucky. It cost a CPD Officer an eye and countless others injured with zero convictions by Crimesha.

How about make sure the statues are appropriately secured, properly insured and the law is enforced across the board regarding criminal damage charges along with restitution against perpetrators? There used to be an entire unit of the Law Division tasked with recovering civil judgements against criminal actions. In fact, we're pretty sure federal (state?) prosecutors bankrupted the klan by holding individuals responsible for all sorts of financial judgements connected to criminal acts.

The Return of ShotSpotter?

It might actually happen:

• A year ago, this editorial board noted that Mayor Brandon Johnson was talking from both sides of his mouth when he pulled the cord on ShotSpotter when its nearly $50 million contract ended, only to plug the gunfire-detection system back in temporarily until the Democratic National Convention wrapped up.

  “Only in Johnson’s City Hall does this make sense,” we said of the mayor’s vacillating position at the time. The system was shut down for good last September.

  Now Chicagoans are learning of the very real possibility that ShotSpotter or similar surveillance technology could return. And the 180-degree turn back toward gunshot detection — a full 360-degree circle, if ShotSpotter comes back — could have been avoided if the mayor had simply listened to the right people.

  In this case, the right people were Chicago Police Supt. Larry Snelling and City Council members who were proponents of the technology; University of Chicago researchers who found that ShotSpotter likely saved dozens of lives every year; and everyday people in neighborhoods plagued by gun violence, who felt the technology helped keep their communities safer.

This was an unforced error on the part of Conehead. While we weren't (and aren't) super huge fans of ShotSpotter - we regularly derided it as The World's Most Expensive Shell Casing Locator - the movement toward a more technology driven department cannot be denied. It worked as advertised and as the CWB blog has been pointing out for months now, would have assisted in locating many persons shot/killed in neighborhoods where no one even bothers to call 9-1-1 when gunfire erupts.

Plus, as CPD steals every idea NYPD has, we would note the Big Apple just renewed their contract with ShotSpotter:

 

SSTI stock climbed 13% on the news, so all the aldercreatures just missed a chance to make some decent money. This time around, you can be sure they'll be buying all the stock they can prior to approving the Contract.

City Council Revolt

Conehead hasn't just lost the voters....he's lost the City Council, historically a rubber stamp for most mayors:

• Mayor Brandon Johnson’s $830 million general obligation bond issue to upgrade Chicago’s aging infrastructure stalled in the City Council on Wednesday amid claims the back-loaded repayment schedule is “fiscal insanity.”

  Ald. Bill Conway (34th) is so concerned about the size of the borrowing — and a financing structure that saddles Chicago’s taxpayers with $2 billion in added costs —.that he tried and failed to send the matter back to the Finance Committee he co-chairs for additional discussion.

  Conway’s motion was tabled, 27 to 23. That narrow margin underscores what former Finance Committee Chair Scott Waguespack (32nd) called a “lack of trust” between the mayor and Council that has become a “hallmark” of Johnson’s administration.

Not only is the bond issue in trouble, the proposed reduction in speed limits (thereby enabling a massive influx of automated camera fines) was defeated yesterday:

• A divided City Council on Wednesday put the brakes on efforts to reduce the city’s default speed limit from 30 mph to 25 mph.

  The 28-21 vote against lowering the speed limit followed a spirited and emotional debate that pitted traffic safety advocates, many of them on the North Side, against African-American alderpersons concerned about uneven enforcement and a surge in pretextual traffic stops targeting Black drivers.

  West Side Ald. Jason Ervin (28th), Mayor Brandon Johnson’s handpicked Budget Committee chair, led the charge against the lower speed limit.

Cracking down on speeders is racist! Of course, the fact that CPD writes almost zero speeding tickets isn't brought up - nearly 99% of all speeding tickets are camera tickets, so obviously the cameras are even more racist that police officers.

Settlement Stalls

Probably a temporary setback:

• Amid heavy opposition, a City Council committee on Monday did not vote on a controversial $1.25 million settlement that would have compensated the family of Dexter Reed, who was shot to death by police officers after Reed shot and wounded one of them during a traffic stop.

  “It was held. I think the majority present are ‘no’'votes,” Ald. Ray Lopez (15th) wrote in a text message to the Sun-Times.

  Ald. Anthony Napolitano (41st) said he, too, is “hearing” the settlement was pulled for lack of votes.

  Ald. Matt O’Shea (19th) has condemned the settlement for the “dangerous” message it sends to Chicago Police Department officers, His Far South Side ward is home to scores of Chicago Police officers, and O’Shea, too, is “guessing” that the settlement was held because the Johnson administration was uncertain it had the votes to pass it.

  Ald. Chris Taliaferro (29th), the former CPD sergeant now chairing the Council’s Police Committee said he is “not sure” why the Reed settlement was held, but “I assume there are still a lot of questions and concerns that my colleagues have.”

  But Ald. Carlos Ramirez-Rosa (35th), Mayor Brandon Johnson’s former Council floor leader, supports the settlement and calls Monday’s development a temporary setback.

After all, the commie/progressive/anti law and order assholes are still going to push this. We can only hope that a few of them become victims of the criminals they're supporting.

And to all the shitheads like Ramirez-Rosa saying the stop never should have occurred in the first place, the proper venue to address anything "unjustified" - real or imaginary - is the Courts, not via gunfire.

Homeless Encampment Fires

Isn't it great that taxpayers and their children can't use the parks that their taxes pay for?

• Ongoing safety concerns about the homeless encampment at Gompers Park, 4222 W. Foster Ave., could lead to the relocation of youth baseball and softball games planned for the renovated field at the park’s south end, where three tent fires have been reported since Jan. 30.

  The Gompers Park Athletic Association has informed member families that its 2025 games and practices scheduled for “Little Gompers” (the park’s south end) could be relocated due to the encampment. “To be clear, Gompers Park Athletic Association will not be using the field at Little Gompers if the tents are not moved prior to the start of the season and the city does not keep them from returning to our park,” the association wrote in a letter to families. The association explained that if needed games would be relocated, not canceled, due to the proximity of the encampment to the field.

  The baseball field was the recipient of a $150,000 improvement grant, courtesy of the 39th Ward Alderman Samantha Nugent’s participatory budget vote. Many, if not all, of those improvements have been made.

So an extra $150K - in addition to regular property tax levy - and kids can't play ball there. Not to mention the THREE fires in nine days, sucking up untold CFD resources, and then the additional money given away to replace the stuff that burned up, because you can't have homeless people suffer consequences  of their bad decisions. Plus all the homeless fleas, lice and bedbugs.....the mind boggles.

Hey, shouldn't there be a whole bunch of farm jobs opening up? The democrats are asking who's going to harvest crops without illegal aliens here. Now's the chance for these homeless leeches to get jobs. But they better hurry before those 5,000 former fbi employees beat them to the punch.

Conehead Locates Testicles

They were in a jar, in a closet, next to the room that holds all those "gifts" that he wouldn't account for to the Inspector General:

• After some initial hesitation, Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson has agreed to testify before Congress about Chicago’s “sanctuary city” policies and their effect on immigration enforcement.

  Johnson will participate in the March 5 hearing of the Republican-led House Oversight and Government Reform Committee. He and three other big city mayors, all Democrats, had been asked to appear.

  All four preside over so-called “sanctuary cities,” and the request stems from an investigation into how local policies are affecting enforcement of President Donald Trump’s promise of “mass deportations.”

He won't answer any substantive. He also won't answer any local reporters trying to figure out how he spent $500 million on illegals while attempting to raise taxes to cover a budget shortfall of double that.

Prepare the rubber room!

UPDATE: Here's the story about the vax "mandate" being rescinded and the city's continuing efforts to deny all responsibility for violating not only bodily integrity, but medical privacy laws and union protections.

Gutless Coward

Conehead loves the rhetoric, but backing it up?

• Mayor Brandon Johnson said Tuesday he isn’t sure if he will show up to testify before Congress, as he and three other big-city mayors have been asked to do.

  All four mayors preside over so-called “sanctuary cities,” and the demand to appear stems froman investigation into how local policies are affecting enforcement of President Donald Trump’s promise of “mass deportations.”

  At a news conference Tuesday, Johnson referred the question to his Corporation Counsel Mary Richardson-Lowry, who said the “invitation” from the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee is “under legal review.”

Imagine if a republican, any republican, refused to appear before Congress, either voluntarily or under duress.....oh wait, we don't have to imagine it, because it happened time and time again over the past four years.

But as we said in the title, Conehead is a gutless coward.

This is Going to be Fun

First, Pedro defends the CPS lies as a "learning experience:"

• Chicago Public Schools CEO Pedro Martinez answered questions Saturday about the false report that ICE agents were at a school Friday.

  Martinez defended the district's response to Friday's false ICE report at a school with over 90% Latino students, while an alderperson blamed CPS for spreading unnecessary panic.

  [...] "It was an unfortunate misunderstanding, but actually a really good lesson for us," Martinez said. Martinez defended the incident Saturday by saying the school followed all the protocols as if the agents were ICE. The principal did not let them in, but it was Secret Service agents that came to Hamline unannounced. The agency claims the agents identified themselves and left business cards. They were looking for a student who made a threat to a government official.

  "Regardless, we are not going to allow a federal agent to come in, whether it's immigration or another agency, without the legal jurisdiction without making sure they have a warrant," Martinez said.

Then the aldercreature demonstrates a complete ignorance of Federal supremacy and thinks CPS is going to mobilize a defense:

• "We saw loads of people that we didn't know. We saw a few protesters at this school," 20th Ward Ald. Jeanette Taylor said. "And so where was the protection? What did CPS safety and security do? My opinion, nothing." Hamline sits in Ald. Taylor's ward. She said Martinez must take accountability for the situation.

  "So you were quick to put out something without doing a real investigation, causes more harm to the community than help," Taylor said. Taylor said Martinez should have called Mayor Brandon Johnson's office before responding to the school. Moving forward, Taylor is calling on the Johnson administration and CPS to have a coordinated plan when ICE does show up.

Well aldercreature, should the feds actually show up, you will be ordered to stand aside. Failing that, you will be arrested. And immediately thereafter, the feds ought to revoke any and all Federal funding for CPS until a policy of cooperation and acknowledgement of Federal Immigration Law is obtained.

Then outlaw the CTU as teachers are always claiming to be "essential." Essential employees don't get to strike.

Lopez Running for Mayor?

Aldercreature Lopez has been making all sorts of middle-of-the-road pronouncements this year and last, pretty much positioning himself to the mainstream political center. His latest pronouncement takes on illegal aliens:

• Anyone recall @CardinalBCupich speaking out about gun violence across the city, generational gang violence in neighborhoods, normalization of drug use & prostitution, or the general feeling of despair invading our collective conscience?
  
  
  Yeah, neither can I

This is almost definitely an appeal to Conehead's disillusioned voter base, namely black voters, who have been threatening for the past year or so to vote Republican and may have actually contributed to Trump's winning a record number of African-American votes. It's their neighborhoods with the blood running in the streets and Conehead cutting police and fire services.

Lopez has been fighting the ShotSpotter shutdown, offered to work with Trump on illegal immigration, now he's appealing to the communities hardest hit by street violence and pointing out the Catholic church is more concerned about illegal aliens than actual citizen parishioners.

He sure looks like he's running for mayor.

New ShotSpotter?

This would mean new contracts to new connected people, right?

• As Mayor Brandon Johnson’s administration conducts pilot testing on first-responder technologies to replace the ShotSpotter system he discontinued, one skeptical alderman wants to move ahead on a technology tryout he set up himself.

  Ald. Raymond Lopez, 15th, announced his plans Monday to test a technology that helps police identify and respond to gunshots with tools like acoustic detectors, infrared cameras and even drones. The pilot program would cover half a square mile in the Back of the Yards neighborhood and cost the city nothing, but it can start only with Johnson’s approval, Lopez said.

  “Last time I checked, the mayor said he was open to all pilots and possibilities, so now he will have an opportunity to act on his words,” said Lopez, who often harshly criticizes the mayor.

In the meantime, Conehead's people are testing a different version of ShotSpotter:

• As that process moves forward, the city has already begun piloting new first-responder technology of its own, Gatewood said.  “We have a couple running now, and honestly the plan is to see if there’s interest to run more,” he said. Gatewood declined to share details on what specific technologies are being tested, where the tests are occurring and what the results have shown. One aim is to more directly target high-crime areas, he said.

  The goal for Johnson’s administration is to have a “full-fledged product out on the streets” by this summer, Gatewood said. “We’re not going to rush this process. We’re going to make sure this process is done right,” he said.

  To help prepare for new technology, the city checked its surveillance system in December to see what cameras were blocked by trees, leading to over 300 trimmings, Gatewood said. Johnson’s administration has also hosted gunshot wound care workshops and events targeting high-violence blocks with government resources, he said.

Um...."targeting high-violence blocks." Isn't that what Conehead railed against? ShotSpotter being racist-ly deployed to minority neighborhoods? You know, they ones with near constant gunfire, night and day along with dead bodies laying in alleys for hours on end?

And a "wound care workshop"? Is this an admission that CFD is undermanned, under-equipped and unable to respond to twenty-five-hundred or more shootings per year? Sure seems like it.

Also seems like the entire reason for getting rid of the original ShotSpotter was that Conehead's people weren't the ones getting the contract money.

An Actual Recall Law?

Proposed by LaShawn Ford?

• Among the top 15 cities in the U.S., Chicago is one of only four that does not allow voters to recall the mayor.

  But state Rep. La Shawn Ford, D-Chicago, recently filed a bill in Springfield (House Bill 1084) that would allow Chicago voters to initiate a mayoral recall election.

There's an actual form to fill out at the top link. What the Hell....click it, fill it in. Make sure you tell friends and relatives. 

Might as well add in anyone currently residing in the cemetery....they already vote, why not contact their representatives and let the representatives know they aren't happy with Conehead either.

Conehead Still Resisting

This a$$hole can't even agree to deport criminals:

• Mayor Brandon Johnson has declared emphatically and repeatedly he will not allow Chicago police officers to cooperate with President-elect Donald Trump’s mass deportations, starting with those with criminal records.

  But the mayor may not have the final word if two Hispanic alderpersons who are among Johnson’s most outspoken critics get their way at next week’s City Council meeting.

  Southwest Side colleagues Ray Lopez (15th) and Silvana Tabares (23rd) plan to use a parliamentary maneuver to revive a stalled ordinance that would restore so-called “carve-outs” to Chicago’s Welcoming City ordinance eliminated during former Mayor Lori Lightfoot’s administration.

With Quigley and Schakowsky fighting to save child molesters and rapists, Conehead's defense of other criminals isn't a surprise. We are still amused that Fata$$ is putting him up front as the face of the resistance and Conehead doesn't realize he'll be the only one going to jail if it comes down to brass tacks.

We certainly hope that Homan's promise to put Chicago at the top of the deportation effort list leads to Conehead showing his yellow streak.

Conehead Conflicts

A reporter is still asking Conehead about conflicts of interest:

• Mayor Brandon Johnson taught for four years at Chicago Public Schools before going on leave in 2011 to work for the Chicago Teachers Union and ultimately launch a career in politics. But even though he no longer works for the union, Johnson remains on “union leave” from the school district.

  That means, after all these years, he could return to the classroom — and earn a six-figure salary as if he never left.

  The mayor’s leave status has attracted more scrutiny and concerns about a potential conflict of interest in recent weeks, as his administration negotiates a contract with the CTU that could benefit him in the future. Those negotiations have become increasingly tense and have fueled a monthslong leadership shakeup at CPS, including the recent firing of CPS CEO Pedro Martinez. Under CPS policy, Johnson — or any CPS employee who leaves to work for the union — can accrue seniority during their time away and return to CPS with the guarantee of a job.

This goes long with another report the other day about Conehead's potential pensions topping out at a few million dollars due to "loopholes" that were never closed, based solely on his four years teaching and one term as mayor.

But buried deep in the article is this eye-opener for you northside readers:

• Ald. Nick Sposato, who represents part of the city’s Northwest Side, said he was on leave from the Chicago Fire Department for his first eight years in office and voted on firefighter contracts. During that time, he did not feel conflicted because council members were not directly involved with bargaining.

  “Nobody ever had a problem with me being a fireman and voting on fire contracts,” Sposato said.

  Sposato, who is occasionally critical of the mayor, also said he did not believe Johnson would “give the farm away” for personal gain years from now. "I believe he’s a man of integrity,” he said of Johnson.

Hey Nick, wipe your chin. You missed a spot, probably while you were shoveling tens of thousands of dollars in "bonuses" to those connected office dollies.

Remember When....

Someone mentioned this was one of the only good things from the tenure of J-Fledgar, patrol rifles being the other one. We tend to agree:

• In 2009, Chicago’s court system was hopelessly clogged by cases alleging police misconduct. For years, the city’s Department of Law had watched as the number of misconduct allegations crept upward. With the increasing strain on municipal resources, Chicago’s attorneys were forced to settle many cases out of court, which reflected poorly on the city’s bottom line and police force.
  
  But Chicago found a somewhat counterintuitive way to save money and save face -- by taking every single police misconduct case to court.
  
  In July 2009, Chicago Superintendent of Police Jody Weis wrote to James F. Holderman, chief judge of the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Illinois, to notify him that the city would be changing its strategy for dealing with lawsuits filed against police officers. Rather than settling these cases out of court, the city would take them to trial.

Instead of quick payouts amounting to tens of millions, even hundreds of millions, law firms would have to actually practice law, depose officers, interview witnesses, pay experts, etc which would cut into the river of cash.

In fact, the only reason that this practice was stopped was that after the plaintiff lawyers started losing business, they had a meeting with the 9.5 fingered dwarf and told him that due to Chicago not paying out millions of dollars, their political contributions to democrats across Chicago, Cook County, Illinois would be severely curtailed. 

Rahm got the message loud and clear because he's a bought-and-paid-for tool, all the way back to the Clinton's.

Remember, when you reward bad behavior, you get more of it....and in these cases, the reward can be as simple as paying off someone to go away.

Thanks to the reader who remembered and posted the link.

This Guy? This Guy?

This is the guy making sense? (click for larger version):

Obviously, he's setting himself up for a mayoral run, but holy crap, who is advising him to the point he sounds actually sane?

Puppets Being Installed

So Conehead's handpicked School Board voted to fire the CEO of the schools:

• The Board of Education voted unanimously to fire Chicago Public Schools CEO Pedro Martinez during an extraordinary special meeting Friday night after a monthslong leadership struggle with Mayor Brandon Johnson that has engulfed the school district.

  The saga doesn’t appear headed for an immediate resolution, however, after Martinez filed a lawsuit against the Board of Education and all seven of its members hours before the meeting. He asked for a temporary restraining order to prevent the board from taking action Friday, but there wasn’t enough time to get in front of a judge before the meeting.

  Martinez’s 44-page lawsuit filed in Cook County Circuit Court alleged the board, and its individual members, breached his contract.
  

A number of legal experts think Martinez can win. Discovery depositions are going to be amusing as the internal communications between CTU leadership and Conehead are going to be exposed and CEO Martinez would be entitled to damages.

Meanwhile, taxpayers are about to lose on numerous fronts as the new puppets will try for that "short term high interest" loan to cover a new CPS contract along with the massive property tax hike the schools are going to stick in everyone's asses.

Finally, a Budget

Fees and fines through the wazoo....but spared a property tax hike for the moment:

• Mayor Brandon Johnson’s $17.3 billion budget — minus a $68.5 million property tax increase — was finally approved by the City Council on Monday, but the political rifts it caused will linger, endangering Johnson’s future agenda.

  The co-chairs of a 19-member Progressive Caucus that usually is the bedrock of Johnson’s support delivered that message loud and clear prior to the 27-23 vote on a budget that holds the line on property taxes, but includes $165.5 million in other taxes, fines and fees.

Some of the increases:

• The mayor’s revised budget also will hit Chicagoans’ wallets in other ways, such as adding an amusement tax on streaming services; higher taxes on cloud computing, business software and equipment leases; and higher taxes on parking and downtown congestion.

  The city also hopes to generate $11.4 million from “automated speed limit enforcement,” presumably by adding more speed cameras in wards where alderpersons allow it, and $4.6 million by raising an array of license fees, transfer fees and fines, as well as the cost of residential parking permits.

  Another late change to the 2025 budget: $10 million in “cost recovery” by charging organizers of ticketed events for police and traffic services and by better scheduling those events to reduce overtime costs.

And once again, the CPS property tax assessment is going to be maxed out again, despite enrollment declining again.

Now There's No Tax Hike?

Expect layoffs for non-police positions and probably a full stop hiring freeze for CPD:

• When the Chicago City Council reconvenes Monday afternoon, the big question is will Mayor Brandon Johnson have enough support to call for a vote on the city's budget? And will there even be a new budget proposal to vote on in place? Political observers say not likely.

  The questions come as sources told ABC7 Sunday that Mayor Johnson's latest budget proposal will not include property tax hike.

  When Mayor Brandon Johnson abruptly adjourned Friday's City Council meeting, he did so to avoid what would have been an embarrassing defeat as his second budget proposal failed to attract the minimum 26 votes needed to pass. The mayor's $68.5 million property tax hike was still too much to stomach for too many in City Council.

We did hear one radio report that Conehead was actually thinking of eliminating a single "deputy mayor" spot, but can't seem to fin it at the moment. Someone also said Conehead is completely protecting his inner circle which is something like five times as large as Groot's or Rahm's staffing (again, this was a social media post, so we have no idea how accurate it was).

Conehead Failure Theater

This is some raggedy-ass governing:

• Mayor Brandon Johnson called off the vote planned for Friday on his $17.3 billion 2025 spending plan, raising the odds of an unprecedented shutdown of city government in just 18 days. 

  Johnson’s decision to delay the budget vote is an acknowledgment that the spending plan that would hike property taxes by $68.5 million and increase a host of other taxes and fees by an additional $165.5 million does not have enough votes to pass the Chicago City Council, even if Johnson cast a tie-breaking vote.

  The City Council voted 32-17 to recess the meeting, causing members of the public who had planned to speak during the public comment portion of the meeting to erupt in anger.
  

And now they're talking about a government shut-down, something we don't recall ever happening in nearly six decades of residency.

But Conehead has a plan!

• However, there are more than 1,000 vacant positions in the Chicago Police Department, which accounts for nearly 46% of Chicago’s discretionary spending, that could be eliminated to save approximately $170 million, according to budget documents.

Sure! Failing to fill police vacancies while property crime is skyrocketing can only be a good idea, combined with the couple thousand cops who are maxing out over the next two years, what could possibly go wrong?

Also notice how there isn't even a whisper of a suggestion that twenty or thirty under-utilized schools could be closed and the staff redistributed (or eliminated) from consideration. Schools built in the early 20th century for 1,200 students, currently occupied by 100 students....or less.