Angela Caputo

Cook Co. Board Prez: Preckwinkle's Platform, Brown Suspicions, Stroger MIA

Angela Caputo — Sat, 21 Nov 2009 07:47:27 -0800

Here's a roundup of the latest happenings in the Democratic primary for Cook County Board President:

Preckwinkle's Platform

Ald. Toni Preckwinkle (4th Ward) attempted to steer the campaign back to the issues on Thursday, rolling out a 12-point plan for reforming county government. Crain's Greg Hinz points out that the wonkish proposal puts to shame the "chestnuts" like "increased transparency" and opposing "corruption and wasteful spending" that Water Reclamation District President Terry O'Brien is offering on his website. "He offers no details," Hinz adds. By contrast, read Preckwinkle's entire plan here.

Reporters at the downtown press conference couldn't resist tossing out a few political questions, though. Among them was WLS' Bill Cameron, who wondered aloud if Preckwinkle's candidacy will ultimately be eclipsed by the same sort of "black pride" that helped propel current president Todd Stroger into office. "This is not an African-American primary. This is a Democratic primary," Preckwinkle responded. "The African-American community will be about 30 percent of the vote in this county. Whoever wins this election is going to have to appeal, not simply to the African-American community, but to the Latino and the Asian community and the larger white community. I think I'm the best candidate to do that." Watch:

A Stalking Horse?

In the video above, you might have heard Cameron mention the theory that "Dorothy is probably the stalking horse ... on behalf of O'Brien." So what's that all about?

On Monday, the Sun-Times Tim Novak dug into the candidates' nominating petitions and found some strange "coincidences" that suggest Cook County Circuit Clerk Dorothy Brown may have been inserted in the race to split the black vote for Terrence O'Brien's benefit (he's the only white candidate in the Democratic primary). From his article:

The O'Brien and Brown campaigns say they had no idea that some of the same volunteers were working on their campaigns.

The proof is in the nearly two-foot-high stacks of nominating petitions each filed with the Cook County clerk's office three weeks. [...]

Of O'Brien's 2,000-plus petitions, 10 virtually mirror petitions Brown submitted, according to a Chicago Sun-Times examination of the thousands of petitions submitted by each candidate. Nearly all of the 200 voters who signed those 10 nominating petitions for O'Brien also signed for Brown -- and in the same order.

Stroger MIA

Speaking of Stroger, he caught some flak from his fellow Democratic contenders for skipping out on a North Side candidate forum last Sunday. Watch an ABC7 report on the event:

Stroger eventually offered up an explanation for his absence. Oddly enough, his defense was the Sun-Times' investigation detailed above. From a statement:

"On yesterday the campaign of President Todd H. Stroger was told of the Chicago Sun Time's investigation involving an alleged conspiracy involving Clerk of the Circuit Court Dorothy Brown and Commissioner Terry O'Brien, against President Stroger. Due to the strong nature of the allegations now detailed on today's front page of the Chicago Sun Times, it was then decided that the President not attend the 43rd Ward forum held on yesterday.

It's worth noting out that Stroger did make it to a separate forum later that day in Oak Park.

Davis Hedges On Stroger's Viablity

Back when Rep. Danny Davis was still mulling a run for board president (an idea he eventually abandoned), the veteran congressman said during an appearance on Fox Chicago that he would try to dissuade Stroger from seeking reelection. Davis said he would tell the board president point-blank, "I don't think you'd get elected." Now that Davis is no longer seeking Stroger's seat, he appears a bit more reluctant to criticize Stroger.

On Fox Chicago Sunday last weekend, host Jack Conaty explicitly asked Davis: "Congressmen do you see a scenario where you could endorse Todd Stroger?" After Davis talked around the question, Conaty pushed a little harder. Davis' response? "I just don't know yet." You can watch the entire interview here.

CFL Staying Out Of The Race

The Chicago Federation of Labor announced its endorsements in the various Cook County Democratic primaries this week, but declined to pick a favorite in the board president race. It will be interesting to see if any major labor unions decide to wade into this race, considering its thorny political dynamics.

Ald. Colon On The Parking Meter Lease: "We Should Have Bit The Bullet"

Angela Caputo — Fri, 20 Nov 2009 12:09:34 -0800

The Windy City edition of the New York Times debuted today, featuring an article on the controversial parking meter lease from veteran City Hall reporter Dan Mihalopoulos, now with the Chicago News Cooperative.

In his report, Mihalopoulos digs into the books of Chicago Parking Meters LLC, the private company that now controls the city's meters under a 75-year, $1.15 billion deal with the city. He found -- not surprisingly -- that the company's profits are growing steadily, generating $1.1 million per week, thanks to the higher rates they instituted after taking over the system. With more gradual increases on the way, the company is projected to collect $46.9 million this year and $79.5 million in 2010.

The most candid remark in Mihalopoulos' piece came from Ald. Rey Colon (35th Ward), who was one of five aldermen to vote against the 2008 ordinance approving the parking meter deal:

Another of the naysayers on the Council, Rey Colon, said this week that the parking meter company’s own numbers showed that aldermen should have raised parking charges and kept the money that the increases would have generated.

“At this rate, it was a great deal for the parking meter company,” he said. “I don’t know if it was a good deal for the city. We should have just bit the bullet and done it ourselves.”

Mayor Daley and some of the aldermen who supported the deal like to make the argument that the city could not have "bit the bullet and done it ourselves" for political reasons. They further argue that their chosen path -- offloading the responsibility for the system to a private company (who then raises the rates) in return for an immediate windfall -- was a safer approach. But was it? As then-Inspector General David Hoffman noted in his report on the deal, it's not like the mayor and the city council dodged the bullet; indeed, they've have still taken a great deal of flack for the rising parking costs (not to mention the botched implementation). Furthermore, other cities have managed to hike rates and generate revenue for their operating budgets without experiencing some apocalyptic voter backlash. Some of them, such as San Francisco, are even using their meter system to experiment with innovative congestion controls. It'll be 75 years before we have a chance to do the same.

To add insult to injury, the proceeds of the deal are almost gone thanks to the city's gaping budget deficit, so taxpayers will soon have little to show for the lease. CPM, however, will make out just fine.

The question now is whether the City Council will learn from its mistake. So far, a mere 12 of the council's 50 members have signed on to Ald. Scott Waguespack's (32nd Ward) Asset Lease Taxpayer Protection Ordinance, which would require an “independent third-party valuation” on any future asset sales, including “a comparison of public retention and private leasing over the life cycle of the agreement." As Waguespack himself said recently, it's time to acknowledge that "the old way of doing things no longer works."

Cook County Takes A "Huge Step" Towards Relieving Foreclosure Crisis

Angela Caputo — Fri, 20 Nov 2009 10:21:28 -0800

After the Cook County Board of Commissioners finally agreed yesterday to fund foreclosure mediation services, housing advocates are celebrating the move as "a huge step" towards stemming the problem.

As regular readers know, it's been a tough slog for those community activists -- led by the group Action Now -- who've been pushing the county to devote more resources to mediation -- a proven method of staving off foreclosure. By a vote of 16 to 1, the board approved a $3 million budget amendment introduced by Comm. Earlene Collins (D) at the behest of Board President Todd Stroger and Cook County's Chief circuit court Judge Tim Evans (Republican Comm. Tony Peraica was the lone dissenter).

Like elsewhere in the state, foreclosures continue to pile up in Cook County. During a roundtable on WTTW's Chicago Tonight yesterday, MB Bank Vice President Thomas FitzGibbon noted that one of the biggest challenges in enabling mortgage modifications is getting through the daunting paperwork. "Having a neutral third party helping that consumer, helping that household, fill out the documents is an extremely important part of this whole process," said FitzGibbon, who also sits on the board of the non-profit Neigborhood Housing Services. "Seventy percent of the applications for this service -- for this help that we send out to consumers who we know are in trouble -- never comes back." Watch his remarks (full video here):

Once up and running, Cook County's program will help fill this void. Action Now is hoping that the initiative will follow in the footsteps of a successful mandatory mediation program in Philadelphia. In highlighting the program, the New York Times explained earlier this week how it works:

Under the rules adopted by Philadelphia’s primary civil court, no owner-occupied house may be foreclosed on and sold by the sheriff’s office before a “conciliation conference,” a face-to-face meeting between the homeowner and the lender aimed at striking a workable compromise. Every homeowner facing a default filing is furnished with counseling, and sometimes legal representation [...]

The Philadelphia program forces an outcome by bringing together all the principals in one room. If the mortgage company proves intractable, the homeowner has the right to request mediation in front of a volunteer lawyer serving as a provisional judge, who relays recommendations to the program’s supervising judge. If the judge finds that the mortgage company is not acting in good faith, she can hold the house in limbo by denying permission for a sheriff’s sale.

If all goes according to plan, early next year Cook County homeowners will have the chance to begin working directly with judges and their lenders to modify loans.

In the meantime, if you live in the Chicago area, check out the "How Not To Lose Your House Party" being hosted this Sunday by WBEZ and Vocalo.org. The event is being held in conjunction with the station's extensive series on the local housing crisis.

Yesterday At City Hall: Daley's Budget, Wal-Mart, DREAM Act, Police Transparency

Angela Caputo — Thu, 19 Nov 2009 13:12:16 -0800

The Chicago City Council held its full monthly meeting yesterday. We've got some of the highlights:

Budget Priorities Take A Beating

All eyes have been on Mayor Daley's 2010 spending plan as of late, which relies on $370 million from the city's asset-sale proceeds to help balance next year's $6.14 billion budget. Despite this windfall, the safety net is still going to take a hit. During the public portion of yesterday's meeting, several social service providers testified in favor of restoring the cuts to substance abuse and mental health funding. As regular readers may recall, the city's 12 mental health clinics will lose an additional $3 million in state funding this year because of the Daley administration's own incompetence at implementing a new $16 million billing system.

In response, Ald. Joe Moore (49th Ward) voiced support for rescinding the cuts and blasted Daley's "property tax relief" gimmick -- a plan introduced yesterday to pull $35 million from a reserve fund created by the parking meter lease to refund some taxpayers between $50 and $100 on their bills. "What impact is that going to have on those homeowners lives? It's very negligible," Moore said. "I think you're going to get a lot more bang for your buck by helping the mentally ill lead productive lives through counseling and other support services." Listen:

Internal mp3

Ald. Moore isn't the only one slamming Daley's meager property tax rebate. After combing through the budget proposal, the Civic Federation concluded (PDF) that, while the city should indeed pull $56.5 million from the parking meter human infrastructure fund for operating expenses, none of it should go to Daley's so-called property tax relief. Elsewhere in their report, the business-friendly think tank pushed for greater cuts and chided the mayor for dipping into the asset sale reserves, urging the City Council to enact certain safeguards.

The Federation also called out Daley's efforts to keeping the vast tax increment financing (TIF) budget hidden in the shadows, noting that there's no excuse for excluding "full financial information including expenses, revenues, fund balance and debt" from the annual budget.

Lyle Slams Proposed Wal-Mart Expansion

Later in the meeting, one of City Hall's most reliable critics of Wal-Mart's race to the bottom, Ald. Freddrenna Lyle (6th Ward), went toe-to-toe with Chicagoland Chamber of Commerce President Jerry Roper yesterday over the mega-retailer's push to open additional stores in Chicago. The common refrain from pro-business groups like the Chamber has been that the South Side is lucky to attract any new jobs in this economy and that the community is starved for low-cost retailers.

Lyle isn't so sure. "We have been taught as a people in the past 20 or 30 years that we're just consumers and all we should be looking for is the lowest price. But we're not just consumers," she said. "We're citizens, we're parents, and hopefully, we're taxpayers ... While I want the lowest price, I don't want to do it at a cost of impoverishing my neighbor." Listen:

Internal mp3

Lyle's remarks came after several other aldermen questioned Roper about Wal-Mart without bringing up the issue of wages.

Keeping The DREAM Act Alive

Yesterday, aldermen reaffirmed their support for Sen. Dick Durbin's DREAM Act by handily passing a resolution (by a 49 -1 vote) that calls on Congress to create a path to citizenship for young adults who've spent most of their lives in the U.S. The plight of Rigoberto Padilla -- an honor student from the University of Illinois at Chicago who is scheduled for deportation next month based on a misdemeanor DUI offense -- has become a prime example of the need for comprehensive immigration reform. With Congress poised to act next year, aldermen are calling on the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) to halt the deportation of students like Padilla who would be eligible for legal status under Durbin's measure. Alds. George Cardenas (12th Ward), Manny Flores (1st Ward), Ricardo Muñoz (22nd Ward), Danny Solis (25th Ward), and Toni Preckwinkle (4th Ward) took the lead on the resolution (Ald. Jim Balcer cast the sole "no" vote).

Here's what the Illinois Coalition for Immigrant and Refugee Rights (ICIRR) had to say following the roll call:

The plight of Rigo, a student at the University of Illinois at Chicago (UIC), illustrates what is wrong with current immigration laws. He came to Chicago at age 6, and has lived in Chicago most of his 21 years. During this time, Rigo has been deeply involved in the community, volunteering, studying, working and in general making Chicago a better place. Nevertheless, he is scheduled for deportation on December 16.

More than 400,000 immigrants have been deported in the past year, with damaging consequences for countless communities. Rigo is a great kid, an outstanding student, a hardworking young man with many aspirations and dreams to become better and to contribute more to this country, the country he calls home. The passage of this resolution is a symbolic action that sends a very powerful message to Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and DHS: we cannot allow more lives to be destroyed by an unfair, outdated immigration system that doesn’t reflect our values as a country of opportunity and fairness.

More Transparency From The Police Board?

The Chicago Justice Project (CJP) made a splash last month when it released a report questioning why the city's Police Review Board -- the last line of defense for police accountability -- is so reluctant to fire wayward police officers. Despite the police superintendent's own recommendation to cut certain officers loose, CJP found that the board inexplicably kept 63 percent of those officers on the payroll.

Ald. Bob Fioretti (2nd Ward) responded yesterday by introducing an ordinance that would require the board to better explain those decisions. The Sun-Times explains:

Fioretti is proposing that board members’ individual votes on officers’ disciplinary cases be posted within two business days on the Chicago Police Board’s Web site and stay online for at least two years. He also is proposing that all findings and decisions — including an explanation of the reasoning behind them and a rationale for dissenting votes — be posted online for two years, too.

Under Fioretti's measure, board members -- nearly half of whom skipped 30 percent or more of the monthly meetings -- would also see their annual stipends cut. Term limits would also be imposed so board members could only serve consecutive five-year terms. “CJP fully endorses these ordinance revisions,” writes executive director Tracy Siska.

Activists Push For Better TIF Investment: "We Need This Housing"

Angela Caputo — Wed, 18 Nov 2009 08:14:37 -0800

A few months back, a coalition of community activists from across Chicago met at City Hall to call out the Daley administration for investing so few tax increment financing (TIF) dollars in affordable housing. After all, over the past decade, a mere 4 percent of the economic development money has gone towards such projects. That's despite the fact that home construction and the stabilization of housing stock can be key drivers in the rejuvenation of blighted communities. But instead of using substantial amounts of the money for these purposes, regular readers know that Mayor Daley has more often played favorites and doled out money to deep-pocketed corporations to subsidize their swank office renovations.

With the Sweet Home Chicago coalition at their back, Alds. Walter Burnett (27th Ward) and Manny Flores (1st Ward) have taken the lead in proposing that a larger chunk of the money -- 20 percent of TIF revenue collected each year -- is committed to affordable housing projects. These new and rehabbed developments would address the city's housing imbalance by setting aside apartments for low- and moderate-income families (earning $37,700 a year or less) who are priced out of decent housing in a growing number of Chicago communities.

Yesterday, the coalition of community groups gathered in in Uptown where they highlighted some of the blighted buildings that could benefit from greater TIF investment. "We need this housing," neighborhood housing activist Laverne Johnson said, pointing to her neighbors' sub-standard living conditions. "We are all suffering." Watch:

So far, five aldermen have signed on to the ordinance. Once it has 15 supporters, the measure will go to the full City Council. The Sweet Home Chicago organizers are working on drumming up more support in wards throughout the city. "Until you have pressure from the outside," co-sponsor Ald. Joe Moore (49th Ward) tells us, "the conversation won't happen."

Is This Daley's Idea Of TIF Transparency?

Angela Caputo — Tue, 17 Nov 2009 12:18:13 -0800

Mayor Daley appears to be feeling the pressure to come clean about his plans to spend the city's $1 billion tax increment financing (TIF) surplus. As regular readers know, the city's unprecedented budget shortfall has opened the door to some long-overdue questions about why the public funds ($495 million in 2009 to be exact) siphoned off the tax rolls each year aren't folded into the public budgeting process. On Friday, Daley went on the offense, citing a recently-renovated bridge as an example of how the TIF system isn't shadowy at all, but rather an expansive public works campaign that's unfolding in plain sight. From the Tribune's report:

Aldermen who want greater control over how tax increment financing funds are used in their wards are "beating the heck out of us" without appreciating how the money has improved their neighborhoods, Daley said at an event to mark repairs on the Cherry Avenue bridge connecting North Avenue to Goose Island. The bridge renovation was funded in part using $3.75 million collected from a special taxing district in the area, where property tax collections were frozen to help finance infrastructure repairs [...]

"Some of the aldermen are questioning it. That's why they're not here today, to be very simple. Because they don't think it should be used for this purpose," Daley said.

For the past year, we've been following the TIF debate very closely and have yet to hear an alderman protest the use of the funds on a public works project. What's come under fire is the fact that the money is being doled out in secret -- and often in the form of corporate welfare -- at a time when public services have been slashed and property owners taxed to the hilt.

Moreover, most aldermen probably aren't so fond of how the mayor uses his control of the TIF honey pot to keep them in line. As the Reader's Ben Joravsky and Mick Dumke explained in their latest investigation, those who cross the mayor can often forget about getting a new school or other public works project in their ward:

By moving more necessary expenditures into the secret budget that he ultimately controls, the mayor also wields even more power over every public entity, from the City Council to the public schools to the Park District. At various times at least half a dozen aldermen have told us that mayoral aides pressure them on key votes—such as the ordinances for funding the Olympics or moving the Children's Museum to Grant Park—by either promising to give their wards more TIF dollars or threatening to take TIF dollars away.

When you consider the amount of power Daley derives from the TIF system, it's not surprising that he continues to make weak pledges regarding transparency, such as his latest promise to put together "a full list of all the examples" of TIF-funded projects. As Greg Hinz recently put it, the mayor needs to "cut the bull" and let the public and their representatives have a look before these public funds are spent.

Straight Talk On The State Budget From Pagano, Placko, And Kacich

Angela Caputo — Mon, 16 Nov 2009 13:34:53 -0800

After watching again and again as Illinois lawmakers relied on financial gimmicks to pay for core services, budget experts knew it was only a matter of time before Springfield would be forced to confront the state's ballooning structural deficit.

Last week, the Pew Center on the States confirmed that the moment of reckoning is near, ranking the Land of Lincoln among 10 states now on the brink of financial peril. The Pew researchers recounted how Illinois lawmakers -- in order to avoid generating more revenue by modernizing the income and sales tax systems -- have resorted to short-sighted budget maneuvers, such as delaying bill payments and skimping on the state's annual pension contributions.

Now the nation is in a recession and those bills are coming due, leaving Illinois' an estimated $12.8 billion in the hole in FY 2011.

"It's like a balloon mortgage," University of Illinois at Chicago public policy professor Michael Pagano explained during a budget roundtable on WTTW's Chicago Tonight last Thursday. "At the end of the period you have to make a big payment for what you've been consuming. We've now been consuming a lot of state resources for the past eight years without paying for them." Watch it (full video here):

For some perspective consider this: On a per capita basis, Illinois is one of the lowest-spending states when it comes to core services. Yet we still can't generate enough revenue to cover our obligations. Why? Because we are one of a mere mere seven states with flat income tax system. Moreover, our 3 percent rate remains lower than the other six (Colorado: 4.63 percent, Michigan: 4.35 percent, Tennessee: 6 percent, New Hampshire: 5 percent, Pennsylvania: 3.07 percent, and Utah: 5 percent).

Over the weekend, the News-Gazette's Tom Kacich called out the Republican gubernatorial hopefuls for remaining in denial over the need to raise revenue:

The Republican gubernatorial candidates can pretend otherwise, but one of them may "discover" upon taking office early in 2011 that things are worse than expected and we can't just cut our way out of this long-developing financial predicament.

It's happened to other Republicans (remember Govs. Ogilvie, Thompson and Edgar), and it could – depending on which party wins next year's election – happen again.

Meanwhile, Fox Chicago Sunday host Dane Placko took Illinois Senate Minority Leader Christine Radogno on this past weekend, attempting to get her to acknowledge that "some sort of revenue increase" will be necessary. As you can see in the video below, she insisted on keeping her head in the sand:

PLACKO: There has to be some sort of revenue increase. We've had a number of Republican gubernatorial candidates on this show over the past few weeks. Isn't it a little disingenuous for everyone of them to say we can cut our way out of this. We can't cut our way out of this, can we?

RADOGNO: The problem is there is a limit to what you can cut. But there are many other areas of state government where we can do things much better and much more efficiently. For examples pension reforms. And my problems is, when I represent my constituents, I can't go to them and look them in the eye and say "we're too afraid to means test senior rides, we're too afraid to reform the pension system. So you just send us your money to the same old rotten, corrupt system."

PLACKO: It's true that there are efficiencies that are going to be made and pension reform is a big matter. Look at the deficits we're facing. You can't cut your way out of those deficits, right? There's going to have to be some revenue increase.

RADOGNO: I can't say that with certainty because we haven't even tried to do things more efficiently.

Every public official who takes to the airwaves this campaign season asserting that this budget can be balanced without new tax revenue, the reaction from media figures should be one of incredulity. As the State Journal-Register editorial board wrote several weeks ago: "Those candidates who promise you no pain, those who say things can be solved by just making nips and tucks and magically creating private sector jobs — they have just lied to you."

IL-14 Residents Make The Case For Swift Health Care Reform

Angela Caputo — Fri, 13 Nov 2009 15:15:03 -0800

Over the past year, Capitol Hill has been portrayed as ground zero in the health care debate. But the heart of the fight was never in D.C. Rather, it was in the millions of households across the country, where the uninsured and the underinsured live in fear, knowing that they can't afford to get sick or even find insurance companies willing to enroll them because of pre-existing conditions. Just a week after the House passed landmark legislation to finally change that, Democratic U.S. Rep. Bill Foster was back in the 14th District today. There some of his constituents made the case for why the nation can't afford to wait any longer to see those reforms through.

"My husband and I, we've done everything right," Amy Ruppert of Batavia said, "We don't have any outstanding debt. We've paid all of our bills." But with her COBRA plan set to expire within months and a pre-existing condition prohibiting her from buying into a new plan, "we will be one step away from catastrophic financial devastation," she said. Watch:

Foreclosure Prevention On The Cook Co. Agenda ... Finally (Corrected)

Angela Caputo — Fri, 13 Nov 2009 10:48:52 -0800

Over the past two weeks, we've been covering some intense efforts by Chicago-area who want to see Cook County set aside some of the millions in foreclosure filing fee revenue for mediation services. After a year of unsuccessfully trying to get a meeting with County Board President Todd Stroger, the group Action Now finally sat down with Chief Judge of the Cook County Circuit Courts Tim Evans earlier this week, who pledged to recommend such an initiative to the board president.

It looks like the organizers' hard work may be paying off. Action Now informed us today that Stroger is currently circulating a budget amendment that will set aside $3 million next year to bolster much-needed foreclosure mediation and prevention efforts. Of that, $1.3 million will go toward outreach and adding legal staff to a foreclosure hotline. The remainder will go directly toward funding additional court and mediation staff.

Action Now's Aileen Kelleher tells us that the remaining question is whether the amendment will survive if the board succeeds in passing a partial repeal of Stroger's controversial one-percent sales tax hike, which is on their agenda this coming Monday. "We have to keep up the pressure on elected officials to see that this stays in the budget," Kelleher adds. Check back for more details on Monday afternoon.

(CORRECTION 11/16: This post originally stated that Comm. Larry Suffredin had also introduced a $1.3 million foreclosure prevention amendment. It turns out that the measure is for the functioning of the county courts, not exclusively for foreclosure-related services. We regret the error.)

Study Criticizes Top-Down Coverage Of Living Wage Debate

Angela Caputo — Fri, 13 Nov 2009 07:52:31 -0800

Amid reports about Wal-Mart's renewed effort to move back into Chicago, editorial boards and local media figures resorted to a familiar refrain: that people in low-income communities should simply be grateful for any new jobs. Ald. Howard Brookins Jr. (21st Ward) has also pushed the argument that Wal-Mart's poverty wages are perfectly sufficient, despite the fact that he is one of several aldermen who refused to take unpaid furlough days from his $110,000 (part-time) job, claiming at the time: "I can't afford it." The hypocrisy is staggering. But don't hold your breath waiting for the local media call him out on it.

Just as the debate resumes over whether to allow Wal-Mart to expand in the city, the Grassroots Collaborative has released an analysis (PDF) of newspaper coverage during the thick of the historic big box living wage fight back in 2006. They found that the coverage largely excluded the perspective of people directly impacted by a potential Wal-Mart expansion: politicians and business leaders made up 75 percent of the 380 quotes identified in the study, while community groups and residents had only a 6 percent say. More from the report:

The most frequent frames to characterize the Living Wage debate focused on its potential negative effects. Other common frames discussed the ordinance as a political power-play between city and labor leaders. These frames would leave readers with the impression that the living wage was an idea manufactured and pushed exclusively by union leaders, unsupported by or unimportant to ordinary working people and met with unified predictions of economic doom from the business community and city officials.

As we've pointed out before, the living wage fight isn't is about families' financial security and good public policy. One advocate opposed to Wal-Mart's race to the bottom is the Illinois Hunger Coalition's Diane Doherty. "Too many of our people who are working are hungry," she told us earlier this fall. And as more working-poor people are tipped into government programs, such as food stamps (where enrollment continues to surge) or Medidcaid, taxpayers end up subsidizing Wal-Mart's stinginess.

The report goes on to point out: "A reasonable standard of accuracy also requires that journalists try to report the most important costs and benefits of the policy to advocates, opponents, policy makers and those affected." Let's hope that local mainstream journalists see this an instructive critique.

Full disclosure: The Grassroots Collaborative includes to SEIU Local 73 and SEIU Healthcare Illinois Indiana. Progress Illinois is sponsored by the SEIU Illinois State Council.