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Mayor Richard Daley has two job openings to fill and instead of simply naming the closest family member of the outgoing alderman, he’s actually posted an ad and looking for applicants and the whole things is unintentionally hilarious.

Daley’s looking to fill vacancies for the 1st Ward, formerly held by Manny Flores who resigned last month after Gov. Pat Quinn named him head of the Illinois Commerce Commission. The 29th Ward seat was vacated this month when Ike Carothers pleaded guilty in federal court to tax and bribery charges.

Take a look at the job requirements.

Applications should include the following items:

• A cover letter to Mayor Richard M. Daley expressing your interest in being considered for the appointment.
• A resume that includes details about your community involvement and prior work experience.
• At least three letters of recommendation from community leaders, business leaders, or residents of the ward

Two of the job requirements are particularly hilarious but really need to be amended (italics mine):

• Owe no taxes or other debt to the City of Chicago, that we know of or that can be easily proved by a federal investigator.
• Not have been convicted in any court located in the United States of any infamous crime, bribery, perjury, or other felony, until after appointed to office at which point the City will pay all legal expenses.

The City oddly doesn’t provide a job description so allow me:

Mayor Richard M. Daley seeks candidates for a part time position “serving” the City of Chicago as Alderman of their respective districts. Responsibilities include sporadic attendance at Council meetings, ability to speak out of both sides of the mouth, two faces, and a total lack of ethics.

Salary: Six figures for life with regular cost of living increases at the expense of non-union employees. Friends and family ride free. Good benefits, including new homes and/or remodeling.

Applications are due tomorrow, Friday, February 19, 2010, and must be delivered to City Hall.

Democracy at work.

Chicago Tribune reporter, Michael Hawthorne, uncovered the debacle last year. Apparently Crestwood had been relying on contaiminated well water for a portion of its local water supply, but filed paperwork saying otherwise. Now everyone is tangled up in lawsuits from the State’s Attorney’s office to personal injury lawyers, all looking for compensation from the Village of Crestwood.

But it’s the people of Crestwood that are paying the bills. Nearly $1 million in legal fees thus far, according to the Tribune. Apparently Crestwood’s insurers won’t cover the defense thanks to a clause in their contract.

In a court filing by the village’s largest insurers, Scottsdale Indemnity Co. and National Casualty Co., the companies highlight contract language they contend allows them to deny coverage for the “deliberate violation of any federal, state or local statute, ordinance, rule or regulation committed by or with the knowledge of the insured.”

Taxpayers are paying to take the insurance companies to court too.

Water pollution: Crestwood legal bills exceed $1 million in water scandal – chicagotribune.com.

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In Chicago, politicians partake in a form of insider trading almost daily. And today, we can read about how state Rep. Daniel J.  Burke earns cash lobbying the city while pulling a pension from his stint as Chicago’s deputy city clerk.

That’s right. Burke “makes $68,828 a year, on top of the $85,903 a year he makes as a state legislator.”

But times are tough and a politician from Illinois can’t be expected to subsist on a mere mid-six figures. What’s a well connected former city/current state employee to do? Become a lobbyist of course.

A year after he picked up his first pension check, he set up Burke Cornell Consulting Co. with businessman and former Florida cop Terry Cornell Jr. as his partner. They set up the lobbying firm at 2650 W. 51st St. in Gage Park on the Southwest Side. It’s the same building where Burke and his brother also have their government offices. He says there never was any danger that Illinois taxpayers might somehow end up picking up the rent for his lobbying business because his landlord — his brother, the alderman — doesn’t charge him to lease his state office.

“No state dollars have ever paid for my operation of the state office,” Dan Burke says.

We can see the conflict of interest even if neither Burke can. His brother, the alderman Ed Burke, donates the office space and then approves the development deals. No conflict, here.

Not to worry, Burke says he hasn’t lobbied in a year. He was busy with a re-election campaign.  Read all about it in this report from the Better Government Association and the Chicago Sun Times.

Rep. Burke: From deputy city clerk to City Hall lobbyist :: CHICAGO SUN-TIMES :: The Watchdogs.

…many of you answered, quite memorably: Put Blago in there and fill it with concrete….Would the Children’s Museum fit in there?….Put the Obama Presidential Library there (it’s the right lettter shape at least).

The Chicago Architectural Club is running a contest called “Mine the Gap.” Even if nothing tangible comes of it, at least its something creative to do on a cold and snowy day.

via Cityscapes: Round two: Filling the Chicago Spire hole.

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It’s hard to find the things funny while buried in snow and sleep deprived after a 4 a.m. earthquake, but this headline from the Tribune has me in stitches.

“Alderman pass measure limiting relatives on city payroll”

The Tribune is taking some credit:

Ald. Thomas Allen, 38th, first proposed the change last November in response to a Tribune story that revealed aldermen were using a $1.3 million payroll controlled by the Finance Committee to hire relatives, campaign operatives and workers with political baggage.

One of the employees with political baggage was a former full-time city worker ousted over sexual harassment allegations who had been placed on a city do-not-hire list.

The first rule in Chicago politics is Don’t Get Caught. If caught, however, the next move is to claim it’s all a big mistake. That the upstanding elected official didn’t do anything wrong, technically, because there was no law against it. Also, everyone was doing it.

Case in point:

The story also noted at least four aldermen had used the account to hire relatives, prompting former 29th Ald. Isaac Carothers, who since resigned his post after pleading guilty in federal court to bribes, to say: “All us (aldermen) have family members on the payroll. That’s nothing new.”

Making it illegal to hire relatives from some off-the-books fund is a pretty lame action to take in the grand scheme of things. I never thought I’d write these words but, Ald. Bernard Stone, 50th, almost made sense on the subject.

“The general public’s opinion of the aldermen themselves is so low, that if you are going to sit and worry about what their opinion is of hiring members of the aldermen’s family, it’s probably no greater than what it is of the aldermen,” Stone said.

Never fear, it was just a momentary lapse of reason.

“I don’t care what you tell me, that is unfair,” Stone told Allen of his proposal. “It is certainly contrary to the statement that all people are created equal. It is certainly contrary to the 14th Amendment of the United States Constitution, which we fought the Civil War over, and you are creating a special class by saying that relatives of aldermen cannot serve because they are relatives, because by chance of birth they were born relatives of aldermen.”

After the Tribune is done tooting its own horn, maybe it could look into that “stealth payroll” referred to so frequently. The one being used to pay all these family members that will continue to have jobs, since everyone is grandfathered into the new law.

The little-known Revenue Committee account has been around for decades, and employees paid through the fund don’t show up on the regular city payroll.

Wouldn’t it be great if instead of just ruling out family members, we eliminated anything considered stealthy from city government?

Clout St: City Council restricts relative hiring on stealth payroll.

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The city of Chicago’s reputation for driving away business continues unabated. When city health inspectors visited a shared kitchen last week, they destroyed hundreds of dollars of food, then came back and did it again. All in the name of city licensing.

Chicago Tribune reporter Monica Eng was there, observing for an upcoming piece on shared kitchens. Her video and account of what happened describes a small business caught in a maze of rules and regulations in multiple city departments that ultimately do nothing but produce revenue for the city in the form of licensing fees.

Shared kitchens are a growing trend that allows independent operators a professional, sanitary and presumable legal space to produce food for catering or other related businesses. In this case, Kitchen Chicago has been legally licensed to operate, making the facility responsible for  food safety issues. This seems reasonable and right, but the city of Chicago being what it is, the owners were later told the individual tenants need to be licensed too.

So Flora Lazar applied for a business license to operate Flora Confections, and use the Kitchen Chicago facilities. When city inspectors paid the required visit, they found food waiting to be used in Lazar’s candies. The inspectors then ripped open the bags of fruit puree dumped it in the garbage can and doused it with bleach. Fellow Kitchen Chicago tenant Sunday Dinner Club also had food destroyed, and the inspectors promised to return. Cue ominous music.

In all, enough food was destroyed to close down Lazar’s small business for months.

Shared kitchens are supposed to operate as business incubators that will ultimately contribute the local economy. Eng appeared on WBEZ this morning to update the story and describe the Byzantine maze of rules and licenses that operators like Lazar get lost in when trying to do the right thing. The city says it’s about health concerns, but I wonder if it doesn’t have more to do with the short term payoff gleaned from license fees and fines. Kitchen Chicago has 11 tenants, and 12 licenses are worth more than one. And according to Eng, inspectors say if one violation is discovered fines can be issued to every tenant using the facilities, something she equates to the police pulling over a car for speeding and giving the driver and everyone in it a ticket. Again, 12 fines pay more than one. The person at the Health Department who came up with this must be seeing dollar signs.

There are no rules to refer to here, no codes to post that ensure compliance. Just a bunch of people trying to launch and grow their businesses and being thwarted by the city every step of the way. It’s crap like this that makes people move to the suburbs. Evanston requires one license per shared kitchen that covers all the tenants.  The City told WBEZ and the Tribune’s Eng that this
the prospect of losing small businesses to suburbs like Evanston isn’t their primary concern, health is. But no one is saying this food is going to hurt anyone, it’s a matter of paperwork and licensing. And fees.

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Being from Illinois is just too embarrassing. A year after our governor is indicted on federal corruption charges (and becomes a laughingstock on national TV), the primary to replace him has close to the lowest voter turnout in state history and in the end, we chose another cast of ridiculous characters.

And the most ridiculous of all is Scott Lee Cohen. Cohen is now the Democratic candidate for lieutenant governor and it turns out, he’s been arrested on a domestic violence charge. His former girlfriend accused him of holding a knife to her neck and his ex-wife had an order of protection against him at one point. None of this came out during the campaign although his opponents say they told both candidates for the governor’s seat.

No one cared. Not even the voters care about who’s in office anymore, voter turnout is estimated at just 25 percent. Maybe we’re all just too exhausted by the unending parade of lousy candidates and even lousier officeholders. How else can we explain electing Cohen, a pawn broker with a controversial past who financed his own campaign?

The election isn’t until November and we still have 10 months of campaigning and scandal to endure. Cohen’s revelations are just the tip of the iceberg, this is Illinois after all. I just hope it doesn’t interfere with the current TV season. Rod Blagojevich is on “Celebrity Apprentice” next month.

Steve Rhodes kindly runs down the pros and cons of each political hopeful. If he can’t be helpful, he is at least entertaining. As in this description of Green Party Candidate for U.S. Senate, LeAlan Jones:

LeAlan Jones says of the worst experience of his life “Right now, I don’t have anything;” of his biggest mistake, “I don’t have any;” and of his first date, “I don’t remember.

At least he’s well-prepared to answer questions before future investigating committees.

And this nifty conclusion about Dorothy Brown, Democratic candidate for Cook County Board President:

(She’s) an enigma wrapped in a mystery stuffed in an envelope of cash that no one can account for.

If you’re undecided, or just like to be told what to do, here’s the best guide of the day.

The Beachwood Reporter.

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It’s primary time in Illinois (and groundhog day), and I’ve awakened from a winter slumber. Around these parts, we go to the polls in February and I’ve always suspected it was designed to discourage residents from voting. This would go a long way toward explaining how we got into this mess.

Low voter turnout is business as usual here. I can’t recall a time when even close to half of registered voters turned out to vote, and that was to elect Barack Obama to the U.S. Senate. In 2006, just 25% cast a ballot.

Things were pretty quiet in my polling place this morning, a scene reportedly being played out across the city. If people aren’t angry enough about the antics of Todd Stroger, or don’t get how the Cook County board controls things like the county health system or Chicago’s sales tax, the highest in the country, then there’s really very little hope for reform or change.

Alan Tecktiel,  a Facebook friend from the old neighborhood put it quite succinctly:

“I will be voting for Todd Stroger for all open offices including governor and us senate every time I vote today. Please consider doing the same. This will send a clear message to Springfield and Washington that we are idiots who don’t deserve the right to vote.”

The polls close at 7 pm.

But now Mayor Daley is considering rescinding the tax. Just for new hires and just through 2011. The vote comes before City Council on Wednesday.

Daley hasn’t been very business friendly, unless you count big fat TIF handouts to places like Willis to renovate some space in the former Sears Tower, or “incentives” to Boeing to relocate here. Blocking Walmart from coming into Chicago and aligning with unions to a degree that Chicago’s convention business is fleeing to less expensive cities. There’s there’s the parking fiasco hurting small businesses particularly along the fringes of the city.

The tax doesn’t seem like a lot but it adds up and sends a message. At $4 per employee, per month, the head tax brings in about $22 million a year, according an editorial in the Chicago Tribune today.

A temporary suspension would be a modest move. A savings of $96 over two years isn’t likely to be the deciding factor when an employer weighs whether to add someone to the payroll.

But collectively the head tax is a significant factor when an employer considers whether to set up shop in Chicago, or the suburbs, or another state. The mayor could make this have real impact by pushing to eliminate the head tax, period.

For as long as the head tax has existed, it has been emblematic of the city’s mixed message to employers. In effect, it penalizes employers for putting someone on the payroll in Chicago. It penalizes them for expanding operations in the city. Add in the city’s notorious regulatory red-tape and the council’s penchant for punishing those who hire nonunion labor, and you have a city that encourages businesses to look elsewhere.

Daley has chosen to use TIF incentives to business rather than restructuring an egregious tax code. That’s another subject but addresses taxes that negatively effect the business climate here and employment opportunities is a much more direct way to incentive business. Kill the head tax and help Chicagoan’s get to work.

Kill the jobs tax — chicagotribune.com.