Mayor Daley Archives

John Buck Co. has hired the former president of Chicago's Olympic bid committee as the blue-chip developer looks to drum up more public-sector business.

Lori Healey will start next week as a principal at Chicago-based Buck, where she'll focus on building the firm's pipeline of public sector projects, which hasn't suffered as poorly in the recession as other commercial real estate market sectors.

Ms. Healey, 50, would seem tailor-made for the job. She knows real estate, having worked for a major architecture firm before rejoining city government in 2005. She has worked as Mayor Richard Daley's chief of staff and later as president of Chicago 2016, the city's Olympic bid committee.

Mayor Richard M. Daley is now personally involved in the effort to hang onto a plastics industry trade show that has called Chicago home for nearly 40 years.

He met Wednesday with representatives of the trade group that stages the confab, and tried to convince them not to move the event to Orlando, Fla.

The five-day show in June generated $95.3 million in direct spending, according to the Chicago Convention and Tourism Bureau. The 2006 show, held in healthier economic times, generated $154.7 million.

Mayor Richard M. Daley is raiding the city's savings account, reports Greg Hinz.

That's the centerpiece of the proposed 2010 budget he unveiled Wednesday, a budget that draws down $350 million that had been set aside from the privatization of the city's parking meters.

Mr. Daley said that will help balance the $6.14-billion budget at a time when the economy is at its lowest ebb since the Great Depression. But the decision to "borrow" and "advance" the $350 million will be highly controversial, because fiscal experts frown on using one-time revenue to fill recurring budget holes.

It's budget week at Chicago's City Hall, and Greg Hinz says you can expect to see some truly scary stuff that may top the horrors already produced by the Chicago Transit Authority and the state of Illinois.
 
Mayor Richard M. Daley has been saying he's not going to raise taxes or fees and believes he can save only about $70 million toward the city's $550-million deficit by invoking more unpaid furlough days -- 24 days for non-union workers, including the mayor.

There could be worse news for the city's unionized workforce, and though the mayor seems to be opposed to further layoffs.

 

Team Daley has on its game face in the wake of the Copenhagen defeat.

From the mayor himself on down, the word is that life goes on, and that Richard M. Daley is a near-certain candidate for re-election in 2011.

If he's to earn a new term, if Chicago is to get what it deserves and needs, this mayor is going to have to take some of the energy and focus that went into the abortive Olympics efforts and direct it elsewhere.

Find out where columnist/blogger Greg Hinz thinks those energies should be focused.