Tribune: Mayor Rahm Emanuel floats port district land as Chicago casino location #Serving17

Even though Rahm Emanuel will only remain mayor until May 2019, he seems to be coming up with some proposals. He's still trying to use what's left of his political heft to come up with some ideas for the city:

Mayor Rahm Emanuel on Wednesday floated a port district site on the Far Southeast Side as the possible location for a Chicago casino, if state lawmakers finally grant the city the long-sought gambling palace.

In a meeting with the Chicago Tribune Editorial Board, Emanuel noted his “love-hate” relationship with the idea of a casino but said if the city finally builds one it should be away from the Loop and McCormick Place. Instead, he said it should bring economic development to an area of the city that needs it, before floating an Illinois International Port District site near Pullman as “an example.”

The land, just off the 111th Street exit on the Bishop Ford Freeway, currently is home to the Harborside International golf course with some harbor operations and terminals nearby on Lake Calumet. The port district that owns the land is a joint city-state entity.

“If you go down to the port authority where the golf course is, there’s enough land there for both a hotel and a casino,” Emanuel said. “That would be a big boon economically to the Southeast Side of the city.”

Emanuel made the remarks on the same day he gave a speech to aldermen on his recommendations to address the city’s pension funding shortfalls moving forward. The mayor’s plan included revenue from a proposed Chicago casino as part of the answer.

Personally I'm with this, who says a proposed casino has to be in or near downtown Chicago. Put one in a neighborhood that's struggling. In this case Pullman, and then again hopefully there are other proposals.

However, to be honest it seems like forever that there's been discussions of a Chicago casino that seems to have a tendency to fall through. So perhaps deciding on a site or finally building one will still take years. Wait and see I suppose.

h/t to state Sen. Elgie Sims FB page hence why I used the #Serving17 hashtag.

 

17th District Legislative Resource Fair

The flyer below you might have seen in an e-mail blast however more details are contained on state senate Elgie Sims' official webpage. On the agenda according to a flyer you'd see on his webpage are resources that includes youth employment & summer programming, senior & veteran services, wellness checks, property ownership, job readiness and more.

When:

• Thursday June 7, 2018
  6:00 PM to 8:30 PM

Where:

• South Central Community Services
  1021 East 83rd Street

Call Elgie Sims' office in Chicago @ 773.933.7715 or his Springfield office @ 217.782.3201

Thank you Sen. Donne Trotter

Illinois state capitol - Springfield

In portions of Chicago's 9th Ward Donne Trotter's 34 state senate district covers and area north and easy of the Bishop Ford/Calumet Expressway. So that means he covers Chatham, Chesterfield, West Chesterfield, Roseland Heights, & Pullman.

On Friday he announced his retirement from the Illinois state senate effective immediately. Rich Miller who writes the Capitol Fax blog and newsletter wrote this for the Sun-Times yesterday:

He was the Senate Democrats’ top point person on appropriations for years, and that “budgeteer” status gave him the access and the power to help shape the government in incremental measures with every new state budget. His contributions cannot be minimized. From KidCare, to things like clean needle exchanges, mental health programs, HIV programs – pretty much anything whatsoever to do with improving the health of people in Illinois – Trotter (who has a master’s degree in Health Policy of Jurisprudence from Loyola Law School and was an administrator at Cook County Hospital) has been part of it.

Trotter is also well known for his mentorship of young African Americans. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve watched him stop a conversation among older people to make sure a young black person’s voice was heard.

Rep. Elgie Sims (D-Chicago) is probably one of his most successful mentorships. Sims served on the Senate appropriations staff under Trotter, then became the caucus’ budget director and, after law school, became a state representative who is now chairman of the House Judiciary Criminal Law Committee.

As reported over at Concerned Citizens of Chatham, there is an expectation that Elgie Sims may be Trotter successor to the 34th district seat in the state senate. Continuing:

Sen. Trotter got his political start with Congressman Ralph Metcalfe’s 1974 campaign. Later, Trotter helped register tens of thousands of voters for Harold Washington’s 1983 mayoral campaign. The late Chicago political expert Paul Green used to tell the story about how Mayor Washington was duly impressed when only two voters in Trotter’s assigned precinct cast their ballots for one of the other mayoral candidates.

Trotter thought his big move to the Illinois General Assembly would happen in 1986, when then-Rep. Carol Moseley-Braun decided to run for lieutenant governor. He backed out of the race when the future U.S. senator decided not to run statewide. Instead, Trotter wound up being elected to the House in 1988, after Moseley-Braun was elected Cook County recorder of deeds.

The new legislative district map in 1991 forced him to run for the Senate the following year, where he has served ever since. Trotter turned out to be far more suited to the Senate (he often chafed under House Speaker Michael Madigan’s rule) and quickly became an indispensable member of Senate Democratic Leader Emil Jones’ team. When Jones was elected Senate president, Trotter’s power increased exponentially.

Below is the post from Concerned Citizens of Chatham and we have at least 30 days for Democrat bosses in 34th district to determine who will succeed Trotter.