« Special thanks to guest Michael Volpe, John Swietczak, Ivan Tomic, and Michael McGann. | Main | City of Chicago Department of Water Management Employee sentenced to eight years »

Rabine Paving fixes sidewalks as Chicago Cement finishers starve

Rabine Paving Chicago.jpg I was speaking to Chicago Cement finishers a couple of days ago, he was a foreman with Mayor Daley's Department of Transportation. He spoke of the many months Chicago pays their workers unemployment as private contractors make tons of money. The City guys carded the Milwaukee Avenue (Jefferson Park) project that never seems to end. I have watched Mayor Daley and his goons continue to privatize work that should be done by actual Chicago residents. I guess Mayor Daley wants to be a big man to those suburban contractors that give lavishly to his Olympic bid and campaign coffers. This group of laborers was fixing sidewalks for Chicago's Norwood Park business district. I am amazed at how these laborers are able to drive trucks, operate backhoes, and finish cement. I looked through Mayor Daley's website and I could not find contracts for Rabine Paving. I think these guys were in the 6100 block of Northwest Highway. The picture was taken on October 5, 2009. A thank you to Mayor Daley, for Chicago is quickly going non-union and non-skilled labor will complete the many tasks. But I do not understand why the Office of the Inspector General does not take the time to investigate these contractors. I am finding an overwhelming amount of Hispanic workers; I do not find women, blacks, or handicap workers working for the private contractors. I think Mayor Daley's trick is to have his friends and family start phony minority businesses, get the contracts as subcontractors, and laugh all the way to the bank. Photo by Patrick McDonough

Comments

I look at pictures like this and think "Job Security". All this sub-par work will need to be re-done eventually. Once Hitler isn't our Mayor anymore, things hopefully will be better. More and more talk is being said about how he most likely won't even run for re-election in 2011.

“DIVERSIONARY ILLLUSIONS”
ABOUND IN 2010 CONTESTS

ANALYSIS & OPINION BY RUSS STEWART
It’s called the art of diversionary illusion. It’s the ploy of Las Vegas magicians and ambitious politicians. On stage, one must distract the yokels, and perfect the trick. In politics, one must appear to be sincerely seeking one office while really lusting after another.
Already, a plethora of disingenuous Illinois politicians are running for office in 2010 with the expectation that they will seek another in 2011 or soon thereafter. Here’s the list:
Democrat Dan Hynes, the current state comptroller, is running for governor to augment his stature and name recognition. He will likely lose to incumbent Pat Quinn, but he’s positioning himself to run for Chicago mayor in 2011, should Rich Daley retire. Expect Hynes to focus heavily on state “corruption,” and tie Quinn to Rod Blagojevich.
Democrat David Hoffman, Chicago’s former Inspector General, is running for U.S. Senator to acquire visibility and burnish his “reform” image. He could win the primary, but his real goal is to run for mayor in 2011, and he would especially relish a one-on-one against Daley.
Democrat Sandi Jackson, the first-term alderman from Chicago’s black South Side 7th Ward, and wife of the beleaguered U.S. Representative Jesse Jackson Jr. (D-2), is running for Lieutenant Governor so she, too, can run for mayor in 2011. Jesse’s serious “ethics” problems, stemming from his alleged involvement in Blagojevich’s senate appointment process, has spawned investigations by the U.S. Attorney and by the U.S. House Office of Congressional Ethics.
Despite her husband’s toxicity, Sandi Jackson has an outside chance to win the primary. And if she were Illinois’ first black Lieutenant Governor, she’d be in an enviable position to run for mayor. However, most Democrats expect her to fold her candidacy before the Nov. 2 filing deadline.
Democrat Toni Preckwinkle, the black 18-year alderman from Chicago’s Hyde Park, is running for Cook County board president, posturing as an “independent reformer” and hoping Todd Stroger quits the race. But Preckwinkle is really running to build her name identification, and – win or lose in 2010 – she would certainly run for an open mayoral seat.
Democrat Terry O’Brien, president of the Metropolitan Water Reclamation District, is running for Stroger’s job. O’Brien, if he faces three blacks – Stroger, Preckwinkle, and Clerk of Court Dorothy Brown – will win. And if he’s the new board president, he’d be the obvious compromise choice for mayor if Daley quit.
Democrat Tom Dart, the county sheriff, was urged by many to run for board president, U.S. Senator, or statewide office. Popular, scandal-free, youthful (47), and beneficiary of plenty of positive publicity surrounding the Burr Oak cemetery scandal, Dart is seeking re-election with his eye on the big prize: mayor. If Daley quits, Dart will be the first to jump in, and will have solid support from South Side committeemen, to Hynes’ detriment.
Democrat Joe Berrios, the veteran Board of Review commissioner and county party chairman, is running for county assessor, hoping to utilize that choice money-raising post as a base to run for mayor in 2011 or 2015, when Daley retires.
Democrat Lisa Madigan, Illinois’ two-term attorney general, is running for re-election in 2010 for just one reason: she feared losing the governor’s race. Beating Quinn would have been difficult and expensive, and an incipient anti-Democratic trend would have doomed her in the election. She’ll run for governor in 2014. Or, just possibly, should Daley retire in 2011, the Democratic Establishment, of which her father, Illinois House Speaker Mike Madigan, is an esteemed member, could draft Lisa Madigan as the least objectionable – or most electable – party choice.
Republican Brad Cole, the mayor of Downstate Carbondale, is running for Lieutenant Governor because he really wants to be a state representative. But Dave Luechtefeld (R-58), the area’s state senator, won’t retire, so Mike Bost (R-115), the area’s state representative, can’t run for senator, and Cole can’t run for Bost’s seat. Republicans dumped a lot of money into Cole’s 2007 re-election bid, when he beat Sheila Simon, daughter of the late senator.
State Senators Terry Link (D-30), of Lake Bluff; Rickey Hendon (D-5), of Chicago’s West Side; and Matt Murphy (R-27), of Palatine, are all running for Lieutenant Governor for one totally compelling reason: It’s a free shot. Their terms run through 2012, so they can make a risk-free bid for the office. If they lose, so what?
And finally, Northwest Side political gadfly Frank Coconate, a nominal Democrat and a persistent Daley critic, is running for Cook County Board president in the Green Party primary. Here’s a multiple choice question: He’s running because he (a) wants publicity, (b) thinks he can win, (c) is laying the groundwork to run for 41st Ward alderman in 2011, or (d) is goofy? One of the foregoing is incorrect.
In other political developments:
It was, to use a sports analogy, a “Bartman moment.” Out of the Olympics, out of the media eye, and maybe out of office. Mayor Daley’s ego and sense of optimism, buoyed by President Barack Obama’s personal intervention in Copenhagen, was deflated in a moment, flattened like a pancake. Just like the Chicago Cubs after the Bartman catch in the playoffs.
Like any politician, Daley dreamed grandiose dreams. After 20 years as mayor, Daley has compiled an impressive record on “quality of life” issues: neighborhood viability, exemplary city services, good schools, low crime, a restrained budget and reasonably low taxes, decent parks, a vibrant Loop and Lakefront. But nothing lasts forever.
The economic downturn has virtually shuttered new construction, prompting unemployment and discontent among Daley’s chief allies, the labor unions. Property taxes are increasing, the budget is short $300 million, crime is painfully visible, and percolating scandals could explode at any time.
A 2016 Chicago Olympics would have sugarcoated all these problems, allowing Daley to focus on the so-called Big Picture for the next seven years, giving him a pretext to run again in 2011 and 2015. The mayor called snaring the 2016 Summer Games a “defining moment in history,” akin to the Chicago Fire and the 1933 World’s Fair.
Instead, the mayor’s lack of clout with the IOC was a defining moment in Daley’s reign. He’s not a player on the world stage, and Chicago was deemed deficient as a world-class city, eating the dust of Madrid, Tokyo and Rio de Janeiro. In short, Daley was humiliated.
How does he rebound? At age 67, does Daley quit at the top of his game? Does he leave office in 2011 voluntarily, amid verbal bouquets and testimonials, an icon in Chicago history, and the man who served as mayor for more years than his father (22)?
Or does he, with an approval rating hovering around 35 percent, downsize his vision and priorities, focus on potholes, travel the neighborhoods, resist the scandals, and reinvent himself as Chicago’s feisty, loveable and indispensable mayor? There is a great risk. There is a perception that Daley is becoming tired and tiresome. Losing the Olympics is inconsequential compared to losing re-election in 2011.
Daley has spent his lifetime in the family business, and a Daley has been mayor for 41 of the past 54 years. Even a slight possibility of voter rejection would be intolerable. Yet the Democratic Machine’s insiders fear chaos if Daley retires. There is no obvious successor. A gaggle of non-descript aldermen want the job: Pat O’Connor (40th), Joe Moore (49th), Bob Fioretti (2nd), Manny Flores (1st), Brendan Reilly (42nd), and Preckwinkle and Jackson. Also in the mix would be city Clerk Miguel del Valle and U.S. Representative Luis Gutierrez (D-4), as well as U.S. Representative Danny Davis (D-7) and Brown. Other possibilities include U.S. Representative Mike Quigley (D-5).
The result: Absolute Balkanization. Over a dozen candidates would run. It would take only 20 percent to make the runoff. Candidates would appeal solely to their base. If the Hispanic field (Gutierrez, Berrios, del Valle, Flores) was reduced to one, a Hispanic could make the runoff. If the black field (Jackson, Preckwinkle, Davis, Brown) was winnowed down, a black would make the runoff.
And as for the white field (Dart, Hynes, O’Connor, Fioretti, Reilly, Moore, O’Brien, possibly Madigan, and Hoffman), the muddle would be hopeless. Hoffman and Moore would compete for the anti-Daley white liberals, Reilly and Fioretti for the Lakefront yuppies, and O’Connor, Dart, Hynes and O’Brien for the white ethnics. Dart would have enough cross-over appeal to run first.
The white primary vote is roughly 47 percent, blacks are 43 percent, and Hispanics ten percent.
My first prediction: He gone. Daley will retire.
My second prediction: It will be Dart versus Preckwinkle in the runoff, and Dart will win.

Keep up the good work. I was emailed this link today from a friend who knows I am a member of Cement Masons Local 502.I am also an International Field Representative for the Operative Plasterers and Cement Masons International Union.I called the Local Rep about this project. He went out to the site.and there was a Local 502 Cement Mason on site and a member of the laborers union. They were performing work for Peoples Gas.So maybe that is why there was nothing on the City Website.
Thank You
John Higgins

http://cbs2chicago.com/local/pothole.school.edward.2.1236893.html


how can it get fixed if Daley laid everyone off?

I have been an employee at Rabine for the past 5 years and couldn't be happier with my benefits and wages. We're in all of the necessary Unions in Chicago and other areas we work. I can speak on behalf of all the employees when I say that Rabine is a great place to work! As John said this work was done for a private contractor and the city had nothing to do with it and we don't work for the city. Rabine is a great company that does quality work for our customers and we have nothing to do with Daley. If you did a little more research people would probably find you more credible instead of just another blogger talking just to talk.