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Was an assassination attempt made on Chicago Plumbing Inspector-in-Charge Carl Jackson?

Carl Jackson's Car.jpg Many well connected Plumbing Inspectors are scared for their lives at the City of Chicago Jardine Plant. What looks like a well placed shotgun blast terminated the rear window of Carl Jackson, Chicago Plumbing Inspector in Charge. Rumors have it; Carl Jackson is sitting on many checks that are part of well placed scam involving top City of Chicago Department of Water Management and Building Department employees. In its simplest form, the scam works like this, a Plumbing Contractor places a check made to the City of Chicago. The money should be used for water main work and meters. The department holds the check and have the repairs made by employees in distribution under the guise of street leaks or cut-offs, ect. Than the money is split with the contractor that brings the cash bribe and exchanges the money for the check. This scam might backfire if someone holds the check too long or reneges on the deal. I really hope the Plumber's Union can protect Carl Jackson if someone is out to get him. I also think the F.B.I. should investigate if threats are made to Water Department employees as the Jardine Plant provides drinking water to millions of people. I am not saying Carl has any part of this illegal activity, but I suggest he gets any backlog of work up to snuff. A checks should be deposited the same day they show at the city. I do not like when possible terrorist attacks are made against City employees. If you know of any possible scams, make sure you call the Office of the Inspector General. I am witness to a contractor in court under oath making these accusations. On another note, that was a nice gag Rahm played on Chicagoans. What a fool Rahm is.

Comments

i have dealt with carl on many occasions working for the city. this guy makes it a point to be difficult whenever possible. i do not think he shakes people down for money. i know for a fact he shakes them down for respect. he wants people who have accomplished things to call him MR. JACKSON. HE WANTS PEOPLE TO KNOW THAT he IS IN CHARGE. HE WOULD DO THIS TO CONTRACTORS ALL THE TIME. AS A PLUMBING INSPECTOR, he was in charge of determining whether or not a contractor who was running a new service would get credit for cutting off the existing service. the city takes a check from these contractors, charging them for the cut and seal. when the inspector gives the thumbs up on the new service he also gives a thumbs up or down to the cut off. based on this decision the city either cashes that check or send it back to the contractor. CARL used this power to hold these guys feet to the fire. the checks were for $2300. if someone does 1 new service a week, well you do the math. a little side note: carl is closely related to another inspector named earl jackson. Earl is quite different from carl. EARL is a wonderful man, who would do his job and help people not hurt them. i could go on and on about carl. maybe i will. let me find that number. i do not condone taking the law into your own hands, and i hate guns. he should be stopped legally. talk soon. im sure

Privatizing water a bad idea for city
April 22, 2010

BY MARLA DONATO
If you think Chicago's parking meter lease deal was a bad idea, wait till you hear what could be in store for the city's water.

That was the basic take-away message for about 120 people packed into a Wicker Park theater basement Monday night at a forum hosted by Ald. Scott Waguespack (32nd) to discuss how Chicago's water could be next up on Mayor Daley's privatization list.

Panelists at the forum, including Jon Keesecker of Food & Water Watch, outlined nightmarish examples of water-system management by private companies across the area and nation, claiming that many rates tripled while water quality and delivery systems deteriorated and leaks kept leaking and meters kept clicking.

When pressed, Waguespack said he knows of no announced proposal or deal for the city's water management, but he was quick to point out it could happen in a Chicago minute, just as the city cut its 75-year parking meter lease deal. So Waguespack said the time to mobilize is now, and he is rounding up aldermanic support for a proposal to make such matters more transparent, including mandating a public hearing at least 30 days before a Council vote on transactions exceeding $100 million.

Waguespack said 14 aldermen back his measure, which goes a few steps further than Ald. Edward M. Burke's (14th) ordinance, which requires at least 15 days of Council consideration for the sale or lease of city assets. Burke's measure was passed following the public outcry after the parking meter deal. Waguespack also calls for more preliminary independent fiscal evaluations and a 30-year limit on leases.

When questioned recently at an impromptu news conference with Columbia College journalism students, Daley did not dismiss the notion that the city might entertain an offer to lease the city's water management. He simply responded that everything is on the table.

Daley defended the privatization of assets and services as something other cities have done and as a means to head off a fiscal meltdown. He blamed unions for running up costs, saying that private firms can operate more "efficiently."

That argument took a beating at the Monday night meeting and in a report issued by the Food & Water Watch, which estimated "Chicago could save 20 percent to 50 percent on a 20-year loan by using municipal bond financing instead of private financing" and "over a 20-year water system lease, consumers would have to pay two to three dollars for every dollar that the city receives in a concession fee."

Last week, Manuel Flores, acting chairman of the Illinois Commerce Commission, warned Illinois American Water Co. that it "cannot view Illinois ratepayers as an open checkbook."

Flores made the comment while announcing that the ICC had voted unanimously to cut more than $19 million from the water company's requested annual $61 million rate increase for its 317,000 statewide customers. Even with that cut, the ICC says, the company's Chicago area customers will see water bills jump at least 26 percent.

Rachel Weber, an urban planning professor at the University of Illinois at Chicago, told the Monday night gathering that privatization has been undertaken most successfully in cities that included public interest components such as oversight and review clauses. Without them, she said, it becomes an expensive, onerous task to reclaim the water taps.

The Midwest is prime hunting territory for lease asset water brokers looking for cash-strapped municipalities. They don't have to look hard; this shifting water resource management landscape is the subject of a May 12 Metropolitan Planning Council and Openlands forum in Chicago.

Municipal control, free of shareholder demands, seems the better bet for a water delivery and management system that is affordable and aboveboard.

One thing you can count on: You can live in Chicago and never need a parking space, but you cannot live without water.

So just what is clean water worth?

Waguespack was right when he called it "invaluable."

Trying to put a price on clean and healthy water is like trying to place a value on life itself.

Maybe we should just take water off the city's "for sale" table.

Ruling could insulate Daley, aides from inspector general probes

April 22, 2010

BY FRAN SPIELMAN City Hall Reporter
A Circuit Court judge has issued a ruling that could tie the hands of Chicago’s corruption-fighting inspector general — and insulate Mayor Daley and his top aides from investigation.

Judge Nancy Arnold has dismissed an unprecedented lawsuit filed by the inspector general demanding that Corporation Counsel Mara Georges turn over documents vital to the IG’s investigation of how former top mayoral aide Charles Bowen was awarded a $100,000 sole-source contract with the Chicago Police Department “in apparent violation of the City's ethics and contracting rules."

Bowen is a former Cook County Commissioner who spent more than 15 years as Daley’s chief liaison to black ministers.

The inspector general's office wanted the court to require Georges to reveal who hired Bowen and why, saying it has been “unable to determine who bears responsibility for the critical decision.”

The short-term implication of Arnold’s ruling is to short-circuit the Bowen investigation.

The long-term impact is more sweeping. It literally means that, whenever the mayor’s office wants to stymie a high-level investigation, all it needs to do is put an attorney in the room.

That way, the corporation counsel’s office can claim attorney-client privilege and refuse to comply with subpoenas issued by the IG.

Inspector General Joe Ferguson took office in November, after the lawsuit had already been filed. But he now must decide whether to appeal. It sure sounds like he’s leaning that way.

“The decision gives the mayor and his corporation counsel final word on whether and how far the inspector general can proceed with an investigation into the upper reaches of the administration,” Ferguson said Thursday.

“The danger is that the administration can invoke attorney-client privilege when it wishes to build a wall around actions that may be of questionable legality.”

Law Department spokesperson Melissa Stratton argued that the judge’s ruling was “well-founded in law” for three reasons: The IG does not have the authority to sue the corporation counsel. The IG cannot initiate legal action without her approval. And Georges “can validly claim attorney-client privilege.”

Last fall, Georges warned aldermen that, if the court ordered her to turn over the documents, she would ask the City Council to amend the municipal code "to say my privilege is sacred."

"I do not think I can do my job and do it effectively for you if my client, including those people [aldermen] in this room, think that whatever they tell me is going to be turned over to the IG," Georges said then.

In 2006, Bowen was asked to assist the Police Department with the recruitment and retention of minority police officers. He was further charged with reviewing the process of disciplining wayward officers, evaluating community policing and developing “crime-fighting initiatives that involve community participation.”

In February, 2006 — two years after Bowen left the city payroll and one year after he stopped working for free in the mayor’s office — the Non-Competitive Procurement Review Board exempted the Bowen contract from competitive bidding requirements.

A “Justification for Non-Competitive Procurement” posted on the city’s Web site states that over 12 people from across the country had been interviewed to determine whether they were capable of making the “same impact” as Bowen and that no suitable candidate was found.

A request for the names of competitors interviewed, cities and professional organizations contacted was left blank.

Police contract administrator Mike Palumbo wrote that Bowen had “extensive contacts” with religious leaders and “earned their unprecedented trust” making him “singularly-situated” to do the work.

“Mr. Bowen’s prior work experience has given him this dual insight and makes a sole-source agreement a necessity at this time,” Palumbo told the Sun-Times last fall.

Bowen’s name appears frequently as a sponsor on the infamous City Hall “clout list” introduced as evidence in the trial that culminated in the 2006 conviction of Daley’s former patronage chief.

For 15 years, he worked in the mayor’s office lining up black ministers in support of Daley’s campaigns and public policies and diffusing community tensions. Bowen was also an outspoken critic of the 2003 search that culminated in the selection of Phil Cline as police superintendent.

Bowen, 75, has insisted that he achieved the goals of the contract and has no idea what piqued the inspector general’s interests.

“Phil Cline [former police superintendent] asked me if I would like to come over as a consultant….When Cline of course left, that was the end of it,” he told the Sun-Times last fall.

“If you want to get people in Chicago to listen to what you have to say, you go through the faith-based organizations…I had been extremely helpful in setting up all of their inter-faith contacts. I created that with [Cline’s predecessor Terry] Hillard….We were trying to recruit…Beyond that, we went into the field of my expertise. It was with the churches. We thought that was a way to get to a lot of them. We tried to get them into the Police Department.”

Illinois American is the companies name that will "run" Chicagos water and sewers, they already do the southwest suburbs. Privatizing the Water Dept. will be the last thing Daley does