Politics in Action

Political Shenanagans and the Deals Politicians Make. P. U. to the rest of us

Name:
Location: McHenry, Il., United States

Union electrician for 30+ years.Grew up in the 60's. Viet Nam Vet. Started out as pretty liberal, but... now I'm getting older.

Wednesday, April 25, 2007

Obama: How He Did It

Presidential candidate and freshman senator Barack Obama has been in the Chicago Sun-Times newspaper lately. The headline is " Obama and His Slumlord Patron". It's a long story spanning a 17 year friendship. Almost all of Illinois' Democratic politicians are involved somehow (MONEY) with the main character.You've got the Gov. Rod Blagojevich (D), Mayor Rich Daley (D), the Cook County Board Pres. (D), Ill. Attorney General (D), Rep. Luis Gutierrez (D), a few Chicago alderman (all D), and more, just about all of them, except Sen. Durbin (D). So far.

The slumlord patron is Antoin "Tony" Rezko. He's an indicted businessman. Tony was indicted for influence-peddling and demanding kick-backs on state business deals under Gov. Blagojevich (D). HE gave the Gov. $117,652 and helped raise millions and the Gov. gave his friends jobs and state appointments. Simple right, but that's history.

Rezko got into the low-income rehab business from 1989 - 1998. The company name was "Rezmar". He got millions in state loans and more millions in federal rehab money and even more millions courtesy of the city of Chicago, read taxpayers. All the while he acquired apartment buildings. 30 in all for a total of 1,025 apartments. The last 15 buildings (at least $43 million in loans) involved the law firm where Obama worked and while he was working there. The firm specialized in low-income housing development. Rezko and a partner also managed the buildings and were supposed to provide low-income aparts. for 25- 30 years.

Every project ran into trouble. Here's a partial list.
-17 buildings, alot with code violations, including no heat, ended in foreclosure. 1 building (31 apartments) in Obama's state senate district, had no heat from Dec. 27,1996 until atleast Feb. 3, 1997 when the city sued to have it turned on. Obama recieved a $1,000 donation from Rezko on Jan. 12, 1997 while the heat was off. There are 10 more of Rezkos' buildings in Obamas' dist. also. Some with 60 - 100 apartments.
-6 are boarded-up
-Hundreds of apartments are empty and need major repairs
-The City of Chicago has sued him at least 12 times for lack of heat
-The Taxpayers are stuck with millions in unpaid loans.
Got the picture?

As I said, the law firm Obama worked at handled Rezkos' business. The Chicago Sun-Times asked one of the partners, Judson Miller, the late Mayor Harold Washingtons' main man, for a list of the Rezko cases Obama worked on. They were told it would take 1 or 2 days to compile. That was on March 13, 2007 and to date, no response or list.

The Sun-Times reported that, for the last 5 weeks they have tried to interview the senator himself, but to no avail. His STAFF would only accept written questions, and then, didn't even answer them all.

Obama started his political career 2 years after he started with the firm. The Rezko dollars started to flow. Newly elected state sen. Barack Obama worked for the firm another 8 years while serving in the Il. senate. His presidential campaign staff has admitted that Obama did work on Rezko deals, but nobody knows which ones. And I mean N O B O D Y. Not even the senator. He said that he heard a lot of complaints, but NEVER one from a Rezko tenant. Imagine, no heat in the middle of winter and it gets cold here too, and not one word. Not one complaint. Nothing. Those are good tenants.

Rezko was a good friend to Obama and a good fund-raiser. Obama appointed him to his U.S. Senate finance committee. They raised $14 million according to the FEC and helped Obama go to Washington.

Then 2 years ago, Obama bought a mansion in the Kenwood neighborhood of Chicagos' South Side. The same day, Rezkos' wife bought the vacant lot next door even though the property was only one listing. The owner sold the mansion to Obama for $300,000 LESS than the asking price, while getting his full asking price from Mrs. Rezko for the vacant lot. Then last year Obama wanted to make his lot bigger, so he bought a strip of the land from Mrs. Rezko for $104,000.

It had already been reported that Rezko was under investigation when Obama bought the land.

But when you ask the good senator about any of this, He Can't Remember. He Doesn't Recall, so to speak. The Sun Times can't get the answers, nor can NBC News. The Sun Times' Tim Novack and NBCs' Carol Marin had to team up to get what little we did get.