Chicago Daily Observer

They used to call him “the conscience of the City Council,” which certainly has an oxymoronic ring to it, but it applies. They also used to call him “the only Negro in the City Council,” which might have a bit of a politically incorrect ring to it today, but it sure applied in the late 1950s and well through the ’60s until the civil rights movement brought him some independent company from southside wards.

I speak, of course, of Leon M. Despres, who in 1955 was elected against the candidate of the Democratic machine in the 5th Ward. That was the year Richard J. Daley was first elected mayor and their political careers intertwined for the next 20 years until the angular, bespectacled Despres retired and left a small handful of black and white independent aldermen to carry on his tradition in that mordant body.

Sunday, Feb. 3, marked the ... Read More...

Matt Farmer’s a hotshot trial lawyer in a downtown firm who plays in a rock ’n’ roll band on the side and rarely gets involved in local politics. But since the Chicago Public Schools kicked his kindergarten daughter in the teeth, he’s been an activist unleashed, sending snarky e-mails to reporters, school officials, and parents on the northwest side. The issue on his mind is Arne Duncan’s plan to move the Edison Regional Gifted Center out of its longtime home at 6220 N. Olcott and into the same building that houses Albany Park Multicultural Academy, at 4910 N. Sawyer, about five miles down the road.

It’s not just the move that bothers him—it’s the way the news was delivered. He and the other parents of students at Edison, a selective-enrollment elementary school with 270 students, were on the receiving end of the sort of top-down marching orders CPS generally ... Read More...

Does restricting “eminent domain”—the power of government to seize private property—harm economic growth? A new report from the Institute for Justice looks at the evidence and concludes the answer is no.

Since the Supreme Court sanctified eminent domain on behalf of private developers in the dreadful 5–4 Kelo ruling in 2005, 42 states have passed some restriction on the practice. Some reforms have been far-reaching, as in Florida, which barred public entities that seized property from transferring it to private hands for 10 years after the seizure. Other reforms are more modest, changing the definition of “blight” or throwing up other obstacles to overeager planners.