Monday, July 27, 2015

The Trust was a bust. Now where's Bill and Randi?

Back in 2012, Rahm's proposed Infrastructure Trust got him him great press, especially with flack David Axelrod pumping it like it was the second coming of the Marshall Plan. The New York Times hailed it as the  $7 billion plan  that would "transform the city’s infrastructure from the skies above to the pipes underground". 


Rahm flew Randi in to tout the Trust.
Rahm even flew in AFT Pres. Randi Weingarten to laud the Trust at Bill Clinton's Global Initiative Conference

I quoted this from the Sun-Times report
Emanuel was seated onstage next to Randi Weingarten, president of the American Federation of Teachers, whose largest member union, the Chicago Teachers Union, [was] taking a strike-authorization vote this week, frustrated with Emanuel’s administration, which killed a negotiated 4 percent raise for the teachers last year. 
Well, the last time I looked, the city's infrastructure was still crumbling and the underground pipes still rusting and leaking. The teachers never did get the 4% raise that was promised them. Rahm claimed the city couldn't afford it but could afford $2.7 million in city funds to help set up the Trust. What followed was the historic teachers strike that shook the city and Rahm's administration to its heels.

But the Trust goes down as only the latest in a series of mayoral financial flops that has led the city to the brink of collapse.

Three years after creating a city infrastructure bank with a huge splash, Mayor Rahm Emanuel has decided to remake management of the finance unit, which by many accounts never has lived up to its potential… Out as executive director is Steven Beitler, who, according to a city statement, "has resigned to pursue other interests." 
This time around Axelrod is nowhere to be seen. Maybe he's too embarrassed. Neither is Clinton. I'm sure Hillary doesn't want the Clinton name attached to a busted trust on the road to 2016. And where's Randi?

1 comment:

  1. The video of Rahm Emanuel and Randi Weingarten discussion o the infrastructure project can be seen at the 2012 Clinton Global Initiative conference is at:

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A70dXldBaZs

    ReplyDelete

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