McHenry County Blog

Part of the Friday Scott Santis anit-CTA cartoon in the Chicago Tribune.

If you want to advance your political viewpoints on the CTA, too bad. “CTA trains and buses are not public forums for debate.”

My understanding is that courts have decreed the highest form of speech is political speech.

Now the Chicago Transit Authority has banned political speech from the ads on and in its buses.

If one were challenging authority, might advertising placards on the CTA be an effective advertising tool?

Don’t expect to see an ACLU suit on this issue.

Dee Beaubien

David McSweeney

McHenry County Blog commenters are repeatedly posting that David McSweeney is not telling the truth in his mailings when he says the following:

“Calling a 67% tax increase ‘fair.’

“Beaubien has said that the 67% income tax hike has led to a ‘fair’ rate for out working families.”

Here is an enlargement of the use of the word “fair” by David McSweeney to characterize the opinion of opponent Dee Beaubien’s about the 67% income tax increase.

After urging from one, I wrote Tribune Editorial Page Editor Bruce Dold and asked about it:

“Dee is being cited in a footnote by McSweeney that Dee used the word ‘fair’ to describe the income tax hike.

“I can’t find the interview online or a transcript.

“Anyway I can get access to one or the other?

“Look at the bottom left of the attached mailing for the quote and footnote number.”

I sent the following mailing, which I call the “scratch out” postcard:

Fact checking with the Chicago Tribune revealed that Dee Beaubien did use the word “fair” to describe the huge income tax increase. (See bottom left of text. Click to enlarge.)

Here is the enlargement of the footnotes I sent the Tribune:

The footnote to the “fair” quote of Dee Beaubien is seen to be to the Chicago Editorial Board interview of Dave McSweeney and Dee Beaubien.   It has been confirmed by the Editorial Page Editor Bruce Dold.

Here’s the answer I received from Dold:

“Cal,

“We don’t have a transcript or audio/video, but Kristen McQueary recalls that Dee did say that.”

Active commenter Dave, who does not want his last name used, also reached out to Dold and got the following response, which is found in a comment below, but which deserves to be seen in conjunction with the response I got from Dold:

“Dee Beaubien and Dave McSweeney appeared together for an endorsement interview with members of the editorial board.

“Both candidates said they would roll back the income tax increase. They were asked how they would replace the revenue and whether they thought the individual income tax rate was in line with other states.

“Beaubien said: “That’s right. I think it’s fair. So there we are.” But she did make it clear she wanted to roll back the tax increase.

“I did not attend this interview. This is based on the notes of two board members who did. We did not record the interview, but the candidates were free to record it. I don’t know if either candidate did.”

Since 1974 when Downtown Chicago business interests financed the referendum to impose taxes on the suburbs to subsidize the CTA, promises have been made that there would be a “Universal Pass.”

If something was promised 38 years ago and has not been delivered yet, why would anyone believe that the “powers that be” want people to have a more or less seamless public transportation system?

The answer is pretty obvious.

It is not in the self-interest of the “players” to have one.

May 29, 2012, the Chicago Sun-Times said RTA Chairman John Gates thinks a universal mass transit pass might be available if the CTA, RTA and Pace were combined. That would, of course, give Chicago complete control of the operation.

Didn’t the “Lone Ranger” television show start with something like that?

When the extension of the CTA from Jefferson Park to O’Hare was being considered, it was right after the Regional Transportation Authority was shoved down the throats of suburbanites.

We lost the paper ballot referendum by less than 13,000 votes, I would remind folks, and the newly-formed Illinois State Board of Elections refused to order a recount, not a surprise because all of the Establishment favored RTA’s tax hikes to bail out the Chicago Transit Authority.

There was no need for a tax hike for mass transit in McHenry County. The Chicago & Northwestern commuter service was not losing money.

Indeed, since more people walked to work then than took mass transit, one could better argue for a shoe leather subsidy than one for people who made 50% more than the average household in the county.

The fight against the creation of the RTA locally (the referendum got over a 90% vote in McHenry County with the only precinct–one in Downtown Cary–reporting a favorable results–and, in that, an election judge told me they reversed the results when they made out their report) stimulated my interest in mass transit expenditures.

I watched proposals for the Franklin Street Subway (eventually scrapped) and the extension of the Chicago Transit Authority to O’Hare.

CTA train from O'Hare puling into the Jefferson Park Station.

On June 22, 1978, I held forth on the House floor on the subject. Since I mentioned passenger service to O’Hare and Mayor Richard Daley has just proposal to build an express CTA line to the airport, I thought you might be interested:

“This will cost $175 million to build. It will again provide virtually no new transportation opportunities because there now is express service from the Jefferson Street Station to O’Hare Airport.

“Alternatives could be put into operation probably in less than a year and cost less than $20 million.

“May I cite the most tempting of alternatives?

“The Milwaukee Road has a West Line running to Elgin, which passes within one mile of the O’Hare Airport terminal.

“The primary purpose of the O’Hare extension is to bring workers to the O’Hare office and business complex surrounding the airport.

“It’s not to bring passengers.

“In fact, according to Joby Berman, who has been the mass transportation expert for the last three governors, which must mean she has something going for her…and I think she has a great deal going to her.

“The cars which the CTA intends to spend $600,000 apiece for to run along this line to O’Hare Airport are not even going to contain facilities for luggage. (emphasis added).

“That means the primary purpose of the extension to O’Hare is obviously not to take airline passengers from hotels to the airport.

“Incidentally, if that were the primary purpose, one should consider that 95% of the hotel rooms where people use airlines are on Michigan Avenue, not down in the Loop anymore.”

How will planners operate an express train to O'Hare with only two tracks. Notice the license plate is of a limo in the photo. Presumably after the new concrete is poured, the driver will have less revenue. Click to enlarge any image.

I argued the money to be spent on the extension could be spent on mass transit elsewhere, the South Suburbs being one, or on highway construction.

In addition, I pointed out the line would not pay its own way as far as operating expenses went. The estimated operating deficit at the time was $7.151 million.

A pre-Speaker Mike Madigan, whom I debated the RTA referendum on WBBM-’s At Issue, was the one arguing against my amendment.

Although the Democrats were in control of the House in 1978, its being after the 1974 Watergate wipe out, the amendment got 57 “Yes” votes. Not nearly enough in the 116 vote House, but respectable, it seems to me.

There is a certain irony in the man who controls concrete maker Material Service heading up the effort.

He was also the person who appeared on WTTW’s Chicago Tonight when the new runway for O’Hare was announced.

Does anyone but me see a certain convergence of Crown’s private interest with his public role?

Chicago Sun-Times reporter Fran Spielman didn’t think it was worth mentioning. Neither did the WTTW moderator.

The unions decided to keep their benefits. That was more important than letting the commuters ride the CTA.

The grief of Scott Lee Cohen's 11-year old son at his father's fall from grace was more important to the Chicago Sun-Times than the "doomsday" for CTA riders trumpeted on page 5.

And the personal grief of Democratic Party Lieutenant Governor Scott Lee Cohen’s son was more important that the doomsday for CTA strap holders who read the Sun-Times.

There was a  CTA bailout in the spinrg of 2008.  It probably cost State Senator Kirk Dillard the Republican gubernatorial nomination.

You remember.

The tripling of our RTA sales tax the week before the Crystal Lake City Council decided to play pile on by hiking its city sales tax by 75%.

Dillard voted for it and Andy McKenna blasted away on radio, TV and in direct mail about Kirk Dillard having voted for a regional states tax as evidence that he was not rock solid on opposing an income tax hike.

That doomsday was on the front page of the Chicago Tribune right before the vote.

But, today, another so-called “doomsday,” the Chicago Tribune and the Sun-Times featured Democratic Party Lt. Gov. nominee Scott Lee Cohen announcing he will not accept the nomination. Cohen, by the way, carried the Democratic Party primary in McHenry County.

Take a look:

40% of McHenry County Democrats voted for Scott Lee Cohen for lieutenant governor.

State Senator Terry Link, chairman of the turnaround Democratic Party in Lake County, came to Woodstock to ask for support of McHenry County Democrats, but that doesn’t seem to have done him much good, as he placed fourth behind State Representatives Art Turner (Chicago) and Mike Boland (East Moline).

Making a pitch to the Young Democrats of McHenry County was Thomas Castillo.
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Turned over the Tribune that was delivered to my driveway and discovered it did have something about the CTA cuts…below the fold. The snippet directing people to pages 6-8 had a photo of a family who had to wait 30 minutes for a bus while on the way to a party.

And, inside–wouldn’t you know it?–the word “Doomsday” turns up in a headline:

This is so simple I am amazed that I haven’t heard it anywhere else.

Let’s put a couple of small slot machines on each CTA bus and rapid transit car.

Let the CTA keep all the profits.

Consider it a user fee.

The answer is simple, but the politics is difficult.

It is pretty obvious that real estate value is greatly affected by closeness to mass transportation, especially that which runs on rails.

It is equally obvious that downtown business interests have a vested interest in getting people to and from jobs in and near the Loop.

Not coincidentally, that is where the most valuable real estate is.

So, I propose additional funding for the CTA come from the real estate tax in areas served by the system.

Those who receive the most value from mass transit would pay the most; those receiving the least value, the least.

Naturally, the best tax is a tax someone else pays.

But a good tax is one that can be logically linked to what it is financing.

A property tax can achieve that linkage to the Chicago Transit Authority; a sales tax cannot.

And, there is one other advantage. The property tax on at least residential property in Chicago is very, very low compared to elsewhere in Illinois.

In 1976 Quincy Republican Jeff Mays and Rockford Republican Lynn Martin ran for state representative.

Illinois House Republicans had been devastated in the 1974 Watergate elections. They held onto just 76 out of 177 seats.

1976 was a comeback year.

Common in both media markets was a radio ad telling how incumbent Democrats had

Both incumbents Mike McClain of Quincy and Zeke Giorgi from Rockford had taken a well-published tour of the Chicago Transit Authority.

With publicity from some of us folks in the suburbs who were still hopping mad about being forced into the Regional Transportation Authority, the two GOP challengers used the CTA bailout to lash their opponents. (Anything favoring Chicago is a sure winner outside of the Chicago metropolitan area.)

McCain lost and Giorgi ran third out of three for the only time I remember.

From the Chicago Tribune article above, printing on Saturday, April 17th, I’d assume that someone paid for legislators to come to Chicago to tour the CTA. If past practice holds true, visiting legislators were also treated to some more entertaining venues.

All members of the General Assembly used to have passes to all the museums in town, for instance.

I wonder if this decades’ ride on the CTA will yield results similar to those in 1976.

The McHenry County Republican Central Committee has moved.

Right into my father’s and my old office space in the tip of the “V” at the Crystal Lake Plaza.

In the early 1970′s, Dad has his Barley and Malt Institute office there before he moved it across from the train station at the corner of Woodstock and Brink Streets.

That’s where he and his allies brought forth the slate of 8 “Responsible Republicans” to challenge the candidates put up by the local GOP Establishment in District 1 after a Federal court decision required that county board districts be re-apportioned on a one-man, one-vote basis.

No longer would every township supervisor be automatically on the county board, with larger townships having extra representation, but not in proportion to population.

The days of the Alden, Burton, Coral, Dunham, Hartland, Seneca and other small townships automatically having representation on the county board were over.

The Algonquin-Grafton Township slate of “(John) Bick to (Brad) Burns” slate lost, with Dad coming in 9th. He got more votes than any candidate in Districts 2 or 3, however, and was elected two years later.

After that special 1972 primary election was over in late January, No. 8 in the Plaza was headquarters for my first campaign for state representative.

Perhaps noteworthy was that this office was the headquarters for the kNOw RTA campaign in the spring of 1974. Dad’s hobby was printing and he had two offset machines in the back.

Working as much as 24-hours a day, people like my father and Forrest Hare ran presses to print the anti-RTA pamphlets that were distributed all of the six-county area.

During that campaign, I picked up the phone once and heard my father’s name. I apologized for interrupting the conversation and went into his office to do so in person.

To my surprise he was not and had not been on the phone.

I concluded that someone had tapped the phone line.

That led to our realizing how important that little back room was to someone other than ourselves.

There was a lot of money at stake in this referendum.

The Crystal Lake Police Department was kind enough to send a car past the back door once an hour.

The paper ballot referendum officially to bail out the Chicago Transit Authority passed by less that 13,000 votes. That night about nine I heard the first Mayor Daley being asked about his side of the referendum not winning.

“Oh, I don’t know about that,” he replied. “We have stopped casting the ballots.”

Now, Mayor Daley was known for his malopropisms, but, in this case, I think Daley was telling what was happening in Chicago precincts as “No” votes were being turned into spoiled ballots by having judges put X’s into the “Yes” boxes so two votes were cast.

And, if you think I am kidding, let me tell you about one precinct that State Representative and Schaumburg Township Republican Chairman Don Totten’s people discovered while color coding the results of every precinct in Chicago.

There was one precinct that went 100% for the Regional Transportation Authority referendum.

There were about 80 “Yes” votes, no “No” votes and 60 spoiled ballots.

The ward was going about 60% for the referendum.

No recount was allowed by the newly-created Illinois State Board of Elections—not exactly a profile in courage, but, considering the Establishment in both the Republican and Democratic Parties favored creation of the RTA, not much of a surprise.

So, the new location of the McHenry County Republican Party is one from which large projects can be run.

Instead of having a friendly hairdresser between the office and H.C. Stamp and Coin Company (probably the oldest tenant in the Plaza) the GOP will have the friendly owner of Moseley Plumbing. I served with his daughter Vickie Moseley in the Illinois General Assembly in the 1990′s until Raymond (“Think Poe”) Poe beat her.

Hours at the new GOP office will initially be Tuesday and Thursday, 11AM – 5PM, and Saturday from 10-2.

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The kNOw RTA pamphlet was used by opponents of the 1974 referendum to create the Regional Transportation Authority. If there were ever a grass roots campaign, this was it. Opposition snowballed as election day approached. Most active opponents were freshmen state representatives elected after the 1970 re-apportionment.

The “kNOw” combination was resurrected by Chicago Sun-Times graphic artist and long-time reporter Tom Frisbie for the Iraq election.

The lapel button was given me by former State Rep. Gene Hoffman. He found as he was cleaning out his stuff after he retired. Hoffman is the one who put House Republican Leader Lee Daniels in office.