Photos by Adam Snow - [...]]]> Tom, LeAlan , Rich and the Green Team marched on Saturday, August 14 in the  2010 Bud Billiken Day Parade. It was hot as the dickens but we all had a great time and met thousands and thousands of parade-goers who cheered and encouraged our call for REAL change in 2010!

Photos by Adam Snow - www.hornsandtails.com

Illinois faces its worst fiscal crisis in eight decades, a daunting challenge for the state’s purported leaders. So how have [...]]]> The April edition of Illinois Issues decries the state of political leadership in Illinois. Charles Wheeler III is the director of the Public Affairs Reporting Program at the University of Illinois at Springfield and he asks…

Illinois faces its worst fiscal crisis in eight decades, a daunting challenge for the state’s purported leaders. So how have they responded?

In a word, abysmally. Indeed, the leadership deficit almost rivals the state’s dollar shortfall…

In fact, only one candidate for governor has a comprehensive plan to solve the state’s budget crisis, one in which the numbers actually work: the Green Party’s Rich Whitney. The Carbondale attorney issued a 21-page platform on the state’s tax structure and economic development, laying out in considerable detail his ideas for fixing the structural budget deficit and building a full employment economy.

Whitney endorses income and sales tax increases coupled with tax relief for middle- and lower-income families, good for some $7 billion, and he would cut $2 billion that he says “exists only to reward political supporters of favored legislators,” such as patronage hires and pork-barrel projects.

Perhaps his boldest suggestion, though, is a financial transactions tax on what he terms “speculative trading” such as futures, options and interest rate products. The value of such securities traded on the Chicago Mercantile Exchange and the Chicago Board Options Exchange topped $1 quadrillion in 2008, Whitney says, so a tax measured in 10-thousandths of 1 percent would produce more than $4 billion.

Other proposals — a greenhouse gas fee, a state bank, legalizing and taxing marijuana — would generate additional revenue in the future to bolster school funding, health care, social services and other programs.

Whitney’s ideas may strike one as unconventional; certainly they’re controversial. But unlike Quinn’s half-measures and the GOP’s sound bites, the Green candidate’s platform squarely addresses the state’s deficit and proposes detailed solutions.

Voters weary of the political games played by the two major parties might find that refreshing. Read the full essay.

FLASH TO ILLINOIS MEDIA – Start covering the campaign of Rich Whitney and other Green Party candidates with the same dedication as you accord to Democratic and Republican candidates.

Watch as Tom’s campaign officially [...]]]> The race is on! This morning Tom turned in 2,296 signatures for his nomination as the recognized Green Party candidate for President of the Cook County Board of Commissioners. Friends, family, Green Party members and ABC News Chicago’s Charles Thomas looked on!  [download a copy of Tom's remarks upon submitting his petitions]

Watch as Tom’s campaign officially starts!

The campaign to take back Cook County government has begun!

Tom’s remarks upon turning in his nominating petitions:

GOOD MORNING. MY NAME IS TOM TRESSER AND I’M THE  RECOGNIZED GREEN PARTY CANDIDATE FOR PRESIDENT OF THE COOK COUNTY BOARD OF COMMISSIONERS.  I HOLD IN MY HAND THE SIGNATURES OF 2,296 CITIZENS WHO HAVE SIGNED MY NOMINATING PETITIONS FOR THIS POSITION. THESE SIGNATURES REPRESENT OVER 180 HOURS OF WORK BY 75 VOLUNTEERS OVER JUST TWO WEEKS. THIS GROUP OF VOLUNTEERS CAME TOGETHER QUICKLY FROM ACROSS THE COUNTY TO SUPPORT MY CAMPAIGN AND THEY REPORT THAT COOK COUNTY CITIZENS ARE READY, EAGER AND PREPARED FOR SIGNIFICANT CHANGE IN HOW THEIR LOCAL GOVERNMENT WORKS.

THE PEOPLE WANT THEIR ELECTED REPRESENTATIVES TO SERVE THEM – NOT LIE TO THEM, RIP THEM OFF, DELIVER TERRIBLE SERVICE AND DEAL AWAY PUBLIC ASSETS – THE TAXPAYERS OF COOK COUNTY ARE NOT BEING SERVED AND THEY KNOW IT.

MY CAMPAIGN WILL NOT TAKE CONTRIBUTIONS FROM ORGANIZATIONS OR CORPORATIONS – ONLY PEOPLE. THE CURRENT SO-CALLED CAMPAIGN FINANCE REFORM BEING PUSHED THROUGH SPRINGFIELD IS A JOKE – LET’S CALL IT WHAT IT IS – ‘THE MACHINE PROTECTION ACT” – WHEN I DELVER THESE PETITIONS TO THE COUNTY I’M SENDING A MESSAGE TO OUR CURRENT LEADERS WHO VIEW GOVERNMENT AS A PRIVATE FAMILY BUSINESS – PASSING ON POSITIONS TO THEIR CHILDREN, RELATIVES AND CRONIES – THAT YOUR DAYS OF RUNNING LOCAL GOVERNMENT ARE NUMBERED.

MY CAMPAIGN IS JUST ONE OF MANY BEING RUN BY GREEN PARTY CANIDATES. ONE OF THOSE 75 VOLUNTEERS IS PALOMA ANDRADE, A SCHOOL TEACHER FROM THE SOUTH SIDE – WHO PREVIOUSLY CHALLENGED ALDERMAN ED BURKE FOR CITY COUNCIL AND WHO IS CURRENTLY A CANDIDATE FOR THE COOK COUNTY BOARD, 7^TH DISTRICT.

I HOPE OUR CAMPAIGNS WILL BE A CHALLENGE AND AN OPPORTUNITY FOR THE GOOD PEOPLE OF COOK COUNTY – IF YOU WANT TO TAKE YOUR GOVERNMENT BACK – LET’S WORK TOGETHER AND DO IT.  PLEASE VISIT MY WEB SITE AT WWW.TOM2010.US AND SIGN UP.

THIS IS GOING TO BE A TEAM EFFORT AND NOT JUST A ONE-TIME THING – WE’RE ALL GOING TO NEED TO GET INVOLVED AND STAY INVOLVED IN CIVIC LIFE IF WE WANT A GOVERNMENT OF THE PEOPLE, BY THE PEOPLE AND FOR THE PEOPLE.

THANK YOU!

Watch a video of Tom’s speech

ABC News coverage:

Tom launches his campaign for the office of President of the Cook County Board of Commissioners!

[download PDF copy]

Good morning. Thank you all for [...]]]> TOM TRESSER’S REMARKS AT ANNOUNCEMENT OF CANDIDACY FOR PRESIDENT OF COOK COUNTY BOARD OF COMMISSIONERS

Watch a video of Tom’s speech

ABC News coverage:

Tom launches his campaign for the office of President of the Cook County Board of Commissioners!

[download PDF copy]

Good morning. Thank you all for joining me to share some remarkable experiences. I think I should’ve been standing before you in August – but I had my hands full these past  ten months trying to stop the Olympics from wrecking our economy and destroying our parks.

My name is Tom Tresser and I’ve been living in Chicago since 1980. I came to Illinois to from New York City to be a member of the Illinois Shakespeare Festival downstate. I was only supposed to be in Illinois for a summer. But I came up to Chicago on my day off. It was a bright and warm July day and the breeze was blowing in off the lake. People smiled at me! I was warmly received by people in the entertainment field and went back to the Festival singing the praises of the city, its landscape and its people. I did not return to New York at the end of the summer. Instead I slept on a friend of a friend’s floor and started to get to know the city and its rich cultural opportunities.

I soon helped start a theater and I became deeply involved in the city’s cultural and community life. The city welcomed me. I found openings for creativity, innovation and enterprise. Since then I’ve founded or led 13 nonprofit organizations or projects in the arts, community development and civic engagement.

There was and is a sense of opportunity and “roll-up-your-sleeves” and get it done attitude that I loved and in which I – and so many others who have planted roots here – have thrived.

But along with this sense of openness and opportunity there has also been an opposite force of political stagnation. Call it the Machine. Call it the Combine. Call them the Regulars.

We all know that in the political realm, they don’t want no one that no one sent. I – like probably many here today – have been on the losing end of many political races and issues. I’ve seen the Machine up close and personal in a number of races where independents and progressive candidates were swamped by the money and manpower of city workers.

I remember one campaign in 1992, when I was doing precinct work on election day for the first Congressional race of Prof. Dick Simpson – I was covering 4 precincts and at each polling place in each precinct there were guys  passing literature, talking counts, driving people to and walking people into the polling place. I remember one tall guy in a camel hair coat passing lit for Rostenkowsi –  “Wow,” I said “Are you a volunteer?” “Nah, I work for Streets and San” he said.

Fast forward to 2007. A group of neighbors read that the Chicago Park District has entered into a secret deal with the Latin School to give the school a private artificial turf soccer field in the heart of Lincoln Park. We called this a land grab and looked at it as a taking of public assets for private gain. We formed Protect Our Parks and fought the deal and – against all common sense and all odds – we won and the secret sweetheart deal was torn up.

But the people had to fight to protect the commons and the taxpayers treasure from being doled out to the wealthy, privileged insiders without accounting or recourse. We had to do it because our elected officials looked the other way.

A few of us in the Lincoln Park fight saw that mess as a run up to the Olympic bid – if the city could give away a chunk of Lincoln Park and get away with it, then what couldn’t they do elsewhere in the city?

Our prediction proved correct. When the details of the bid were announced public parks were slated to be used for the private party called the Olympics. A group of tireless volunteers gathered from across the city to challenge the bid, I became a lead organizer for No Games Chicago and had the good fortune to work along side activists, social justice champions and concerned citizens from Austin, Lawndale, Washington Park, Lincoln Park, Rogers Park , Hyde Park and places near and far. We did our homework. We did our due diligence – we read studies, we talked to people from other host cities, we looked at newspaper reports from after the games documenting the broken promises and busted budgets. We did the work that our aldermen, civic watchdog groups and the media SHOULD’VE done.

We concluded that the games was simply the wrong project for the wrong city at the wrong time. I was able to go to Lausanne, Switzerland and Copenhagen, Denmark to deliver the No Games message and materials directly to the International Olympic Committee. This had never been done before. We were often asked “Who is paying you?” We answered that we were self-funded and that no one invited us – we were citizens of Chicago who did not want the Olympics in our city and that they must listen to us. We said that the Mayor and even the President of the United States were wrong on this issue and did not represent the wishes of 84% of the people here.

So now, after the firestorm surrounding the Battle of the Bid has died down, what can we learn from the Olympic fiasco?

(1)  ACCOUNTABILITY – Who is looking out for our interests? Not the aldermen. Not the  commissioners. Not the media – who stood by and served as cheerleaders for the bid  and an echo chamber for PR fluff put out by the 2016 Committee. Only a handful of  courageous community groups dared to challenge the bid – Southside Together Organizing  for  Power, the Caucus of Rank and File Educators, Pilsen-Little Village Environmental Justice, IVI-IPO and the Chicago League of Women Voters all should be acknowledged for speaking truth to power. We seem to be horrified spectators at perpetual accident scene of city and county official misdeeds dereliction of duty.

(2)   FINANCING – Who is watching the store? How much tax payer money and public assets are being doled out on a daily basis with no check and balance and no way to stop a bad deal or get our money back from crooked deals. We need to put a freeze on any program that transfers money or property from the public to a private entity.The system right now is impenetrable to scrutiny. Just the other day the City Council Approved giving $15 million  to  the Chicago Mercantile Exchange for building renovations. What new mega project is waiting in the wings to reward the insiders at the expense of common sense and the public purse? What new tax will be forced on county residents? What new member of the ruling family’s clan will next be discovered on the payroll or milking sweetheart contracts?

(3)   CITIZEN INVOLVEMENT – Because our trust in elected officials and the media that is supposed to watch them is so low and deservedly so – we are going to have to be much more active, vigilant and engaged in civic life. We are going to have get much smarter at following the abuse and we are going to have get much more angrier when we find it. We need to do this at the city and county level.

SO – after almost 30 years of active civic life in this great city I‘ve come to the conclusion that I’m tired of chasing bad policy and trying to stop projects that rip up parks, loot our treasury and reward the connected few. I don’t want to go through another Protect Our Parks fight to stop greedy unchecked grabs of public assets and I certainly don’t want to endure another No Games Chicago struggle to stop a mega-project from completely wrecking our finances while enriching  the same crowd of insiders. I would like to help make good policy and be part of a smart and honest government – rather than rail against wrong-headed policy and the litany of public corruption that has become Chicago’s and Cook County’s unofficial theme song.

So – today I announce my candidacy for the position of President of the Cook County Board of Commissioners. No Games called for better schools, better trains, better housing and better health care. Cook County government significantly impacts our regional health care and improving Cook County government is one way to improve health care. The County has long been a target for reform – it has for far too long been an appendage to Chicago’s political needs – fueling the Machine with jobs, contracts and cash. This must stop.

If elected I will restore honest dealing, transparency and excellent service to all levels and facets of county government.. We will have a complete accounting of ALL aspects of this  massive body – which if it were a state would be our 20th largest in terms of budget.

Neighbors of Cook County -

- Are you mad as hell and don’t want to take it any more?

- Are you ready for a fighter who will place your interests above the interests of a few political families who use our government like their own private cash machine?

- Are you ready for excellent service, creativity and innovation in local government and a new spirit of commonwealth where opportunity is made available to all and not just the connected insiders?

If you are ready for real change in 2010 then I ask for your support, your hard work, your dollars and your good ideas to help me become the next President of the Cook County Board of Commissioners!

Thank you!

[Note - This campaign is completely independent of the No Games Chicago organization]