"...would bring Obama political support from slum landlords who make Clinton's shady Arkansas associates look like teenage shoplifters. "
Obama 's Friends and Chicago's New Slums
American Thinker ^ | September 16, 2008 | Lee Cary Excerpted (Very lengthy)
[See also "Obama and South Chicago Slum Developers"
here.]
[See also Obama's Housing Project Video Boston Globe ^ | June 27, 2008 | Boston Globe] video here
"Mayor Daley's always talking about fair housing and decent housing, and he's got Allison Davis, who he appointed on the planning commission," says Smith, who heads the tenants association that represents Evergreen/Sedgwick residents. "We still live in a slum." (From the article "We still live in a slum," Mark Konkol, Chicago Sun Times, June 29, 2007)
In 1993, Barack Obama joined a Chicago law firm that specialized in helping develop low-income housing. In time, the job would bring him political support from slum landlords who make Clinton's shady Arkansas associates look like teenage shoplifters.
Obama's connections with public housing developers and property managers have been investigated in depth by a cadre of reporters from the Chicago Tribune and the Chicago Sun Times. The major TV networks and national print media, particularly the New York Times and Washington Post, have ignored their findings.
Once the media declared the Tony Rezko story over when he was convicted in federal court, the national media's attention turned away from Chicago. Here's just part of the story they've missed.
Obama Joins The Law Firm of Davis Miner Barnhill & Galland
Barack Obama was a law student at Harvard in 1990 when Rezko's low-income housing development company offered him a job. He declined. Two years later he returned to Chicago to work on a voter registration drive while he figured out what to do next.
Next came in 1993 when he joined a law firm that represented subsidized housing developers eager to tap into government funds available to reconstruct public housing. Mayor Richard M. Daley planned to tear down Chicago's old, dilapidated public housing stock and build new units. It promised government housing renovation on a massive scale.
At Davis Miner Barnhill & Galland, Allison Davis was Obama's boss and tutor in the legalities of government subsidized housing.
A generation older than Obama, Davis grew up in Hyde Park, home of the University of Chicago, where his father was the school's first African-American professor. After a stint in the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) in West Africa, he returned to Chicago to become active in the civil rights movement as an attorney in the Metropolitan Housing and Planning Council. In those years, Davis was a reformed-minded lawyer often at odds with Mayor Richard J. Daley, Richard the 1st.
In 1971, Davis opened a small law firm that would include Carol Moseley-Braun, who became a one-term U.S. Senator from Illinois. Years later, Davis would serve on the finance committee of another former employee running for the U.S. Senate, Barack Obama, along with Tony Rezko and Valerie Jarrett.
Obama worked at the firm from 1993 until he was elected to the U.S. Senate in 2004.
Meanwhile, in learning how to represent developers, Davis learned how to be one. So he became a principal. In 1997 he left his firm and started playing for bigger stakes at the gaming table that's Chicago low-income housing business. This time he played for himself in partnership with a pro named Antoin "Tony" Rezko. Here's a sampling of Davis' winnings over the years.
New Kenwood L.L.C
In 1997, Davis and Rezko formed New Kenwood L.L.C. and set out to build a seven-story apartment building for seniors called Cottage View Terrace. At the time, Davis was a member of the Chicago Plan Commission, having been appointed by Mayor Richard M. Daley, Richard the 2nd.
Several local elected officials, representing both city and state, wrote letters-of-support citing the need for senior citizen housing. State Senator Obama's letter was dated October 28, 1998. He still worked as an attorney at Davis' former firm, renamed Miner Barnhill & Galland. (Judson H. Miner had been Corporate Counsel for the City of Chicago from 1986-1989.) The firm's clients included companies owned by Davis and Rezko.
New Kenwood L.L.C. hired the law firm of Daley & George -- the Daley being the current Mayor Daley's brother, Michael Daley -- to assist in securing city-of-Chicago issued bonds. (Brother Michael is not to be confused with brother John Daley, the Cook County Board finance committee chairman and 11th Ward committeeman. Or, brother William "Bill," Daley, who is contemplating a run for Illinois governor.)
The city owned the two-acre vacant lot targeted for the proposed project. It had once been the site of a gas station and needed an environmental cleanup. Davis and Rezko bought the land for $1, and spent $100,000 for the cleanup.
"The $14.6 million Cottage View Terrace was funded entirely by city, state and federal taxpayers. The projected included $855,000 in development fees for New Kenwood...In addition to the development fees, a separate Davis-owned company stood to make another $900,000 through federal tax credits."
William Moorehead, a Davis business partner, was supposed to manage the property when it opened in 2002. But, according to the
Chicago Sun Times (November 11, 2007),
"One of his [Davis'] business partners, William Moorehead, recently began serving a four-year prison sentence for stealing more than $600,000 from at least 13 federally funded housing projects he managed - including two building that he and Davis owned."
Urban Property Advisors (remember that name), a Davis company run by his son, Cullen (more on him later), took over management of the property.
Last year, the Sun Times asked the Obama Campaign if Obama's letters of support for the project represented a conflict with his statement on December 2006 wherein he told the Chicago Tribune that, "I've never done any favors for him [Rezko]." The Sun Times reported (June 13, 2007) that,
"On Tuesday, Bill Burton, press secretary for Obama's presidential campaign, said the letters Obama wrote in support of the development weren't intended as a favor to Rezko or Davis."
Guess it just happened that way. Stuff happens.
Rezko & Davis Ventures
The success rate of Rezko/Davis public housing ventures in the mid-to-late 1990's was not outstanding. The
Chicago Sun Times (April 23, 2007) catalogued the disposition of 14 redevelopment projects where Rezko and Davis engaged Davis' old law firm while Obama worked there. After millions of dollars in government loans, the state foreclosed on 4 projects, and Rezmar Corp. walked away from 10. The
Sun Times comment on two of the properties contains a puzzling notation:
"Two buildings - 5630 S. Michigan and 6446 S. Kenwood. Rezmar [Rezko's company] and the Fund [for Community Redevelopment and Revitalization, a Davis company] closed on this deal in 1998. The city approved a $3.8 million loan for this project while Rezmar was facing foreclosure on another funded by the city. Rezmar gave up management of the buildings about a year ago [in 2006]." (emphasis added)
So, why would the city loan new money to a company about to default on a previous loan?
On April 23, 2007, the
Sun Times submitted questions to the Obama Campaign through Robert Gibbs, the campaign's Communications Director, probing Obama's knowledge of development deals involving a donor (Rezko) and a former boss and donor (Davis). The entire 28
questions and answers merit reading. Here are two samples:
Q. At the time of those deals, Tony Rezko was a client of the senator's firm, a campaign donor to the senator, a personal friend, and a business partner with the senator's boss, Allison Davis. But Mr. Rezko was also a landlord to many constituents living in the state Senate district that Senator Obama represented at the time. And many of those Rezmar properties had fallen into disrepair, while Rezmar began to fail financially. Did the senator ever talk to Tony Rezko about the deteriorating status of his housing projects?
A. To reiterate: the firm did represent entities in which Tony Rezko had an interest but never Tony Rezko, personally. (Ahh, so it was the impersonal Rezko they represented.) Senator Obama does not remember having conversations with Tony Rezko about properties that he owned or any specific issues related to those properties. Excerpt.