Just A "Little" Help To His Friends????
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| Thu, 09-25-2008 - 3:54pm |
A $100,000 state grant for a botanic garden in Englewood that then-state Sen. Barack Obama awarded in 2001 to a group headed by a onetime campaign volunteer is now under investigation by the Illinois attorney general amid new questions, prompted by Chicago Sun-Times reports, about whether the money might have been misspent.
The garden was never built. And now state records obtained by the Sun-Times show $65,000 of the grant money went to the wife of Kenny B. Smith, the Obama 2000 congressional campaign volunteer who heads the Chicago Better Housing Association, which was in charge of the project for the blighted South Side neighborhood.
Smith wrote another $20,000 in grant-related checks to K.D. Contractors, a construction company that his wife, Karen D. Smith, created five months after work on the garden was supposed to have begun, records show. K.D. is no longer in business.
Attorney General Lisa Madigan -- a Democrat who is supporting Obama's presidential bid -- is investigating "whether this charitable organization properly used its charitable assets, including the state funds it received," Cara Smith, Madigan's deputy chief of staff, said Wednesday.
In addition to the 2001 grant that Obama directed to the housing association as a "member initiative," the not-for-profit group got a separate $20,000 state grant in 2006.
Madigan's office has notified Obama's presidential campaign of the probe, which was launched this week. But Obama's actions in awarding the money are not a focus of the investigation, Smith said.
Questions about the grant, though, come as spending on local pet projects has become an issue in Obama's campaign against John McCain.
Obama and Kenny Smith announced the "Englewood Botanic Garden Project" at a January 2000 news conference at Englewood High School. Obama was in the midst of a failed bid to oust South Side Democratic Rep. Bobby Rush for a seat in Congress. The garden -- planned near and under L tracks between 59th Place and 62nd Place -- fell outside of Obama's Illinois Senate district but within the congressional district's borders.
Obama vowed to "work tirelessly" to raise $1.1 million to help Smith's organization turn the City of Chicago-owned lot into an oasis of trees and paths. But Obama lost the congressional race, no more money was raised, and today the garden site is a mess of weeds, chunks of concrete and garbage. The only noticeable improvement is a gazebo.
In a previous interview, Smith said the state grant money was legitimately spent, mostly on underground site preparation.
But no one ever took out construction permits required for such work, city records show. And a contractor who Smith said did most of the work told a reporter all he did was cut down trees and grade the site with a Bobcat.
Citing the garden's failure to take root, NeighborSpace -- an umbrella group for dozens of community gardens citywide -- moved Sept. 9 to return the site to the city. Its action followed a July 11 Sun-Times report on the grant.
Obama spokesman Michael Ortiz said Wednesday the senator's staff in Washington will monitor the Madigan probe and an additional review under way by Gov. Blagojevich's administration to make sure "the taxpayer funds allocated for the construction of the garden are recuperated from CBHA if the agencies determine that the funds were not properly spent." Obama's goal is to ensure the site "be used in a way that benefits the community and that any taxpayer dollars allocated are spent wisely," Ortiz said.
The relationship between Smith and Obama dates to at least 1997, when Obama wrote a letter that Smith used to help the housing association win city funding for an affordable-housing development near the garden site. Plans called for more than 50 homes; a dozen ultimately were built.
Smith also has donated $550 to Obama campaign funds.
The Sun-Times learned about Karen Smith's involvement in the project through an Aug. 12 Freedom of Information Act response from a lawyer for Blagojevich¹s Department of Commerce and Economic Opportunity. The department, according to the lawyer, had ³discovered² 52 pages of ³additional documents² ommitted from an initial response in May to a Sun-Times¹ Freedom of Information Act request about the grant.
Neither Smith nor his wife has been accused of any wrongdoing. Smith and his lawyer did not return repeated calls seeking comment.
In an interview in July, Smith said he was never able to raise the money needed for the garden. But the state grant awarded by Obama was spent properly, he said, on the underground work, with most of the work done by a contractor whose name Smith got wrong.
The Sun-Times tracked down the contractor, Rodolfo Marin, in Austin, Texas, where he now lives.
"What I was hired for was: Clean up the area and cut the trees -- that's all," Marin said. He said he rented a Bobcat -- a sort of small bulldozer -- for the project.
And how much did Smith pay him? "If he spent about $3,000 with me, that was too much."
Chris Fusco and Dave McKinney

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I find this vastly amusing coming from someone who seems such an ardent supporter of Sarah Palin.
News Flash: Chicago was a very divided city long before Barack Obama got there - heck, long before he was BORN. And in all likelihood, it will be a divided city long after he's gone (assuming he becomes a national figure instead of an Illinois state one in about 40 days). Sure, things can progress, or they can backslide...and those things should be taken into account - but saying that because Obama failed to single-handedly and permanently eradicate problems which have been long-standing and endemic to a large, complex area (you know: NOT like a town of 6,000, LOL), is more than just a bit ridiculous. It's like taking George Bush's statement in a speech in Iowa on July 20, 2004 that "I want to be the peace President," and saying he's a failure because he hasn't achieved peace. Personally, I didn't believe Bush when he said that....but I'm sure a lot of people did. And if you were one of those, would you look around today at the US situation worldwide, with its ongoing conflicts in Iraq, Afghanistan and, lately (and perhaps most worryingly, Pakistan) and agree with someone who said "so much for being the peace President?" Or would you, perhaps, point out that there are complex factors at work in whether there can be peace at any given moment, and that not all of them are within the control of even the most powerful President? Or that it's just essentially unfair to call the man a failure or even a liar for not having "lived up to his word" - for not having SOLVED, once and for all, that problem of conflict and instituted a reign of peace?
Beyond that, though, the reason the Illinois poll numbers are worth taking into account (and thus, the reason I posted them) is because those are the people with the most direct knowledge of Obama and his history. You and I can read it in old newspaper articles, perhaps we watched a bit of network or cable news about something in Chicago at some point. But we don't really have any experience of being led by the man directly the way they do in Illinois. And yes, I realize that not all of Illinois is Chicago. But I'm betting that many people who didn't live in Obama's district during his term(s) as a state Senator probably had friends or family who did, or perhaps other reasons (business?) to visit the state's largest and most important city. Even if not, Obama affected the lives of the citizens of Illinois, INCLUDING the ones not directly in his district, a lot more than he's affected yours or mine, and simply by virtue of that, it's likely that the average voter in Illinois (and particularly in his old district) have a deeper grasp on what kind of an actual legislator/leader Obama is. And in his home state, he's outpolling McCain 56% to 36%. I'm betting that there are 36% (or thereabouts) voters out of the total registered who are Republicans, too, give or take a few points. But even aside from that, if Obama were as godawful a train-wreck of a leader as all the shakily-sourced stuff that gets posted on here about him makes it sound like, you'd think the voters of his home state would be a lot less enthusiastic about voting for him for President, wouldn't you? I mean, these are (supposedly) the very people who had to "suffer" under Obama's terrible leadership, right? Why on earth would they be eager to repeat that experience, magnified by the power of the PRESIDENCY, for crying out loud?
How could there possibly be
I find your comment without point.
LOL! Why am I not surprised?
And yet - at the same time - I’m pretty sure others may have been able to discern the point.
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BUT BUT BUT...He is a self proclaimed UNITER.
The poor and middle class who support Obama will be betrayed by him as he has betrayed others for his personal self-interest throughout his career:
NRA - supported by Obama and his friends - was supposed to help poor people get affordable housing; instead the officers of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac got rich, Obama got record campaign contributions from Fannie Mae supporters and PACS, the poor got loans they couldn't afford and had their homes foreclosed, the middle class got the bill.
Federal funds were obtained by Obama, supposedly to improve housing on Chicago's south side:
Pelosi showed the US today that any Democratic rhetoric about "uniting" is just that - rhetoric.
Thank goodness the Republicans had the guts to withstand tremendous pressure and refused to support a bad bill!
Unfortunately, the word "Little" is a total misnomer.
Obama hasn't even made it as explicit as Bush did - Bush literally made it a campaign slogan. And has only been successful in uniting 75% of the country in the opinion that he is a TERRIBLE President. I somehow don't think that's what he had in mind, though.
Sorry, that dog just won't hunt. Obama's well-liked by people inside and outside of Chicago in his home state, and they don't seem concerned that he won't be able to deliver any sort of "uniting." Or at least, no more concerned than YOU seem that George W. Bush didn't deliver on HIS even-more-explicit promise to the same effect.
Try again.
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