Category: Chicago

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Water: The Midwest View

[Other posts on water: 

Big Bathtub II: 'Wasted']

Spotted the following letter today on the Chicago Tribune's (Tom Skillings's) weather page: 

Dear Tom,
The level of Lake Michigan is up 13 inches from last year. That's great, but could you 
express that in gallons of water?
Dan Fridley
Dear Dan,
The quantity of water that circulates through the Lake Michigan hydrologic system is 
truly staggering. And expressing that volume in units as miniscule as gallons yields 
numbers that are so huge as to be practically incomprehensible, but here it goes. 
A 13-inch increase in the level of Lake Michigan's 22,300 square miles amounts to 
5.044 trillion gallons of additional water (5,044,000,000,000 gallons). And that's not 
all. Lake Michigan and Lake Huron are essentially one lake; their water levels rise and 
fall in tandem. Thirteen inches of water added to the level of Lake Michigan means 13 
inches added to the 23,000 square miles of Lake Huron as well, and that amounts to an additional 5.202 trillion gallons (5,202,000,000,000 gallons).

So to summarize the arithmetic: Lakes Michigan and Huron, total surface area 45,300 square miles, have risen a foot and an inch in the past year. The total increase in water volume is 10.2 trillion gallons.

There is no doubt that is a lot of water. But it is an abstraction, proof that in the wet eastern two-thirds of the United States, water is, most of the time, something that's just there, like leaves on the trees, mosquitoes, corrupt politicians and bad beer. In fact, this immense amount of water, these trillions of gallons, are a trivial amount in the Great Lakes context, where volumes can be calculated in hundreds or thousands of cubic miles.

But before we get to that, let's put those 13 inches of Michigan/Huron water to work: let's frame them in the California context. 

In California and anywhere in the West where water means the difference between nothing and abundance, the working unit is the acre foot: the water it takes to submerge an acre a foot deep. An acre foot is 325,851 gallons, and that is said to be enough water for two average American households to keep their toilets flushed and lawns green for a year. 

The extra 13 inches of Michigan/Huron water: It comes out to something like 31.3 million acre feet. California's total reservoir capacity is said to be about 42 million acre feet. So that foot and an inch here–the incidental effect of increased runoff in their basins–would fill California's collection of monster lakes and catch basins three-quarters full. What a gift to a dry place. 

Lake Michigan has an approximate volume of 1,180 cubic miles, and Lake Huron 849. A cubic mile of water is just under 3.4 million acre feet. So the 13 extra inches of water in Michigan/Huron added about 9 cubic miles to their volume, or a little less than 0.5 percent (that's not too shabby, actually). All California's reservoir capacity would be satisfied with roughly 13 cubic miles, about 0.75 percent of the volume of the two lakes (and while we're throwing Great Lakes volume numbers around, the combined volume of Michigan, Huron, Erie and Ontario is about 2,538 cubic miles; the volume of Lake Superior is 2,900 cubic miles). 

When you see numbers like this, which may be close to meaningless without more context, you think you can understand the envy and ambition of Westerners who think the Great Lakes would solve all their problems. It seems a little crazy, until you travel up and down California and see how much has been invested in large-scale plumbing to make water go places and do things that seem to defy nature and physics.  

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Wisconsin

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Cheese, by day (photo by Kate during her return trip from Ripon) and by night (photo by me, after a drive up the lakeshore this afternoon. The second cheese place is right next to the first). Location is Paris, Wisconsin, on the west bank of Interstate 94. 

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Here It Is: Your Norwegian Cemetery Picture of the Day

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Today’s outing: The Dairy Queen at Irving Park and Central, then over to Narragansett to swing by my dad’s childhood home on Nashville Avenue. Headed down the crowded, brutally potholed avenue, Dad said, “Here’s Mount Olive Cemetery.” Where most of his family is interred. We turned in. I have a general idea where the relatives are buried–mostly his mother’s family, the Sieversens–but he has a precise sense of where to go. So there they were: his parents, his grandparents, many aunts, uncles, and cousins.

Until five or so years ago, I remember going to Mount Olive just once, the day my grandmother was buried in September 1975. But since my mom passed away in 2003 and we started visiting her family’s cemetery–Holy Sepulchre, so far on the South Side that it’s actually beyond the city limits–I’ve come to Mount Olive several times, too.
Many stories to tell there, I’m sure. Here are a couple of surface things I’ve noticed. It’s clear from the great majority of older graves that the cemetery was a resting place for Norwegians (maybe some other Scandinavians, too), mostly Protestants. There’s a drinking fountain near the entrance in the form of a Viking warrior, complete with helmet and flowing beard. But like the rest of the city, the ethnic makeup of this neighborhood is changing, too. Most new graves appear to belong to Latino families, many Catholic. It’s the kind of mixing that I expect would have been unlikely in life. Now here the communities are together.
Cemetery walking always produces something striking or poignant. Maybe because we had a brother who died at the age of 2, I’m always been brought up short by children’s markers. At one of the family graves I saw that three children, ages 4 or younger, were buried with their parents.
Nearby, I came across the grave of Junior Jansen, 1925-1930, a grave remarkable for the legend “Our Boy” and the vivid, clear photo of the boy who had been buried there. It’s hard for me to imagine that picture has lasted out in the weather all these decades. Next to Junior Jansen’s stone was another Jansen marker–a broken monument bearing a sculpted figure of a young girl. Strange thing: someone has evidently gone to the trouble of setting the figure upright–but unattached to its damaged lower portion or the original base.
Another thing about the Norwegian part of the cemetery: slowly, surely, nature is taking its course. Trees and shrubs have overwhelmed some graves. But what you notice more are stones left askew as the ground heaves and shifts through the seasons and maybe through the sinking or collapse of the underground vaults that are supposed to keep everything tidy. You come across headstones that are falling onto their faces and monuments that have toppled backward or sideways. You find groups of markers that seem jumbled together, clumped at odd angles, with a collection of apparently unrelated names. Looking at the years on the markers I passed, it seems that most date to between 1900 and 1950. I saw only a handful dated after 1960. The most recent was from 1997. One has the impression, looking down the rows of tilted, angled, sometimes broken markers that for the descendants of most who lie here, this is a place out of mind.
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Surfing Lake Michigan

Lake Michigan Surfers
Kate drove up to Ripon, Wisconsin–everyone in unison: "the birthplace of the Republican Party"–to visit our old Berkeley friends Robin and Jim. I hung around the house with Dad for most of the afternoon and just at the moment I was about to succumb to the urge for an afternoon nap went out for a walk. From the Brekke North Side headquarters it's about a mile and a half out to the lake, and that's where I went. Then strolled up the beach in Loyola Park for half a mile taking in the wintry shore scene. Suddenly I realized a surfer was in the water.

The sight was remarkable first because this was the first time I'd seen anyone surfing out on the lake (that probably says more about my long-time absence from these parts than the willingness of the locals to turn Lake Michigan into a wave-riding scene). But the real surprise was that someone was out today. In Northern California, cold conditions go along with surfing: the water temperature off San Francisco dips into the high 40s during the winter and never seems to get above 56 (and of course in some places along our coast, the real challenge is the ferocity of the ocean conditions: big waves and strong currents). 

But in Chicago today, the highs were in the upper 30s, and the water temperature was 40. I would say that qualifies as frigid. Apparently, you can conquer anything with a modern wetsuits and a refusal to consider any pastime ludicrous.

I approached the surfer and asked whether I could take his picture. Yeah, he said. And how about sending him a copy? (I did.) The storm that came through last night featured a strong northeasterly wind that was forecast to raise 12-foot waves in Chicago and along the southern end of the lake. Those conditions brought Dave, the surfer, and his buddy Kevin, out to the beach at Loyola Park. 

Dave said the conditions in the water weren't great. Instead of swinging to the northwest, which would have created good waves, he said, the wind remained northeasterly and the waves were choppy and confused. He said he had only heard about surfing in Chicago last fall and had first gone into the water here in October. 

Dave's friend Kevin I saw bobbing off a little jetty at the north end of the Loyola Park beach. Swell after swell passed; my inexpert eye didn't see any epic rides pass him by. He paddled into the beach and joined Dave. I waylaid him, too. He said he's been surfing in Lake Michigan for 15 years. Question in the form of a statement: "The best waves must be in winter." Yeah, that's generally true, Kevin said. But until 15 years ago, wetsuits weren't good enough to protect you from the lake cold. "Ever been in the water when there was ice?" "Yeah," Kevin said. "I've had ice on me," Dave said–the air being so cold it would freeze the water on the outside of the wetsuit. 

"I don't goof around here too much," Kevin said. "This is sort of my beach of last resort. It's a lot better down at the end of the lake"–around the Indiana Dunes–"some really big water down there." 

It was sunset. I started to leave the park. The two of them walked up to the north end of the beach, and they were heading back into the water. 
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Double Nickel

By my mother’s account, she went into labor sometime late on March 31, 1954. Dad drove her to a hospital on Chicago’s far South Side; she didn’t supply the detail on how she got to the hospital, but it’s the only way I can imagined it happened. The weather, from what I glean from weather records, was cold; March had ended with an 8-inch snowfall, and the And then, she said, they waited. She was in labor all the way through April Fool’s Day. Then around 9 in the morning on the 2nd, I made my debut. I’ll go light on further details.

So here I am, at the threshold of 55. I know it’s not one of those big decade numbers. Still, there’s some weight there for me. Maybe it’s the memory of my father losing his long-time job when he was 55. I was talking to my friend Pete about that episode recently and how back then, in the age before the mass layoff, getting fired or pushed out, especially from a job one had invested 25 years in, as my dad had, carried a sense of death with it. At 55, you weren’t a kid anymore. How were you supposed to pick up the pieces and continue? As it happened, my mom went to work and my father did put the pieces back together.

So, 55. I’ve found myself thinking about the group of kids I went through school with in the fringe suburbs of Chicago, kids who had birthdays around mine. Somehow, I’ve managed to keep track of a few of them. One’s a petroleum geologist, now working in Nigeria. One’s a job counselor for the emotionally disabled in the Sacramento Valley. One’s an atmospheric scientist in Chicago. Another runs a homeless advocacy group in Indianapolis. And one is a programmer-type down in Texas.

Odd to think of them all hitting this age. I remember them in First Communion class, or on the playground the day President Kennedy was shot, or helping run a classroom campaign for LBJ in fifth grade, in the band room at our district junior high school, or on the basketball court, softball diamond and football field (many of these people showed up in more than one of these scenes, along with a cohort of other friends, older and younger, who I’ve not forgotten).

Not kids anymore, but I knew them when they were.

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January

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What the drought looks like: clear sky, a touch of green on the hills, and bone-dry trails. This was at the top of the Seaview Trail in Tilden Park, in the hills above Berkeley, this afternoon. That’s Mount Diablo in the slightly dirty distance. Met dozens of people out walking — more than I ever recall seeing on the trail at once (one reason: it climbs a good 600 or 800 feet from the nearest parking areas, which are more than a mile from the top). We’ve had less than half an inch of rain this month, the month that’s usually the heart of the wet season.

Winter’s happening somewhere. Here and here and here. But not here where I am.

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December 17

First things first: Or maybe I mean last. Even though it’s the tail end of the day, only 23 minutes left of it in Pacific time, still: Happy birthday, Chris.

Cold snap, Berkeley-style: Just came in from taking The Dog on his final neighborhood patrol for the evening — I say, “Patrol?” to him, and he jumps up to go out. We get frost here every once in a while, but rarely do you see it so early in the evening. A late commuter returning to his car across the street started up his engine, then I could hear the scraping of the wipers across the icy windshield. He kept that up for about five minutes waiting for the defroster to work. Gone now.

Names named: Not that it’s important or that it means anything, but if I don’t keep score no one will: Another one of my guesses about the unnamed persons in the Rod Blagojevich complaint panned out. The first was the man the complaint called Tribune Financial Advisor, who I surmised from an old magazine article was someone named Nils Larsen, a young tycoon who works for Tribune Owner (Sam Zell). That guess checked out. Number Two is Highway Contractor 1, someone that the governor and his cronies were allegedly expecting $500,000 in campaign contributions from in exchange, the complaint suggests, for an inside track on future tollroad work. I guessed that Mr. Highway Contractor 1 is Gerald Krozel, listed as president of Prairie Materials in southwest suburban Bridgeview and chairman of the American Concrete Pavement Association. A business reporter for Crain’s got confirmation that Krozel’s company is talking to the authorities. Next up: The secret identity of the governor’s grilled-cheese chef.

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Back to Our Regularly Unscheduled Programming

I knew trying to list all the people in the Blagojevich complaint would be a time sink; I knew it would be hard or impossible to figure out some of the people described in the document; and I knew the effort would be of ephemeral value.

But I went ahead. And after listing the roughly four dozen people mentioned in the government’s narrative of events, I can say it is a pretty interesting exercise and allows me to at least generally answer one question I had the day Blagojevich was arrested: How was it that federal investigators were hot on the trail of the governor’s administration within a matter of months after he was first sworn in? Of course, if you’ve followed the progress of the Antoin Rezko trial–out here in California, I did not–you know the answer: Rezko and other Blagojevich people were so unabashedly aggressive in their pursuit of “contributions” that flares were going up all over the place by the end of 2003. Also not apparent if you haven’t followed Illinois politics closely is the fact Blagojevich and the Democrats found willing partners among Republican operatives who didn’t want to see their own private skimming operations disturbed. And finally, for now: The complaint gives an example or two people who refused to knuckle under to the state’s official extortion team, who either threatened to or did go to the cops. In both cases, the schemers backed off. That said, it’s remarkable to read how many people, some of them seemingly honest and accomplished, who wanted in or were willing to go along once Team Blagojevich put the arm on them.

Anyway — back to other subjects for now, though I’ll continue to fill in the blanks on the Dramatis Personae where I can and probably put the updated list on a separate page somewhere. As before, any input welcome.

One final nod: to my brother Chris, who text-messaged me last Tuesday at 7:52 a.m. that “in case you haven’t heard, Blago was arrested.” Thanks, Chris!

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Reading the Complaint: Dramatis Personae

An attempt to sort out the cast of characters who appear in the government’s complaint against Illinois Governor Rod Blagojevich. A work in progress, obviously, and if you have any good links or suggestions, send ’em on in.

Named individuals

Imad Almanaseer, former member of Illinois Health Facility Planning Board; joined in scheme to exchange construction approvals for donations to Blagojevich and others; testified under immunity against Rezko.

Ali Ata, Chicago businessman who bought a seat as head of the state Capital Development Board seat with contributions to Blagojevich through fundraiser Antoin Rezko; testified against Rezko and has offered evidence against Blagojevich.

Thomas Beck, former member of Illinois Health Facility Planning Board; joined in scheme to exchange construction approvals for donations to Blagojevich and others; testified under immunity against Rezko.

Patti Blagojevich, the governor’s wife. (Tribune news profile)

Rod Blagojevich, governor of Illinois.

Daniel W. Cain, FBI Special Agent and affiant in the criminal complaint.

Joseph Cari,major Democratic fundraiser who participated in Rezko-Blagojevich scheme; offered evidence against Rezko and Blagojevich as part of plea deal.

William Cellini,Republican businessman who with Levine exercised control over Illinois Teachers Retirement System; secretly organized major donations to Blagojevich as part of the price to keep influence over the board; has been indicted in connection with abetting some of Levine’s and Rezko’s corrupt schemes.

Kelly Glynn, former Friends of Blagojevich finance director.

John Harris, Blagojevich’s chief of staff.

James F. Holderman, chief judge of U.S. District Court in Chicago who authorized Blagojevich eavesdropping in the governor’s campaign office and on his home phone. Holderman is a former federal prosecutor who joined in U.S. Attorney James R. Thompson’s campaign against corrupt Chicago politicians in the 1980s.

Chris Kelly, a principal campaign fundraiser for Blagojevich. (Kelly was indicted last year on federal tax fraud charges and is reportedly (as of 12/17/08) preparing to plead guilty in that case.

Matthew F. Kennelly, acting chief judge of U.S. District Court in Chicago who re-authorized wiretapping of Blagojevich’s home phone.

Stuart Levine, described in complaint as “a member of the board of trustees of the Teachers Retirement System and the Illinois Health Facilities Planning Board” who joined in the Blagojevich-Rezko shakedown scheme.

Steven Loren, outside counsel to the Illinois Teachers Retirement System; testified against Rezko under plea deal.

John McCormick, Chicago Tribune deputy editorial page editor.

Michael T. Mason, U.S. Magistrate Judge to whom complaint was sworn.

Lon Monk, lobbyist and former Blagojevich chief of staff.

Antoin (Tony) Rezko, Democratic fundraiser convicted of shaking down individuals and companies doing business with the state.

Thomas Rosenberg, one of the owners of Capri Capital, a real-estate investment firm that Rezko, Levine, Cellini et al. allegedly targeted in an extortion scheme (they are said to have demanded bribes and contributions to Friends of Blagojevich in exchange for approving a Teachers Retirement System investment with Capri).

Dr. Robert Weinstein, “a co-schemer in Levine’s criminal activities,” according to the complaint.

Unnamed individuals and Their Identities

Advisor A: The complaint says: “a former Deputy Governor under ROD

BLAGOJEVICH who is currently a lobbyist.” Speculation has pointed to Doug Scofield, Blagojevich’s former media strategist, former deputy governor, and lobbyist. This fall, the Tribune described him in passing as “a spokesman for the Friends of Blagojevich campaign committee.”

Candidates 1-6 for Obama’s Senate seat:

Candidate 1: Said to be Obama advisor and confidante Valerie Jarrett.

Candidate 2: Lisa Madigan, Illinois Attorney General.

Candidate 3: Rep. Jan Schakowsky has volunteered that she spoke to Blagojevich about the appointment and is quoted as saying (here and elsewhere) that “Number 3 is the only one I could be,” she said. “I’m either not in there at all or Candidate 3.”

Candidate 4: Said to be Deputy Governor A — Deputy Governor Bob Greenlee.

Candidate 5: Rep. Jesse Jackson Jr.

Candidate 6: From the complaint: “Senate Candidate 6, based on other intercepted conversations, is believed to be a wealthy person from Illinois.” Blagojevich was recorded asking whether Senate Candidate 6 would be able to raise money for a 501(c)4 nonprofit that Blagojevich thought he might head after he was no longer governor. ROD BLAGOJEVICH asked, ‘if I get [Senate Candidate 6] to do something like that, is it worth giving him the Senate seat?’ ” TheHill.com speculated on the identity of No. 6 the day the complaint became public: “There is no shortage of millionaires in Illinois, and dozens could be politically active and interested in a U.S. Senate seat. One name that popped up among more than a few Illinois political observers was that of Blair Hull, the investment banker and businessman who lost the 2004 Senate primary to Obama. One of Hull’s assistants said he was out of the office on Tuesday and probably would not be available to the press. A call to Hull’s publicly listed residence went unanswered.”

Contributor 1: From the complaint: “… listed on the Friends of Blagojevich spreadsheet as someone from whom Friends of Blagojevich was seeking $100,000 in contributions.”

Cubs chairman: Crane Kenney. His name was brought up in connection with getting Tribune editorial writers fired for anti-Blagojevich editorials.

Deputy Governor A: The complaint specifies that Deputy Governor A is a male. By process of elimination, one online forum participant suggests that A is Deputy Governor Bob Greenlee. I’d consider that less than authoritative, but on the other hand, there’s not a big universe of possibilities. In Blagojevich’s alleged Senate seat gambit, Deputy Governor A was also Candidate 4 for Obama’s Senate seat. Here’s Greenlee’s LinkedIn page. [Update 12/11: Greenlee resigned his job yesterday, which seems to confirm that he is Deputy Governor A.]

Fundraiser A: Described as chairman of Friends of Blagojevich, the governor’s fundraising committee. State records available online don’t list a chairman, but Lou Grant at the Chitown Daily News informs us (including a link) that the chairman is Robert Blagojevich, the governor’s brother. The complaint specifies that Fundraiser A was present at an October 22, 2008, meeting with Blagojevich at the governor’s North Side campaign office; two others present, the complaint says, were Lobbyists 1 and 2. The Tribune and others have reported that the October 22 meeting was attended by Blagojevich, his former chief of staff Lon Monk, and fundraiser John Wyma. Wyma is supposedly Individual A, quoted in the complaint as describing Fundraiser A’s activities. By process of elimination, I’m guesssing that Monk is one of the lobbyists described here — I’ll call him Lobbyist 1.

Highway Contractor 1: From the complaint: “Highway Contractor 1 is an officer of a company that is a large supplier of concrete in the state of Illinois. [An Internet] search also reflected that Highway Contractor 1 is active in one of the largest trade associations, ACPA (American Concrete Pavement Association), in the road building industry in the state of Illinois.” The complaint also alleges that Individual A told investigators that Blagojevich intended to seek a $500,000 contribution from Highway Contractor 1, who was a potential beneficiary of a new tollway project. Highway Contractor 1 is also the subject of one of Blagojevich’s choicest quotes, “If they don’t perform, fuck ’em.”

So with those broad hints, who is this? After looking at Illinois and federal political contribution records, my money would be on Gerald Krozel, a long-time executive of Prairie Material Sales (a major concrete supplier) and recognized last year by the American Concrete Paving Association for his decades of promoting the industry (he was founder of the trade association that later became the ACPA’s Illinois chapter). Krozel and Prairie Group have been heavy, repeat contributors to state and federal campaigns, both Republican and Democratic, including the “Friends” committees for both jailbird former Governor George Ryan and Blagojevich.

The suburban Daily Herald quoted Krozel the day Blagojevich was arrested, apparently without knowing they were talking to the likely Mr. Highway Contractor 1:”Gerry Krozel, chairman of the Illinois division of the American Concrete Pavement Association and a vice president with concrete producer Prairie Material Sales Inc. said the mention of the organization in federal documents came as a big surprise. “We’re a very, very good association,” Krozel said, adding he has talked to Blagojevich but it involved how growth in the concrete industry can create jobs. [Update 12/17/08: Crain’s ChicagoBusiness.com yesterday quoted an executive with Prairie’s parent company, Toronto-based Votorantim Cement North America, as saying the company is cooperating with federal investigators in the Blagojevich case. Votorantim wouldn’t confirm that Prairie Material or Krozel are the entities mentioned in the complaint, and they referred further questions to the U.S. Attorney’s office.

Hospital Executive 1: The complaint says: “the Chief Executive Officer of Children’s Memorial Hospital.” The Children’s CEO is Patrick Magoon. Some background on the alleged shakedown attempt on Magoon from The Tribune’s chicagobreakingnews.com: “Inside Blagojevich’s alleged hospital shakedown.”

Individual A: [12/12/08:] Political fund-raiser John Wyma, according to The New York Times (here and also here) and others. One of the best anecdotes in the investigation comes from the October 22 meeting at Blagojevich’s campaign office on Ravenswood Avenue on the North Side. Wyma and Blagojevich’s former chief of staff, Lon Monk, were reportedly at the meeting. When Wyma emerged from the 90-minute session, he was greeted by a Chicago Tribune reporter and photographer. What did he do? He ran for his car. Then he thought better of it.

Individual B: From the complaint: “On October 6, 2008, Individual A and Individual B attended a meeting with ROD BLAGOJEVICH and JOHN HARRIS. Individual B sought the meeting with ROD BLAGOJEVICH to discuss help ROD BLAGOJEVICH could provide to Individual B’s business venture. After Individual B left the meeting, ROD BLAGOJEVICH informed Individual A that ROD BLAGOJEVICH liked Individual B and/or Individual B’s project and wanted Individual A to approach Individual B about raising $100,000 for Friends of Blagojevich by the end of the year.”

Individual C: Complaint says: “A former member of the U.S. House of Representatives who is believed to be attempting to assist ROD BLAGOJEVICH in passing a capital bill worth billions of dollars that would benefit Highway Contractor 1 and the trade association with which he is affiliated.”

Individual D: Complaint says: “Individual D, an individual who ROD BLAGOJEVICH is attempting to obtain campaign contributions from and who, based on intercepted phone calls, ROD BLAGOJEVICH believes to be close to Senate Candidate 5 [Rep. Jesse Jackson Jr.]” Based on this story in today’s (12/12/08) Tribune, a likely candidate for Individual D is Raghuveer Nayak, a Chicago-area doctor who has given generously (more than $70,000 this year and $200,000 in the last decade) to all sorts of candidates (including Hillary Clinton, Obama, and McCain this year). [Update: Thanks to Lou Grant for a pointer to a story in the Trb (12/22/08) that reports Nayak is in fact Individual D and that he’s seeking “immunity from federal authorities in return for his cooperation in their ongoing probe” of Blagojevich.

Lobbyist 1: Former Blagojevich chief of staff Lon Monk. (See Fundraiser A entry for explanation.)

Lobbyist 2:

President-elect: Barack Obama

President of Engineering Firm 1: [12/12/08:]

Possibilities: Alfred Benesch & Co., V3 Companies of Illinois, Wight and Co.

The complaint says the firm “received in excess of $10 million from the State of Illinois during each of fiscal years 2004 through 2008.” A commenter (Tom) points to a July 30, 2008, Chicago Tribune article (“Blagojevich Raises Cash While Reform Bill Sits“) that raises two chief possibilities as to the engineering firm involved in the complaint: Alfred Benesch & Co. and V3 Companies of Illinois. Commenter Tom thinks Benesch fits the bill best, and here’s some circumstantial evidence that backs up that conclusion: Searching for Benesch executives in the Illinois State Board of Elections contributor database shows the firm’s president, Michael Goodkind, of Chicago, and his colleagues seem to have been very generous with both Democrats and Republicans in Springfield. They’ve dumped a lot of money on the Friends of Blagojevich (and before he was in office, they did the same for George Ryan, now in prison, and to a lesser extent Jim Edgar). It’s also of note that Antoine Karam, the Benesch executive vice president quoted in the July Tribune story as anxious to see a campaign finance reform law go into effect in Illinois–he says it would save him money in contributions–is a former chief engineer of the Illinois State Toll Highway Authority. That can’t have hurt when the company was bidding for tollroad work.

The other possibilities: V3 Companies of Illinois: The firm has gotten plenty of state highway work, but not quite as much as the complaint suggests. Also, the firm doesn’t appear to have been a particularly active contributor to any candidate or campaign. Wight and Co., based in Darien, Illinois, has done a substantial amount of work for the state during Blagojevich’s tenure (though not as much as Benesch, and not quite as much as the complaint suggests) and is listed as contributing about $125,000 to the governor’s committee. There’s another tie between Wight’s chairman and CEO, Mark T. Wight, and Blagojevich: Patti Blagojevich, a real-estate agent, handled the 2005 sale of Mark Wight’s Chicago condominium to John Wyma, the Blagojevich confidante widely reported to be Individual A in the complaint and also reported last week to be cooperating with investigators.

Both the July Trib story mentioned above and other reporting (see the Illinois Campaign for Political Reform blog on July 22, 2008, “State contractors contributing to Blagojevich“) do a pretty good job of suggesting how the pay-for-play game was being run.

Spokesman: The complaint says, “a State of Illinois employee who is the official spokesperson for the Governor’s office.” That’s Lucio Guerrero.

Sports Consultant: From the complaint: “The president of a Chicago-area sports consulting firm, whose remarks during the conversation indicated that he was working with the Cubs on matters involving Wrigley Field.”

Sun-Times columnist: Michael Sneed.

Tribune Owner: Sam Zell

Tribune Financial Advisor: Complaint says, “Tribune Financial Advisor is believed to be an individual identified in media accounts as a top assistant and financial advisor to Tribune Owner, who played a significant role in Tribune Owner’s purchase of the Tribune.” Based on that, here’s one candidate: Nils Larsen, a managing director at Zell’s Equity Group Investments LLC. In November 2007, Crain’s Chicago Business ran a Larsen profile that characterized him as intimately involved in Zell’s media purchases, including that of the Tribune. [Update: The Tribune says in a story Friday, December 12 that Larsen is the Tribune Financial Advisor named in the complaint: “Sam Zell’s financial adviser at Tribune Co. was middleman sought by Blagojevich.” The story details Larsen’s role in the Tribune Co. and calls him Zell’s point man in trying to sell the Cubs.]

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