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Politics : Formerly About Advanced Micro Devices -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: tejek who wrote (398395)	7/13/2008 4:26:51 PM
From: Brumar89	Read Replies (3) \| Respond to of 1573689

Yes, I like the part that showed Obama was getting campaign contribrutions from building managers who left a building full of people in his district without heat for 5 weeks in the middle of a Chicago winter. And that wasn't a one-time problem: At least a dozen times, the city of Chicago sued Rezmar for failure to heat buildings. How could a community organizer be so out of touch with the community he represented? I liked seeing his spokesman defend Obama as a paper-pushing "junior lawyer" who didn't know what was going on around him: "The senator, relatively inexperienced in this kind of work, was assigned to tasks appropriate for a junior lawyer,'' according to an e-mail from Obama spokesman Robert Gibbs. "These tasks would have included reviewing documents, collecting corporate organizational documents, and drafting corporate resolutions.'' Obama worked for this law firm his entire 9 year career as a lawyer. In fact, Gibbs wrote, "Senator Obama does not remember having conversations with Tony Rezko about properties that he owned or any specific issues related to those properties.'' That is damning. Obama never once talked with Rezko about the conditions in the properties he managed. Rezko and Mahru had no construction experience when they created Rezmar in 1989 to rehabilitate apartments for the poor under the Daley administration. Between 1989 and 1998, Rezmar made deals to rehab 30 buildings, a total of 1,025 apartments. The last 15 buildings involved Davis Miner Barnhill & Galland during Obama's time with the firm. Rezko and Mahru also managed the buildings, which were supposed to provide homes for poor people for 30 years. Every one of the projects ran into trouble: • Seventeen buildings -- many beset with code violations, including a lack of heat -- ended up in foreclosure. • Six buildings are currently boarded up. • Hundreds of the apartments are vacant, in need of major repairs. • Taxpayers have been stuck with millions in unpaid loans. • At least a dozen times, the city of Chicago sued Rezmar for failure to heat buildings. suntimes.com Some of the residents of Grove Parc say they are angry that Obama did not notice their plight. The development straddles the boundary of Obama's state Senate district. Many of the tenants have been his constituents for more than a decade. "No one should have to live like this, and no one did anything about it," said Cynthia Ashley, who has lived at Grove Parc since 1994. ..... Over the next nine years, Rezmar used more than $87 million in government grants, loans, and tax credits to renovate about 1,000 apartments in 30 Chicago buildings. Companies run by the partners also managed many of the buildings, collecting government rent subsidies. Rezmar collected millions in development fees but fell behind on mortgage payments almost immediately. On its first project, the city government agreed to reduce the company's monthly payments from almost $3,000 to less than $500. By the time Obama entered the state Senate in 1997, the buildings were beginning to deteriorate. In January 1997, the city sued Rezmar for failing to provide adequate heat in a South Side building in the middle of an unusually cold winter. It was one of more than two dozen housing-complaint suits filed by the city against Rezmar for violations at its properties. People who lived in some of the Rezmar buildings say trash was not picked up and maintenance problems were ignored. Roofs leaked, windows whistled, insects moved in. "In the winter I can feel the cold air coming through the walls and the sockets," said Anthony Frizzell, 57, who has lived for almost two decades in a Rezmar building on South Greenwood Avenue. "They didn't insulate it or nothing." Sharee Jones, who lives in another former Rezko building one block away, said her apartment was rat-infested for years. "You could hear them under the floor and in the walls, and they didn't do nothing about it," Jones said. ..... Eleven of Rezmar's buildings were located in the district represented by Obama, containing 258 apartments. The building without heat in January 1997, the month Obama entered the state Senate, was in his district. So was Jones's building with rats in the walls and Frizzell's building that lacked insulation. And a redistricting after the 2000 Census added another 350 Rezmar apartments to the area represented by Obama. But Obama has contended that he knew nothing about any problems in Rezmar's buildings. After Rezko's assistance in Obama's home purchase became a campaign issue, at a time when the developer was awaiting trial in an unrelated bribery case, Obama told the Chicago Sun-Times that the deterioration of Rezmar's buildings never came to his attention. He said he would have distanced himself from Rezko if he had known. Other local politicians say they knew of the problems. "I started getting complaints from police officers about particular properties that turned out to be Rezko properties," said Toni Preckwinkle, a Chicago alderman. ..... boston.com. No, Obama, like Sgt. Schultz of Hogans Heroes, Obama said "I see NOTHING! I know NOTHING!