Sandhusker
Well-known member
Obama's $100,000 garden grant wasted
He vowed to 'work tirelessly' to build an oasis for Englewood. It never happened.
July 11, 2008
As a state senator, Barack Obama gave $100,000 in state money to a campaign volunteer who failed to deliver on a plan to create a botanic garden in one of Chicago's most blighted neighborhoods.
..... what was supposed to be a six-block stretch of trees and paths is now a field of unfulfilled dreams, strewn with weeds, garbage and broken pavement.
Kenny B. Smith, whose nonprofit group got the money, said it was spent legitimately, mostly on underground site preparation. But he admitted Thursday that the garden is a lost cause because other government money never came through.
..... Smith -- an early Obama supporter who gave $550 to his state and congressional campaigns -- said he gave his paperwork documenting the work to a state agency and no longer has it.
..... a reporter walked the site last week with a landscape architect from the Illinois Green Industry Association who found no evidence of the work Smith cited. The only major changes since 2000: A gazebo was added, and some trees were cut down.
Obama, the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee, said through a spokesman he wasn't responsible for monitoring the work; the staffs of Gov. Blagojevich and former Gov. George Ryan were.
..... In 2001, at Obama's direction, a $100,000 Illinois FIRST grant went to Smith's group. The garden site was part of Rosewood Estates, an affordable-housing development being built by the group, whose unpaid board chairman was Brian Washington, a Sun-Times security guard.
Plans called for more than 50 homes, but only a dozen were built, Smith said.
The remaining $1 million for the botanic garden was never raised.
Those legendary $400 hammers for the military have nothing on this $100,000 gazebo.
A trifling matter? I don't think so. More like a revealing one:
Obama feels no sense of responsibility for the results of money directed to someone HE chose. This isn't "the buck stops here" of Harry Truman fame; this is "the buck went somewhere else."
Gubernatorial staffs aren't responsible for monitoring projects like this. State agencies are. If the agency involved didn't do their job (according to the article, it's the Department of Commerce and Economic Opportunity), that's one thing, but the blame-shifting to other pols is either hopelessly naive (a legitimate possibility, given the candidate's seemingly endless well of ignorance) or irresponsible.
If you look at the full text of the press release that announced the project, you'll see that Kenny Smith was on hand, and that he made representations about how he was "work(ing) with a variety of governmental agencies and not-for-profit groups to secure funding this project including the Chicago Transit Authority, the United States Department of Agriculture, and the American Society of Landscape Architecture. We have made some progress ...." My bet: Smith had, at most, met with these orgs once or twice, and was blowing smoke about the realistic chances of getting money. For a nominal $550 in campaign contributions, Smith got 100 grand, which "somehow" has mostly gone bye-bye. Bottom line: Obama got hustled. Did he even look into how the rest of the "fund-raising" was going before directing the release of the grant funds?
Perhaps that's why Obama seems oddly indifferent to what ultimately happened. The response from his spokesman (and not the candidate) is tired boilerplate about "provid(ing) residents with a livable neighborhood." Zzzzzz.
The larger point is this: The guy is hopelessly gullible, can't even get a $100,000 grant right, and now wants to have the final say in matters relating to a $3-plus trillion federal budget and a $14-trillion economy in a town chock full of con artists and tricksters.
Yikes.
He vowed to 'work tirelessly' to build an oasis for Englewood. It never happened.
July 11, 2008
As a state senator, Barack Obama gave $100,000 in state money to a campaign volunteer who failed to deliver on a plan to create a botanic garden in one of Chicago's most blighted neighborhoods.
..... what was supposed to be a six-block stretch of trees and paths is now a field of unfulfilled dreams, strewn with weeds, garbage and broken pavement.
Kenny B. Smith, whose nonprofit group got the money, said it was spent legitimately, mostly on underground site preparation. But he admitted Thursday that the garden is a lost cause because other government money never came through.
..... Smith -- an early Obama supporter who gave $550 to his state and congressional campaigns -- said he gave his paperwork documenting the work to a state agency and no longer has it.
..... a reporter walked the site last week with a landscape architect from the Illinois Green Industry Association who found no evidence of the work Smith cited. The only major changes since 2000: A gazebo was added, and some trees were cut down.
Obama, the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee, said through a spokesman he wasn't responsible for monitoring the work; the staffs of Gov. Blagojevich and former Gov. George Ryan were.
..... In 2001, at Obama's direction, a $100,000 Illinois FIRST grant went to Smith's group. The garden site was part of Rosewood Estates, an affordable-housing development being built by the group, whose unpaid board chairman was Brian Washington, a Sun-Times security guard.
Plans called for more than 50 homes, but only a dozen were built, Smith said.
The remaining $1 million for the botanic garden was never raised.
Those legendary $400 hammers for the military have nothing on this $100,000 gazebo.
A trifling matter? I don't think so. More like a revealing one:
Obama feels no sense of responsibility for the results of money directed to someone HE chose. This isn't "the buck stops here" of Harry Truman fame; this is "the buck went somewhere else."
Gubernatorial staffs aren't responsible for monitoring projects like this. State agencies are. If the agency involved didn't do their job (according to the article, it's the Department of Commerce and Economic Opportunity), that's one thing, but the blame-shifting to other pols is either hopelessly naive (a legitimate possibility, given the candidate's seemingly endless well of ignorance) or irresponsible.
If you look at the full text of the press release that announced the project, you'll see that Kenny Smith was on hand, and that he made representations about how he was "work(ing) with a variety of governmental agencies and not-for-profit groups to secure funding this project including the Chicago Transit Authority, the United States Department of Agriculture, and the American Society of Landscape Architecture. We have made some progress ...." My bet: Smith had, at most, met with these orgs once or twice, and was blowing smoke about the realistic chances of getting money. For a nominal $550 in campaign contributions, Smith got 100 grand, which "somehow" has mostly gone bye-bye. Bottom line: Obama got hustled. Did he even look into how the rest of the "fund-raising" was going before directing the release of the grant funds?
Perhaps that's why Obama seems oddly indifferent to what ultimately happened. The response from his spokesman (and not the candidate) is tired boilerplate about "provid(ing) residents with a livable neighborhood." Zzzzzz.
The larger point is this: The guy is hopelessly gullible, can't even get a $100,000 grant right, and now wants to have the final say in matters relating to a $3-plus trillion federal budget and a $14-trillion economy in a town chock full of con artists and tricksters.
Yikes.