This is a 7 page article on Valerie Jarrett's background and Chicago history. It is long but full of helpful information that will help you understand the direction's that the Obama administration has taken with Valerie Jarrett as his adviser. Below is a link to the whole article as this is only page 4.
By Paul Kengor
(Page 4 of 7)
The Globe reported that thousands of these apartments across Chicago, which had been built with local, state, and federal subsidies, including “several hundred” in Obama’s former district, had “deteriorated so completely that they were no longer habitable.” TheGlobe noted that Grove Parc and several other facilities “were developed and managed by Obama’s close friends and political supporters. Those people profited from the subsidies even as many of Obama’s constituents suffered.” Among those close friends and political supporters, the Globe highlighted the following:
Valerie Jarrett, a senior adviser to Obama’s presidential campaign and a member of his finance committee. Jarrett is the chief executive of Habitat Co., which managed Grove Parc Plaza from 2001 until this winter [2008] and co-managed an even larger subsidized complex in Chicago that was seized by the federal government in 2006, after city inspectors found widespread problems.Allison Davis, a major fund-raiser for Obama’s U.S. Senate campaign and a former lead partner at Obama’s former law firm. Davis, a developer, was involved in the creation of Grove Parc and has used government subsidies to rehabilitate more than 1,500 units in Chicago, including a North Side building cited by city inspectors last year after chronic plumbing failures resulted in raw sewage spilling into several apartments.Antoin “Tony” Rezko, perhaps the most important fund-raiser for Obama’s early political campaigns and a friend who helped the Obamas buy a home in 2005. Rezko’s company used subsidies to rehabilitate more than 1,000 apartments, mostly in and around Obama’s district, then refused to manage the units, leaving the buildings to decay to the point where many no longer were habitable.
In a review of campaign finance records, the Globe reported that “six prominent developers,” including Jarrett, Davis, and Rezko, had “collectively contributed” more than $175,000 to Barack Obama’s campaigns over the last decade. More than that, they had “raised hundreds of thousands more from other donors.” Tony Rezko alone had raised at least $200,000, and that was (stated the Globe) “by Obama’s own accounting.”
The Globe piece also provided a brief early history of Chicago public housing, noting that in the mid-20th century, Chicago had constructed some of America’s largest developments, with the coup de grâce being the Robert Taylor Homes, which was a mass of more than 4,400 apartments sprawled across 28 high-rise buildings laid out for two miles along the interstate. These buildings were operated by the Chicago Housing Authority, as was another huge complex called Stateway Gardens, a dreadfully impoverished facility that, as the Globenoted, was “falling apart after decades of epic, sometimes criminal, mismanagement.”
What the Globe did not note, probably because it wasn’t familiar with the Valerie Jarrett bloodline noted earlier in this article, is that the Robert Taylor Homes were named for Valerie’s great-grandfather, and the CHA that ran them was headed by her grandfather: two Robert Taylors.
Decades later, into the next century, Valerie Jarrett oversaw the company that managed these facilities. She also served on the boards of several organizations that provided funding and financial support. Both Tony Rezko and Allison Davis (another close Obama figure) were intimately involved in these projects—or at least in their scandalous neglect.
As one local official put it, “the same exact people who ran these places into the ground,” were now “profiting by redeveloping them.”
Actually, in too many cases, they were failing to even redevelop them—though not failing to profit from the infusion of government dollars into their pockets. Among the largest recipients of subsidies was Rezko’s Rezmar Corp., which over nine years received some $87 million in government money to renovate nearly 1,000 dilapidated apartments. The folks in the “Rezmar buildings” constantly complained about their conditions, which never improved.
(Allison Davis has a similar story. He was Obama’s former law-firm boss. Among other projects, Davis was involved in the Grove Parc development. Davis left the law firm to concentrate on housing developments, an option made especially lucrative, as the Globe noted, by “subsidies from the Daley administration and aided, on occasion, by Obama himself.” Again, Valerie Jarrett worked for the Daley administration.)
Rezko was not only a personal friend of Obama but also helped raise money for Obama’s political campaigns. Rezko ultimately was arrested for fraud, bribery, and money laundering. In 2007, he was indicted on federal charges of fraud and influence peddling with the administration of disgraced Illinois governor Rod Blagojevich. In 2008, Rezko was convicted on 16 of 24 counts of corruption. Today, Rezko is in prison as a convicted felon.
Obama himself has been connected to Rezko, so much so that Hillary Clinton couldn’t help but raise questions during a Democratic primary debate in South Carolina in January 2008, with Hillary accusing Obama of associating with a “slumlord.” Even the New York Timesconceded that Hillary had a point, noting that “Obama did work for a law firm in Chicago and performed legal work involving Mr. Rezko’s housing developments.” Just two days prior to the debate, Obama returned more than $40,000 in political contributions that, as theTimes reported, “were linked to Mr. Rezko.”
The liberal media has let Obama off the hook with Rezko. It has done likewise, but more so, with Valerie Jarrett, whose very business dealt precisely with Rezko’s housing developments.
In November 2008, Judicial Watch obtained documents from the Illinois secretary of state linking Jarrett to several housing projects (and thus scandals) operated by Rezko. “Like Barack Obama, Valerie Jarrett is a product of the corrupt Chicago political machine,” noted Judicial Watch’s Tom Fitton. “And it is no stretch to say that she was a slumlord.”
The rest of the article is at the link below:
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