News Man Tim Novak - The Only Eye-on Allison Davis

It’s been six years since five Chicago government pension plans hired DV Urban Realty — a start-up investment firm founded by then-Mayor Richard M. Daley’s nephew Robert G. Vanecko and President Barack Obama’s friend and former boss Allison S. Davis — to manage $68 million in retirement funds.

Those investments haven’t gone well for the pension funds that represent Chicago teachers, police officers, other city employees and transit workers. The funds have paid DV Urban a total of $7.2 million, including $4.7 million in fees to manage the small share of the pension funds’ money and another $2.5 million for a sister company to oversee the operations of three buildings bought with pension money.

Pension officials — including Mayor Rahm Emanuel’s two top financial advisers — are unhappy. By their estimation, the value of the funds’ real estate investments with DV Urban has fallen by 28 percent, or about $19 million.

(emphasis my own)

President Obama's pal and former boss ripping off the folks? Well, hush my beak!

That is news Goo-goos, Go-Alongs and their Media cheerleaders want hushed up.

I never hear Thundering Dick Simpson rail against real corruption around this burg. I never hear Abner Mikva beef about the cozy Progressive bed-bugs that have dominated the bad old Democratic Machine's mattress for decades.

Blago, Rezko, and Daley relatives get plenty of news ink, but only the great Tim Novak of the Chicago Sun Times keeps his choppers locked on the butts of IVI-IPO champion boondoggler Allison Davis.

God Bless Tim Novak! Now, if only an editorial board in this Crossroads of Crusading Crooks would grow a pair on tenth the size of the set Tim Novak is packing, we'd be informed.

It seems, Allison Davis is everywhere Federal, State and Local tax-dollars get dumped into a sanctioned cache of cash - HUD Money, Pension Funds, and Save the Children coffee cans. The Sun times Editorial Board did Old Allison a solid and did not post his photo along with Tim Novak's report. That Allison Davis up above with post shine -box President Obama.

Allison Davis is bullet-proof with Medill School Power Rangers and Bruce Dold's Chicago Tribune Editorial Morning Zoo Crew.
Davis Père ( his boy Cullen was briefly in the jackpot when a toddler was crushed by Cullen's rusty gate) might be bullet proof, but if turns around and down he will find Tim Novak's choppers locked on his rump.

DV Urban turned a small profit — about $500,000 — when it sold one of the most valuable properties, a 344-unit apartment building at 1212 S. Michigan Ave., for $65.5 million last Nov. 30, county records show.
DV Urban bought the building using $9.9 million in money from the pension funds, records show. The pension funds will get back about $9 million from the sale, according to DV Urban’s countersuit.

Davis, 72, and Vanecko, 47, both of Chicago, founded DV Urban in 2005. Vanecko has given sworn testimony in a legal deposition that his father, Dr. Robert M. Vanecko, introduced him to Davis, a well-known lawyer and developer.

Every Chicagoan knows the names of Patrick Daley and Mr. Vanecko, but I'll be a Sacajawea Gold coin that less than a tennis double in each word has heard of Allison Davis.

Davis ran a small Chicago law firm that hired Obama after his graduation from Harvard Law School. Davis eventually left the law firm and became a business partner with one of his clients, Tony Rezko, in a venture to build affordable housing with taxpayer money.
Davis became a central figure in the trials of Rezko, a top fund-raiser for former Gov. Rod Blagojevich, and William F. Cellini, a longtime fund-raiser for Illinois Republicans, who were both convicted on corruption charges.According to testimony, once, during a meeting with Rezko and another Blagojevich fund-raiser, Christopher Kelly, Davis suggested they could raise money from Thomas Rosenberg, a Hollywood movie producer who also owned an investment firm that managed state pension money. Rosenberg tesified he was told he would lose his state deal unless he gave money to Blagojevich’s campaign. Cellini was convicted in the shakedown of Rosenberg. Davis was never charged with any crime.

Gee, Thundering Dick Simpson, one might get the idea that things aren't all on the square, on the up-and-up. Speak on it, Son! Testify!

Readers might also like this one from Tim Novak
http://www.suntimes.com/business/10416320-417/both-sides-file-lawsuits-in-flap-over-city-pension-fund-investments.html

James Tyree's Investment Group Get a Chicago Tribune Welcome! "Me and the Wife and Kids Set Your Garage on Fire! "

The Chicago Tribune welcomes the Investors in the Group that purchased the Flat-lined by Stupidity Chicago Sun Times with brimming bowls full of vitriol tossed right in the Lamps.

One of the best working journalists in the business Ray Gibson and a Tribune staff writer Michael Oneal seem to be doing the bidding of the same Editorial Band of geniuses who attempted to smear former Cook County Sheriff Mike Sheehan a few years ago. Sheriff Sheehan mocked the Tribune after a jury took less than twenty minutes to toss the case of Gang-Bangers/Lefty Lawyers and the Tribune's Full Court Press on a trumped up Cook County Jail Abuse Charge.

Mesirow Investment Chief James Tyree, a man with a sterling reputation for turning around businesses on life-support like the hapless Sun Times News Group ( STNG - the Progressive Independent Revolutionary Shining Path Cadre Mountain Molehill Heapers - Conrad Black's Children of the Corn and Banana Republic Payoff Mogul Cyrus Friedheim's Red Arm and Hammer Bangers*) has stepped up to save a Chicago newspaper.

Paper Hat Col. Bob McCormick's and No Popery Joe Medill's children led by Bruce 'Kenny G is Jazz' Dold seem to be following the Old Sun Times Playbook off the cliff - the one James Tyree kept The Obnoxious Oracle of Orleans Street from using.

In today's "Welcome to Progressive Journalism" oyster cracker, Gibson and Oneal squirt poison from the pens linking Tyree's Investors to a failed casino venture ( which Abner Mikva did his best to sink, it seemed to me, hearing no good word for the Emerald Investors in his Star Chamber treatment of the Casino License review - Emerald had the great Bob Clifford as counsel. BTW- I participated in one of the hearings and it sure seemed to me as though Abner Mikva had his mind set on swamping the Flynns, well before the testimony was given. The Mikva Challenge? Try and make your point.

The Tribune also attempts to toss the George Ryan Card freely at several investors as well as Al Capone. Gee why not link them to Moe Annenberg - too close to Billy Ayers I imagine. Thus!

In 2005, the Illinois Gaming Board revoked the license, citing a report by retired federal Judge Abner Mikva concluding that the owners had been deceptive and that the effort was tainted by mob influence. The Flynns have denied the charges.

Kevin Flynn, who runs an investment firm and is chairman of Renovo Services LLC, which repossesses cars and other assets, was unavailable for comment. Tyree said he knows Flynn through Mesirow's insurance arm.

Two other Sun-Times investors, William and Robert Parrillo, have deep business experience and come from a family with a long history in Chicago.

William founded Safeway Insurance Co, an auto insurer based in Westmont; his brother Robert is managing partner of Parrillo Weiss & O'Halloran, a Chicago law firm specializing in personal injury and insurance cases.

Their father did legal work for gangsters, including Al Capone. Their brother, Donald, a former 1st Ward alderman, once recounted that he was recruited to run for the post by then-Outfit chief Sam "Momo" Giancana.

Another brother, Richard, is a close friend of jailed former Republican Gov. George Ryan and raised hundreds of thousands of dollars to fund Ryan's failed defense against corruption charges. He also has been a close associate and supporter of former 10th Ward Ald. Edward Vrdolyak.

William and Robert Parrillo weren't available for comment Friday, but a source close to them said they have worked over the years to distance themselves financially from their brothers.

Another Tyree investor, Edward Heil, made his fortune running a garbage business and a construction company that thrived on state contracts. He battled with DuPage County for years before selling a disputed landfill to Waste Management for $62.5 million in 1986.

More recently, Heil has invested in American Ecology Corp., which has a low-level nuclear waste site in Washington state.

Heil, 65, was one of Ryan's biggest financial supporters and a major donor to Gov. Jim Edgar. In 1993, Edgar canceled a potential $10 million state contract in which Heil had invested, saying he wanted to avoid the appearance that insiders might have gotten favored treatment.

Yep, the Tribune Editorial Board Mensa Chapter is sprinting to the same cliff that James Tyree stopped the Sun Times from trying out!

'Hi, I'm Col. Bob McCormick and this is my wife Joe Medill-McCormick! Welcome to the neighborhood! The wife, kids and I set your garage on fire! Here's a cold week old eggplant casserole with cauliflower sauce - we want the dish back tonight!'

*
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/08/01/AR2007080102601.html