LVEJO - Park Facilities Media Coverage

Whether the name of Richie Urso ever makes it into the corruption trial of former Gov. Rod Blagojevich next June is anybody's guess.

You've probably never heard of Richie Urso. But the FBI sure has heard of him.

His is a classic Chicago story, about a beefy yet charming guy born on Grand Avenue, who got in trouble with the law as a kid, only to make political friends and become extremely wealthy.

He was arrested once for jewelry theft in the '60s by the Outfit's top Chicago police detective, William Hanhardt. Urso's alleged partner in the theft was the mob enforcer Frankie Cullotta, who later became the technical adviser for the movie "Casino." The charges against Urso went away. Like I said, it's a Chicago story.

Richie went from the trucking business into real estate, dropping thousands of dollars in contributions to politicians like Mayor Richard Daley and former Gov. Dead Meat. He hung around with bankers, real estate players, insiders at the Cook County Board of (Tax) Review, at Mart Anthony's Restaurant on Randolph Street.

He was worth millions in real estate. He was also the victim of an Outfit shakedown that figured in the FBI's landmark Family Secrets case against top mob bosses.

Now the FBI is going through his business, interested in his associates, including former Mutual Bank of Harvey boss Amrish Mahajan, who has dropped off the political map. Though not charged, Uncle Amrish is under investigation as a top Blagojevich fundraiser.

"My husband was excited because he was supposed to go with Amrish and Daley on a trip to India," said Richie's wife, Joanne Urso, recalling what she told federal investigators. "They were all going to go together. But then he died."

Daley and his wife, Maggie, made the trip with a Chicago business delegation.

Amrish Mahajan was a political connection for Daley, Blagojevich and other politicians to the Indian community. His wife, Anita, said, "He did not go on the trip with the mayor."

Anita -- charged with bilking the state out of millions of dollars in phony drug tests -- said her husband was in India, and unreachable.

After Richie's death in 2003, lenders called in their notes. Lawyers demanded big fees. The will that he told Joanne was stashed in a Mutual Bank safe deposit box was never found.

And Daley's City Hall, which had never given Richie much trouble, suddenly slapped Joanne with a series of citations on their properties.

City Hall is also demanding she sell Richie's prized 24-acre site just west of the Cook County Jail for millions less than she says it's worth. Ald. George Cardenas (12th) is demanding the site for a park.

"I'm getting ripped off by everybody. By everybody," Joanne Urso said.

She told me Richie died of a heart attack on the kitchen floor of a girlfriend's home, on April 15, 2003.

"You should call her," she said.

So we did. The woman is Mary Ann Dinovo, who works in human resources for the county tax review board, which handles tax appeals for every parcel of real estate in the county.

"He said, 'What do you got to eat?' " recalled Dinovo.

"I'd just made a big tuna salad. He said, 'Can I have some?' The TV was on in the kitchen. The fork dropped out of his hand. He said he felt sick and went to the bathroom."

Minutes later, Richie Urso, his mouth full of tuna salad, was dead at age 61.

"It was karma that we met," Dinovo said. "We loved to do things together, go to shows, go to Navy Pier. ... He'd always play like he was poor. 'I'm just a poor truck driver,' he'd say. Sometimes we'd drive by a piece of property and he'd ask me who owned it."

Did you help him find out who owned it?

"Absolutely not," said Dinovo, who said she has not been contacted by federal authorities.

"I never knew what the hell he had. I didn't ask. But how do you think I felt when after he died, his friends told me that he was worth, like, $50 million? I said, 'What?' "

In late November of last year, Blagojevich hadn't yet been arrested. But the noose was tightening.

About a week before the FBI knocked on the governor's door, they knocked on Joanne Urso's door. FBI agents and a lawyer from the U.S. attorney's office wanted to chat.

"They asked about everything that was going on with the banks, the lawyers, our properties," Joanne Urso said. "... They asked about Amrish Mahajan and the governor. Oh, and [state Sen.] Jimmy DeLeo, they asked about him."

Only Blagojevich has been charged with a crime, and it's not illegal to know a guy like Richie Urso.

The FBI didn't have to ask about Richie and the Outfit. Without Richie, there may not have been a Family Secrets case that sent three mob bosses to prison.

That's because in 1986, just three months after gangsters Tony and Michael Spilotro were murdered, Richie Urso was the victim of an Outfit shakedown.

It all came out in testimony by mob turncoat Nicholas Calabrese, and chronicled in the book "Family Secrets" by my colleague Jeff Coen.

Nick's brother, Frank Calabrese Sr., and fellow mobster John Fecarotta were competing to squeeze Urso for payments on a juice loan from the 1960s. It wasn't even Urso who borrowed the money. The father of an Urso partner owed the juice.

Urso was growing wealthy by the 1980s, and the mob wanted a piece. Fecarotta demanded that Urso make Fecarotta's house payments. Frank Calabrese Sr. held a knife to Urso's crotch, also demanding cash, according to trial testimony.

By then, Fecarotta had botched the burial of the Spilotro bodies, leaving them in a shallow grave in an Indiana cornfield, allowing them to be found. Fecarotta's shakedown of Richie Urso gave Frank Sr. another reason to lobby Outfit bosses for a Fecarotta solution.

"And that sort of put the nail in the coffin," Nick Calabrese testified.

Nick and Frank helped kill Fecarotta on Belmont Avenue, but Nick lost a bloody glove at the scene. Years later, the FBI used DNA from that glove to turn Nick Calabrese into a star government witness.

The Outfit usually doesn't shake down legitimate squares, but targets people who can't run to the government.

"My husband helped all of them," Joanne Urso said. "When people borrowed money, he paid for that. He was paying and paying all his life."

At the time of his death Richie Urso controlled a string of properties, including a South Loop building housing the Pink Monkey strip club, a Cicero property housing the adult bookstore Bare Assets and a Chicago Chinatown neighborhood shopping complex.

But the crown jewel was the land near the jail complex.

Now City Hall has moved to take the property. According to public records, Joanne Urso owes Mutual Bank more than $9 million on that property and another huge lot at 6501 W. 51st St.

The city has offered her $7.1 million for the Little Village parcel. Her appraisers say it's worth $13 million. It would be worth much more if Cook County expands the jail.

"They [City Hall] thought I would sell it right away," she said. "But I wasn't going to just give it away. Now it feels they've decided to try and just take it."

Joanne Urso is a woman alone. Her clout died six years ago, on another woman's kitchen floor, with tuna salad in his mouth.

Once, Richie Urso was squeezed by the Outfit. Now his widow is getting squeezed by City Hall. It's a classic Chicago story.

The central theme is that there's nothing deader than dead clout. And now Joanne Urso has to pay for it.

jskass@tribune.com

LVEJO hosts Larry Lohman

with 4 pictures

December. 2nd Celotex Meeting with Alderman Cardenas to update Commuity on Contamination Results
Timeline and to plan for December Event around Celotex

November 16th: Celotex neighborhs and LVEJO protest outside Illinois Environmental Protection Agency headquarters in Chicago to demand a clean up of contaminated soil in affected homes and a full clean
up of the main Celotex Site. Supporters came out from the University of Chicago, De Paul, Pilsen,
Little Village Neighborhs and Alderman Cardenas. (click on image for full sized view)

15 Celotex Neighborhs and LVEJO meet with the USEPA and Honeywell Representatvies on Dec. 13th
Honeywell has volunteered to clean up affected Celotex homes to 2 ppm, as LVEJO and Celotex Neighborhs demanded. Homes in the voluntary section are awaiting a decision as to there clean up.
Main Site negotiations are awaiting site testing results.

News Bulletin

Based on the Chicago Building and Zoning Department, the lot located on 31st and Millard through Central Park is a Manufacturing District Zone M1-2.
Article 10.3-1 of the Manufacturing District, zoning codes states that: the following uses are permitted. That all business,services or processing shall take
place within completely enclose building.

Article 10.15 states that no parking facilities or loading berths should be within fifty feet of to any property in a residential district, unless completely enclosed by building walls, or a uniformly painted solid fence or wall. That it not be less than six feet high and that it have an entrance an a exit with plenty of lighting. That no
vehicle should be parked on a soft spot, that it has to be on concrete pavement or asphalt.

Based on the Chicago Building and Zoning Department in order to have a Motor Freight terminal or parking facility for semi trucks, the lot or open land must be
zone for commercial used. In order for the open land or lot located at 31st. and Central Park and Millard to be a parking facility for semi trucks it need to be a
zone C-4 because its not attach to a building.

Article 9 of the Commercial District, zoning codes states that any lot or open land being used for a parking facility for semi trucks must be a zone C-4, and must comply with the standards of Article 10.15 which states that no parking facilities or loading berths should be within fifty feet of to any property in a residential
district, unless completely enclosed by building walls, or a uniformly painted solid fence or wall. That it not be less than six feet height and that it have an entrance
an a exit with plenty of lighting. That no vehicle should be parked on a soft spot, that it has to be on concrete pavement or asphalt.

For more information you could call the Chicago Building Zoning Department
(312) 744-3507 Or go to their Web Page www.cityofchicago.org/buildings .

Press Release: "Little Village Rallies for Justice for Land at 31st & Central Park"

What: Families in Little Village are continuing their quest for justice for the land at 31st & Central Park. Beginning in June, 2000 local churches, Priests, the Bishop and over 4000 neighbors asked Mayor Daley, Alderman Ricardo Munoz and the owners of MRC Polymers to preserve 11 acres of public land at 31st & Central Park for public use and build the MRC plastics factory at 36th & Pulaski.

The city ignored our requests even though William Trumbull, Assistant Commissioner of the City Department of Planning, admitted in a meeting that the 36th & Pulaski Rd. site was a better location. Trumbull stated that the 36th & Pulaski site now generates little tax money for the City storing truck/train containers. Instead the City sold 8 acres of the public land at 31st & Central Park to MRC Polymers for $0.50/square foot ($177,000) in October, 2001. Since then the city has also issued $6.5 million in bonds to help MRC improve the site for its private business.

Little Village neighbors want a public meeting in the next month at Dominguez Public School with City officials, Alderman Munoz, MRC owners and the Illinois Environmental Protection Agency (IEPA) to learn more about the project. We want to know how and when the company plans to conduct a clean up of toxic chemicals in the land, and what impacts will the factory have on air, noise, truck traffic, light pollution on residences, and how far back from the street will the factory be. Residents are looking for written guarantees on these environmental issues and that the 75 new living wage jobs at the MRC plastic-recycling factory will be awarded to people living in Little Village.

During a two-year period since plans for the sale of public land was announced, there has been no public participation by Little Village residents as promoted by State and Federal laws in matters related to brownfield redevelopment and building new factories across from residential areas.

Little Village residents argue that (1) because the new plastics recycling factory will be built on Brownfield land, and (2) because MRC Polymers has received considerable subsidies from the City, they should follow the IEPA's Site Remediation Program (SRP) to remove all toxins to safe levels for the neighbors and MRC workers. If MRC buys land from the city at discount and receives $6.5M in a City of Chicago-issued bonds, they should at least follow site clean up standards set up by the State and coordinate clean-up and construction with the community.

In the SRP, the IEPA has to approve the clean up of the land and issue a Letter of No Further Remediation (NFR) certifying the land is clean for manufacturing/industrial purposes. The NFR releases the company from liability in case they sell the land in the future. This letter also protects the City and Bond Holders from any future liability.

It is in everyone's interest to clean-up the land following IEPA's SRP guidelines: the community, workers, MRC, the City and the Bond holders. Yet, MRC has never submitted its clean-up plan to the State. A public meeting will be a first step in building trust & allow all sides to work together.

31st & Central Park > coverage > letters

Alderman Ricardo Muñoz,
City of Chicago Ward 22
2500 S. St. Louis
Chicago, Illinois 60623

SUBJECT: MRC POLYMERS, INC. PROPERTY -3501 W. 31ST STREET LPC#0316005194- REQUEST FOR ENROLLMENT IN, PUBLIC COORDINATION WITH, AND COMPLETION OF THE STATE OF ILLINOIS SITE REMEDIATION PROGRAM

In keeping with the human health and environmental standards of the State of Illinois Site Remediation Program and the City of Chicago Department of Environment, we hereby petition the 22nd Ward Alderman office to contact the new owner of 3105 W. 31st Street (31st and Central Ave) directly and secure in writing their enrollment in and completion of the State of Illinois Voluntary Site Remediation Program.

This is a formal request by the neighbors of the 31st and Central Park Avenue property for technical oversight by the Illinois Environmental Protection Agency of the new owner of the site. As you know, this brownfield property is 50-100 feet away from our homes and businesses. The Voluntary Site Remediation Program helps the applicant receive review and evaluation services, technical assistance and no further Remediation determination. A successful project under the state Remediation program also includes community relations and direct communication with community residents as provided by ILEPA facilitators, a process, which the Alderman Office would want to apply on behalf of its residents.

A formal community relation program overseen by the ILEPA will go a long way to explain residents of this community on what is planned for the site, What research and remedial actions are being taken by MRC and why? How will these remedial actions be conducted in a way that is safe to the community?

We also suggest you contact the Brownfields Division of the Department of Environment (DOE) and request from them a review of the site Remediation plans by the new owner. The review of site Remediation plans by DOE must include public coordination and information of proposed redevelopment activities and Remediation plans.

We need a formal response from your office within one week as time is of essence. Please inform us of any delays in seeking DOE and ILEPA oversight. For information, please contact Daniel Goldfarb, Environmental Projects Coordinator for LVEJO at 773.762.6991. Thank you.

Respectfully submitted by the Little Village Environmental Justice Organization.

Cc: David Reynolds and Dave Graham, DOE Brownfields Division.
Greg Dunn, ILEPA Bureau of Land, Manager, Voluntary Site Remediation Unit
Tammy Smith, Remedial Project Management Section, ILEPA

Enc: Letter from DOE to ILEPA on "Request to Transfer Remedial Applicant", dated 4/20/01.

Alderman 22nd Ward
Ricardo Muñoz
2500 S. St. Louis Av.
Chicago IL, 60623
(773)762-1771

On Thursday April 25, 2002, the Little Village Environmental Justice Organization met with the LVEJO Independent Block Club members of 3100 S. Millard Ave.
in regards to safety concerns due to Motor Freight been parked illegally in front of their homes. Saturday April 26, 2002, LVEJO also met with LVEJO
Independent Block Club members of the 2800 and 3000 S. Millard Ave.

The main concern of the members of all three block clubs was the safety for their families especially now during the summer that their children are out playing longer hours in front of their home or at their friends homes. Members of the 3100 S. Millard complain that there is to much noise and truck traffic going on in front of their homes were there is an empty lot. They have stated that there have been trucks left running over night to keep their refrigerated trucks in operation. The neighbors stated that they have made complains to the Alderman's office, spoke with Thelma and signed an official complaint. They have stated that this has been going on for months and your office has not done anything to solve the problem.

As the neighbors of the 2800, 3000, and 3100 S. Millard Ave., we are requesting that immediate intervention be taken in our concern of the safety of our families.
We are demanding that the trucks be removed from the lot and that the lot be sealed off by Wednesday, May 1, 2002, before 5:00pm. If the Alderman for our community takes no actions to resolve this problem, we will take further actions on this matter.

P.S
Attach are the Chicago Building and Zoning Department Codes that state the requirements for a Motor Freight Parking facility.

LVEJO hosts Larry Lohman

with 4 pictures