Governor defends real-estate deal

From The Chicago Tribune:

Governor defends real-estate deal
Others question office purchase

By Rick Pearson and Ray Long
Tribune staff reporters
Published November 22, 2002

SPRINGFIELD -- The Ryan administration Thursday defended its proposed purchase of an aging building complex that is being brokered by a pal of Gov. George Ryan's, even as key lawmakers and the incoming attorney general questioned the appropriateness of the multimillion-dollar deal.

Ryan spokesman Dennis Culloton said the administration was not trying to circumvent legislative controls over property acquisitions in its planned $21 million purchase of the Lincoln Tower apartment and office complex in Springfield. And he said the property was needed to house several hundred state workers during extensive renovations of the state's Stratton Office Building, adjacent to the state Capitol.

Culloton said renovation of the Lincoln Tower property, which one real-estate expert estimated could total more than $40 million, should be weighed against the "more critical needs" of repairing the Stratton Building, which houses legislative offices and some state agencies. "The property isn't going to get any cheaper," Culloton said.

Ryan's efforts to acquire the building were slowed this week when Atty. Gen. Jim Ryan demanded that the governor's office provide documentation to justify $50 million in real-estate deals, including Lincoln Tower, that the governor appears near closing in his final weeks in office.

The two Ryans feuded openly in recent months as Jim Ryan ran to succeed George Ryan as governor. The attorney general blamed George Ryan, who did not seek re-election, for undermining his campaign.

Despite that history, Culloton sought to downplay any suggestion that the attorney general's real estate review was anything but routine. The attorney general "always reviews real-estate transactions" like this, Culloton said.

For at least 27 years, George Ryan's longtime close friend and adviser Arthur "Ron" Swanson, a former state senator, has been trying to broker a deal that would peddle the Lincoln Tower complex to the state.

In the last legislative session, lawmakers gave the administration $55 million for property purchases, a move that bypassed the Legislative Space Needs Commission, which oversees state building acquisitions and renovations around the Capitol.

Sen. Wendell Jones (R-Palatine), who co-chairs the legislative panel, said he opposed the purchase of the Lincoln Tower complex, and he accused the governor of a power grab.

"The governor of Illinois has an awful lot of power--maybe too much, from what I've seen," said Jones, who stays at a Lincoln Tower apartment when in Springfield. "If he has that kind of power, maybe we ought to take it away from him."

The co-chairman of the panel, Rep. Joseph Lyons (D-Chicago), said he wanted to study the proposed deal but acknowledged it did not appear to be in the public's best interests. "This is the kind of stuff that makes the public go crazy," he said.

Members of the Space Needs Commission already have backed a less-costly alternative to Lincoln Tower to house state workers during the five- to six-year renovation of the Stratton Building. The panel has advocated the $9 million purchase of a downtown Springfield office building that would require little renovation.

The Ryan administration has not discussed that proposal or its plans for Lincoln Tower with the panel, commission officials said.

Culloton, however, said it was lawmakers who approved the budget line to make the building purchases. He said legislators knew Lincoln Tower was part of the package even though the specific properties were not included in the legislation that was passed.

Democratic Atty. Gen.-elect Lisa Madigan, who could inherit the issue from Jim Ryan when she takes over in January, said all contracts should be carefully reviewed "but especially these that came up at the end of the governor's term."

"We also don't have the money in the budget, really, to sustain a lot of this," said Madigan, currently a North Side senator, who is among state politicians trying to figure out ways to cope with an ever-worsening state fiscal situation.