Written by Janet
More documents were released by the state of Illinois reveal the flurry of negotiating between then-Gov. Blagojevich and Tribune Co. over a proposal—code-named Project Elwood—for Illinois to buy Wrigley field.
On a December evening e-mails went out among state officials who had just learned that financially strapped Tribune Co. was about to file for bankruptcy protection. Called Project Elwood, which was an apparent reference to a “Blues Brothers” character—was code for secret negotiations between former Gov. Rod Blagojevich’s administration and Tribune Co. for the state to buy Wrigley Field, home of the Chicago Cubs.
Two days later the plan got complicated when Blagojevich was arrested on federal corruption charges. Among the charges were allegations that he was trying to extort Tribune Co.—the owner of Wrigley, the Cubs and the Chicago Tribune—over the state purchase.
Blagojevich wanted to pressure Tribune Co. Chairman and Chief Executive Officer Sam Zell to fire members of the newspaper’s editorial board who had angered the governor with their critical editorials. A Blagojevich indictment is expected as early as Thursday.
When the governor was arrested, it led to his ouster and thrust Tribune Co. into the spotlight and exposed secret talks between the state and the company that had been quietly revived following the death of an earlier stadium proposal.
These records that were recently released offer a deeper look at those private talks, outlining an ongoing series of contacts between Tribune Co. representatives and the scandal-plagued Blagojevich even as federal investigators closed their noose around him.
Included in the documents are emails, telephone logs, and calenders obtained under the state’s Freedom of Information Act—provide new details about the urgency of Tribune Co. efforts to get a financial bailout from the state and the Cubs-crazy governor’s personal contacts with the company and Cubs officials. These documents still leave much unsaid and no one is willing to fill in the blanks.
Zell, who has said that he was interviewed by federal authorities as a potential witness in the Blagojevich case, declined to be interviewed. A Tribune Co. spokesman issued a short statement reiterating that neither the company nor Zell did anything inappropriate but declined to answer almost all the newspaper’s questions about contacts with Blagojevich, citing the ongoing federal investigation.
Zell also spoke with Blagojevich occasionally the records show. Blagojevich was among the hundreds of associates who attended Zell’s annual birthday party and that the governor also received a gift that Zell gives to influential people at the beginning of each year.
Blagojevich’s telephone log shows several calls to members of the team, including manager Lou Piniella, coach Larry Rothschild and John McDonough, the team’s former president who is now with the Chicago Blackhawks.
Blagojevich told MSNBC in an interview earlier this year that he had a meeting with Zell in which the Tribune CEO told him the ballpark should be torn down and a new one built. He said Zell wanted a park similar to Coors Field, home of the Colorado Rockies.
Blagojevich said he was horrified. He said he quickly had his administration work with the Illinois Finance Authority, one of the nation’s largest government financing bodies, to work out a deal to buy Wrigley Field.
Brandt, the authority’s chairman, said he did not know who came up with the Project Elwood code name but said Tribune Co. representatives used the name in e-mails and had prepared materials containing the name, along with the authority’s and Cubs’ logos.
Brandt said he set conditions for the proposed deal—no taxpayer money would be involved, ticket prices could not be artificially raised to repay bonds, Tribune Co. had to guarantee the bonds and the Cubs had to stay at Wrigley for at least the next 30 years.
Days after the Zell meeting, Blagojevich and Cubs Chairman Crane Kenney exchanged phone calls. Kenney was in regular contact with the governor over the next several months, according to Blagojevich’s call logs. Kenney would not talk about his conversations when contacted by the newspaper.
In now-infamous language documented in the federal case against him, Blagojevich allegedly uttered profanities about the newspaper’s editorial writers, stating that “our recommendation is fire all those [expletive] people.” In another secretly recorded call, the governor’s wife allegedly can be heard yelling in the background and telling her husband to “hold up that [expletive] Cubs .
At one point, Blagojevich wonders whether he should talk directly to Zell, adding that he would tell Zell the state can’t help with the Wrigley deal because “your own newspaper is going to argue to impeach.”
According to the criminal complaint, Blagojevich instructed Chief of Staff John Harris, who was arrested the same day on related charges, to call someone at Tribune Co. and explain to them “this is a serious thing now.”
Harris replied that the total gain to Tribune Co. was somewhere in the neighborhood of $100 million. Harris told the governor he would talk to Tribune Co.’s Larsen. The two stayed in contact over the next month, according to federal court documents and state records. Harris reported back to Blagojevich that Larsen talked with Zell, “who got the message and is very sensitive to the issue.” He told Blagojevich that it appeared Tribune Co. was continuing to reorganize and lay off workers.
None of the editorial board members lost their jobs, and top editors with the newspaper said no one from Tribune Co. tried to exert any influence over operations of the board.
