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Well, Eliot Spitzer resigned from his position as New York’s governor a few minutes ago, and Lt. Gov. David Paterson will soon be sworn in as the new gov. In case you don’t know who he is, here are 10 things you don’t know about him, courtesy of U.S. News and World Report (I added the links in myself):

1. David Alexander Paterson was born on May 20, 1954, in Brooklyn, N.Y., to labor law attorney Basil Paterson and his wife, Portia. His father was the second black politician nominated for statewide office in New York and served as a state senator. The first of two sons, David was legally blind from birth, with only partial sight in his right eye.

2. When their son was denied the opportunity to attend classes with sighted students in his hometown, Paterson’s family moved to Hempstead, N.Y., so that he could participate in a mainstream classroom. An excellent student, Paterson graduated from high school in three years.

3. He attended Columbia University, receiving a bachelor’s degree in history in 1977. He worked at various jobs for a few years and then earned a law degree from Hofstra Law School in 1983.

4. In 1985, Paterson was elected to the New York State Senate, representing the 30th State Senate District, which encompasses Harlem, East Harlem, and the Upper West Side neighborhoods of Manhattan. It is the same district his father had represented.

5. Paterson gained national attention in the 1990s because of his efforts to preserve an African-American burial ground that was discovered at the excavation site for construction of a new federal building in New York City. He worked to secure federal funding for the project and said in 1997 that “through the discovery of the African-American Burial Grounds, our history has at last come to the surface for all of us to know and respect.”

6. In 2002, David Paterson was elected Democratic leader of the New York State Senate, the first nonwhite legislative leader in New York’s history.

7. In 2004, he became the first visually impaired person to address a Democratic National Convention and, in 2006, he was elected New York’s first African-American lieutenant governor.

8. David Paterson lives in Harlem with his wife, Michelle, and their two children, Ashley and Alex.

9. Paterson is a board member of the Achilles Track Club, an international track club for athletes with disabilities. He completed the New York City Marathon in 1999. He is also on the President’s Council of the American Foundation for the Blind.

10. When asked by the New York Amsterdam News about life lessons he had learned, Paterson replied, “You never get to any level of leadership where your race is not a factor.” He continued, “You don’t want to be the first; you want to be the first of many.”

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According to reports, two robbers entered the Hilton Chicago on Michigan Avenue late Sunday evening and went straight to a third floor ballroom, where a fashion show audition was taking place. When they got there, one of them pulled a gun, and they supposedly stole $20,000. Some folks in attendance were allegedly bound with duct tape, after which the robbers fled on foot.

I guess soap and shampoo sets weren’t enough for these hotel guests. Then again, these guys didn’t stay long enough to grab ‘em. Pretty ballsy nonetheless.

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BY DANIEL B. HONIGMAN
Times Correspondent

Cook County Board President Todd Stroger may have hoped for a quieter return Tuesday, his first County Board meeting since he underwent surgery for prostate cancer.

But in the sweltering fifth floor of the Cook County building, about 200 county prosecutors staged a rally in and outside of the board meeting.

Holding signs that read “12.75 percent,” the prosecutors protested their latest salary offer. The number represented the raise Cook County public defenders received in a cost-of-living adjustment retroactive to 2004.

County prosecutors, on the other hand, were offered a 3 percent raise and a lump-sum payment of $1,000.

En route to the meeting, Cook County State’s Attorney Dick Devine received thunderous applause from the lawyers, who played hooky — albeit legally — to help sway the commissioners inside.

About two-thirds of the 520 prosecutors staffing Cook County’s felony courtrooms were expected to attend.

Dolton resident Dianne McCollough, one of the assistant state’s attorneys lined up outside Stroger’s office, remained “cautiously optimistic” that a deal could be reached.

“We’re just hoping to achieve parity with the Cook County public defenders,” she said.

The county would need about $8.7 million to pay the prosecutors and has identified several ways to pay for the raises, said 13th District County Commissioner Larry Suffredin, D-Evanston. One option includes the sale of a 300-acre parcel of land at Oak Forest Hospital, he said.

Fifth District County Commissioner Deborah Sims, D-Chicago, pointed out that vigilance and creativity will be needed if and when the money is found.

“Nobody wants to hear the three-letter word: tax,” Sims said, adding the situation is potentially a sticky one. “Money doesn’t fall out of the sky. We’re going to have to find ways to raise revenue.”

While some commissioners raised questions about how the full total would be raised, but 16th District County Commissioner Anthony Peraica, R-Westchester, stressed the importance of reaching an agreement.

“Just because the public defender’s office happens to be under the jurisdiction of (President Stroger) doesn’t mean they should get more money for comparable work than the state’s attorneys who prosecute these cases who are not under the president’s jurisdiction,” he said.

(NOTE: I contributed this to the Times of Northwest Indiana. You can check out the story on their Web site as well.)

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Read the Chicago Sun-Times story on it here.

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According to a piece in today’s Chicago Sun-Times, the Macy’s on State Street may be up for sale.

Either that, closed down or returned to its Marshall Fields origins, Sandra Guy reports.

Who’s the potential buyer? An equity firm. (Figures, no?) It’s rumored that Kohlberg Kravis Roberts and Co. will pay $52 a share. Macy’s shares jumped more than 6 percent yesterday to end up at $41.43 per share. Keep in mind, too, that this is the same group that bought out RJR Nabisco in the 1980s.

Guy also reported that a sale could take place sometime this weekend, but it’s clear that KKR would have three options:

1) Buy it and leave it a Macy’s
2) Buy it and turn it back into a Fields
3) Buy it, close it and sell it, which, given KKR’s track record, is a possibility.

It’ll be interesting to see what happens!

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Here’s a piece by Chicago Tribune reporter Michael Hawthorne about how Chicago isn’t as environmentally friendly as its politicians, especially one, would have you believe.

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It seems Federated Department Stores, Inc. thinks it has found a cure to its recent ills.

Owner of Macy’s and Bloomingdale’s, Federated canned its marketing chief, Anne MacDonald, after only 15 months on the job, Bloomberg News reported

After acquiring Marshall Fields, May Department Stores and other local department store chains, company brass decided MacDonald wasn’t doing a good enough job promoting the Macy’s brand through the buyouts.

“Macy’s missed the opportunity to brand itself effectively in that first year and to build loyalty and connection with potential customers,” said Wendy Liebmann, president of WSL Strategic Retail in New York. “When you are a behemoth company taking over local companies, you really need to give people a sense of why it’s an exciting thing to come to your town.”

This sure as hell didn’t happen in Chicago, did it?

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In a Sun-Times report today, Monifa Thomas writes that the Chicago Transportation Authority mulled around some ideas to help get rid of its $97.5 million budget gap yesterday.

One plan, she said, was to raise bus and train fares to $7 during rush hour.

If the CTA did this, then any claims that Chicago is a “green” city are void. With fares at seven bucks, low-income Chicagoans will have to buy old, low-priced, smoke-spewing cars to get to work. Chicago will be gridlocked and the CTA will bear all of the blame.

Just because Illinois Governor Rod Blagojevich hasn’t signed another check to the CTA doesn’t mean that CTA President Ron Huberman has the right to approve this.

And you know what? I’ll finally have an excuse to buy a car.

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Congratulations to Eric Ferkenhoff and Matt Bigelow for their Time.com piece. (Ferk is a professor at the Medill School of Journalism at Northwestern University and Bigs is a classmate of mine.)

The piece addresses an interesting question: Can Mayor Richard M. Daley make true on his pledge to end homelessness in Chicago by 2012? If he can accomplish this, the Chicago 2016 bid has a hell of a chance.

Daley’s plan - build housing for Chicagoans who earn less than the $75,000 median household income. But is this threshold low enough?

Several months ago, I worked on a video piece about CPAN (Chicago Partnership for Affordable Neighborhoods) housing, which is an attempt to build and sell condos in decent areas for less-than-market rates. But it must not be working.

Here’s the piece:

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It was good to see some news about a favorite of mine from my Buffalo days. Tim Horton’s, a Canadian donut shop chain, was featured on the front page of today’s Wall Street Journal “Marketplace” section. (You need a PW to access the piece.)

This place has about the best donuts and coffee ever. To be honest, it puts both Dunkin’ Donuts and Krispy Kreme to shame.

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