Connecting David Leslie Milne of Paterson, Teele and Dennis to Joseph P. Kennedy to 417 Park Ave 12c New York.
The Dubious Phone Call and Time Wasting Project
The folks at TPG will have to answer to my Whistleblower Complaints on the truly odd collection of RFPs emanating from companies connected to Richard Blum, William McGlashan, CBRE, Regency Centers, Trammel Crow, Lennar, Catellus.My story is about witness murders, private equity, mergers and acquisitions linked back to the Matter of Bennett v. Southern Pacific lost in 1989. It was a winnable case as long the witnesses testified.
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Christopher G. Kennedy
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Chris Kennedy
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| Chair of the University of Illinois Board of Trustees | |
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In office September 2009 – January 2015 |
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| Preceded by | Niranjan Shah |
| Succeeded by | Edward McMillan |
| Personal details | |
| Born |
Christopher George Kennedy
July 4, 1963 Boston, Massachusetts, U.S. |
| Political party | Democratic |
| Spouse(s) |
Sheila Sinclair-Berner (m. 1987)
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| Children | 4 |
| Parents |
Robert F. Kennedy Ethel Skakel |
| Relatives | See Kennedy family |
| Education |
Boston College (BA) Northwestern University (MBA) |
| Signature |
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Christopher George "Chris" Kennedy (born July 4, 1963) is an
American businessman, politician, and Chair of Joseph P. Kennedy
Enterprises, Inc.[1] He is a son of former U.S. Senator Robert F. Kennedy, a member of the Kennedy family. Kennedy served as Chair of the Board of Trustees for the University of Illinois from 2009 to 2015.[2] Until April 2012, he was also president of Merchandise Mart Properties, a commercial property management firm based in Chicago.[3]
He was a candidate in the Democratic Party primary for Governor of Illinois in the 2018 election.[4]
Contents
Early life and education[edit]
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Kennedy was born on July 4, 1963, in Boston, Massachusetts, to Robert Francis Kennedy Sr. and Ethel (née Skakel) Kennedy, the eighth of their eleven children. He is one of four grandchildren
of George Skakel, Joseph P. Kennedy, Sr. and Rose Fitzgerald Kennedy born during the administration of his uncle U.S. President John F. Kennedy. His siblings are:
- Kathleen Hartington Kennedy (born 1951)
- Joseph Patrick Kennedy II (born 1952)
- Robert Francis Kennedy, Jr. (born 1954)
- David Anthony Kennedy (1955–1984)
- Mary Courtney Kennedy (born 1956)
- Michael LeMoyne Kennedy (1958–1997)
- Mary Kerry Kennedy (born 1959)
- Matthew Maxwell Taylor Kennedy (born 1965)
- Douglas Harriman Kennedy (born 1967)
- Rory Elizabeth Katherine Kennedy (born 1968)
He grew up at his family home, Hickory Hill, in McLean, Virginia, a suburb of Washington, D.C., and attended the Our Lady of Victory Catholic School in McLean
through the eighth grade.[5] He transferred to Georgetown Preparatory School in North Bethesda, Maryland, also a suburb of Washington, and graduated in 1982.[6] While in high school, he volunteered at a home for runaway youth.
Kennedy graduated from Boston College in Chestnut Hill, Massachusetts, with a Bachelor of Arts degree in political science in 1986.[7]
In 1994, he graduated with a master of business administration degree from the Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University in Evanston, Illinois.
Career[edit]
Kennedy is chairman of the Kennedy family investment firm Joseph P.
Kennedy Enterprises, Inc.[8] He is treasurer of the Joseph P. Kennedy Jr. Foundation, he was on the Executive Committee for the Chicago Community Trust, and he has been a board member of the Catholic Theological Union, Interface, Inc. and Knoll Inc.[1][9] He is a member of the mutual fund board of trustees for Ariel Investments.[10]
Kennedy moved from Boston to Decatur to work for Archer Daniels Midland
in the 1980s, and has spent his life working around issues of hunger,
whether as the chairman of the Greater Chicago Food Depository, or now helping to run the non-profit he and his wife founded, Top Box
Foods.[11]
Kennedy was the president of Merchandise Mart Properties in Chicago,
Illinois, from 2000 until 2012. The property was originally owned by the
Kennedy family until it was sold to Vornado Realty Trust, a real estate investment trust. The Merchandise Mart, one of the properties of Merchandise Mart
Properties, is the largest commercial building in the world, serving as both a luxury wholesale design center and one of the leading international business
locations in Chicago. The Mart spans two city blocks and rises
twenty-five stories for a total of 4.2 million square feet (390,000
square metres) Three million people come through the Mart each year to
visit its retail shops, permanent showrooms, and office space as well as
attend the numerous trade, consumer and community events hosted there.
Kennedy also served as Chairman of the board at the University of Illinois.[12]
Top Box Foods[edit]
In May 2012, Kennedy started the Chicago-based non-profit Top Box Foods.
The organization was created as a way to get discounted groceries to
families who live in areas that either lack grocery stores or have an
abundance of fast food. Kennedy initially invested $150,000 to get Top
Box started, and subsequently designed the organization to be
self-sustaining.
Top Box as an organization purchases food, boxes it in various
combinations and delivers it monthly to churches and organizations in
mostly low-income neighborhoods. The food items in the box change from
month to month and include a wide variety of fruits, vegetables, meats,
and frozen meals, with box prices ranging from $19 to $39. The boxes can
be ordered online or through the organizations where the boxes are
delivered. These organizations, otherwise known as Top Box "host sites,"
range from small neighborhood churches with a few dozen families to some
of the Chicago's largest, including Trinity United Church of Christ and Salem Baptist Church.
Personal life[edit]
Kennedy met Sheila Sinclair-Berner (born December 4, 1962), an Illinois
native, while attending Boston College. After graduating from college in 1986, Kennedy moved to Decatur, Illinois, and married in 1987.[13] The couple had four children, Katherine Frances Kennedy (1990-),
Christopher George Kennedy, Jr. (1992-), Sarah Louise Kennedy
(1994-),[14] and Clare Rose Kennedy (1998-),[15] whom they are raising in the Chicago suburb of Kenilworth. His
wife earned a law degree from Northwestern University and practiced at Sidley & Austin[citation needed] in Chicago before taking time off to take care of their children.
Political career[edit]
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Kennedy's political activism began at an early age, and in 1979 and 1980
he worked on his uncle U.S. Senator Ted Kennedy's bid for the 1980 Democratic Party's nomination for U.S. President. He was also treasurer of the campaign committee for his brother Joe's reelection to the U.S. House in 1988. Over the years he has organized numerous fundraising
events in Chicago for his uncle Ted, his sister Kathleen, his brother
Joe and his cousin Mark Shriver.
The National Journal once quoted Kennedy as saying, "I have a lot to keep up with: a
brother who might run for Congress, a sister and a brother considering
races for governor, a cousin who might run for Congress, another in
Congress, an uncle in the Senate and a cousin-in-law, Arnold [Schwarzennegger], who is thinking of running for
governor."[16]
Beyond his family, Kennedy has served in a variety of capacities for
numerous political campaigns, including hosting a fundraiser for Barack Obama in his bid for U.S. Senate.[citation needed]
In August 2009, after considering a run for the U.S. Senate,[17] as did many others, Kennedy decided not to run.[18] Also in August 2009, on the day after his uncle Ted's death on
August 25, 2009, Kennedy was appointed to the University of Illinois board of trustees by Democratic Illinois Governor Pat Quinn.[19] On September 10, 2009, Kennedy was elected by the trustees as
their chairman.[20]
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Prior to February 8, 2017, when Kennedy announced his candidacy for the
Democratic Nomination for Illinois Governor in 2018,[21] he had never ran for any elective office.[19]
Kennedy during his campaign for governor advocated for "a property tax
system that can't be abused by the wealthy and insiders" in a
fundraising email.[22] Kennedy criticized one of his fellow Democratic gubernatorial
candidates, J.B. Pritzker, for getting a large property tax reduction on a Gold Coast mansion.[23] "It's an inherently corruptible system and we ought to reject
it," Kennedy said to reporters in reference to Pritzker's property
taxes.[24] "The Cook County property tax appeals business is notorious for
pricing political connections at a premium," wrote the Illinois Policy Institute, a conservative website.[25] Kennedy has further gone on to state that what Mike Madigan is
doing, referring to his conflict of interest from serving as the house
speaker while working as a property tax attorney, should be illegal.[26]
In June 2017, Kennedy was endorsed by Congressman Bobby Rush.[27]
Kennedy called for an open primary in the 2018 gubernatorial race,
urging the Cook County Democratic party not to throw their weight behind
any other candidate, instead allowing for voters to vet all the
candidates in the race.[28]
On March 20, 2018, Kennedy lost the Democratic primary, finishing in
third place behind Pritzer and state senator Daniel Biss. He carried only two counties, Ford and Hardin.
Business and economic involvement[edit]
He is on the board of trustees of the mutual funds managed by Ariel Investments,[29] a Chicago-based investment-management firm.
From 1997 to 1999, Kennedy served as chairman of the Chicago Convention and Tourism Bureau, a sales-and-marketing organization promoting Chicago to the tourism and convention industries. Under Kennedy's chairmanship, the bureau retained and
expanded Chicago's event-and-convention industry.[citation needed]
Since 2000, Kennedy has been a member of the City Club of Chicago, a group that brings together civic and cultural leaders to discuss
and debate issues affecting the Chicago area.
Since 2005, he has been a member of the Commercial Club of Chicago, a group that brings together the city's business, educational, and
cultural leaders on projects to improve central industries and create
new economic opportunities.
Other civic involvement[edit]
- Since 1996, he has been a member of the Chicago Council on Global Affairs, a nonpartisan group that seeks to impact discourse on global issues through leadership, education, and policy.
- Since 1996, Kennedy has been on the board of directors at The Irish Fellowship Club,[30] a Chicago-based group dedicated to preserving and promoting Irish heritage.
- From 2006 until the Spring of 2013, he served on the board of directors of Catholic Theological Union, the largest Roman Catholic graduate school of theology and ministry in the U.S.[31]
- Greater Chicago Food Depository is a nonprofit food distribution and training center providing food for hungry people while striving to end hunger throughout Cook County, Illinois. It also offers education programs providing the knowledge and tools needed to break the poverty cycle.
- El Valor[32] is a nonprofit group seeking to enrich the local community by empowering the underserved, disenfranchised, and disabled while creating a sense of unity among all community members.
- Heartland Alliance[33] is a human-rights-advocacy group providing housing, healthcare, economic security, and legal protection for low-income citizens.
- Governor Pat Quinn appointed Kennedy to the Board of Trustees of the University of Illinois in September 2009. He served in that role until his gubernatorial appointment expired in January 2015.
- He served as a Member of the Executive Committee of the Chicago Community Trust until January 2015.
- He served as the Lund-Gill Chair in the Rosary College of Arts and Sciences at Dominican University (Illinois).[34]
- He is the chairman of the board of Innovation Illinois, a progressive 501(c)(4) non-profit advocacy group formed in April 2015.
Residential development[edit]
As Chairman of Joseph P. Kennedy Enterprises, Inc., Kennedy is
responsible for the development of the Kennedy family real estate
holdings in Chicago known as Wolf Point, Chicago. The Wolf Point development site represents a billion-dollar
commitment to the downtown core, and the site is zoned for construction
of a residential apartment building, a self-park garage, and two
additional high-rise buildings.
Kennedy also is a partner in Sudbury Station LLC, a development entity
proposing a 250-unit luxury rental housing development with a state
mandated minimum affordable housing set aside in Sudbury, Massachusetts,
designed to meet local housing needs for seniors and the working class
community. Proposed on a 39-acre parcel zoned residential near
the Historic District of Sudbury, the Village at Sudbury Station would satisfy the Massachusetts affordable housing mandate for Sudbury, would be located close to schools, parks, churches and public safety
facilities, and would contribute significant additional tax revenue to
the town.[35][36] The project has received criticism from town officials and
residents. Residents voted unamiously to hire a special counsel to stop
the development, which they allege violates over thirty local zoning
ordinances.[37][38]
