Ari Emanuel Becomes a Campaign Issue in Chicago:still no answers from Rahm on his cozy ties to Ticketmaster/Live Nation and Lollapalooza

WBEZ reports:

And part of the problem is that, unconscionably, no one else in the Chicago media has been asking the questions.

As first reported here on Feb. 7, frontrunner Rahm Emanuel has received sizable campaign contributions from the two top execs at Ticketmaster/Live Nation, CEO Michael Rapino and executive chairman Irving Azoff. The candidate’s brother, Hollywood super-agent Ari, sits on the board of directors of the monopolistic concert giant, which even some of its own employees call “the Death Star.”

These contributions come at a time when Ticketmaster/Live Nation is looking to secure a long-term contract for a concert venue on Northerly Island, as well as any other advantage it can to “crush, kill and destroy” its independent rivals, including securing a mid-size venue the size of the Chicago or Uptown theaters.

Meanwhile, no fewer than 15 employees at Ari’s agency, William Morris Endeavor, have donated a total of $141,000 to his brother’s campaign. The company owns 50 percent of Lollapalooza and clearly wants to maintain its long-term, tax- and competition-free deal to remain in Grant Park, even in the face of an investigation by the state Attorney General into antitrust practices and mounting questions about whether the city is earning all that it should from the mega-concert.

Hear no evil.