The Truth About Taxes

Hal Dardick has covered politics, government, budgets and taxes at Chicago City Hall and the Cook County Building for the Chicago Tribune since 2008. He got his start as a reporter in Chicago’s west suburbs in 1986, doing stints as a government, courts and crime reporter, small wire service chief, political columnist and freelance reporter before joining the Tribune full time in 2004. A former collegiate gymnast, he likes progressive rock, real jazz, good food and fine wine — and thinks politics is the great American sport.

Fran Spielman has been covering and analyzing Chicago mayors and city government since Richard J. Daley. Her City Hall beats have included Mayors Michael Bilandic, Jane Byrne, Harold Washington, Eugene Sawyer, Richard M. Daley, and Rahm Emanuel.

Spielman joined the Sun-Times in 1985 after ten years at Chicago radio station WIND. When owner Westinghouse Broadcasting sold the station, she saw the opportunity to pursue her primary journalistic goal to work for a major newspaper. She had started at WIND right out of Northwestern University—as a sports reporter, morning news producer, then full-time reporter—after covering football, basketball, and tennis for the Daily Northwestern. During her decade in radio, Spielman freelanced for the Chicago Daily News, at Crain's Chicago Business, for “The Chicago Bear Report”, and as a principal anchor and reporter of Channel 11's Emmy Award winning sports show, “Time Out”. Spielman is a member of the Chicago Journalism Hall of Fame, and in 2009, she received the Lifetime Achievement Award from the Chicago Headline Club. A decade earlier, Spielman received the Dante Award from the Joint Civic Committee of Italian Americans.