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In a column run yesterday on Crain's Taking Names blog, Greg Hinz pretty much summed up the mess Mayor Daley is returning to here in the City by the Lake.
The city budget is hundreds of millions of dollars in the red. The mayor's asset privatization honey pot went bye-bye with the meltdown of the parking-meter deal and financial collapse of the Midway Airport lease. Financing for the rest of Mr. Daley's huge expansion of O'Hare appears stalled, rogue cops get a slap on the wrist when they pull stuff like body slamming a petite barkeep who's just doing her job, and just when federal prosecutors are backing off the mayor's nephew goes and instigates a new City Hall probe.
Hinz points out that most mayors, faced with "a list of horrors like that" would be planning an extended vacation, set to begin after the next election.
But Chicagoans aren't like that. At least not historically. And Hinz seems to think that Daley "has what it takes to pull his government out of its current funk. I think. I hope." Mick Dumke at the Chicago Reader, though, has other ideas. Using an email sent out by Dick Mell as an opportunity to critique the current state of affairs in the city, he poses the open-ended question that is on many Chicagoans mind these days: Should we move ahead or should we discontinue our fight for the 2016 bid? After picking apart the political math behind Mell's email, 33rd Ward resident Irving Birkner answers Mell's (and Mick's) question.
The mayor seems unwilling to change his mind or fully respond to concerns on this, so why ask the question? It seems far too late--the city is not going to withdraw its bid now, and if we're awarded the games in October, I hardly think we're going to turn the IOC down.As near as I can tell, the City Council seems utterly incapable of due diligence or serving as any sort of check on the executive office. The Olympics, the parking meters, Midway, etc. all seem to be presented to citizens as faits accomplis and then after the fact your colleagues all claim they didn't know or fully understand.
Personally, I think the idea [for the Olympics] is nice but the execution is appalling--I'm not really surprised that I'm on the hook for this. Either way, the time for outrage seems long past, so like many citizens of Chicago, I guess I'll accept it along with the negligence and corruption that got us here.
Dumke, for what it's worth, has become an essential read on both the Olympic bid and, along with Ben Joravsky, on the parking meter debacle.
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I received this email yesterday. Here was my response, sorry if it is kind of long. I'll post if the Alderman ever gets back to me. Don't hold your breath as I've never received a response to any email I send him.
=============================================
Alderman Mell,
I would love to host the Olympics in Chicago. I attended the 1996 games in Atlanta and it was an incredible experience. Chicago is a world class city and deserves to host a world class event. That said I have absolutely no confidence in the ability of the mayor and alderman to host this event without continued corruption, cost overruns, and huge bill for the tax payers of Chicago.
There has been a long string of large scale government projects in Chicago that have seen huge cost overruns. Millennium Park, Block 37, the Dan Ryan reconstruction, and the CTA brown line reconstruction are a few that just pop into my mind. I'm certain I could find more if I spent some time looking. Yet the mayor claims the Olympics will be different. My perception is that decades of mismanagement have brought this city to the brink of financial and management breakdown. Sinkholes, potholes and collapsed sewers go for months without being repaired. The police have not had a contract in over 2 years. Pension funds are woefully underfunded, and the money that does come in gets paid out to Daley family members with no experience in investing. This is not the environment to invite the Olympics into. With the exception of the sewer and sinkhole thing (which you waited for months before sending a single email out about) I have not heard a single public statement from your office about any of these major issues facing the city TODAY, let alone in 2016.
I do appreciate your request for public input, but it strikes me as a bit late. You voted two years ago to give the mayor the power to do what he did last week. You voted for the billion plus dollar, 75 year parking meter deal without reading it, a deal you stated last month might be a mistake. At each turn you seem to be reacting to your votes after they are cast instead of carefully considering the consequences of those votes before hand.
In short, I don't trust the mayor or your effectiveness in reining in the mayor to be able to pull off the Olympics without it becoming just the latest in a long string of City of Chicago money pits. As I have now taken the time to inform you as to how I feel about the Olympics in Chicago I would be interested to hear what you are thinking about them and any plans you have to help limit the exposure of the Chicago taxpayers to any likely cost overruns if Chicago is selected as the host city. Also do you know of any large projects ($50,000,000 and above) that the City of Chicago has had come in under budget? Thank you in advance for your response.
-Jon
44XX N Spaulding
Too bad Mell probably only read the first line of your email. We all know he has a problem with reading long documents. He likely chalked this one up in the "Favor" column.
If the IOC has any sense, they probably caught a clue about how Daley is trying to get the Olympics without involving the city or the city council. This may have turned them off a bit. They won't say that in public, tho. Unless Daley came up with some tremendous hookers and bribes (isn't that how any city really gets the games?), we may be toast.
Well stated.
Mell is probably too busy cleaning his guns to really care, but your reasons are solid.
Are you crazy? You think an alderman in the city will respond to/be able to comprehend such a well organized, thoughtful, even tempered letter?