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I thought George Cardenas, alderman of the 12th Ward, had learned this already. In 2006 he delivered an ode to Mayor Daley’s leadership just before flip-flopping on the big-box minimum-wage ordinance. But by the time he gave a speech in favor of the Children’s Museum-Grant Park plan couple of weeks ago, he was almost artful, adding an anecdote about his daughter to an otherwise straight recitation of the mayor’s “It’s all about the children” argument.
Like all resolutions, this one is nonbinding—it functions as an official statement of outrage but doesn’t actually do anything about the issue.
At this question, Cardenas looked stumped, then, reverting to his not-so-distant youth, blurted out that hey, it wasn’t his idea. “I don’t know—I mean, this is from the Illinois Coalition for Immigration and Refugee Rights,” he said. “I mean, maybe it’s that we want to get attention from the media. Maybe we want to have a discussion locally.”
