It reminded me of something the late west-side politico Jerald Wilson used to tell me all the time: People in Chicago will let Mayor Daley do whatever he wants, so long as he doesn’t do it to them. Plow over whole CHA communities, divert millions of property tax dollars from the schools to rich downtown developers, cover up investigations into police torture, that’s one thing. But threaten our ability to throw a really good party–my God, the outrage!
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After yesterday’s meeting it was obvious the current proposal was going nowhere. But the item was on the committee’s agenda, and so they held their meeting. Knowing there would be no vote, the aldermen who showed up were free to play to the crowd without facing mayoral retribution. And so aldermen Walter Burnett (26th), Tom Tunney (44th), and Isaac Carothers (29th) turned into tigers, lacing into Scott Bruner, the director of of the Department of Business Affairs and Licensing, who’d been sent down by the fifth floor to defend the proposal.
