I’d like to thank Sun-Times reporter Tim Novak for reminding me what the Daley administration was really like.
You really know how to pick your mayors, Chicago.
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I’d say it’s the sweetest deal in Chicago, except that there are so many other sweet deals around here, such as the even sweeter one that allows the White Sox to play at taxpayer-owned U.S. Cellular Field. That also came courtesy of Mayor Daley, with substantial assistance from former governor James Thompson.
I suspect the Park Grill would still be quietly enjoying its deal if not for a 2005 Sun-Times exposé deliciously entitled “Sex, Clout on the Menu at Millennium Park Grill.” The story revealed that Matthew O’Malley, one of the Park Grill’s owners, was the lover of Laura Foxgrover, who worked in the Park District division that negotiated leases.
The chronology went like this:
As I see it, this is what happened: embarrassed by the Sun-Times revelations, Mayor Daley basically told O’Malley and Horan that they’d have to renegotiate the deal, if only to save his political skin.
The two cases have been joined and are now before a Cook County judge. Good luck with this one, your honor.
