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“There is no such thing as a perfect plan,” Suarez said. “But other cities don’t even come near our plan.”
But then Second Ward alderman Bob Fioretti asked to speak. Fioretti is somehow as earnest as he is slick, a white guy representing a predominantly black ward who was smart enough to introduce a resolution commemorating the 100-year anniversary of the NAACP, then smart enough to laugh and shrug when Mayor Daley’s staff took it out of his hands and let the council’s black aldermen officially cosponsor it. This time he wanted to let everyone know that, yes, the affordable housing proposal was “a good plan” that he would support without reservation. Still, it didn’t do enough.
Suarez couldn’t, and didn’t want to, argue with this. So, as city officials are wont, he called on the federal government to do a lot more a lot faster, and he pointed a finger at what he knew to be the real source of the problem: greedy corporate financiers. “Many bankers don’t have the interests of home owners in mind,” he declared. Then he asked for passage of the affordable housing plan. He got it.
