Mayor Daley attends a meeting of the City Council while we think about where he will go from here
DALEY NEWS
10:00am -- Mayor Daley presided over a City Council meeting. Meetings are held at somewhat regular intervals and more information on them can be found here.
DALEY CHATTER
Today we look at a very impressive account from a local resident who was formerly ignorant about the Mayor and the local political scene. Snippets from his story undoubtedly describe the experiences of many:
"When I moved to Chicago, I knew very little of the current politics that ran the city. I had heard the term alderman but had no clue that it meant “overpaid city councilperson.” I knew some of the history of Chicago politics and the name Daley was recognizable. It was the stuff that barely registers a blip outside of the city that was foreign to me."
"You see, Mayor Daley, he keeps the city running."
"As one of the largest cities in the world, you have to admit that being able to balance all of the basic city services is a hard task."
The final judgement however, is severe:
"Somewhere beneath the big happy picture, though, the foundation is rotting. As I was standing in line at the Obama Election Party, I overheard a conversation that the person next to me was having with a Chicago police officer. The civilian was mentioning how amazing it was that the mayor could pull off an event of the size and complicated nature of the Obama party. The police officer seemed to put up with it for a few minutes before airing his disagreement. He asked the lady if she knew the last time Chicago police officers received raises. He asked if she would stay in her job if she didn’t get a raise in a three year span. The lady mumbled “probably not” and turned away.
I thought this was a somewhat isolated incident, but I have a feeling more anti-Daley feelings are going to start finding their way into the public forum. A couple of days ago, just moments after the first real snow accumulation in the city, Daley announced that the city snowplows were going to cut some residential streets from their routes. The money wasn’t there to make sure all streets were clear. So, for the taxpayers living on these streets, they could be happy knowing their tax dollars would be spent clearing off main arteries, but everyone else is out of luck.
Now, the mayor wants to privatize parking meter collections. After all, we’ve privatized CTA and that has just worked… well, it hasn’t really worked at all. Instead CTA has threatened shut downs and “doomsday” scenarios to strong-arm the state and city into fare hikes and unwarranted increases in funding.
The mayor has quickly forgotten what has kept him in office by large numbers - he has kept Chicagoans happy. Unplowed streets, quarterly CTA fare hikes, a +10% sales tax, increased violent murders, disgruntled police officers, and unwarranted parking meter fare hikes are no way to keep the people happy. It may not be in the next election, but I’m guessing that if this trend continues, 2016 Olympics or not, a changing of the guard will be here sooner than we though."
Photo by Chicago Magazine
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Anna Tarkov
What I love: my family, Chicago and Chicagoans, reading (mostly non-fiction), politics, media, discussing/debating almost anything, traveling, great TV shows like Mad Men, both films AND movies and fi More
Comments
Too much people getting paid for doing to little in city government. That's it. That is the problem - and everybody knows it.
Thanks for your comment Pul! I think you could have a point there. High salaries for our public officials definitely stretch the budget more than it needs to be stretched.
What do you think the best solution to this would be? I believe voters need to take control and not keep electing the same people back into office.
Also, voters need to educate themselves on candidates. A new face and name isn't necessarily a new policy and we should really carefully look at each candidate to see why they are in public service and if it's for the right reasons.
Most of the problem lays squarely on the public. We see whats going on, but don't really do anything about it. All of these polis are wickedly paid needing more money and their office staff is completly clueless. Alot of the research thats done, is done by the same witless clods in these offices which do not fully research the matter and god forbid if any official double checks the information. Also why can they hold down a fulltime job with their business or practice and work part time work for full salary from the tax payers? They need to concentrate on one or another job. Sure there is about 2 aldermen that actually are at their posts at any given time, but the bulk of these 'professional politicians' only care about what they can get and to heck with the public. So when are we going to rise up and elect the joe blow for office?
Excellent comment! I feel the exact same way. There is a famous saying that says we get the government we deserve and I think it's especially true in Chicago and Cook County.
This is why I IMPLORE people to at least pay some attention to what goes on in their city, county and state. The national politics gets all the attention and I say ENOUGH. As another famous saying goes: think globally, act locally.
I agree with the general points of the editorial, but this really detracts from it:
"After all, we’ve privatized CTA and that has just worked… well, it hasn’t really worked at all."
When was the CTA "privatized"? That's news to me.
Attrill, that's a very good point.
No, the CTA has not been privatized. I left that in because I wanted to preserve the original flow of the writer's narrative.
Also, since I didn't speak with the writer, I'm not certain what exactly they meant. For instance, perhaps they were alluding to the fact that the CTA has received less and less funding from the state of Illinois and perhaps that, in their mind, constituted "privatization." You and I might understand privatization a certain way, but someone else may have a different notion of it. And since there's no way to know what the exact intent was, I left it in knowing that astute readers like yourself would be able to discern what is and isn't fully correct.
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