Mayor Daley asks you to stop dumping all over his great Olympic hope and loses some loyal City Hall compadres
DALEY NEWS
We're still having issues with getting the Mayor's schedule. Could this be to blame?
Barb Grochala, who for 13 years served as chief scheduler for Mayor Richard M. Daley, has quietly retired from city government. Her final day at work was last Thursday.
Alas, that's likely wishful thinking. Surely Barb wasn't the one charged with adding or subtracting from the e-mail list that receives the schedule. In fact, if we bring to bear on the matter our suspicion of how City Hall functions, we'd expect there to be a staff person who has that duty as their sole responsibility.
In any event, the replacement of Ms. Grochala will hopefully be speedy. Although it might be the opposite owing to this gaping vacancy:
Homero Tristan, a member of Daley's Cabinet as the top human resources official, was accused of lying to investigators from Inspector General David Hoffman's office, which was looking into City Hall hiring abuses.
Tristan called Hoffman's allegations "grossly erroneous and irresponsible." But Tristan said he could not fight the charges while representing the city in federal proceedings aimed at reforming its scandal-scarred hiring system.
"I can't do both at this time," Tristan said. "I will continue to defend my integrity."
So that's protecting your own behind, 1, sticking by the Mayor, 0. Has Mr. Tristan made the right choice? And could this signal a slight shift of power favoring the Inspector General?
DALEY CHATTER
Judging by his latest plea, Mayor Daley might need to practice ducking because apparently we're all guilty of throwing darts at the Olympic bid effort.
Sounding like the Olympics are our sole possiblity of salvation from some sort of fiscal obliteration, the Mayor said:
This is the only economic engine. We're talking about jobs. We're talking about contracts…coming into Chicago.
Uh-huh. Even if that's true, jobs and contracts for who exactly?
Further signaling that this is some sort of last-ditch effort, the Mayor went on to say:
"People can discuss this, but this is the best economic engine we have going. I have nothing [else] up my sleeve."
Daley's slightly desperate attempt to re-frame the Olympics as Chicago's only possible savior was echoed in the latest missive from the bid committee.
This writer's most recent e-mail opened with a frantic-sounding heading urging everyone to Back the Bid! and one has a feeling that if they could have, they would have added a great many more exclamation points. It goes on to provide recipients with a link to contacting their aldermen, encouragement towards volunteering and best of all, this directive:
- Spread the Word—Access 16 facts about the Chicago 2016 bid and its benefits and email it to friends and family, or print up copies and pass them out.
While you're doubled over laughing, realize that this playing fast and loose with the word "facts" is perhaps nowhere more at home than here in the Windy City.
Finally, let's come back to that Sun-Times story and realize that there's something very wrong with a certain assertion, found among a laundry list of groups and individuals who are no longer keen on the Olympics coming to Chicago:
Media cheerleaders turned into critics.
First of all, this statement ignores the obvious existence of media who were not in favor of the bid from the start. Second of all, are we to understand that less than five months until the IOC makes their decision is when the supposed watchdogs in the press decided to finally start doing their jobs?
Photo by UPI
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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
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