Daley Thu Nov 20 2008

Day by Daley, Thursday 20 November

By Ramsin Canon

So I said to the Mayor, "You promised me, Mayor, that if I followed you, you would walk with me always. But I have noticed that during the most trying periods of my life, there have only been one set of footprints in the sand. Why, when I needed you most, have you not been there for me?"

Mayor Daley replied, "Uhm, uhhhh....well...sure, yeah. B-b-b-but, the times when you have seen only one set of footprints in the sand -- is when I, well, carried you."

So is the Daley of our lives.

Budget, budget, budget! The economy is bad, and Mayor Daley can't be blamed for that. Hundreds of millions of dollars in developer givebacks in the form of TIFs we can blame him for. Also, why are our wealthiest corporate neighbors so happy to give millions for Millennium Park or to secure the Olympics, but so stingy when it comes to the city services so dear to their neighbors? Oh, that's right, because their "altruism" is really nothing of the sort, but an investment for a larger return. Mayor Daley's budget passed 49 to 1. Unbelievably, the only "nay" vote was Alderman Billy Ocasio (26th, Humboldt Park). The Mayor really hates votes against his budgets in particular; it's a "hang together or hang separately" kinda thing.

Ocasio didn't just vote against it. If there was such a thing as a "legislative dis track," it would look like this:

"Takes me and my community for granted. In my community, we are tired of receiving the false promises. Being told it is an 'ongoing process.'...[T]his administration believes that everyone and everything are expendable."

Dis!

When asked about criticism, Mayor Daley sounded like a little kid putting on a tough face when the recess monitor asks if the other kids are being mean:

It's alright. No, it's alright. Anything else? =sniff=

I added the sniff. Break it down, Fran (I can call you Fran, right?):

But even with those concessions, the city still plans to shrink the size of 80 more garbage collection crews -- from two laborers on a truck to one. Aldermen from across the city have questioned whether smaller crews can keep pace with garbage collection and bulk pickups in densely populated wards. The tax package includes higher parking and amusement taxes and a laundry list of fees. But it's the mayor's $9 million plan to license garbage Dumpsters -- at an annual cost of $80 to $780 -- that has drawn drew the most fire. It comes on top of hundreds of thousands of dollars of façade repair and critical examination costs the city has already imposed on condominium residents. "They are being taxed up the yin-yang and it is bankrupting our taxpaying citizens. We cannot keep relying on the same population year after year after year," said Ald. Leslie Hairston (5th).

I bolded some tense disagreement in there just to show it has happened happens to all of us.

Are there any sixty-ish political operator Irishmen out there who can tell us if this has some deeper meaning?:

When the budget was approved, Dennis Gannon, president of the Chicago Federation of Labor, repeatedly waved from across the council chambers to draw Daley's attention...From the podium, the mayor nodded and winked back.

Some highlights from the budget? See if you can wrap your mind around this Chicago logic. First, the Nobel Laureates at the CPD shared this mind-blowing nugget with us two days ago:

Police: Bad economy may breed crime

Last week, Mayor Daley said this:

"Huge layoffs are coming in November and December. And next year, there's going to be [even more] huge layoffs. All the corporation CEOs have come in to tell me. That's just the beginning. It's not their end result," Daley told reporters after a City Council meeting.

Yet 49 of our 50 Aldermen agreed with this part of the budget:

• Slow police hiring to 200 in 2009, saving $10 million.

Feel safer, Chicago?

I hope, of course, that the coming spike in criminal activity is focused completely on the people who for years have been accusing me of being a socialist (sound familiar?) for saying that constant tax givebacks to businesses do not make our economy stronger, but only structurally bankrupt government, destroy infrastructure, and harm everyday people.

More highlights from the budget.

Why don't you take a quick minute to email Alderman Ocasio thank him for his brave vote yesterday?

Who Will the Mayor Support? Whoever Rahm Asks Him To. Fran reports that Mayor Daley's longtime Council floor leader Ald. Patrick O'Connor (40th, Lincoln Square/Rosehill-ish) tried to get Mayor Daley's endorsement for Rahm Emanuel's soon-to-be-vacant Senate seat. In his understated style, Mayor Daley demurred:

"There's about 25 candidates. First of all, Rahm Emanuel has not resigned. So there could be more candidates any day. There's more candidates to come. People have even called me and talked to me about running. How can you say you're for a candidate and the field is not full yet?" the mayor said.