Meigs Field closed~~Crews dig up runway in middle of the night

ABC 7 Chicago ^ | 03/31/03 | Paul Meincke and Andy Shaw

[Protagoras]

DALEY WITH SADDAM'S WIFE AT A RECENT POLITICAL CONFERENCE

[Flyer]

Good to see you again. Have you visited our local forum yet? We do a lot of idle chat, but it's a great place to hang out with the locals and keep up with our activities.

Houston Chapter Forum

[eBelasco]

Meigs is the default airport in FlightSimulator. Has been for years.

[JustPiper]

I had to comment on this. I know local politics very well, have lived here for 50 years, involved here politically for 40. Blago, who was my alderman, related to Mel, a family friend on the donkey side, are 'all' tied into Richie. Jr. would never have dared done this until Blago was elected governor, then voila Meigs is vandalized. tis' the history of the city. Why it is called Chicago and not Daley Metropolis is the only shock of this to me!

[cherry_bomb88]

I just have one thing to say...............

img src="http://www.dribbleglass.com/images/billboards/anti-defamation.jpg">

[cherry_bomb88]

I just have one thing to say...............

GRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR

[supercat]

Why it is called Chicago and not Daley Metropolis is the only shock of this to me!

And why don't the license plates say "America's Daleyland"?

[supercat]

That premise is alright as long as the pilots obey the restrictions. What happens if a terrorist takes the plane right into downtown? Not much time to stop him from doing his dirty deed. Not that I'm defending Daley by any means.

For single-engine aircraft that don't want to go beyond gliding distance of shore, the coast of Lake Michigan represents a major flight corridor. Meigs Field or no, there will be many aircraft which have good reason to fly near the city. Even if the lake shore flight corridor were closed down (unlikely) it wouldn't take long for a plane apparently headed to Midway to change course for some terrorist action.

Of course, I don't think the airplanes that used Meigs Field would have posed much of a threat to the Sears Tower anyway, but that's another story.

[JustPiper]

And why don't the license plates say "America's Daleyland"?

Chuckling, thats good!!!

[JustPiper]

Except here its the Irish mafia....kinda like Gangs of Chi Town ;)

[unspun]

Casino, did you say, TRG? Casino? Casino? "I'm shocked! - shocked that there would be a casino in Daley's plans!" To all concerned: "stay tuned." Look into the Illinois forum for announcements regarding the Friends of Meigs and a certain rally...!
http://www.freerepublic.com/perl/profiles?location=61

...no ...really ...a casino?

Good for you, John Kass.
____________________________________________________________
John Kass
Daley's abuse of power leaves marks on city

Published April 2, 2003

I've been trying to figure out Chicago's outrage over what Mayor Richard Daley did to Meigs Field, after he sent bulldozers at night to ruin the nice little lakefront airport.

And I started out to joke about how the savaging of a tiny airport upset so many. But then I realized that Mayor Little Big Man's destruction of Meigs isn't funny.

Yet his carving of the large ugly X's into the landing strip, his arrogance in brushing off questions, has accomplished something remarkable. He crystallized things for Chicago.

This is not a complicated story of insider deals, of contracts, connections, of documented paper trails.

Rather, it is simple, with photographs, something TV is interested in watching: the destruction of a valuable resource simply because it was in Daley's way, and because he knew no one could stop him.

Little Big Man finally revealed himself as the absolute boss ruling Chicago and Cook County with wrought-iron fists.

Most readers, and a few of his newfound critics, are bothered that he destroyed the airport at night. They're aggravated that he'd use a pathetic story--protecting Chicago from tiny-plane terrorism--as cover for vandalizing Meigs, which he has wanted to do for years.

Will it be another $500 million park--the bond financing arranged by the influential bond seller Tony Fratto, finally costing a billion in real money?

Or will it become a casino?

One thing it's not anymore is an airport. It was chopped up before the Friends of Meigs Field could get to a judge. But Daley is the one who elects judges.

Compared to other things he's done, Meigs is chump change, almost insignificant in dollars and in the exercise of power.

The other things weren't done at night. They were done during broad daylight, hundreds of millions of dollars worth of deals paid for by taxpayers.

The wrought iron from his pals, the concrete flower boxes, the asphalt, the gargantuan salt contracts, the salt spread so heavily each night in winter that city crews had to sweep the pasty choking stuff off the Loop streets in the morning.

The French bus shelter deal went through, with his allies on the CTA board attached. When Michigan Avenue merchants balked, they were threatened with blackmail by CTA boss "Honest" Frank Kruesi--their names and businesses were to be plastered on buses.

Or that goofy $600 million Soldier Field renovation--which squats rudely on the lakefront like a fat man trying to squeeze into a pair of tiny shorts.

Or the ridiculously expensive lakefront Millennium Park (Fratto's Field), the phony government minority contracts diverted instead to pink guys with Outfit connections, the car towing deals and so on.

Meanwhile, Daley's brothers get rich on zoning work and the political selling of insurance, and he sneers at those who dare question him.

Few do. Unfortunately, too many Chicago journalists, once considered tough, don't like to aggravate him with questions he doesn't want to answer.

What passes for TV news in Chicago isn't interested in covering politics like it once did. TV often ignores this newspaper's investigative reporting on City Hall and the gutsy editorials on the editorial page about political sleaze and costly layered deals of high-ranking cronies.

On Tuesday, though, even the once feisty Chicago Sun-Times, the Pravda of political Chicago, thought Daley had gone too far.

"Meigs maneuvers land Daley where critics want him," the newspaper headlined its editorial, apparently worried that he had clumsily exposed himself to some evil critic, whoever he is.

By using the awesome leverage of his control over local governments and the courts, by stoking public contracts and subsequent campaign donations to intimidate and buy off his opposition, he's the one boss.

He has co-opted not only the usual political hacks but, shrewdly, has also scooped up the once independent arts community, using organized subsidies, new theaters, grants for dancers, actors, artists, poets.

He has Jesse "The King of Beers" Jackson protecting his flank among blacks. His army of Latino patronage workers, the Hispanic Democratic Organization, weakens Spanish-speaking opposition.

And he remains white in the city of tribes.

Except for some of my colleagues at this newspaper, there is no real challenge to the manner in which he whips Chicago in line, with muscle and with fear.

If you don't believe the fear, ask any tavern owner or shopkeeper, cop, firefighter or city worker. Listen to the trembling voices of corporate business leaders when they're questioned about Meigs. They're terrified of angering him.

Yet for all of that, it has been his destruction of Meigs Field that has distilled one idea in many:

That Cook County and the people in it are his, that Daley can break his toys and leave them strewn on the ground, simply because he can.

jskass@tribune.com

[Alamo-Girl]

Thanks for the information and the heads up!

[Copernicus]

Has anyone told Neal Boortz?

He is going to pop a gasket when he hears about this.

[TheRightGuy]

Casino, did you say, TRG? Casino? Casino?

Last spring, shortly before the primary election Pat O'Malley was a guest at a "meet your candidates breakfast" dog and pony show sponsored by Maine Twp. GOP Women. Pat agreed to arrive about half an hour early and meet persoanlly with about half a dozen of us who were working on his campaign, including a couple of "heavy hitters" from Park Ridge.

Most of the talk centered around O'Hare expansion deal GRyan cut with Daley, a very sensitive issue, especially with the Park Ridge bunch. At one point Pat threw back his head and said, "you guys really don't know what all this is about do you??" And we all went, "yeah, er maybe, er no?"

At that point Pat went on to expalin, "the inside deal is done." He said the terms were O'Hare gets expanded, a token Peotone gets underway, Meigs closes, and Daley gets a casino on the site. I tend to believe in Pat O'Malley. I guess he could be a little misguided on this issue, which I doubt, but I don't doubt his honesty.

[Musket]

Thanks for the heads up. Kass is great. He and Don Wade are about the only media people worth a damnned in this corrupt city. There will be a casino on Meigs- you can bet on that.

The frightening thing over the past couple days are the Libs that really don't have a problem with what the mayor did. Half seem to be disturbed by it, but half are not. Can you imagine what would happen if a Republican did such a thing?

[KeyLargo]

Meigs Airport - Opinion
By Mark Huber

March 31, 2003ÑThe brass-knuckle mayor of Chicago, Richard M. Daley, committed a midnight act of airport vandalism, sending bulldozers to rip up the asphalt at Chicago's historic lakefront GA airport, Meigs Field. While Daley can temporarily savor his sneak victory, the consequences of his backhoe penmanship will endure for decades and ripple throughout the nation's air transportation system.

The Mayor has long sought to convert Meigs to parkland. Never mind that Chicago can't properly maintain its current sprawling park acreage. Never mind that Daley tried to use keeping Meigs open as a bargaining chip to block construction of a third Chicago airport at Peotone, secure a multi-billion dollar funding package to renovate O'Hare (His Honor's fabled and now iced "World Gateway" program), and even as bait for legalized casino gambling in the city. Under the real politik cover of a Democratic Illinois governor and the hyperbole of national security, Daley ordered the bulldozers in before Letterman could finish his Top Ten list.

The aviation alphabets immediately fired back with faxes and bombast, about as useful as a hapless Iraqi challenging an American M-1 tank with flintlock. What will be more entertaining are the motions being filed by lawyers for the angry owners of 16 aircraft stranded by Daley's urban renewal gambit. Or perhaps the site of the Mayor being hauled off by federal marshals for blatantly violating the FARs relating to airport closures. Don't hold your breath.

No. When the dust settles, the real loser is O'Hare International Airport, Chicago's beleaguered economic engine, home to the nation's largest bankrupt airline and perhaps also the nation's second largest bankrupt airline. O'Hare needs help. Now. With the exception of United's terminal, O'Hare's concourses are a serious embarrassment. Its tangle of intersecting runways, penalty boxes, and undersized taxiways were poured long before the country became an IFR world and regional jets made the scene. Throw limited visibility and a little precipitation into the mix and air traffic at O'Hare backs up worse than a tenement toilet, fouling airline schedules on both coasts. The mess that is O'Hare drove Delta to develop its megahub at Cincinnati and encouraged Northwest to twin hub out of Detroit and Minneapolis. It is why many residents of Chicago's northern suburbs fly from Milwaukee. O'Hare needs the kind of help only the federal government can provide.

If you believe the Mayor's national security shtick, you probably think that closing LaGuardia would have prevented 9-11. But in deciding to dig Meigs, Daley also cited a "handshake" deal with former Illinois Republican Governor George Ryan gone bad. (Imagine that.) The "deal" was that Chicago would keep Meigs open for 25 years if Ryan would convince Congress to fund Daley's grand vision for O'Hare. This was either incredible na•ve or savvy, depending on your party affiliation. Suffice to say that Governor Ryan was a lame duck and a grand jury magnate. This makes for something less than effective leverage with a higher branch of government. And there was another little political problem. The Speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives, the Hon. Dennis Hastert, represents Chicago's western suburbs, where voters moved in next to O'Hare, then complained about the noise. Take these factors, the federal budget deficit, the fact that the two carriers who handle 80 percent of O'Hare's capacity are or could face bankruptcy, and you get a reluctant Congress.

But negotiations over the O'Hare-Meigs nexus were continuing in Washington until the backhoes rolled. Many federal lawmakers view Daley's move at best in bad faith, at worst as betrayal. Delaying or perhaps killing O'Hare modernization could be the payback. With billions at stake, it makes plowing Meigs potentially a very expensive decision.

[aruanan]

Or perhaps the site of the Mayor being hauled off by federal marshals for blatantly violating the FARs relating to airport closures. Don't hold your breath.

The author can spell "beleaguered" but not "sight". This is why automatic spell checking is such a bad thing.

[OperationFreedom]

Please take note of this excellant post.

[spintreebob]

You only named a few of the MANY airports in the area.
Schaumburg welcomes them.