Chicago Mayor Seeking Bailout Money for $15 Billion Airport Albatross
Now that Governor Rod Blagojevich is, politically speaking, pushing up daises, attention in the Land of Lincoln is going to be drawn to efforts by Chicago’s Mayor Daley to latch on to a portion of the coming “stimulus package” in order to fund his dream of expanding O’Hare Airport.
Never mind that no one wants to pay for it — including the city, the county, the state, the airlines, the taxpayers, or, until now, the federal government. Never mind that the FAA’s own studies show that the expansion will not relieve the heavily congested runways or mitigate the problem with delays. Never mind that getting around the expanded airport would be a nightmare for passengers, some of whom would be forced to take an hour-long shuttle ride from one parking lot to the American Airlines terminal. Never mind that an airplane that lands on the northern runway will have to taxi 45 minutes to get to the United terminal. And never mind that hundreds of residents from tiny Bensenville, IL, have already been forcibly removed from their homes despite the fact that the next phase of the expansion is in financial limbo and may never be completed.
No one contests the idea that the traffic problems at O’Hare are serious and must be addressed. Anyone who has spent an hour on a runway waiting to take off or circled the airport for even longer waiting to land cannot deny that what once was “the busiest airport in the world” has become a quagmire of delays, impossibly long lines for security, and a traffic nightmare guaranteed to give even the most even tempered driver a severe case of road rage.
But Hizzoner, for personal, political, and financial reasons, insists that expanding O’Hare is just the ticket. And when Mayor Richard Daley gets it in his head that something is absolutely necessary for his beloved city, he can be a fearsome force with which to tangle. You don’t cross Daley in Chicago unless you’re on pretty solid footing, which is why he has a legion of opponents who are making his life miserable by trying to block the expansion.
The reasons not to spend $15 billion to grow O’Hare to an impossibly large size include alternatives that are cheaper or make more sense for the region. But in the case of Rep. Jesse Jackson Jr., there’s an equally unworthy project on which money can be wasted: another airport.
The feud between Daley and Jackson is very personal. Jackson said some nasty things a few years ago about Daley’s legendary father, Richard J. Daley, that didn’t sit well with the current incarnation of the mayoral dynasty. And Jackson’s wife has been a thorn in the side of Daley from her perch on the city council, where she serves as alderman of the seventh ward. Jesse Jackson Sr. also had an uncomfortable relationship with Daley, as the good Reverend’s power base among the south side African American community reveres the memory of former mayor Harold Washington, the only African American ever elected mayor in Chicago and the only man ever to defeat a Daley in a Democratic primary (1982).
Proving that anyone can propose wasting a bushel full of taxpayer money if one has enough gumption, Jackson Jr. went Daley one better and has made it his mission in life to build a whole new airport in the south suburbs near Peotone. If Jackson gets his way, his proposed land grab in Peotone would be three times larger than O’Hare. It would turn 24,000 acres of the richest, most productive farm land in the world into a white elephant of an airport. The FAA and the state of Illinois have other ideas and current plans — still subject to change — now call for a much more modest project.
Mayor Daley has spent a large part of his tenure as mayor constructing monuments to himself; he ought to just go ahead with a pyramid and get it over with.
It’s particularly ludicrous because of the fact that every single airline in the country is cutting capacity these days. Maybe he’s dreaming, “If we build it they will come.” But those kind of dreams aren’t coming true. Take a look at the airline industry, the financial losses, reductions in flights, and layoffs of personnel. Who is he building it for, other than himself and his own ego?
Gary’s airport is already better able to handle air traffic than Midway is. It’s the same drive to downtown (timewise) that O’Hare is. AND it has free parking…..
Too bad no airline is willing to fly there….
it is called payback. Obama owes. If Blago has become so bold in his attitude, what makes you think Daley is any different.
Pay for play, the Obama way. And the one owes big time: Accorn, unions, terrorists(untraced donations), media, etc. etc.
Therefore the Reinvstment in America bill.
Stimulus my backside.
This is a disgrace: thanks so much for reporting it, I haven’t seen this story anywhere else despite the 15 billion price tag.
Hey America are you getting it yet? Daley, Obama, Illinois Gov.and Dick Durbin, Chicago Politics….. The airport expansion should not have started. We are entering a “Pay as you produce” mode. It is a pitty Chicago is getting a black eye, i was born , raised and fought to keep it free and now I find Im’ leaving this world worse off than when I entered it. Thanks Barney !!!!
Chicago: the gift that keeps on giving. I guess I can’t complain too much; it gave the world… me! But, I hereby throw it under the bus. It’s the Chicago way after all.
#5 ashok – Of course you haven’t seen it anywhere. It’s “only” $15B. Chump change these days.
Daley shut down Meigs Airport in Chicago a few years ago — just sent bulldozers in at night and did it. They ought to cut off all funding for O’Hare and all other Chicago airports. Punish the corrupt mayor.
Flew coast-to-coast approx. once per month 1992-2007 for business reasons. Swapped planes at O’Hare the first trip and NEVER made that mistake again. There are many decent airport hubs (Pittsburgh is my personal favorite…by far) and I’d prefer any (even Atlanta or Philadelphia) of them over O’Hare. As a taxpayer, I wouldn’t throw a federal dime into that overburdened O’Hare hell-hole.
O’Hare is the goose that laid the golden egg for the Daley family:
{“Mayor Richard Daley adamantly denied on Tuesday that influence and strong connections with City Hall helped Jeremiah Joyce, a longtime mayoral ally and trusted political strategist, land lucrative concession contracts at O’Hare International Airport.
“I don’t know what part of the action he has,” Daley told reporters at a CTA ribbon-cutting ceremony on the South Side. ” I don’t know and I don’t care.”
A Tribune investigation published on Monday revealed that Joyce won handsome compensation when McDonald’s Corp. and a national operator of duty-free shops were awarded contracts worth millions of dollars at O’Hare shortly after the companies signed Joyce to an employment agreement.
Joyce, a former state senator who played a critical role in Daley’s 1989 election campaign, received $1.8 million last year stemming from his involvement with the two companies, according to the Tribune report.”
How wonderful is Chicago? last year during a road trip from South dakota to the east coast of Virginia, we drove south to Missouri then east. It took an extra day, but it was worth avoiding Chicgo and DC entirely. It’s the final American vote that counts, as California is learning: vote with your feet and your cash.
the pigs are lining up to the federal trough! thats all folks. once these clowns get ahold of the cash they will bend to the will of the people and cancel the project,and then with some creative accounting, the dollar he is holding in his hand will magically disappear.
the Obama great giveaway has started, get in line folks there’s enough for everyone.
I have lived in the Chicago area for decades and now live near where the Peotone airport would be built, if it’s ever built, … which it won’t.
This article captures most of the issue about O’Hare and Rich ‘short-shanks’ Daley except one that is critical to Daley’s continued success — the patronage. Daley the Elder had a massive patronage army on the city payrolls. But that payroll is challenged these days, and the federales are always watching. And the ‘Shackman Decree’, a federal court ruling, forces most city hiring to be (gasp) honest. Or semi-honest at least.
Daley the Younger has a massive patronage army, but not on the city payrolls. Where does he hide them? On the payrolls of the all the people who get no-bid city contracts, that’s where. And the mother lode of those contracts is found at O’Hare. You can hide lots of workers, patronage, contracts and pay-offs at an airport with an annual budget in the hundreds of millions, and that’s just what Daley does. It’s modern politics, and nobody does modern urban politics better than Rich Daley.
I don’t believe in bailouts. It’s taking hard earned cash and giving it back to the rich. If you read the news, sometimes they talk about what these corporations are doing with the cash. Buying private jets, all-inclusive party for thousands of ‘top-sellers’ that cost millions, etc. All with bailout money.
Now, the “bridge to nowhere” looks like a bargain — oh, wait, it was a bridge to an airport!
This look suspiciously a lot like Comrade Kerry and Kennedys “big Dig” in Boston. If Comrade Daley has his way that 15 Bill will double in 5 yrs as he pays off the JACKASS FAMILY and the rest of the bunch to shut up and take your cut. This scumbag would do AL CAPONE proud. Well , it figures. After all ,BLAGO WAS ONE OF THEM. Even as governor, BLAGO spent more time in Chicago than the state capitol of Springfield. Daley spends more time wondering how next to rip off the taxpayers so him and his pals(and dont kid yourself, the JACKASS crowd IS in Daleys corner). Until the idiot voters of Chicago wake up and realize what this scumsucker is, they will continue to suffer self-inflicted wounds.