Quit trying to justify Meigs mistake, Mr. Mayor
May 13, 2005
BY NEIL STEINBERG SUN-TIMES COLUMNIST
Opening shot
Meigs Field was an urban jewel and a unique lakefront asset that will never be replaced. As tragic as its loss was to the vibrancy of downtown Chicago, worse was the dead-of-night manner in which Mayor Daley destroyed it two years ago, without question the most extreme abuse of power he has committed in a decade and a half in office-- well, as least the most extreme we know about. Even if it were a good move -- and it wasn't -- he did it the wrong way. I might want an omelet for breakfast, but that doesn't mean I want Mayor Daley to break into my house and prepare it while I sleep.
So Daley should pause before he uses the panic Wednesday over a straying Cessna in Washington, D.C. as some kind of justification for his past misdeeds.
"That's why closing that airport down was the best thing we did," he said, managing to be both ludicrous and to minimize his actual accomplishments at the same time. How does tearing up Meigs Field for an unneeded lakefront park protect Chicago? Does it keep a terrorist from attacking the city using aircraft?
Of course not. A 747 towing a large banner reading "FLYING BOMB" could lumber toward Chicago, do a few circles above the Loop, waggle its wings in a salute at Oak Street Beach, and then take out the Water Tower and -- given the mayor's dismal record on keeping tabs of what's going on in this city -- Daley wouldn't know about it until months later, when Tim Novak and Steve Warmbir laid it out in graphic detail in the Sun-Times.