Sunday, February 6, 2011

Everybody Hates a Blizzard....

but Pity the Politicians Whose Wards Got Short Shrift from the Chicago News Coop. Mostly about Ald. Lyle and how she's handled the blizzard. Surely there are other stories of other Aldermen around the city who's facing the same difficulty:

“We don’t have all the equipment that we need because it is all on the North Side, because they are concerned with Lake Shore Drive,” said Ms. Lyle, who faces five re-election challengers, including the son of former Mayor Eugene Sawyer. “Either we laid off too many people and we can’t provide services to the entire city, or people once again don’t understand that the heart of the city is its neighborhoods.”

Ms. Lyle said she visited the Loop on Thursday evening and watched with envy as city crews blocked off LaSalle Street “so they could clean curb to curb.”

Responding to the storm sapped precious time and energy from aldermen in the midst of campaign season. They would have otherwise spent last week going door to door in the cold to remind constituents of new parks and libraries and schools that have risen under their stewardship. As with the allocation of those resources, which are doled out by the mayor’s office, City Council members ultimately do not determine what snow equipment is sent to their wards.

Aldermen don’t want snow removal “to be their Waterloo,” Ms. Lyle said, “because we don’t control it.”
That may well be true. But one Aldermanic candidate won't gloat about it this time around:

One of Ms. Lyle’s re-election challengers, Roderick Sawyer, said he would not try to capitalize on the issue, even though he and neighbors in Park Manor had hired a private plow to clear their block. “I am aware of how the system works, and I would not unfairly criticize her,” Mr. Sawyer said.

He agreed with her view that other areas had received better treatment than the 6th Ward. “A friend of mine in Beverly called me and he said he was wondering if it even snowed there” because the streets of the clout-heavy 19th Ward were cleared so quickly, Mr. Sawyer said, chuckling.
So an inequitable distribution of resources in our city.

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