The mayor's favorite pool boy—airport operations boss Dave "Pool Boy" Ochal—is at it again, throwing his vast political clout in the faces of his neighbors after the storms knocked out power this week.A column worth your time. What happens with those of us without clout who could use a ComEd generator?
Ochal's Far Northwest Side neighborhood was without power for two days in the summer heat. Neighbors dug into their own pockets to pay for emergency generators and shipped their elderly, including some who required oxygen therapy, to live with friends and family who had power. Then neighbors said they witnessed a political miracle Wednesday night:
A Commonwealth Edison truck pulled up at Ochal's house in the 5400 block of North Paris Avenue.
The ComEd crew—two workers and a foreman—wore badges signifying they were detailed to O'Hare International Airport. With astonished neighbors watching, the crew delivered a big, fat electric generator to Ochal's home.
How nice.
This drove the neighbors nuts, and rightly so. It's not the first time Ochal has angered them with his clout. In 2000, I told you about the fancy built-in pool he installed, without permits, and how it swamped their backyards with water, flooding their lawns and basements, shorting out appliances and blowing a ComEd transformer.
They were really angry Wednesday night when I arrived with a WGN-TV cameraman. They gathered in the street, dumbfounded, watching how clout works, while they didn't have lights on in their own homes, and still they were afraid of Ochal's wrath and clout with Mayor Richard Daley.
The foreman, Arthur Gallegos, confirmed his crew delivered a generator to Ochal's home that night. He said he had no idea who Ochal was.
Friday, August 8, 2008
Clout keeps power on
A John Kass column:
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