Public Land, Private Gain, Part 3

Yesterday, the Chicago City Council's Zoning Committee met to "discuss" the proposed move of the Chicago Children's Museum from its current cramped home on Navy Pier to a plot land in Grant Park immediately east of Millennium Park.

I set "discuss" in quotation marks because no actual "discussion" took place, nor was one going to with William Banks, an alderman staunchly (one might say "blindly") loyal to Mayor Richard M. Daley--who staunchly (one might say "arrogantly") supports the move--as chairman of the committee. Banks shut down testimony that he deemed redundant from protesters, yet allowed equally redundant testimony from the museum's architect and attorney. The measure passed on a 6-3 vote, just as it had passed on a vote by the city's Planning Commission a few weeks ago.

It doesn't seem to matter to city government or the museum that the plot of land they're obsessed with is a bad location for the museum, that there is substantial vocal opposition to the plan (including the alderman of the ward, Brendan Reilly) or that the design of the museum has been compromised so thoroughly by revisions to make it possible to stand up to the inevitable legal challenges (one suit has already been filed). Next week, the measure goes before the full City Council--it will likely pass.

At this point, the whole fight seems to no longer be about the museum or the park, but about Mayor Daley reasserting his control over the City Council, even if it means the Council will have to slit its own collective throat by giving up one of its most sacred unwritten "rules" (aldermanic prerogative) while also allowing Daley to slap down an independent thinker, the freshman Ald. Reilly.

You might have assumed that this fair city was part of a democracy. If so, you were mistaken. It's as if Daley were putting into action something a co-worker said the other day: "That's my opinion, and that's your opinion, too."

The co-worker was joking. Daley isn't.