- Chandler West/For Sun-Times Media
- Mayor Emanuel announces plans for Obama College Prep. The mayor’s office has declined to answer questions about the selection of the Near North Side as the site for the school.
“Rahm Emanuel is no friend of democracy,” historian Rick Perlstein wrote in Rolling Stone in 2012. The mayor was “obsessed with finding ways to expand his executive power” and worked “underhandedly and opaquely,” Perlstein charged.
But times have changed since Richard J. was mayor, and even since Richard M. was first elected. Mayors now must claim to value “transparency,” no matter how they act.
I e-mailed the director of new affairs for the Chicago Public Schools on May 16—four weeks ago today—asking him about the site selection process. The CPS spokesman referred me to the mayor’s office. I called and e-mailed the mayor’s office for three weeks. I asked specifically what sites outside of the Near North Side were considered, and why the Near North Side prevailed.
If the mayor’s office or CPS candidly answered questions about the choice of neighborhood, however, it would prolong public attention on a subject the mayor would just as soon see fade away.
