Many years ago Berny Stone, the legendary former alderman of the 50th Ward, taught me an axiom about Chicago politics that’s stood the test of time: you can do pretty much anything you want, so long as you don’t block people’s driveways.
I was thinking of Alderman Stone’s lesson when I got a call from a friend to tell me about “Argylegate,” the little tempest that’s been raging in Lincoln Square.
Her first question was, why would he even consider doing something so stupid? And her next questions were, who is Alderman O’Connor and why is he holding meetings for me?
This is intended to fortify the constitutional provision known as one person, one vote. Because we all know the mayor and aldermen would never, ever allow people in one ward to have more clout than people in another, since that’s not how it works already.
Nice to hear from you all.
As you may recall, the TIF program is the one where the city takes property taxes from the schools and parks in order to help eradicate blight in the poorest of poor neighborhoods—which Lincoln Square is definitely not.
