Author Archives: Cate Plys

Though most of the aldermen were alive and even grown up in 1954, none apparently remember that “under God” was added to the pledge that year because religious leaders persuaded Congress that we should distinguish ourselves from our enemy, the Soviet Unio

Retail Armageddon has been postponed in Chicago for at least a month. A south-side development including a Wal-Mart, the Antichrist of big-box stores, didn’t get a necessary zoning change at the March 31 City Council meeting. But there were rumblings and fiery eruptions in the council chambers. Two weeks ago union leaders successfully lobbied the […]

Let’s face it, the military doesn’t take 18-year-olds for their responsibility and maturity.

The hardest arguments to resolve are the ones where both sides are right. That’s the problem with the recent spate of racial slurs broadcast on Chicago Fire Department radios. The city’s minority communities are rightfully disturbed about the incidents, while white firefighters feel they’re being blamed for the actions of a handful of complete morons. […]

Stroger used a time-honored strategy to pass his budget: put it off until the last minute, then wear ’em down.

For Mayor Daley, the Hired Truck scandal is “possibly the same thing as with George Ryan,” said one alderman. Another aldreman agreed, adding, “The only thing you don’t have in this case, you don’t have any dead children.”

Cue the Twilight Zone theme: once Daley joins Stroger on the podium, the exact same group of people, sitting in almost exactly the same seats, becomes the finance committee.

Chicago is forever stuck being the Second City, which is annoying. But at least New York is far away, and sometimes we can forget it. Cook County is worse off. The county has always played the Second City role to Chicago, and the county can never get away from the city. How can the county […]

The archdiocese assumed Saint Gelasius was safe from landmarking without its consent. But there was a hitch.

City clerk Jim Laski has a love-hate relationship with publicity. Publicity from a 1992 City Council revolt he helped lead, as alderman of the 23rd Ward, against Mayor Daley’s proposed $48.4 million property tax hike? Loved it. Publicity as city clerk in 1996 for telling the aldermen during budget hearings that city employees owed $1.5 […]