Wee Lad -Dad, can I have five dollars to get Guinea Pig?
Old Dad - Absolutely not, Son. Here's ten! Go get a nice Irish girl.
Five North Side wards have been chosen as guinea pigs for a change Mayor Rahm Emanuel hopes will save the city $60 million a year at the risk of alienating homeowners and aldermen — by switching from a ward-by-ward to a grid system for collecting Chicago’s garbage.Fran Spielman announced the shovel-ready ground tossing marking the end of Chicago and the coming of Urban Center Chicago.
Last summer, Emanuel asked consultants to “develop a route system” for garbage collection that creates an “equitable workload for drivers” without regard to ward boundaries. The goal was to bring Chicago’s $225-per-ton cost closer to the $135 per ton spent in other major cities. Two months later, the mayor incorporated the grid into his 2012 budget, pegged the annual savings at $60 million, but counted on only $20 million the first year because he planned to start slowly. Fran Spielman
For well over a year, I have been posting about the planned end of the City of Chicago, which will follow the arrival of the Garbage Grid. The Garbage Grid is means by which City Services, under Chicago's Charter as a 'weak mayor' form of municipal government, are stripped from the hands of Aldermen and given to a private contractor - Waste Management n'cest ce pas? Ward services will be as invisible as Rosie O'Donnell on the Oprah Channel.
The Skyway, Chicago Street Parking, Water Rates and Public Education have become luxury items where once they were boons to citizens. Since the University of Chicago became the ex officio government of this city, which I happen to timeline start on either of these two dates in Chicago history December 10, 1993 - the day Richard M. Daley moved from Bridgeport to 16th & Indiana, or October 22, 1997 - the resignation of Alderman and City Council Floor Leader Patrick Huels - with that the Old Hamburg SAC was eclipsed by University of Chicago. You can move a south side neighborhood guy out of McKinley Park ( St. Maurice's), or Wrightwood ( St. Tommy More) and place him in Moscow, but he will never leave his roots and return without any noticeable change. However, when anyone turn your back on the very people who shaped, assisted and backed every decision and pick up associations, values and associations diametrically oppossed to them, that person is a New Man, or in Latin Novus Homo et novus civis.
In ancient Rome the patrician class, the betters, was depleted by war, dissipation, or political proscription. After telling the plebeians, the tax-payers, that the rights of citizenship belong only to one class of people - the bonni - patricians, or the betters - the patricians realized that they had no one to fight for them, make their goods, sweep the streets, collect their garbage, purify the waters of the Tiber River, as if, or from whom to collect more taxes their came about the the Conflict of the Orders 367 -287 BC) followed by a grudging admission of some plebeians or New Men, who had some dough, ability and a desire to turn their backs on the old neighborhood. Marcus Tullius Cicero is the best example of the new man -"how the lowly born but inherently worthy man may properly rise to eminence in the world" Seneca.
It seems to me that Richard M. Daley was washed in the Blood of the Maroon by moving out of Nativity Parish, the Hamburg, Bridgeport, Canaryville with a Mastercard, and was confirmed in the Faith with his summary shunning of Patrick Huels. 1993 and 1997 mark the beginning of the Progressive Chicago Policy Doctrines now being enacted and enforced by Archbishop Rahm Emanuel.
The Garbage Grid did not pop up over night. You can trace this Acts of the Apostles odyssey through the rise of Hyde Park, University of Chicago and our anonymous leaders. In the old faith, one could identify the chieftains and the gallowglasses of government - George Dunne, Ed Vrdolyak, Charles Chew, Wilson Frost.
Make way for the anonymous Urban Center!
Now, the city has chosen five North Side wards to be the first to take the plunge: the 40th, 46th, 48th, 49th and 50th.How about that? Stroke the plebeians and tell them how savvy they are if they act like the City Council -“Chicagoans are savvy. If there’s a little bit of discomfort in the transition and they realize we’ll end up saving significant money, they’ll be okay with that. Bugs should not last long.”
In the ward-by-ward system, city crews begin garbage collection on Monday and finish on Friday. The pick-up day is different, depending on where in the ward you live. Under the new system, the entire ward will be picked up on the same day.
That could make for a rocky first few weeks, with loads light in some areas and overflowing in others. It will also make community outreach essential.
“They’re gonna have is to get used to a new garbage day. That, for the public, should be the biggest difference and, frankly, the only difference,” said Ald. Pat O’Connor (40th), the mayor’s City Council floor leader.
“Chicagoans are savvy. If there’s a little bit of discomfort in the transition and they realize we’ll end up saving significant money, they’ll be okay with that. Bugs should not last long.”
Some aldermen have been dead-set against the grid for fear that it would deprive them of their ability to respond to special requests for services. They’re determined to maintain control over housekeeping services that are an alderman’s bread-and-butter.
Did you pick up any condescension in that? Any veiled contempt? Of course not.
Pre- 1993-1997 Chicago Ward Committeemen, Alderman and Precinct Captains connected with the citizens. No more. Without Daley's move from Bridgeport, but especially the exile of Pat Huels, a singularly good man in my estimation, there could be no place at the trough for Mike Quigley, Forrest Claypool, Toni Preckwinkle, G. Flint Taylor, Locke Bowman, Bernardine Dohrn, Bill Ayers, Joe Moore, Allison Davis, Judson Miner, Terry Cosgrove, Marilyn Katz, and most significantly President Barack Obama. In pre 1993 Chicago, these worthies would be as welcome to political dialog as skunks to a flower show.
Imagine anyone in Cook County Government or City Hall prior to Mayor Daley making a call to Peoples Gas on behalf of Desiree Rogers for any position other than . . . dang! I'm stumped. Only in this age of Novus Homo/novus cives politicians - Catholics who play with Planned Parenthood money help abort infants - can a dim-witted cutie pie jump the vocational gradus from Lotto Ball Spinner -to President of Peoples Gas-to White House Brander -to CEO.
The end game is to make Chicago and Urban Center -when services go, so go the plebeians. The Urban Center will be haven - gated community - that is childless, Green friendly and very affluent.
Unless the Guinea Pigs die in the cage that is. God willing.
http://www.suntimes.com/12132592-417/new-garbage-pick-up-system-to-debut-in-five-north-side-wards.html
