Selling the Games One Ward At A Time
As it has at times in recent weeks, a community meeting about Chicago’s bid to host the 2016 Summer Olympics soon veered off into a heated discussion about other things.
Affordable housing. Jobs. Crime.
An upset Mark Carter, 35, stood in the audience and demanded that Mayor Daley’s Olympic bid team, assembled on the dais, set aside some of the projected 310,000 jobs — some temporary, others permanent — expected to be created by the Olympic Games for North Lawndale residents. He also asserted that the beleaguered West Side community wasn’t getting the help it needed because “the alderman sold us out.”
First-term Ald. Sharon Denise Dixon (24th), standing next to the audience, didn’t hold back.
“Shut up,” she told Carter, who ran against her in the last election. “I’m an alderman, not a miracle worker.”
“SHUT UP” – that’s about what we’re supposed to do. Shut up and sit back as the Mayor SIGNS THE BLANK check to the IOC using OUR money while the spineless aldermen watch from the sidelines.
The claims of “this money” being used for schools, public transportation and police protection are false, and the worst part is, you know it. Of course the money to build the Olympic Village and more isn’t available for schools or trains. Unfortunately, most people in this city are too dense to know the difference.