City Buildings Commissioner Stan Kaderbek on Monday gave the green light for Cubs games to continue at Wrigley Field after an engineering firm concluded that quality repairs have been made to the 90-year-old park.
Kaderbek’s announcement came at a City Hall news conference seven hours before the Cubs were scheduled to take the field against the Milwaukee Brewers.
But the commissioner made no apology for threatening to close Wrigley after being told of allegations of shoddy repair work by a Los Angeles Times reporter.
In a statement issued later Monday, Cubs President Andy MacPhail said that he was “pleased, but not surprised” that the team would play that night.
“The city has conducted enough inspections of Wrigley Field by now that they should be satisfied we are not printing a newspaper here,” MacPhail said.
Monday’s action came after several weeks of controversy between the Daley administration and Tribune Co., the Chicago-based company whose holdings include Wrigley Field, the Cubs, the Chicago Tribune and the Los Angeles Times.
Mayor Daley has accused Tribune Co. and the Cubs of failing to be forthcoming about problems at Wrigley and the Chicago Tribune of failing to thoroughly report the problems. Officials of the parent company and its subsidiaries have contended they have acted properly.
Jeff Stielow, 47, checked the Internet three times Monday morning to make sure the game was still on. “I was pretty sure they were going to play. That’s a lot of money to lose,” he said.
Stielow, who has limited season tickets with his 13-year-old son Chris, said the back and forth between the city and Tribune Co. is typical Chicago.
“Obviously the Tribune’s a big company and so is Mayor Daley,” he said. “So it’s a lot of politics.”
The city last week hired Construction Technology Laboratories of Skokie to conduct an independent assessment of ramp repairs that Cubs officials said had been made at the ballpark in response to problems identified in a 2001 report commissioned by the team.
“Based on our limited investigation, it appears that the pedestrian ramps have been repaired and maintained in a prioritized and systematic manner over the past few years based on the recommendations of the 2001 … report,” CTL Vice President Kevin Michols said in a letter to Kaderbek dated Monday.
The city is paying the cost of the CTL inspection, a bill that is expected to be in the five-figure range, officials said. But a Tribune Co. contribution in an equal amount for a worthy cause would be welcomed, Kaderbek said.
Kaderbek said that Crane Kenney, Tribune Co. senior vice president and general counsel, told him that a Los Angeles Times reporter who interviewed Kaderbek last week and mentioned reports of shoddy repairs at Wrigley had confused her information with allegations of shoddy work at O’Hare.
Kaderbek said he was unaware of any poor work at O’Hare. A spokeswoman for the city’s Aviation Department said she also was not aware of any problems at the airport.
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Compiled from news services and edited by Lara Weber (lweber@tribune.com) and alBerto Trevino (atrevino@tribune.com)
