IT IS 2016, Richard M. Daley’s 27th year in office, and the mayor is about to realize his longstanding dream of hosting the Olympic Games.
The city is well-prepared. Its huge new John H. Stroger Jr. Olympic Stadium is finally finished, the first such facility ever built entirely out of black wrought iron. It will be supplemented by Soldier Field, which, in keeping with the Olympic theme, has been retrofitted with a spanking-new set of Greek-style colonnades atop the spaceship-like addition completed in 2003.
Arguments over organized labor’s insistence that only union workers handle tasks like raising the bar in the high jump and pole vault, arranging mats in the new Victor Reyes Gymnastics Arena and filling the pool in the new Jeremiah Joyce Aquatic Center were settled when it was agreed that 10-man union crews would instead ensure that the Eternal Flame stays lit, earning time-and-a-half.
It has pained the mayor that U.S. Atty. Patrick Fitzgerald, now in his 15th year in the job, has been investigating the letting of contracts for the Olympics. “This is silly. Silly silly silly silly. It’s silliness,” the mayor replied when asked about charges that certain favored food-service firms, trucking outfits, construction companies, landscape firms, starter’s pistol manufacturers, Olympic torch makers, javelin firms, gold, silver and bronze casters, national anthem players and relay-baton recyclers were selected by rigged bid.
And when asked if it was significant that all of the diving and gymnastics judges seemed to be related to City Hall insiders, the mayor dismissed the question. “That’s just plain silly,” he said. “You big bald silly.”
