DALEY SLEEPS WHILE CHICAGO BURNS

Is this what Mayor Daley meant when he asked everyone else to clean up his budget mess? No funding for public transportation for the disabled:

A meeting of the Regional Transportation Authority board ended in a vote to give no additional money to paratransit service for the disabled — which will run out of funds this fall.
...

Pace Board Chairman Richard Kwasneski attributed the vote to pressure from the CTA and Metra, which didn’t want to give up the money in a tough budget time.

RTA Chair Jim Reilly agreed that board members were influenced by Metra and CTA not wanting to give up any money.

“Perhaps what we need to do is get Mayor Daley on our side,” said Kwasneski, noting that 80 percent of the users of paratransit vans live in Chicago.

Or maybe Mayor Daley meant this. No funding for porch inspections:

Six years after a catastrophic porch collapse in Lincoln Park killed 13 people and forced a Chicago-wide crackdown on dangerous porches, the city has returned to a more passive vigilance of the hazards. While city officials say their hard work has reduced the potential threats, a shortage of inspection manpower and a continuing stream of newly reported cases mean that bad porches often are discovered only haphazardly -- and sometimes too late.

...

"If I lived in the city of Chicago and I had a wooden porch, regardless of age ... on a yearly basis I'd call up the city and say, 'Come out and inspect my porch,' " said attorney Patrick Murphy, who has been suing building owners and the city on behalf of porch-collapse victims in Chicago for 35 years.

"It's continually a problem that owners of the building and property managers are not properly maintaining their porches and, therefore, the tenants -- who are the users -- are at risk," said Murphy

Or maybe it was this. Cost overruns and missing records for construction at a Chicago City College:

Construction of the new Kennedy-King College campus is more than $110 million over its original budget, and officials can't explain why or locate key documents that could shed light on the spiraling costs.

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In early 2005, the Public Building Commission, which oversaw the project, estimated it would cost $93 million.

But by the end of 2006, with construction barely started, the price tag had soared to $202 million. And at a recent City Colleges board meeting, vice chancellor Diane Minor said the total cost would climb higher once the bills for months of repairs to get the campus’ heating and ventilation systems working correctly are tallied.

The City Colleges referred questions about the project's cost to the PBC, a city agency that coordinates and manages construction projects such as schools, libraries and fire stations. The chairman of its board is Mayor Richard M. Daley.

Wait. That doesn't help.

And, where's the rest of the media on this one? Cough Olympics Cough Cough. I'm gonna go ahead and add Kennedy-King College to the list of projects Daley can't finish on budget (O'Hare, Millennium Park, Block 37, etc.). And, if we are chosen for the games, I bet Olympics gets added to the list as well.

Glad to see the CTA, Building Department and City Colleges doing their part to close our $300+ million budget gap. Thanks!

Also, inquiring minds want to know: Would you vote for Mayor Daley?

And, check out the Reader for another great Joravsky tale. This time, he discusses the Chicago Park District and their wacky ways:

I don't know who's putting these things together, but, please, for sake of this city, keep them far, far away from the Olympics.