* Mayor Daley appears to be backing out of an earlier agreement not to put the Chicago Children’s Museum on Randolph St. in Grant Park…

“I don’t know why this is an issue now,” [former Ald. Burt Natarus] grumped, arguing that he’d reached an agreement with the Daley administration while he was still in office to prevent the museum from being relocated from Navy Pier to Daley Bicentennial Plaza, the section of Grant Park that is the subject of the current debate.

“It was already decided not to build it there,” Natarus said. “I put it in my campaign literature.”

* Meanwhile, the race issue is still causing sparks to fly…

Carole Brown, the Chicago Transit Authority chairman and a member of the museum board, said she heard a woman at a meeting earlier this month ask why the museum didn’t move to the South Side and another opponent ask if the children visiting a new museum were going to play on a Grant Park playground.

* Let’s take those issues one at a time. Is suggesting that the museum locate on the South Side racist? Perhaps that was the intent of the person who said it, but I would assume that aldermen from all over the city would like to use the museum to help revitalize their neighborhoods. As Cate Plys points out in an excellent piece this week…

However, to buy into that scenario, one must believe some manifestly untrue points: That the Children’s Museum is and will be largely patronized by needy children, rather than the mainly middle-class and wealthy people one generally sees there;

* And what about that crack about the kids playing in Grant Park? More from Plys…

This park area is not a “little-used sanctum.” Neighbors report waiting up to an hour on weekends to get a child on a swing there. (My sister-in-law says only two swings have been functional for most of the summer.) The skating rink is nearly as crowded as Millennium Park’s - so much so, I’d rather have my niece come skate at my neighborhood rink. The Bicentennial rink is free - except skate rental - and wide open to all comers. Particularly in the summer, the area is used by many people who don’t live anywhere near downtown.

UPDATE: I should’ve pointed out here that “Gigi” Pritzker thinks racism has a lot to do with the controversy…

Pritzker, the billionaire president of the board of the Chicago Children’s Museum, which is planning a controversial move to just east of Millennium Park, said the uproar is “just killing me.'’

But in an interview Wednesday, Pritzker, 45, vowed to continue to press for the Daley Bicentennial Plaza site despite opposition by some neighbors and Ald. Brendan Reilly (42nd). While not all who object to the project are racist, the theme is there, she said.

“The thing that’s sad is the loudest voices — it doesn’t mean the whole community — seem to have that component to them,'’ Pritzker said.

Who are those loud people? You got me.

* More from Plys…

I’m sure there must be some Bicentennial Plaza neighbors who don’t want to mix with anyone of a different background or income level. How could it be otherwise? There isn’t a block in this city where you won’t find people like that. The rest of the park’s neighbors, however, have legitimate concerns about welcoming a museum already drawing about a half million people per year to an area buzzing with traffic - and in the process of adding 15,000 new residents.

* And one more point from Plys’ piece…

I guess it’s easy to demonize the residents of East Randolph and Lakeshore East if you don’t know any. I know several families there besides my brother’s, and they’re all decent people who are not attempting to blockade Grant Park against anyone with less money or darker skin. Let’s give them the consideration due any citizen: consider the merits of their actual arguments, rather than inventing nefarious and non-existent motives to debate instead. […]

Instead, they’ve chosen to throw their lot in with Chicago. They understand that cities are important, that you can’t just leave them behind like an old sweater when one piece starts unraveling. They think cities are worth putting up with smaller living spaces, bad traffic and crime. They are the people who have fueled the recovery and reinvention of downtown Chicago, which is nothing short of a miracle to anyone who remembers when the Loop, South Loop and North Loop were ghost towns after normal business hours.

* Meanwhile, a brief mention in the Sun-Times story yesterday was enough to prompt a resignation…

Patrick Thompson, a nephew of the mayor’s who has represented the museum at community meetings, withdrew from the job to avoid having the proposed move “be delayed or eroded by a tangential issue.'’