* Rahm Emanuel’s latest TV ad has a good message, but all that footage of people in short sleeves seems way out of place right now. Rate it…
Script…
RAHM: City government is not an employment agency. It is delivering a service to the residents and the taxpayers of the city. I want that mindset to be different. We’re going to deliver a service to the taxpayers. We’re going to get them the best price for what they pay for, whether that’s protecting a street, cleaning a street, or plowing a street. That means making sure everybody that works for the city government knows that they’re actually a public servant representing and helping the people that pay them.
* Carol Moseley Braun still doesn’t have enough money to put an ad on TV, so she’s posting Internet videos. Here’s her latest…
* Gery Chico’s latest Internet video is entitled “Chicago businesses say NO to Rahm Tax.” Have a look…
* DJ Freddie Mac and The Blue State Cowboys have a new video spoofing Rahm Emanuel. Too Big to Fail…
You wanna play ball, put a check in the mail
I got Hollywood cash; I’m too big to fail
* Our last video has nothing to do with politics. Uptown Coyote…
* Walter Jacobson touches on something that’s been glossed over in the coverage of the Lake Shore Drive outrage: Class…
I know we don’t like inconvenience. Especially, Lake Shore Drivers don’t like it, and Gold Coasters and Lincoln Parkers are unaccustomed to inconvenience. But we were all told in advance to prepare for the blizzard. […]
The storm ended yesterday, and already today 900 cars on the drive are unstuck; the expressways to the suburbs are clean, the trains and buses are running; the plows are clearing the streets.
Not bad after 2 feet of snow and 50 mph winds. Not bad at all.
Hard to argue with that.
* WTTW’s Elizabeth Brackett posted a video which included footage of cars stranded on South Shore Drive…
Media coverage of the public outrage was almost purely focused on drivers stranded on the north end of the Drive.
Officials in Cook, DuPage and Lake counties were investigating several possible weather-related fatalities — mostly from shoveling — bringing to at least 11 the number of deaths tied to this week’s blizzard and cold weather.
DuPage County Coroner Pete Siekmann said his deputies assisted in four death investigations that are believed to be linked to shoveling the approximately 20-inch snowfall.
Officials in Mount Prospect are awaiting autopsy results for a man who died late Wednesday after shoveling snow from neighbors’ driveways. Police said John Soboda, of the 600 block of East Prospect Avenue, was found dead in his car. Soboda had spent Wednesday pushing neighbors’ cars and helping them clear snow, his wife, Pamela, told police.
In Lake County, the death of a Mundelein woman is being investigated as a possible exposure death. Susan Smith, 57, of the 18000 block of Meadow Lane Road, was found Wednesday in her car in a Lake Zurich church parking lot about 24 hours after she went missing, according to Lake County Coroner Richard Keller.
* Sometimes, you can’t trust your own eyeballs. ABC7’s I-Team found that out the hard way when they drove by the homes of several aldermen and discovered their streets had been cleaned. After the report aired, some irate aldermen called up to complain. An addendum was posted online…
Alderman James Balcer said he gets no special treatment, that neighbors worked on his street, and his alley was plowed by a resident who has nearby rental properties.
Alderman Dick Mell says neighbors on his street have always pitched in together to dig out with no preference from the city.
Alderman Leslie Hairston says she got no special treatment and was busy Thursday helping constituents on her own.
Alderman Margaret Laurino lives in Sauganash and says a community association pays for its own snow removal.
* Tired of waiting on city, neighbors work to clear Bucktown street
* Roof of historic church collapses after storm: It was one of the few structures to survive the Chicago fire, temporarily housing government workers during reconstruction of their offices in 1871.
* Costs are piling up around the Chicago area: The early blizzard price tag for Joliet is estimated to be about $450,000 — almost eight times more than a typical snow event… As of noon Thursday, about 25 percent of [Naperville’s] 1,200 residential cul-de-sacs remained unplowed, officials said.
* Naperville: ‘It’s taking us significantly longer to finish the job’
