Mistakes? Really?

Shortshanks - Master of Deflection:

• Mayor Richard Daley said today his administration is trying to figure out why mistakes were made in the removal of the winter's first snowfall this week.

  "There are some complaints," the mayor said at a news conference on snow removal. "We're taking those complaints very seriously. Why is it the rest of the block is OK but that little corner is not? Like anything else, you try to find out, 'Did they skip it?' That's what we're trying to figure out, and we will."

  In a city where a mayor once lost re-election largely due to a poor response to a major snowstorm, Daley has taken the potentially risky step of cutting back on snow removal efforts due to the city's budget crunch. The city's Streets and Sanitation Department has taken to sending out e-mails to the media showing how much each round of snow removal costs.

Baffle them with bullshit. Here's a telling comment though:

• He shrugged off a warning from Ald Richard Mell (33rd), who predicted that uncharacteristically weak snow plowing efforts would trigger accidents and lawsuits.

  "Everybody sues the city," Daley said.

How true - everybody DOES sue the City. What's even more telling is this Reader article where it seems everybody who sues the City, wins:

• Scores of suits have been filed against other city departments, and through just the first six months of the year Chicago was already on the hook for some $80 million in settlements and court judgments. That’s far more than in any recent year in Chicago—up from about $34 million in 2005. And it doesn’t even include the $12 million spent to settle hundreds of suits related to the Shakman consent decrees, a series of federal court orders banning patronage hiring and firing, or the $11 million it took to settle a dispute with Millennium Park contractors—both paid in 2008 after years of litigation. That’s a total of more than $100 million to close lawsuits from January through June.

The arrogance of unchecked power.