Well... many actually... but specific to the picture of Meigs field.
The required demolition notice was not given to the
Federal Aviation Administration (
FAA) or the owners of airplanes tied down at the field, and as a result sixteen planes were left stranded at an airport with no operating runway, and an inbound flight had to be diverted by Air Traffic Control, because of equipment scattered on the runway. The stranded aircraft were later allowed to depart from Meigs' 3,000-foot (910 m)
taxiway.
[13]
"To do this any other way would have been needlessly contentious," Daley explained at a news conference Monday morning, March 31.
[14] Mayor Daley defended his actions, described as "appalling" by
general aviation interest groups, by claiming it would save the City of Chicago the effort of further court battles before the airport could close. He claimed that safety concerns required the closure, due to the post-
September 11 risk of terrorist-controlled aircraft attacking the downtown waterfront near Meigs Field.
[15]
"The issue is Daley's increasingly authoritarian style that brooks no disagreements, legal challenges, negotiations, compromise or any of that messy give-and-take normally associated with democratic government," the
Chicago Tribune editorialized.
[16][17] "The signature act of Richard Daley's 22 years in office was the midnight bulldozing of Meigs Field," according to
Chicago Tribune columnist
Eric Zorn.
[18] "He ruined Meigs because he wanted to, because he could," columnist
John Kass wrote of Daley in the
Chicago Tribune.
[19]
