Here’s a way for Rahm Emanuel to fulfill two of his campaign promises, cutting the budget and putting more cops on the street: no bodyguards outside Chicago. Once you cross the city limits, you’re on your own, pal.
That goes for former Mayor Richard M. Daley and Ald. Edward Burke, too. The police department spent $304,000 to protect a pair of fossils who would be better tended by archaeologists from The Field Museum. The city won’t reveal how much it spent on Emanuel’s security, or how many cops it assigned to him, but documents show Emanuel has traveled with bodyguards at least three times to Washington, D.C., and an additional three times to Union Pier, Mich. The travel costs added up to $2,240.
Emanuel has homes in both Washington and Union Pier, so we taxpayers are paying for his getaways. The mayor is more expensive to us because he’s wealthy enough to afford three homes. If Emanuel can afford all that real estate, he can afford to pay for his own private security when he wants to leave town for the weekend. We’ll save money, and the cops who protect him will be here in the city, protecting Chicagoans. Which is what they’re sworn to do. If Emanuel is so frail that he feels unsafe in a dinkwater resort town like Union Pier, he should take karate lessons, or send away for a Charles Atlas bodybuilding course.
If we’d elected Miguel del Valle, we’d be saving a lot of money, because del Valle spends the weekends hanging around his one and only house in Belmont-Cragin. Better yet, we should have elected Chuck Norris mayor. Mayor Chuck Norris wouldn’t need bodyguards to protect him. We’d need bodyguards to protect us from Mayor Chuck Norris.
