Mayor Daley said Tuesday night that the parking meter handover was implemented poorly, but he skipped the frank apology he had prepared in a written copy of his speech.
According to a draft of his speech, Daley planned to say "I'll be the first to admit that we totally screwed up the way it was implemented. I want us to do better -- and we will."
What he said instead: "the implementation was not good at all from the city's side."
Oh. Really. Ya think?
Daley made the remarks at the South Shore Cultural Center during the first of a series of meetings he holds every year to announce the city budget.
The Big Swingin' D's made similar concessions about the parking meters before. Back in May, four months and hundreds of complaints after the handover, Daley said the meters should have been transferred to the contractor, LAZ Parking, more gradually.
Over the course of the evening, Daley fielded several questions about the Olympics and crime as well.
Several attendees said that the crime problem was being ignored. One attendee said that bringing the Olympics to Chicago would "be an embarassment for the United States."
Politics
Queen Sister, who heads a community group called It Takes A Village in the mostly black Roseland neighborhood, said the Olympic bid shouldn't be a higher priority than problems in her neighborhood.
"You talk about bringing forth the Olympics, a multi-cultural event, when in the city African culture and black pride is being denied," she said, according to the Trib.
