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Chicago, Meet Your New City Council
The Reader’s guide to the hacks, geeks, lawyers, and other assorted characters who will serve as aldermen under Mayor Emanuel
By Mick Dumke and Ben Joravsky
Four years ago we looked to the incoming Chicago City Council with great hope and expectation—at long last, there would be a vigilant watchdog to guard us against the most egregious excesses of an all-powerful mayor.
Silly us.
Let’s just say things didn’t turn out as we’d hoped: aside from some modest, occasional steps forward, we witnessed four more years of aldermen rubber-stamping mayoral initiatives—think of the parking meter lease deal, millions of dollars’ worth of barely monitored corporate subsidies, raids of the rainy-day piggy bank, and head-scratching appointments of yes-men, hacks, and misfits to head city agencies.
