Phil Boyer lashes out at politicians (General Aviation)

Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
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From an email from AOPA (article linked in quote, emphasis mine):

Actually there was that one teenaged kid in Florida who killed himself by crashing a Cessna into a building, who apparently was inspired by the 9/11 attacks. Was that a terrorist attack, or just a suicide? Anyway…

In the article Boyer calls politicians on ‘pandering to uninformed public fears’. Mayor Daley illegally bulldozed Meigs Field. Was he really concerned about preventing terrorist attacks? No. He’s had a hard-on for that property forever. Boyer mentions ‘other politicians’ in his article who have spouted off on the ‘“danger” of light aircraft’, but he doesn’t name them. But I can think of a few examples of politicians pandering to public fears to further their agendas. We really need to call shenanigans on politicians who use the crisis du jour to further their own political careers or to line their own pockets, instead of working for the public good.

Go get 'em, Bill. :slight_smile:

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I’m with ya. The Cory Lidle crash, while providing some great video and jumping some hearts into throats, was no more threatening to the city than the average house fire. Two people died, and a bunch of stuff was damaged, that’s it.

GA aircraft are just too damn small to do any serious damage, they can’t carry the explosives a truck can carry. Bigger planes start to cost BIG bucks, money “better” spent on recruiting and truck bombs, at least from a terrorist perspective.

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Comments on Mr. Boyer’s editorial:

http://blogs.usatoday.com/oped/2006/10/post_12.html#comments

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And of course, I meant 'Go get ‘em Phil.’

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Amen.

I’ve been using a similar line about rental trucks for years. Why would anyone bent on doing harm opt for a small plane when a truck is easier to get, less conspicuous, easier to operate, and carries a hell of a bigger load?

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And has actually been used twice in terror attacks, which is twice as often as light planes have.

Can any ChiDopers shed light on why Daley hates airplanes (or is it airplane owners and operators, or just people he thinks are rich) so passionately?

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I’ve heard that Daley wanted to open the lakefront to everyone, rather than just the ‘elite’. I’ve also heard that he may be in cahoots with developers. Only AFAIK he only plans to put up a park, and I don’t see how developers would benefit from that. It could be (just a theory) that he believes most people believe that pilots are all a bunch of rich elitists and he’s playing to his political base so he can stay in power.

I’m not from the area, so I don’t know. Broomstick, are you out there?

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Which is why Millennium Park is periodically closed for private (corporate and/or very rich) parties, the public not allowed. Uh-huh. :rolleyes: Daley is actually quite chummy with the elite and wealthy.

Concrete suppliers, actually. Any Daley development must include lots and lots and lots of concrete. No kidding.

>snort< Around here, it’s actually more commonly believed the “park” was an excuse to get rid of the airport to make way for a casino.

An outsider’s view. Daley doesn’t give a damn about his “political base”, at least not the working folk, although obviously he has no problem with manipulating them or throwing them the occassional (small) bone.

Here’s my take on it:

Daley never had any fondness for aviation in general. Why, I dunno. He tolerates O’Hare and Midway because they make MONEY for the city, tax revenue City Hall gets to play with. (Never underestimate his greed for tax revenue - he has plans to bulldoze most of Bensenville and parts of other nearby suburbs to make a larger, more profitable O’Hare).

Back in the 1980’s, Daley wanted Northerly Island for some reason or other, nobody I know is entirely clear for what. The casino theory enjoys a lot of support. There is also the fact that when Daley took office the landing and service fees at Meigs started going up and up, but instead of generating more revenue folks just started landing elsewhere, except for the corporate big wigs so from his viewpoint it wasn’t working out because he - that is, the city - wasn’t collecting enough money from it. There is also the political angle, in that when the governor - at the time a Republican with Daley being a Democrat - came to Chicago he invariably landed and took off from Meigs, so closing it was a way of inconveniencing the political opposition. Mrs. Daley also doesn’t like anything that smells of industry - she’s been a major motive force behind planting trees and landscaping and what not, and attempts to hide things like commuter trains and pretty up bus stops and get rid of sidewalk newstands - and is no small influence at getting rid of those “dirty” flying machines “contaminating” the landscape and lake with various petrochemicals and exhaust.

But there was one trigger that made it all personal with Da Mayor.

Back about 20 years ago Daley closed Meigs field for the first time. It was at the height of his politcal power, he wanted the land for something else, he pretty much got buy-in from some of the corporate and wealthy elite who could afford to go to, say, Midway for their aviation needs, and he closed Meigs for the first time.

He was caught totally flat-footed by the reaction.

Two things - he found out that even a lot of people who didn’t fly wanted a little airport on the lakefront rather than more parkland. Chicago’s lakefront is almost entirely park, but there was only one “little airport”. And it was quite accessible, with viewing areas for the public and down among the museums. It never occured to Da Mayor that there are some people who like to just watch little airplanes fly. He also discovered that the opposition to the closure didn’t come from the elite (who he is actually quite chummy with) but rather the unwashed masses. And that just couldn’t be allowed - you can’t have the working stiffs making decisions or influencing policy.

Worse yet, you never say “no” to Da Mayor of Chicago.

Daley is a vindictive son of a bitch, make no mistake about it. Worse yet, he was forced to re-open Meigs. Because of the “little people” (and the Feds, who have rules about taking money for airport development then shutting the airfields). After that, it became very personal for him. He was going to show those damn pilots who was boss.

Daley spent about 15 years figuring out how to close Meigs and make it stick. He had the city reimburse the Feds millions of dolllars in airport development funds to eliminate that legal encumbrance (closing Meigs has cost Chicago tens of millions of dollars if you include that money). He spent a decade and half engineering the destruction of a little airport that, at one time, actually brought money into the city. This is not a guy who forgives and forgets.

And when he did bulldoze it - it is a fact that city employees had been sent to Meigs daily to observe who was - and wasn’t - there. The runway was bulldozed on a night when there were no corporate planes, so as not to offend anyone with money or political influence, just “little people”. The airplanes trapped there? Daley said they’d probably have to be hauled away as scrap since no planes were ever taking off from there again (he was not happy when the FAA permitted exactly that) and, rumor had it, a Daley friend already had the contract to remove the “vehicles”. Partly, it was political manuvering but it was also to punish the “little people” who dared to defy Da Mayor.

Now he wants little airplanes banned from fly over the city limits of Chicago. It’s a control issue, and it’s more of his petty vindictiveness. He hates the fact that he was defied, that he can’t control pilots/small planes, and he doesn’t have absolute control over “his” skies.