Daley Talks Baseball, Not Budget

Mayor Daley took media questions following Wednesday's City Council meeting. Asked if he is worried about legal challenges to the O'Hare Expansion Project, Daley insisted he is not. What is he worried about?

"Well, I'm worried about the Sox," the mayor said. "I mean, you worry about the Sox, losing two games yesterday."

And the Cubs? "The Cubs have a good team. You know, they play small ball. They're in a drought now, but look at their record. They've done a tremendous job all year. We've been up and down, the Sox. This is not good."

Are the Cubs going to choke again? "No, I don't think so."

Another reporter tried to break in: "Alderman Suarez wants to--"

But Daley wasn't done. "Because they've been playing smart ball--good pitching, hitting, and defense. I mean, they're not hitting the home runs. They're hitting singles and doubles and they're scoring."

But the mayor had far less to say about city's predicted $400 million budget deficit, the Reader's Mick Dumke reports.

I

n August budget officials predicted Chicago's deficit would grow to hundreds of millions of dollars by the end of next year and vowed to keep every option for confronting it on the table. Aldermen say they've only been told to expect layoffs as well as delays or cancellations of their menu items--the alley repaving, traffic light installations, and other small capital projects they select on their own. They obviously aren't happy about either possibility, since they expect the layoffs to delay service delivery and the postponements to reduce opportunities for impressing voters. One is even murmuring about asking Mayor Daley to cut some of his own beloved programs, like flower planting.

So far, though, city officials haven't said what they intend to do, and while the mayor shared lots of ideas about lots of issues at his press conference, he didn't say squat about dealing with the budget shortfall.