Karl Klockars

Can't beat it - might as well join it.

Every few months I put together some smartass stretch of words all about “if I were alderman” and “when I become alderman” and so on.  And it’s always ha-ha funny jokey stuff like “ban football” and “put other stuff in Grant Park” and “no eminent domain ’round here” and stuff like that.  So I decided – let’s put money where mouths are.  What would I really do if I were alderman?

For argument’s sake, let’s say that I take over the 47th Ward, where I live.  It’s the one I see on a daily basis, and therefore have a few ideas to very simply improve the place.  Also – let’s just imagine that being an alderman is a good way to prompt other elected officials to do things, because hell if I know if any of these ideas would actually be actionable as alderman.  (Alliteration!)  So I suppose my first act as imaginary alderman would be to figure out exactly what the legal boundaries of alderman-ism involves.  This is turning into a tongue twister very swiftly.  She sells sea shells.

Okay – here’s my proposals.  Tell me if I’m crazy or not.

I work in radio. $66k would be a freaking Fortune.

First Order of Business: Cut my salary by a third.  I don’t need $100k to do a lot of handshaking.  I’m not coming from the small-business sector where I make tons of profit from selling baseball cards or whatever it is small business people do.  I make jack shit, so living on less than your average alderman’s salary would be fine with me.  I’ll take $66k, and use the $33k somewhere else.

Plus, I can spend my money at the Aldi at Montrose & Western and the Harvestime at Talman and Lawrence.  Do you have any idea of how many frozen blocks of ground beef and how much cheap produce you can get at those places respectively?  I’ll be a fat alderman quick – just by the increase in my meager food budget.

Second Order of Business: Every year there are two ridiculously gargantuan street festivals at Western and Lincoln.  Just obscenely overpopulated.  One is Mayfest, the other one is German American Fest – an Oktoberfest of sorts.  And they’re the exact same freaking thing.  For the sake of the residents of the ward, I will make sure that the organizers book different bands other than that U2 cover band that plays everywhere, and that hair-metal parody group that plays the second night of every festival in Chicago.

Also – better beer.  And more porto-potties.  Who doesn’t like porto-potties?  And firebreathers.  Maybe.

Third Order of Business: Propose that we change the name of a major expressway to “The Daley.”  Remember when I said I wasn’t going to be ha-ha-jokey-laughy in this particular screed?  Yeah – I’m serious on this one.  The Daley.  Considering that by the time I get elected, Hizzoner will be on his 83rd term or something and will be getting pretty old.  So I’ll be able to garner some positive for just a few months from him proper.

"Outbound on The Daley..." Sounds good, doesn't it?

But more importantly, all ass-kissing aside:  In the history of the great city of Chicago, no two men have been more influential in the bringing of an old cow town into the future, into a metropolis and a world class city.  In addition, naming a freeway “The Daley” would enable citizenry to say that they’re “taking the Daley” as opposed to the Daley taking them.

Also, I’d like to think that it would be the Eisenhower that gets renamed, so suburbanites can take the Daley right into the heart of the city.  Then the euphamism “doing the Daley” would become Chicagoan-ese for going downtown.  It’s worth a shot, says alderman-version-of-me.

Fourth Order of Business: At the intersection of Leland, Western and Lincoln, traffic always gets backed up by pedestrians.  Why no one has bothered to set up an overpass kind of walkway for people to cross the street at any time is beyond me.

The Brown Line goes over the street right there so no “how tall should it be” study would need to be done, and I’m sure there’s a public art group out there somewhere (wink, wink) that would be able to do wonders with the long ramps that ADA compliance would require.  Plus, it’d be a great place to take pictures.  Not that the Brown Line stop isn’t – but…you know.  I know that this isn’t groundbreaking legislation, but dammit, it’s a start.  The ward already has a lot of parks and stuff, so I’ll just take some of that cash and do something else with it.  Cut the lawns a little less or something.

Elections have been won by snow - why not leaves?

Further Business: Cut costs and lower spending, so on and so forth.  Make sure streets are clean and snow is plowed.  Oh, and I’ll wear a bright T-shirt heralding my alderman-ship while I go around and clean out the drains and sewers of dead leaves every fall.  Every year there’s at least one huge storm that floods the streets because no one can be bothered to get out and clean ‘em their selves.  Let the city do that, we all say.  Well, I’ll be the city – I’ll take care of it.  I don’t mind yardwork.  I’ll help clean up the river, too.  By kayak or canoe, if need be.

Oh, and if you want a short insight into the race for alderman, I’ve decided that I’m going to use the line “somebody nobody sent,” playing off the old Chicagoist “we don’t want nobody nobody sent” line of the good ol’ Machine days.  I can’t believe no one has used this one yet, and if no one uses it in the next couple decades, maybe it’ll still be around for me to use.  (Maybe I shouldn’t say anything about it then, huh?)  See you at City Hall.