Arrest King Daley!

On 08-Sep-05 19:31, Jay Honeck wrote:
This from EAA:

FAA Determines Meigs Closure Illegal, Imposes Maximum Fine
Nearly 2 1/2 years after the fact, the FAA has determined that Mayor Richard
Daley violated federal law when he ordered bulldozers to carve large "X's"
into the runway at Chicago's lakefront jewel, Merrill C. Meigs Field, after
midnight March 30, 2003. As a result, the FAA has levied a $33,000 fine, the
maximum allowed by law, on the city. "This vindicates what we've said all
along," said Steve Whitney, president of the Friends of Meigs Field. "Mayor
Daley's midnight massacre of Meigs was illegal. Good government doesn't
happen in the secret of night." The group calls on Daley himself to pay the
fine. "The Mayor of Chicago knew when he did this that it was illegal and
would incur fines," said Whitney. "Taxpayers should be outraged if they are
made to pay for such blatant abuse of power." The FAA is also investigating
whether the city improperly used over $2.8 million in restricted federal
aviation funds designated for airport improvement. According to documents
filed by the City of Chicago in December, $2,887,462 in airport funds was
spent to demolish Meigs and make way for a nature park. If found in
violation, the city may incur additional fines of $8 million or more. For
more information, visit www.friendsofmeigs.org.

Let's hope Daley ends up behind bars -- or in the looney bin -- where he
belongs.

We all can hope, but hope is all we will have about that! He is
like the Teflon-Don, he will walk. I would rather hope that they
would be forced to... repair the airport!! Yeahh..

A few of images which I made during our landing in Meigs made
it to a movie about GA and preservation of airports in the US:

http://onesixright.com/

Fantastic High-definition flight scenes and a great documentary!

One segment of the movie was devoted to a series of closed
airports, especially the story of Meigs was told in greater
detail. I assumed that the airport will be "frozen" in its
damaged condition. But in this movie I saw for the first
time that they removed the entire injured runway and the
all buildings, and... run of out money! The Island is for
the birds now. Shocking.

The movie will not be easy to be seen in theaters. We were
invited to the premiere in Hollywood, Bary Shiff spoke
laudatio and the entire management of Cessna was also
present:

http://www.pbase.com/thh/2005_06_25_16r_premiere

900 people came and AOPA Pilot magazine reported about its
making. Even if the airport was lost, the outcry about this
story is great and might help in preserving other airports.

Thomas

ThomasH wrote:

Shocking.

Sarcasm? Eventually, it'll be a "problem". Then the local bosses will
"solve" this problem by bringing in some commercial interest (ie. a
casino).

That the problem was created by the boss boss will be lost in the midst of
time (ie. a week or so back for Chicago voters).

- Andrew