Chicago - A message from the station manager

The [Monday] Papers

By Steve Rhodes

“The City of Harvey, whose police and fire non-emergency phone lines were briefly cut for inadvertent nonpayment over the summer, is once again caught in a tangled web of telecommunications torment,” the Tribune-owned Daily Southtown reports.
“Officials said the city has been unable to pay its monthly AT&T bill since October and is being threatened by the company with disconnection if it can’t come up with $50,000 per month to cover its current telecommunications usage and simultaneously chip away at a $700,000 arrearage that has swelled over an indeterminate number of years.”
Here’s the really fucked-up part:

While officials do not dispute the city owes AT&T money, they said they believe the company took advantage of prior administrations by charging for dozens of inoperable telecommunications lines it now says it cannot identify to disconnect.
“I don’t know if those phone lines went back to the previous administration, the administration prior to that, the administration prior to that or how it worked out,” [Mayor Christopher] Clark said. “But we have lines that we don’t use. We have lines that we haven’t used for years. We have lines that, for all intents and purposes, AT&T knows are not being used. But we’re still paying for it.”

That seems like something that could be worked out. Get rid of the unused lines. But . . .
“The city wants to disconnect the lines it does not need – many of which are so antiquated they aren’t even operable – but officials said AT&T representatives say the company can’t identify which lines are unnecessary.”
I don’t get it. I suppose AT&T would know which lines don’t work – or aren’t being used – but how does the city not know that there are lines (telephones?) that don’t work? Are the lines buried, or hidden away somewhere? After all, Harvey is not large; it has about 25,000 people and a City Hall, presumably, commensurate with that population. Is it really that hard to audit the phone lines?

When we went to them initially and said, ‘Please tell us what those lines are, where those lines are to, so we don’t inadvertently disconnect something or disconnect the emergency services,’ they don’t have an answer to that,” Clark said. “We can’t turn off the lines because we don’t want to inadvertently turn off emergency services, but at the same time we have to continue paying for something we’re not using . . .
At one point this fall, Harvey officials said, AT&T engineers examined the city’s telecommunications system and identified 12 lines they said weren’t operable and could safely be disconnected.
When the city cut the lines AT&T had recommended, however, four of them ended up being active radio lines used by the Fire Department, officials said.
As a result, dispatchers were unable to communicate via radio with the Harvey Fire Department for three days until the lines could be reconnected and had to resort to calling individual firefighters on their cellphones to report emergencies, said Davis, the mayor’s chief of staff.

There’s more, so go read the rest, but you know what? AT&T should just go fix the problem. After all, it appears the company logs about $25 billion a year in pretax earnings and pays no income tax. They should cut Harvey a break and do right thing.
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P.S.: I wonder if the mayor has tried tweeting at them? That seems to be the best way to get customer service results these days.
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Rahm Squad
Someone – perhaps out of brother Ari’s stable – wrote a stand-up routine for Rahm Emanuel’s weekend appearance at the (gawd) Gridiron Club winter dinner and the media lapped it up.
As much as Rahm has treated much of the press corps with disdain, he has sourcing arrangements with others. Maybe that explains the affection for him so many in the media continue to exhibit. (See also: Reading Rahm Part 1: The Master Media Manipulator.)
How he is allowed to exist as a credible figure whose status is considered enhanced by his failed mayoralty (and failed humanity) is beyond me, though. To wit:


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New on the Beachwood . . .
Remembering Juice WRLD
The Homewood native was a 21-year-old “supernova and just getting started.
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This Is Why Children’s TV Is So Weird
For example, “if you want to attract a young child’s attention towards an object or character, you have to point all the visual information in a scene towards it or they will struggle to follow the story. That’s why children’s TV shows have big caricatured faces, often with things sticking out of their heads.”
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The Protocols Of The Elders Of The Republican Party
“The answer can be found in the Republican id, where a toxic brew of conspiracy theory, urban legend, photoshopping and comment-board trollery self-organize into an alternate reality. While this alt-reality has only burst into wider public view during the Trump presidency, like the monstrous space alien exploding out of the bodies of the infected scientists in John Carpenter’s The Thing, I was in a position to observe its germination, more than two decades ago.”
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The Beachwood Radio Sports Hour #281: The Bears Are (Not) Back, Baby!
But we get to dream for another week. Plus: The Blackhawks Just Made Fools Of Us; A Farewell To Mick McCall; Fire Lovie Smith!; Club DubPaul; Boylen vs. LaVine; Cole Hamels Will Be Missed; and Zack Wheeler Chooses Phillies Over Guaranteed Rate.
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SportsMonday: Audition Time For The Bears
Face it, they are not going to the playoffs. Time to play the kids.
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Americans Are Still Wrong About Climate Change
Democrats only slightly more knowledgeable than Republicans.
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Confessions Of A Tour Guide Part 1: Busting The Myths Of Chicago Architecture
“That these myths still abound in the Google era is, in my judgement, inexcusable (and believe me, it’s quite a thing to give tours and watch people hit their phones when they don’t believe something). Again, we can entertain and identify the lore with affection but also emphasize what we know to be true. This way we can maintain and even improve our hard-earned reputation as a no-bullshit city well worth visiting.”
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ChicagoReddit

Can we talk about the hidden restaurants underneath oglive from r/chicago


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ChicagoGram

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the banana is free here

A post shared by Quimbys Bookstore (@quimbysbookstore) on


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ChicagoTube
Misanthropy at Reggies on Friday night.

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BeachBook
American Nativity 2019.

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Opioid Manufactures Made Parody Rap Videos To Help Push Products.

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Pfizer CEO Gets 61% Pay Raise – To $27.9 Million – As Drug Prices Continue To Climb.

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How Climate Change May Make The Fight Against Great Lakes Sea Lampreys Costlier.

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Professor: Ojibwe Language At Make-Or-Break Point.

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Kansas City Becomes First Major City With Universal Fare-Free Public Transit.

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The City Known For ‘Sewer Socialists’ Actually Has Great Sewers.

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Ramones Heirs Finally Settle Their Longstanding Trademark Dispute.

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TweetWood
A sampling of the delight and disgust you can find @BeachwoodReport.


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The Beachwood Tippage Line: Amendable.

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Posted on December 9, 2019