By David Rutter
1. Occupy Detroit, WTF?
Maybe this is a subtle sign that things are returning to dismal normalcy.
Or maybe it shows that workers won’t take what seems like a good deal because of Ford CEO Alan Mulally’s $26.5 million pay package.
By the way, Ford is making a new Robocop police interceptor next year which might require fleeing felons to counter with rocket sleds.
2. Sue, WTF?
Everybody is fat, even dinosaurs.
3. Rahm’s budget, WTF?
The mayor’s squeezing-blood-from-a-rock budget could have been even tighter without another parting gift from Hizzoner Daley. The trash collection system in Chicago costs taxpayers about $100 million more every year than it should because union contracts call for 3.25 city workers per truck (the quarter percentage is the cost of one supervisor for every four trucks). That concession was granted contractually to unions though 2016 to make sure there were no labor upheavals during Daley’s Olympics. Let the Games begin. Rio is on its own.
As one Teamster acknowledged, no one who works for Chicago city government actually works an eight-hour day.
And Richie Daley? He’s the gift that keeps on taking.
4. Rahm’s budget, Part Dos, WTF?
There are several ways to look at a city budget that attempts to close a $600 million deficit. In one case, it’s a lousy deal for Chicagoans who must pay more for less. In the other, to which WTF subscribes, how much were Chicagoans paying for simple, lousy management? If you can really cut $300 million with tighter work rules and better fiscal limits, doesn’t that mean you were wasting the $300 million in the first place?
5: Metra, WTF?
Who would have thought that sticking poorer neighborhoods with higher Metra ticket prices than everybody else would make them nail-chewing mad?
This is at least the third time this year that Metra has been forced to choke on price hikes or service cuts it couldn’t make customers swallow without loud screams of protest.
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Comments welcome.
Posted on October 13, 2011