Mike Klonsky's SmallTalk Blog: Good riddance

Mike Klonsky's SmallTalk Blog: Good riddance

Good riddance

by Mike Klonsky

It seems like everyone is feigning surprise over Daley's "time to move on" announcement yesterday. Not me. The writing was on the wall back in July whenda mayor's poll numbers dropped down into the 30s. And why not? Daley's botched attempt to land the Olympic Games caused havoc and scandal in the ranks of his speculating business patrons--possibly even leading to the suicide of his real estate-speculating school board president, Michael Scott. His giant privatization yard sale of everything not nailed down, from the Skyway, to the schools, even the city's parking spaces, has left this once-proud city, on the brink and mortgaged up to its eyeballs with federal investigators once again, sniffing around City Hall.

Daley was the first of the big-city mayors to take control of the public schools, which he then turned into another wing of his patronage machine. He reshaped