Chicago Sun Times: City of Chicago still waiting for Obama to pay costs of “Party in the Park”
Posted in Politics with tags Chicago, Gary Sandberg, obama on February 21, 2009 by Diane VespaOver 90 days after Obama’s huge Election Day evening celebration “Party in the Park”, the cash strapped City of Chicago is holding on to the hope that the Obama camp will reimburse them the cost of same. From the Chicago Sun-Times:
Chicago has yet to recoup the $1.74 million cost of President Obama’s victory celebration in Grant Park — despite a burgeoning $50.5 million budget shortfall that threatens more layoffs and union concessions.“The Democratic National Committee has not yet paid us,” Peter Scales, a spokesman for the city’s Office of Budget and Management, said Thursday after questions from the Chicago Sun-Times. “We’re reaching out to them this week.”
In late October, Mayor Daley assured that the cash-flush Obama campaign would reimburse the city for every penny spent on the rally. “We have a financial crisis,” he said at the time. “The City of Chicago could not afford $2 million on this because we’re gonna be laying off people, cutting back. That [cost] would really be unfortunate. . . . It’s a huge cost to the City of Chicago. “This is not a presidential visit. . . . This is a political event, and they’ve agreed to pay for all those services — all the expenses of that. … It’s costly, but they raised quite a bit of money. There’s no [shortage] of money in that campaign.”
Maybe there is a good reason the Obama camp hasn’t paid their bills. Although I’m sure that people that haven’t paid their heat bills and mortgages for over 90 days might have good reasons too. The outcome for them, however, will be a foreclosed home with frozen pipes.
In any event, wait until Gary Sandberg gets hold of this. He is going to go ballistic!
