For most north-side residents, the decision to dump several hundred tons of concrete behind the city’s largest public high school ranks among the stupidest ideas to come out of City Hall in a long time. To sum up, last month the Daley administration began allowing an influential out-of-town contractor to dump concrete in a lot a few feet behind Lane Tech’s running track and football stadium and across the street from Clark Park, a strip of grass and trees that winds along the North Branch of the Chicago River. If the contractor gets his way, the concrete will be ground into gravel in a contraption that’s already on-site, a “jaw crusher.”
On March 2 Tribune reporter Patrick Reardon came to the rescue with a moving account of the slaughter of the trees, and by day’s end several TV stations were airing footage of buzzing saws and falling trees. Suddenly the story was too hot for Mayor Daley’s flak catchers to ignore. “When it was just Wulkowicz, it wasn’t a problem,” says a City Hall staffer. “But now it was. We didn’t want Daley to look like he didn’t care about trees.”
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On March 5 Plote began dumping concrete on the site without a permit. When Henderson found out he drove to the site and demanded that they stop. “They told me to get lost,” says Henderson. “I told them that I was the commissioner, and they said that they had the aldermen’s permission.” Henderson returned with five squad cars, but the work crew still defied him. “They kept saying something about the aldermen. Finally one of the cops says, ‘You don’t get it, buddy. He’s the commissioner, and you don’t have the permit.’ Then they stopped.”
Wulkowicz wanted Henderson to force Plote to do its recycling in Elgin. “Henry said the trucks driving back and forth would create too much pollution,” says Wulkowicz. “Great! Let the exhaust accumulate in Chicago. Plote dumps its crap, leaves hacking kids, filthy streets, an unusable park–and goes back to Elgin.”
About two hours later the opponents finally got their chance. “The ZBA chairman [Joseph Spingola] said, ‘Who’s your spokesman?’” says Donahue. “We looked at each other. Someone said, ‘We have no spokesman.’ Spingola said, ‘You’re out of order.’ The guy said, ‘But we’ve been waiting for four hours. We all want to speak.’ Spingola said, ‘I told you, you’re out of order.’”
Schulter completed his flip-flop, saying, “Under no circumstance will I find this an acceptable activity. The young people should not have to tackle an obstacle of toxic diesel fumes on their way to school.” Later he denied that he’d ever encouraged the project. “One might say, ‘Well, Gene, why didn’t you make a statement at the Zoning Board of Appeals?’ And the reason I didn’t do that is that I felt that no matter what I might say it would fall on deaf ears.” (Mell would not return phone calls.)
