John Pope and Mayor Rahm.
Who didn’t know that former tenth ward alderman John Pope was a Machine hack?
And where do Machine hacks go after they are thrown out of office by the voters.
The Chicago Water Department.
Ah, the Chicago Water Department.
Usually it is referred to by its more formal name: The scandal-ridden Chicago Water Department.
Remember back in 2005 when a bunch of water department employees were arrested for trafficking in Colombian heroin?
And the hired-truck scandal?
That was a big one in the final days of the Richie Daley administration.
The Hired Truck Program involved hiring private trucks to do city work. An investigation by the Chicago Sun-Times revealed that some participating companies were being paid for doing little or no work, had mob connections, or were tied to city employees. Truck owners had paid bribes in order to get into the program.
The scandal even had a mob character named Nick “The Stick” LoCoco.
Back to ex-alderman, now newly hired Water Department Commissioner at $117,000 a year, John Pope
What does he know about water?
Nothing.
I once walked into a smoke shop on Kedzie. It was back when I still smoked and I needed a pack of Marlboro. When I walked in I could hear phones ringing in the back of the store and there were no cigarettes in the front. “A pack of Marlboro,” I said. “We don’t sell no cigarettes here,” the guy said.
I had clearly mistaken a mob numbers location for a smoke shop.
Am I making a point about ex-tenth ward alderman John Pope’s expertise in water management?
Yes.
Fred Klonsky 
Come on Fred, what’s to know. It comes out of a faucet, you wash in it and you flush it.
Don’t need no MBA for this job.
Exactly what is the job description for a commissioner of water?
Ah yeah….remember back in the old days when I was in construction crews installing new water mains. We would use 2 or 3 hired trucks for hauling debris and the other 6 trucks would sit at the end of the street 8 hours a day doing nothing. Used to drive the Foreman nuts.
And Nick “The Stick” LoCoco fell off a horse and was killed. Accident!……Yeah Right.
It’s kind of like the time when Bush appointed Michael Brown as the head of FEMA. Prior to the FEMA appointment, Michael Brown was noted for being the head of an Arabian Horse Association. Brown didn’t last long on the job. Bush and Rahm seem to have a lot in common. Remember the famous line, “Brownie, you’re doing a heck of a job” ?
JR–So interesting that you’re bringing this up at a time very close to the 10th anniversary of Hurricane Katrina. In ’79-’80, had to work w/FEMA as a VISTA, & knew, then, that they could barely handle any situation, much less one of catastrophic proportions.
And now–10 years later, sure that “Brownie” is back to his luxurious life & doing well, thank you very much, while New Orleans mourns the loss of life that never, ever should have happened in a country such as ours.
Not to mention all the collateral damage–the still untouched, destroyed parts of the city and the massive, disastrous, failed privatization of NOLA schools (thanks–in no small part–to our local carpetbaggers, Arne & Paul). Interestingly enough, the only one who has been prosecuted, indicted & sentenced to prison for criminal activity was former NO mayor Nagin.
John Pope is another puppet in a long line of puppets at the Water Dept. None of them have a clue. Sometimes some of these drones would show up on jobs with their brand new shiny white helmets and ask stupid questions. I remember one asked me onetime what pipe in the ground supplied the hot water…..Idiot.
He couldn’t even manage a water closet, which is where Rahm and his ilk belong.
His ward had some lakefront parts… Does anyone have a photo of him tiptoeing into Lake Michigan? Qualifications enough in chicago…
Speaking of the water department and city and CPS, I heard at one time that CPS owned the Midway airport property, and the city operated Midway and paid CPS many millions of dollars in rent. The city gave CPS a “deal” where CPS gave the city Midway, and the city gave CPS free water forever. Then I heard there was an uproar about “why is CPS getting free water” and that the deal was ended. Then I heard the city tried to privatize the airport in some shady deal that fell through. The city thought the airport was worth a billion or two, yet CPS gave it up for a few buckets of free water, and they don’t even get that anymore.
These are just things I heard. Did anyone else ever hear any of that? Does the city bill CPS for water? If they do, then I would think the city owes CPS a lot of money for the airport, money CPS could use for things like paying teachers and the pension contributions.
And to you, Anon, et. al, did you hear/see on last night’s news about all the grandiose plans to “expand” & “improve” Midway? (Just like–& we were only informed of this the day BEFORE {Page 5 easy-to-miss article in the Trib., & a short announcement on the 10 PM news}–the cheapest O’Hare Parking Lot–F–was shut down, causing many who did NOT know to have to scramble to find parking–probably having to go to the more expen$ive lot$, so they could make their flights–was this not determined at LEAST a week earlier?! &, this, too, is for the purpose of “improving” the airport.)
More like another example of ka-ching for someone. Certainly not to “improve” anything for those of us on the ground (pun intended!).
I believe free garbage collection was part of the deal.The good part is the parochial schools never paid for water or garbage.
By the way you are supposed to have a engineering degree to qualify for such job. I doubt Pope has this. But of course if you are a politician these things don’t matter.
The “Powers that be” are all just scum of the earth!!!!!
Right on, anon.