Mayor Richard M. Daley alleged today that media coverage of the debate over Wal-Mart’s plans for more stores in Chicago is warped by the fact that most journalists live in the suburbs, where Wal-Mart long has operated many stores.
The company’s proposal for its second store in Chicago, on the South Side, is stalled in a City Council committee, much to the mayor’s chagrin.
“If suburban areas have it, why can’t we have it in the black and Hispanic communities?” the mayor told reporters during a news conference in his office. “You never question it in the suburban areas? Why don’t you question it? Ask the same questions as hard as you ask me. You don’t. You accept it there because most of you live in the suburbs, right? Most of you live in the suburbs, so you don’t question that. But you will question it here in the city of Chicago. ‘Never question it where I live.’ Can I ask you a question? Why? Why is that?”
With labors unions calling on Wal-Mart to guarantee better wages, the company and its allies at City Hall have been unable to muster the votes for the new South Side store. A scheduled vote of the council’s Zoning Committee had been scheduled for June 3 but was canceled the day before the meeting.
The mayor recently met with Wal-Mart officials during a trip last week to the U.S. Conference of Mayors. And Wal-Mart also took the opportunity to present an environmental award to Daley, who never misses a chance to tout his “green initiatives.”
Daley and the mayor of North Little Rock, Ark., were recipients of the 2010 Mayors’ Climate Protection Awards, sponsored by the mayors’ organization and Wal-Mart. Evanston was one of five recipients of “small city honorable mention” in the environment awards announced Friday.
Wal-Mart Stores Inc. is headquartered in Bentonville, Ark.
“We are proud to honor these cities and their mayors for their leadership and the innovative ways they are reducing greenhouse gas emissions and improving the quality of life in their communities,” Matt Kistler, Wal-Mart’s senior vice president for sustainability, said in a statement.
The statement cited the city’s Climate Action Plan, which Daley announced in 2008. The plan calls for cutting carbon dioxide output across Chicago within 12 years, but the Chicago Tribune reported in 2007 that the city’s own emissions of greenhouse gases had soared after the mayor pledged in 2001 to curb pollution.
The mayor’s green claims also have been offset greatly by the decision to stall the expansion of curbside recycling, which was supposed to replace Daley’s failed blue bag resident recycling program in every ward in the city by next year. The new recycling approach has been far more successful than the blue bag program in the parts of the city where it was adopted before Daley halted expansion, citing budgetary constraints.
Collecting recycling separately from other garbage long has been standard practice in almost every other major U.S. city and the Chicago suburbs.
and you take daley at his word about reporters living in the burbs?
it’s not even true.