City Has Yet To Recover From Controversial Loss

It was two years ago this week that Chicago Mayor Richard Daley sent the bulldozers into Miegs Field and ripped the runway asunder, making the field unusable because -- he said -- he wanted to build a park. Now, two years later, there is no park and apparently little, if any, money for one. The air traffic that once buzzed around Miegs now goes to other airports, but not as much of it as before. While FAA records show the air traffic at other airports has risen by approximately 10,500 over the past two years, Meigs handled 30,000-40,000 operations a year. Where have those other aircraft gone?

The answer to that question comes with a price tag. Those 20,000-30,000 operations have gone elsewhere, taking with them fuel sales, maintenance business, concessions and more.

Ironically, as Crain's Business points out, the drop in overall traffic throughout Chicagoland came as the number of corporate and charter operations increased dramatically in the wake of 9/11.

In the meantime, the process of converting Meigs into a park continues to languish. So far, the city has spent about a half-million dollars on the former airport since August. Most of the money has gone to planting trees and prairie grass, as well as install walking paths and benches. City park officials hope to have a few conceptual designs on remaking Northerly Island into a more substantial park, but the park district's General Superintendent Timothy Mitchell told Crain's "Ultimately... we have to figure out the money." One proposal calls for an eight year, $26 million course of action.

Until something is done with Northerly Island, where Meigs Field once stood, the barren strip of land jutting out from near Chicago's Loop into Lake Michigan serves as a stark reminder of that night two years ago, when the mayor -- a man committed by oath to upholding the law -- took matters into his own hands and cost his city a lot of money. Given the FAA's investigation into the possible misuse of federal funds in the destruction of Meigs, the resulting fines could mean Chicago will pay even more dearly for Daley's actions.

FMI: www.friendsofmeigs.org