More McHenry County Blog

Heidi Weis- Because the city does function. Well, you know…

Sam Smith- That’s the answer to it?

Heidi Weis- Well, you know that…

Sam Smith- So, you have no moral base.

Heidi Weis- If you go to New York and see the mayor wait until after the transit strike hit, you know, a few days before Christmas and it literally stinks and those garbage is not picked up…

Sam Smith- That’s your opinion.

Heidi Weis- No, no, no…

Host Joel Weisman- No, it’s her scent.

Heidi Weis- No, really. It’s my scent. And I, you know, think people deal with just the quality of life issue of many things.

Sam Smith- What’s the great quality of life here?

Joel Weisman- So, quality of life trumps honesty or pol (unintelligible)…

Sam Smith- (Unintelligible)…from children.

Heidi Weis- No, I don’t. It seems to, you, know, we’re more a more cosmopolitan society.

John McCarron- The city’s in great condition, I think. If you can’t admit that. The public works, the amenities, the streets. It’s a beautify looking city. The neighborhoods, a lot of them are coming back very strongly and I take issue that it’s the most corrupt city in America.

I think the Republican newspapers do a good job of focusing on it and now we have a new U.S. Attorney Patrick Fitzgerald who…

Sam Smith- Blame the media. Blame the media. Did you get that?

Walter Jacobson- Let’s define corrupt. I mean there’s really serious corruption when people in government…

Sam Smith- Are stealing.

Walter Jacobson- …and I don’t mean to downgrade it to a great degree (chuckle), but what they’re stealing are a couple of jobs, a couple of contracts to the average person and I think to the average media and we throw around that term “corruption” rather recklessly is not the kind of corruption that would a city in.

Sam Smith- (tries to say something)

Joel Weisman- I think you’re vastly understating the case by “a couple of jobs and a couple of contracts.” It’s millions of dollars.

What happened to that Walter Jacobson outrage?

Walter Jacobson- I was going to qualify it. I was going to be outraged on whatever (was) said on either (pronounced “I-ther”) side of the issue.

Heidi Weis- (Tries to re-direct conversation to national politics with a local twist.)

Sam Smith- Is it just because you can’t beat the administration, you can’t beat Daley because of the way he’s loaded it up with patronage, because he’s paid off some of these people that it is a losing battle no one will take him on…

Joel Weisman- No, no. I don’t think it’s by design. Wouldn’t you agree that his personality has become a part of every person’s life because he’s been here so long?

Walter Jacobson- Not to mention where he came from. And, if you walk in any neighborhood in town, except those hardest pressed and they would be small, you’re going to get a very positive reaction. He is—I don’t think so necessarily—but he is, in terms of the way people (think), a loveable guy, even when he’s in trouble, he’s a loveable guy.

Heidi Weis- That idea that you’re going to clean it up because you vote someone else in, well, wasn’t that what Blagojevich was running on?

Joel Weisman- And before that Jane Byrne…

Sam Smith- And Harold Washington. It’s my turn now (pause, for effect) to steal as it turned out.

Joel Weisman- No, I think he ran a relatively honest adminstration.

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