Some things we’ve noticed about Steve Neal’s crusade against Park District reformers.
But in his way, Ed Kelly really cared.
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Its eye for detail. Describing a reception at Soldier Field, Neal reported, “Flanked by a couple of bodyguards, the 5-foot, 3-inch Shah, otherwise known as Jesse Madison, worked his way through the crowd. . . . At the same reception, Mayor Daley walked around without a police escort.”
Jesse Madison, wrote Neal, “is piloted about the town in a luxury limousine with $39,000-a-year chauffeur at the wheel.” Madison says the car is a 1986 Lincoln sedan he inherited from Kelly.
Well, no one should know it better.
What influence? Neal didn’t tell us. But he explained, “The Fakers of the Parks aren’t of Middle America. They are disdainful of people listening to radio stations other than WBEZ or WFMT, and don’t think much of T-shirts costing less than $25. . . . Banning softball and pinochle is their idea of performing a civic service.” Why Madison would react to such effetes with a cry of “I’m your boy!” went unsaid.
But what Steve Neal sounds most like is Steve Neal. Neal has an attitude about Chicago’s parks. It reared up almost three years ago in a column he wrote while he was still at the Tribune.
