Mouthpieces

First came the regional head of the EPA region writes publicly that the Waukegan city fathers (the REALLY, REALLY old city fathers) have got the harbor cleanup issue all wrong and continue to have it wrong.

Then the city counters with a position paper at its website that says everybody else has it wrong.

Then the University of Illinois scientist who did the study on which the EPA’s options for the PCB removal are based, gets his two cents worth with a letter to the editor.

Then the CHICAGO LAWYER hired by the city to lobby the EPA writes a letter to the editor (and everyone else) telling the scientist to shut up.

Then the scientist writes another letter to the lawyer and the city telling them they are full of large stinky beans.

The Swami fears, that beyond writing Position Papers that no one reads, the city is barking up a tall and unscalable tree, and hasn’t shown much expertise in any endeavor to repair the downtown lakefront beyond howling at people they don’t like.

But among the various letters in this go-around of nonsense, we are especially attracted to the one in which the city “writes” a letter “signed” by all the alderman and the mayor. The scientist responds with a letter headed this way:

“Dear Editors of the Lake County News-Sun:

“I am writing in response to a letter issued November 2 by Mssr.s Jeff Jeep and David Motley, on behalf of Waukegan city officials, concerning Waukegan Harbor clean-up.”

Well, that sort of slanderous innuendo can’t be allowed to stand unchallenged. So the lawyer fires back another missive that includes this:

“Finally, let me point out that the November 2 letter to which you respond was signed by Mayor Hyde and each member of the Waukegan City Council, not, as you suggest, by City officials on their behalf.

Regards, Jeffery D. Jeep
Principal
Jeep & Blazer, LLC.
environmental law
Swami hasn’t had so much fun since his turban caught on fire and he had to be hosed down with buckets of Miller High Life beer.

Having carefully read all the letters, we can bet the only person who really wrote the words on behalf of the city was a lawyer. They all tend to sound the same way. Swami bets that most of the city council wouldn’t even understand a lot of those words.

Plus, the moral umbrage (Ooo, Swami loves that word) taken by the lawyer about people who disagree with the city council makes it almost seem as though it’s HE who protests.

Not true. He’s hired to have an opinion that matches the city’s perfectly because they are paying him to have that opinion. If someone else hired him, he’d have a different view. Lawyers do what they’re paid to do.

(This is like the punchline to an old Joke: Madam, we've already decided what sort of girl you are. Now, we're just haggling over the price).

We bet the city (that means you, little taxpayer friend) is spending a lot of money for Position Papers and hostile letters by lawyers, as if anything of that remotely improves the chances the lakefront will be cleaned up.

And it’s all being done in a hostile, mean-spirited way that seems to be spiraling upward. It's the Waukegan Way.