Group Seeks $22,000 For Missed Work, Expenses

It's more and more like the kind of melodrama you'd see if the Discovery Wings Channel ran soap operas. As the court battle over the midnight destruction of Meigs Field by Chicago Mayor Richard Daley continues at the speed of sludge, aircraft owners whose planes were stranded when the runway was bulldozed want to be reimbursed for expenses incurred in the wake of the bulldozing.

"I did put in for reimbursement and have not been reimbursed," said pilot Carl Cadwell, 59, who owns a medical equipment company and lives in rural Washington state, in an interview with the Chicago Sun-Times. "That was one of my projects for next week: to say it's been long enough." Cadwell says he's out about $500 - the cost of a plane ticket for a colleague to fly commercial from San Diego to Chicago. They'd originally planned to fly in Cadwell's own aircraft, but it was stuck on the ramp at Meigs.

Tom Komer wants ten times that amount. He's a management consultant who makes about $2500/day. He's billing Mayor Daley $5496.83 and most of it, he says, are lost wages. "I'm going to wait until it's 60 days, then I'm going to start bugging them like any other client."

Chicago's Response

"There are only seven pilots that have requested to date . . . those who have provided supported documentation [such as receipts] are being processed," said Chicago Aviation Department spokeswoman Monique Bond.

A total of 16 planes were stranded at Meigs when, under cover of darkness, Mayor Daley ordered the runway at Meigs destroyed - without public hearings and without giving the stranded pilots a chance to fly away.

Cadwell, the medical equipment company owner, says, if he doesn't get his money, he probably won't sue. "If it came out of Daley's pocket I would go after it with a vengeance," he said. "But it doesn't. It's the citizens of Chicago that have to pay for this skulduggery."

FMI: www.friendsofmeigs.org