Where From Here After Adverse State Court Ruling?

"Never, never, never, never give up." - Winston Churchill

Stunned by an Illinois State Court of Appeals ruling allowing Chicago Mayor Richard Daley to resume destruction of Meigs Field, bereft of hope for relief from the state court system, the Friends Of Meigs will meet this week to consider their next step. There aren't many options.

"I'm devastated," said Friends Of Meigs President Rachel Goodstein in a telephone interview with ANN. "But we're like the Timex watch - we take a licking and keep on ticking. This is not the end."

Friday, an Illinois appeals court lifted the temporary restraining order that had kept Mayor Daley from further destroying the lakeside airport near downtown Chicago. That decision, rendered at 4:00 pm CDT, gave Meigs advocates precious little time to take the case to the Illinois Supreme Court. If Mayor Daley wanted to finish the demolition job started in the middle of the night on March 30, he had two days to do so. But Daley's spokeswoman said there is no timetable for finishing the job at Meigs. She said it certainly wouldn't happen over the weekend.

"What this seems to say is that it's fine for the city fathers to go about destroying public assets in the dark of night," said Friends of Meigs Chairman Steve Whitney. "Everybody we've talked to thinks that's wrong. It's discouraging that the court thinks it's okay."

Ms. Goodstein, an attorney and civic leader in Chicago, told ANN, now is the time to regroup. There are whispers that the Friends of Meigs effort to fight Daley's plans to turn the airport into a park might indeed go to the state supreme court - or to federal court. But one thing is certain, said Ms. Goodstein: This case will play out in the court of public opinion.

"We need to take this issue to average Chicagoans," she said Sunday morning. "Let's form a coalition and inform people jointly that there could be a different way. This is a time for retooling - for getting the message out and building a coalition" against Mayor Daley's plans to plow Meigs under.

Pitching Strategic Defense

Retooling the message, said Ms. Goodstein, could mean basing a public appeal to save Meigs on the very argument Mayor Daley (right) used to send in the bulldozers in the middle of the night last March. National Security. Daley cited the short flight time from Meigs to downtown Chicago, saying a terrorist intent on crashing into one of the buildings inside his city's famed Loop could do so before anyone knew what was happening.

The President of Friends of Meigs, however, pointed to a recent civil defense drill in Chicago where National Guard troops and federal disaster officials were to fly into O'Hare Airport, more than 20 miles north of downtown Chicago. "In that scenario," she said, "there was a script. Everybody was calm. But if it were a real disaster, you'd have people panicking on the Ryan (Expressway - I-55, linking O'Hare with Chicago's Inner Loop). Traffic would be clogged. But if they could land at Meigs, they'd be a lot closer to downtown. They'd be able to get to the scene much quicker. In that way, Meigs can be an asset."

If state and federal officials were to buy into that argument, Ms. Goodstein said, the midnight bulldozing of the single runway at Meigs might actually turn out to be a good thing. "While the runway is able to handle a fully-loaded C-130 (Hercules transport)," she said, "It couldn't handle a fully loaded C-17. The runway would have to be rebuilt, reinforced." She estimated the cost of rebuilding the runway at between $300,000 and $500,000. "That's a lot better than the Chicago Parks Department spending $30 million to turn it into a nature refuge that people won't even want to use six months out of the year." And, she said, a refurbished Meigs Field would serve to benefit Chicago in times of emergency.

FMI: www.friendsofmeigs.org