As Fay pounded Jacksonville, City crews focused on democrat congresswomans house

[yeahYeah]

At Height Of Storm, City Crews Sandbag Congresswoman's Home - Jacksonville News Story - WJXT Jacksonville

JACKSONVILLE, Fla. -- Some are questioning whether a top city leader showed favoritism when he ordered crews to help a "single woman" cope during the storm. That single woman was U.S. Rep. Corrine Brown, D- Jacksonville.

During the height of Tropical Storm Fay, when many Jacksonville residents were trying to keep rising water out of their homes or dealing with fallen trees and power lines, the city sent a public works crew to put sandbags around the Brown's home along the Trout River.

Brown denied getting special treatment, telling Channel 4 that she's like any other citizen who had an emergency. She said that when her roof caved in and water flooded her home, she called the city for help."I had to call and call and call, just like anybody else," Brown told Channel 4's Diane Cho. "I had to call several times before I got anybody."Neighbor Joe Deloach lives one door down from Brown and he too has rising waters flooding the foundation of his home. He said when he saw the city with prisoners sandbagging the congresswoman's home, he naturally asked for the same help but didn't get the same response."I'm glad she got help to save her house. I'm not mad at that. I'm upset that the same people wouldn't help me and they denied it was going on," Deloach said. "I had prisoners laughing at me when I approached them about it. They knew what was going on. It was hilarious to them."Adam Hollingsworth, chief of staff for Mayor John Peyton, told Channel 4 he authorized city crews to go help Brown when she reached him on Friday. He said he helped because she's "a single woman who lives in her own house" and he could hear the panic in her voice."We had a resource that we could help somebody with, I made a judgment that it was the right thing to do," Hollingsworth said.Hollingsworth told Channel 4 he also sent a crew to City Councilwoman Denise Lee's home, but Lee later determined she did not need their help.Hollingsworth said he knows he is a steward of taxpayer dollars, but he is also a human being. He said if he went beyond standard protocol, he apologizes."I am prepared to pay for any services I receive, just like any other citizen," Brown.

aaah...didn't we see this when Katrina trashed New Orleans?

[jmichna]

Heck, that's just business as usual in 0bamaland... err, Daleyland, home turf of 0bama:

Clout keeps power on
ComEd delivers an emergency generator to home of O'Hare boss
John Kass
August 8, 2008

The mayor's favorite pool boy—airport operations boss Dave "Pool Boy" Ochal—is at it again, throwing his vast political clout in the faces of his neighbors after the storms knocked out power this week.

Ochal's Far Northwest Side neighborhood was without power for two days in the summer heat. Neighbors dug into their own pockets to pay for emergency generators and shipped their elderly, including some who required oxygen therapy, to live with friends and family who had power. Then neighbors said they witnessed a political miracle Wednesday night:

A Commonwealth Edison truck pulled up at Ochal's house in the 5400 block of North Paris Avenue.

The ComEd crew—two workers and a foreman—wore badges signifying they were detailed to O'Hare International Airport. With astonished neighbors watching, the crew delivered a big, fat electric generator to Ochal's home.

How nice.

This drove the neighbors nuts, and rightly so. It's not the first time Ochal has angered them with his clout. In 2000, I told you about the fancy built-in pool he installed, without permits, and how it swamped their backyards with water, flooding their lawns and basements, shorting out appliances and blowing a ComEd transformer.

They were really angry Wednesday night when I arrived with a WGN-TV cameraman. They gathered in the street, dumbfounded, watching how clout works, while they didn't have lights on in their own homes, and still they were afraid of Ochal's wrath and clout with Mayor Richard Daley.

The foreman, Arthur Gallegos, confirmed his crew delivered a generator to Ochal's home that night. He said he had no idea who Ochal was.

"I got a call," Gallegos said as neighbors gathered behind me, fuming. "I got a piece of paper to come out here. That was it. . . . There was a woman that needed her oxygen. . . . I'm just trying to do a job."

Is delivering generators done often?

"Yeah," Gallegos said. "They come out."

Another neighbor piped up, wondering when a generator would be delivered to his home.

"I got a sick father that's got oxygen at home," the angry neighbor said. "You know what I did? I moved him to a house that had electricity!"

Gallegos said all he was doing was following orders.

"If I told them I'm not going to [deliver a generator to Ochal], do you think I'd be working? Do you think I'd be here right now? I've got to do what they are paying me to do. . . . If I had 20 [generators], I'd give them all."

I felt bad for Gallegos. If he's telling the truth—and I think he was—then he shouldn't wear the jacket for some political suit who wanted to make Pool Boy smile.

"This neighborhood is full of city workers, so we're not stupid when it comes to clout," one neighbor said.

He and many others in the neighborhood are city workers and are terrified of seeing their name in the paper because they know what will happen after City Hall identifies them.

"He's got clout," the neighbor said. "He gets special treatment. And instead of working to restore power to everybody, they're working to take care of the Pool Boy."

We knocked on Pool Boy's door, and his wife said he didn't live there.

"There's no Ochal here!" she said.

This truly astonished the neighbors. Then we went next door and around back, to see the fabulous pool and fabulous generator from that side. The camera guy was setting up his equipment, and just then, a little voice came from over the fence.

"Is this legal? Is this legal?"

It was Dave "Pool Boy" Ochal who popped up from behind the fence, his head up there like an angry jack-in-the-box.

Pool Boy couldn't see me right off, standing there.

"Dave!" I shouted. "Pool Boy! It's me, your friend, John."

The realization on his face was poetic, if poetic looks like a slice of boiled ham in the moonlight.

Ochal's head started to disappear behind his fence.

"Pool Boy!" I yelled. "Don't go. It's me, John. Don't you want to talk?"

He didn't.

Besides doing political favors for mayoral political brains Tim Degnan and Jeremiah Joyce, Ochal is one of the mayor's patronage bosses, having formed the now-defunct political army called the Lakefront Independent Democratic Organization with another politico, parks boss Timmy Mitchell.

Ochal is the first deputy commissioner of the Department of Aviation, making more than $150,000 last year in taxpayer dollars. His formal title is about running the airport, but the word is that he's a caretaker for Joyce's airport needs.

When I wrote about him years ago, the Sun-Times was acting like Daley's News and defended him in an editorial, calling him a good neighbor, noting he promised to get rid of his offending pool. The paper has since switched its tone, lecturing Pool Boy for being part of Daley's vast patronage operation. That's the same operation that will gear up for Sen. Barack Obama in November as he reforms our nation's politics, not Chicago's.

The pool remains. The concrete was so thick you could have landed a jet on it. The shrubbery was so fine that it looked like it was grown in a city nursery. The fancy electrical work had all the craftsmanship of City Hall's Bureau of Electricity. Miraculously, it was done without necessary permits.

But he insisted he paid for it all on his own. So I asked for the canceled checks to prove it. Monique Bond, then the aviation spokeswoman—now the Police Department mouthpiece—cemented her legacy of credibility by insisting Ochal would provide the canceled checks.

Then the mayor changed her mind for her. Ochal didn't have to show any checks. Later, Daley promoted him to reign supreme at the airport.

On Thursday, Daley's aviation department had nothing to say.

"I don't see how this is a Department of Aviation issue," said spokeswoman Karen Pride.

Later, Tabrina Davis, ComEd's vice president of communications, said the company is looking into the matter.

"The investigation is ongoing. We don't have all the facts right now," she told me. "ComEd did not authorize a generator be installed at this home. We're not aware of any generator being installed. It would not be our normal practice to install a generator in a customer's home, let alone a city official's. It's not consistent with our storm restoration protocol, and it violates our business code of conduct."

When Pool Boy's pool became a fiasco, the mayor didn't punish him, he promoted him.

So when Daley returns from his Olympic vacation, don't hold your breath that Ochal will be sent to the corner.

Based on past actions, the mayor will make him commissioner of aviation and give him a big raise so he can heat his pool.

Pool Boy. Generator Boy.

It's the Chicago Way.

[LUVMYSIGP225]

In New Orleans, looters would have focused on it.