CHICAGO (WBBM NEWSRADIO) - A North Side alderman is upset with the way Mayor Lori Lightfoot has planned and announced that NASCAR racing is coming to downtown streets.
2nd Ward Ald. Brian Hopkins said aldermen who represent downtown and the areas around it, who are normally consulted about decisions affecting downtown, should have been consulted by Mayor Lightfoot before she cut a deal with NASCAR. He believes he, 3rd Ward Ald. Pat Dowell, 4th Ward Ald. Sophia King and 42nd Ward Ald. Brendan Reilly were intentionally left out of discussions.
“I think this mayor is somewhat of a dictator. This is really her Meigs Field moment. She’s going to do whatever she wants to do,” said the alderman who represents Streeterville and other communities on the Near North Side.
Hopkins was referring to what Mayor Daley did in 2003 by ordering an unannounced overnight raid and destruction of Meigs Field, Chicago’s then-airport-by-the-lake.
The alderman said he and his colleagues need answers.
“Right now, we don’t know how long DuSable Lake Shore Drive is going to be closed on an important summer weekend,” said Hopkins.
Ald. Hopkins said it’s hypocritical that, at a city council meeting where aldermen are going to condemn illegal street racing and drifting, the mayor comes out with a sanctioned race on downtown streets.
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Hopkins said he usually goes along with ideas that generate more tourist dollars for the city but that the way Mayor Lightfoot went about cutting the NASCAR deal is “simply unacceptable.”
“She apparently thinks this is a great thing for the city and she just felt like doing it without any involvement, no transparency, no consulting of her colleagues. It’s just a terrible way to govern a city like Chicago,” he said.
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