Alderman: Rahm uses F- word in rebate- cash clash
For six years, Mayor Rahm Emanuel has kept his notoriously foul mouth pretty much in check with the exception of a profanitylaced tirade against Chicago Teachers Union Karen Lewis that occurred before Emanuel took office.
That apparently ended with the heated debate over how to spend $ 17 million left after a property tax rebate for which only 25,300 of the 155,000 eligible Chicago homeowners bothered to apply. On Thursday, rookie Ald. Ray Lopez ( 15th) accused the mayor of dropping the F- bomb during a heated discussion behind the City Council chambers last month.
Emanuel was apparently livid that Lopez was continuing to insist that “every penny” left unclaimed from the rebate — as well as a $ 20 million settlement from the Arizona company that operated Chicago’s red- light camera program — be earmarked for violence prevention in neighborhoods that have “turned into war zones.”
“He didn’t tell me to f— off. He just said, ‘ Why am I f— ing with him?’. . . I don’t think he was anticipating me coming up with my own ordinance to try and spend the money differently,” Lopez said Thursday after joining community leaders for another City Hall news conference to push the issue.
Lopez said he responded to the mayor by using similar language.
“I said, ‘ I’m not f— ing with you. I’ve got people dying in the street. What do you want me to do?” the al- derman said.
“I told him that I cannot take his program to the neighborhood without people thinking that I’m joking. . . . To try and convince my residents that things like fighting cyberterrorism are important when they’re dodging real bullets? Fixing sidewalks or rehabbing 20 homes instead of getting right to the heart of what the violence was? It came off like a cruel joke.”
Emanuel’s press secretary Matt McGrath was asked whether Emanuel used profanity with Lopez and whether such language is appropriate in dealing with an alderman.
McGrath said Emanuel “doesn’t recall the conversation, although he doesn’t deny a flair for colorful language either.”
“Regardless, whatever was said didn’t stop the alderman from reaching out as recently as Monday night to discuss issues in his ward and asking for help — and the mayor remains committed to working with each alderman to address our public safety challenges in a comprehensive way,” McGrath wrote.