Richiemandias

(With apologies to Percy Shelley...)

I met a traveler from a Midwest land,
Who said: Two vast and rented trucks of clout
Stand in da alley deserted. Near a cone marked "Streets & San"
Half sunk, a shattered visage lies, whose pout
And smirky lip and sneer of "I doan know nuttin",
Tell that its sculptor well those passions read,
Which yet survive stamped on these lifeless things,
The hand that signed, the contracts not bid;
And on the pedestal these words appear:
'My name is Richiemandias, Da Mare;
Look on my Olympics, Milwaukee, and despair!'
Nothing beside remains. Round the decay
Of that colossal wreck, rubbled from disrepair
Crappy pot-holed roads stretch far away.

From Clout Street:

Olympics bid team holding secret meeting with aldermen

Posted by Hal Dardick and David Heinzmann

On Monday, the Chicago 2016 Olympics committee leaders balked at the idea of publicly briefing the City Council about a wrinkle that could put taxpayers on the hook for cost overruns, but today they tried to reassure aldermen in a series of private meetings with aldermen at City Hall.

Aldermen were notified today by Mayor Richard Daley’s Intergovernmental Affairs Office that the meetings would start at 3:30 p.m. at City Hall, several aldermen said. Members of the 2016 Committee would do the talking, they said.

A Chicago 2016 spokeswoman said the meetings are not an about-face for bid organizers, who are led by businessman Pat Ryan. Rather, they were a decision the bid team made "as we're going throught this in in real time and hearing things and responding to them," said Chicago 2016 spokeswoman Mica Matsoff. "It wasn't that he excluded this on Monday."

Matsoff said the briefings to groups of about 13 aldermen today and tomorrow will be similar to the presentation Ryan made to reporters on Monday. That's when Ryan said it would take 45 to 60 days to brief aldermen on an insurance plan he said will prevent taxpayers from being on the hook.

The change in plan was "in response to the City Council and part of our own process," Matsoff said.
...

At which point one assumes Da Mare will calmly and patiently explain "teamwork" and how "a man becomes preeminent, he's expected to have en-too-zee-asms. En-too-zee-asms. En-too-zee-asms.
What are mine? What draws my admiration? What is dat which gives me joy?
De Olympics!"

to his litter of suddenly cheeky, sass-mouthed little aldermen.