SmallTalk Salute to FOTP and Judge Darrah

A SmallTalk Salute goes out to Friends of the Park and it's fierce Ex. Director Juanita Irizarry, as well as to U.S. District Judge John Darrah for standing up to Rahm's bullying and the unlawful Lucas lakefront land giveaway.

Now that greedy billionaire land-grabbers, Lucas and Hobson have left town for the greener pastures on the west coast, local media seems to have finally come to its senses, here, here and here.

In case you don't know about Judge Darrah, Trib's Blair Kamin writes:

It was Darrah who let Friends of the Parks' case against Lucas proceed, thereby checking a "fix-is-in" political process that had Emanuel, the City Council, Gov. Bruce Rauner and the General Assembly doing Lucas' bidding.

Though the case never went to trial, Darrah is the real hero of this titanic struggle. Without him, Friends of the Parks was powerless. Also without him, the case could have set a dangerous precedent. It would have allowed the powerful and wealthy to foist their vanity projects on the people's shoreline — and control those edifices for decades, even centuries, to come.

And shame on the usually stand-up Father Michael Pfleger for his brain-fart equation of FOTP with a notorious street gang and for being unable to distinguish "between Friends of the Parks and the Gangster Disciples?" I hope that $200,000 he took in church contributions from Lucas' foundation went for something positive in the community and was worth the embarrassment.