page_title: Richard M. Daley
section_title: Daley orders demolition of Meigs Field
hierarchical_section_title: Richard M. Daley / Mayor of Chicago (1989–2011) / Fifth term (2003–2007) / Daley orders demolition of Meigs Field
caption_attribution_description: English: Meigs Field Runway a few days after destruction ordered by Mayor Daley
context_page_description: Richard Michael Daley is an American politician who served as the 54th Mayor of Chicago, Illinois, from 1989 to 2011. Daley was elected mayor in 1989 and was reelected five times until declining to run for a seventh term. At 22 years, his was the longest tenure in Chicago mayoral history, surpassing the 21-year stay of his father, Richard J. Daley.
  As Mayor, Daley took over the Chicago Public Schools, developed tourism, oversaw the construction of Millennium Park, increased environmental efforts and the rapid development of the city's central business district downtown and adjacent near North, near South and near West sides. He also approved expansion of city workers' benefits to their partners regardless of gender, and advocated for gun control.
  Daley received criticism when family, personal friends, and political allies disproportionately benefited from city contracting. He took office in a city with regular annual budget surpluses and left the city with massive structural deficits. His budgets ran up the largest deficits in Chicago history.
context_section_description: A long-standing agreement between the city and state required the city to maintain and operate Meigs Field, a small, downtown, lakefront airport on Northerly Island used by general aviation aircraft and helicopters, until 2011 or turn it over to the state. On September 12, 1996, the City Council approved Daley's plan to convert the airport into a park, and the state began planning to take over operation of the airport. Fresh off a 2003 re-election mandate, one of Daley's first major acts was ordering the demolition of Meigs Field. On Sunday, March 30, 2003, shortly before midnight, transport trucks carrying construction equipment moved onto Meigs with Chicago Police escort. By early Monday morning, city crews excavated six large X's into the only runway. The city's 50 aldermen, Illinois Governor Rod Blagojevich, the Federal Aviation Administration and the Department of Homeland Security were not consulted on the plan. The demolition of the runway trapped planes. In the days following, many of those aircraft were able to take off using the taxiway.
  "To do this any other way would have been needlessly contentious," Daley explained at a news conference Monday morning. Daley argued that the airport was a threat to Chicago's high-rise cityscape and its high-profile skyscrapers, such as the Sears Tower and the John Hancock Center. Daley criticized the Federal Aviation Administration, saying "Now, think of that; Mickey and Minnie have it. I mean, I can't believe that. They get it first before we get it?", referring to the post-9/11 air space restrictions in place over Orlando, Florida. "The signature act of Richard Daley's 22 years in office was the midnight bulldozing of Meigs Field," according to Chicago Tribune columnist Eric Zorn. "He ruined Meigs because he wanted to, because he could," Chicago Tribune columnist John Kass wrote of Daley. "The issue is Daley's increasingly authoritarian style that brooks no disagreements, legal challenges, negotiations, compromise or any of that messy give-and-take normally associated with democratic government," the Chicago Tribune editorialized. The Federal Aviation Administration cited the City for failure to comply with federal law requiring thirty-day advance notice to the FAA of plans for an airport closure. The city was fined $33,000, the maximum allowable. The city paid the fine and repaid $1 million in misspent federal airport development grants. Daley defended his actions by claiming that the airport was abandoned, in spite of the fact that the Chicago Fire Department had several helicopters based on the field at the time, in addition to the dozens of private aircraft left stranded.
caption: Meigs Field Runway a few days after destruction ordered by Mayor Daley, April 2003
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