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Working In An Alderman's Office Not a Regular Job

* 49th Ward Chief of Staff Too Busy for Ward Issues

A loyal reader writes . . . YIKES! This is what Joe assigned his new chief of staff, Betsy Vandercook, to do on Thursday, August 16, a working/business day in the city of Chicago!

DAMN! Is this what we pay them salaries for? No wonder the 49th Ward List of Thorny Problems and Easily Resolved Issues is so damn long. Joe doesn't have the interest, time, or patience to lead his staff in taking care of business at home first.

BLOGNOTES: More on Betsy. . . . More

Posted by Craig Gernhardt


TARGET BETSY: The Attacks Begin

Chronic blogwhiners have begun their attacks on the new 49th Ward Chief of Staff, Betsy Vandercook. Golly, it took a couple of weeks! There's something about her name that makes even more apparent how petty it is. "Let's all gang up on Betsy." It just sounds like the junior high school attitude that it is. . . . . More

Posted by Thomas J. Westgard


If it is true that the Alderman has staff that don't even work 40 hours a week on City of Chicago business it would be surprising. People have a lot of expectations of an Alderman, and what people expect is different from one person to the next. There are a lot of people in the neighborhood who go to the Back to School Picnic every year. Others have no interest at all. Some people want the Alderman and/or his staff to be at their meeting and other people question why they aren't out fighting crime instead. In general, only 49 + .something percent supported the neighborhood only approach.

Being an Alderman or an Aldermanic staffer is hardly a traditional 9 to 5 job. Meetings at night, many weekend activities, early morning breakfast meetings and long work days, well over 8 hours, are the normal course of activity in most legislative offices. Many people don't think that an Alderman is a legislator and there are some here in Rogers Park that think that any trip to city hall is a waste of Aldermanic time so of course if Betsy isn't patroling somewhere she is wasting time. Back to the basic premise though, I'll ask this question, How does the writer know if she was paid to be their at all?

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