Chairing first Finance Committee meeting, Waguespack suffers embarrassing defeat

Ald. Scott Waguespack (32^nd) chaired his first Finance Committee meeting Tuesday — and promptly suffered an embarrassing defeat he still hopes to reverse.

It happened when his colleagues shot down a $3.7 million settlement stemming from a drunk-driving accident in River West that left a young woman paralyzed from the waist down.

Aldermen have nothing but sympathy for Kelsey Ibach, one of four passengers in the car that Phillip Cho drove off a roadway and over a 25-foot embankment at the intersection of Erie Street and Union Avenue on Sept. 13, 2014.

But, the aldermen were furious that beleaguered Chicago taxpayers were left holding the bag for $3.7 million while the drunken motorist who fled the scene paid roughly $100,000 and the owner of the nightclub that allegedly over-served Cho was on the hook for only $1 million.

Retiring First Deputy Corporation Counsel Katie Hill said the city’s liability — aside from its deep pockets — stems from the plaintiffs’ claim that the intersection was “improperly designed and maintained to the point where it created an optical illusion” that led Cho to “believe he was entering an expressway ramp.”

The plaintiffs further alleged the city had “insufficient concrete barriers to prevent his car from leaving the roadway.”

The argument was bolstered by the fact that, when a bridge was removed from that location in the early 1970’s, a “concrete barrier was established across much of that embankment area, but the last bit was a metal guardrail, which was not crash-engineered,” Hill said.

“The city had been in discussions to change the barriers at that intersection since 2007. This accident occurred in 2014. It has since been repaired and there now is a crash-engineered barrier continuously across the entire area,” Hill said.

Ald. Ray Lopez (15^th) was not appeased, even after learning of the city’s apparent negligence caused by years of bureaucratic buck-passing.

“These were individuals who were drunk. The gentleman who was driving his friends home drunk. A bar that had to pay $1 million because they had over-served them because they were drunk,” Lopez said.

“Their bad decisions, their bad choices should not put our taxpayers on the hook for $4 million because they thought they saw a mirage of a ramp that didn’t exist while they were intoxicated,” Lopez added.

“I know why we’re settling. But it infuriates me that, at a time when we’re already scrambling to find ways to pay for things, I’m sure we could have done something better with $4 million than reward people for this.”

Downtown Ald. Brendan Reilly (42^nd) was equally incensed.

The “occupants of that vehicle were incredibly over-served, allegedly,” Reilly noted, and the driver fled the scene for days before finally turning himself in to authorities.

“They’re paying $1 million for over-serving these patrons and we’re paying $3.7 million because of a faulty barricade,” Reilly said.

“When we have folks that are over-serving and loading up vehicles, that turns that vehicle into a weapon. ... We’re finding this throughout the city where there are late-hour venues especially. The new practice is just, `Serve, serve, serve, serve, serve. And once they leave our property, not our problem.’ Well then, it becomes the taxpayers’ problem.”

Fran Spielman/Sun-Times

When Waguespack called for a voice vote, Lopez shouted, “Roll call.” The vote was 13 to 8 against the settlement. Even Ald. Gilbert Villegas (36^th), Mayor Lori Lightfoot’s City Council floor leader, voted no.

That prompted Waguespack to call a brief recess to, as he put it, “figure out what just happened.”

He then recessed the meeting until 9 a.m. Wednesday before the regularly-scheduled City Council meeting.

By then, the new chairman says, he hopes to convince colleagues that it would be better to swallow hard and approve the settlement than go to trial and risk what Hill said would be a $25 million judgment to “an incredibly sympathetic victim.”

“There’s a difference between roughly $3 million and $25 million. Everybody that is looking at this wants to protect the taxpayers, despite the facts of the case,” Waguespack said afterward.

So, how’d that first meeting go?

“I think it went pretty well. A little rocky toward the end,” Waguespack said with a self-deprecating smile.

Which begs the question: Would the fiasco have happened if indicted Ald. Edward Burke (14^th) was still holding the gavel? Not according to Lopez, a Burke ally.

“Burke understood when matters were losing,” said Lopez. “And he knew not to push it because the support wasn’t there and he didn’t want to risk a defeat.”

Waguespack was asked whether he was surprised by the “no” vote from Villegas, Lightfoot’s floor leader.

“I’m not surprised by too much lately,” the chairman said with a smile.

Fran Spielman / Sun-Times file