Story by 89 WLS reporter Bill Cameron

So what does Mayor Emanuel have to say about the Dick Mell intrigue?

 

Mayor Emanuel is playing it coy on Dick Mell, "Well first of all, Alderman Mell's been retiring for five years! Like a broken watch, it will be right eventually!"

 

And he had high praise for Mell's daughter State Representative Debra Mell, "Deb is doing a tremendous job, and I'll tell you one thing, I want her to stay where she is until we get the assault weapons ban and marriage equality passed."

 

Which, according to one source close to Mell means, this family business of handing off the alderman's job from father to daughter will probably have to wait until the end of the legislative session in May.

 

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He's denying it to the Chicago Tribune, but the Sun-Times is reporting that the longtime and colorful Alderman Dick Mell is planning to retire from the City Council within the next few months and the game plan is to get Mayor Emanuel to replace him with his daughter.

 

 

LISTEN: RICHARD MELL QUOTES TEDDY ROOSEVELT

 

Dick Mell is reportedly leaving the arena he used to love, "It is not the critic who counts, not the man who points out how the strong man has stumbled, or when the doer of deeds could have done better. The credit belongs to the man who is in the arena, whose face is marred by dirt and sweat and blood, who errs and comes short again and again, who knows the great enthusiasm, who spends himself in a worth cause and knows at his best knows the triumphs of his achievements, and if fails, fails while daring greatly, so his place will never be with those cold and timid souls who know neither victory nor defeat."

 

Mell was quoting Teddy Roosevelt when he said it years ago, but now, in the latest case of Chicago politics as a family business, he's apparently planning to handoff his aldermanic post to his daughter State Representative Debra Mell.

 

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Story by 89 WLS web staff

(CHICAGO) The Chicago City Council will be losing its second-longest serving member in the next few months.

 

The Chicago Sun-Times is reporting that Richard Mell has told associates he is preparing to step down after serving 38 years as a Chicago alderman.

 

Mell is the chairman of the city Council's Rules Committee and father-in-law of convicted former Gov. Rod Blagojevich.

 

Sources say Mell has already persuaded Mayor Rahm Emanuel to appoint the alderman's daughter, State Rep. Deb Mell, to replace him in the City Council.

 

Mell's duties as Rules and Ethics Committee chairman and a handful of coveted jobs will be handed over to Ald. Michelle Harris, according to sources.

 

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