To the editor:
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Neal Pollack did an excellent job in describing the ridiculous situation involving the blind street musician Gary Jones and the CTA president Frank Kruesi [May 14]. It’s good to know that a political mercenary who clearly never missed a meal in his life has the time to pursue peanut salespersons, small vendors, and musicians while the real problems on the CTA, like maintenance, the resultant scheduling problems, and general comfort on the system, go unaddressed. While it takes 45 minutes to get two and a half miles across town on the Diversey bus in this city (while I can ride my bicycle in 20), trains and buses are jammed, and janitorial services get neglected, this character has himself or another supervisor named Rich harassing people who are simply plying a trade or trying to make a few bucks.
Mayor Daley apparently has a real mental problem with the idea of people doing things that are unusual. Unless a musician has corporate or other monetary backing, the Daley administration does not deem their entry into a market in which they must prove their skills and entertainment value to be legitimate. So much for the “free market.”
