Thursday, April 23, 2009

Alderman Hernandez's explanation for his vote in favor of the stadium

Alderman Chris Hernandez gave his explanation to the residents of Phoenix Heights why he voted in favor of the stadium at Frame Park. Based upon audio I received of the meeting, the following is a transcript of his answer:
A Phoenix Heights resident asked Alderman Hernandez why he voted in favor of the stadium. “That was at a point in the time when I couldn’t go around and knock because I broke my ankle. I had a couple of screws put in so I was laid up for a long time, couldn’t walk or anything. So I was mostly relying on phone calls at my residence as well as e-mails. My plan, of course, before I broke my ankle was to go down to Frame Park, walk through Phoenix Heights, walk through the rest of the district ‘cause this is a bigger issue than – yes, Phoenix Heights is adjacent to this, but it’s also a huge city issue as well so it has to be looked at from that larger spectrum. So from the volume of phone calls and e-mails that I had plus being in law enforcement that of course I track everybody’s phone call and I look everybody up and whatnot so I got a lotta phone calls and e-mails from people saying that they were in my district that weren’t. By the time I completely tallied it up it was basically one and the same. So I had to look at it from the bigger spectrum of the city and not just the neighborhood and this is one of the issues that, of course being a brand new alderman I get thrown in the deep end right off the bat. So you know within, like, two months of being sworn in I got hit the hardest decision that I made and especially being completely limited – my wife was pregnant and she had these really bad migraines so the house was completely dark and I can’t see to do anything and it was the most probably miserable time of my life. So, and, you know, just being stuck on the couch and then since everything that I was remodeling in that room had to go in the rest of my house I could barely take my crutches to the opposite end to go to the bathroom and come back and flop down on the couch. So, unfortunately, I had to strictly rely on just phone calls and e-mails but you know my initial plan before I took that fall was to, you know, walk around like the rest of the aldermen, go down, you know, throughout the district, including Phoenix Heights, {garbled}


At this point he was interrupted by Marty Larson asking about the Alderman’s ability to walk, at which point another resident offered to get Hernandez a scooter.