Mell: Feud with Gov. ends today (Dick Mell, Chicago Alderman and his son-in-law, Gov. Blagojevich)

Chicago Sun-Times ^ | January 11, 2005 | FRAN SPIELMAN

[Land_of_Lincoln_John]

Choking back tears, Ald. Richard Mell (33rd) today declared a public end to the messy feud with his son-in-law, Gov. Blagojevich, in hopes of repairing a first family torn apart.

Mell insisted he had every right to take a stand against what he viewed as the governor's attempt to smear him and close a Will County landfill operated by Frank Schmidt, a distant relative of Mell and first lady Patti Blagojevich who was being advised by the alderman.

But that doesn't mean the aldermen doesn't regret some of the bitter charges he made against the governor and the effect the public airing of the First Family's dirty laundry has had on his family.

“If I wouldn't have stood up for a fight, I don't think the governor would be the governor, in all reality. The state representative race was a tremendous fight and we didn't back away from it. And the congressional was not a cakewalk and neither was the governor's race,” Mell said.

“But this has to end. It has to end — not for me and not for Blagojevich. It has to end for my wife. It has to end for the rest of my family. This is not something that can continue. This is something that is going to be put to rest today. What was done is regrettable, I think. I'm hoping there's a possibility of repairing it. I've got a granddaughter who loves to fish and she hasn't been up to Lake Geneva for two years fishing like she used to come. . . .So it's got to end and it's going to end right now.”

Last week, the Blagojevich administration shut down a Joliet landfill owned by Schmidt. It justified the move by saying the facility was accepting garbage it wasn't licensed to handle and that its owner, Schmidt, was boasting of his connections to Mell and Blagojevich. Schmidt denied the accusations. On Monday, state officials agreed to let the dump reopen next week provided Schmidt cleans it up.

The agreement did nothing to clean up the mess in Illinois first family.

Not after Mell escalated the feud with charges that he had been supplanted by Blagojevich adviser Chris Kelly who, the alderman alleged, was trading appointments to state commissions for $50,000 contributions to the governor's campaign fund. Not after Mell compared himself to a spurned spouse replaced by a trophy wife. Not after Mell said he regretted the day he backed Blagojevich for governor and hoped his daughter Patti, whom the alderman said “has blinders on” about her husband, would “wake up someday.”

Today, Mell stopped short of apologizing for what he said. In fact, he insisted he was right. But he offered a public olive branch to his son-in-law in hopes his family can somehow be brought back together. It's been an incredible strain on the alderman's wife, who is seriously ill, and that showed today. Mell began to cry every time he mentioned his wife, Marge.

“Sometimes, I think maybe I secretly wish that I was Irish. Because the Irish long ago have learned to have their arguments and disagreements inside and not bring them out into the public,” Mell said.

“I sort of wear my heart on my sleeve sometimes and sort of say things that, possibly in hindsight, I shouldn't have said. Do I believe I was right? I certainly do. I don't regret that. . . .[But] I'm hoping that Debbie and Rich and my daughter, Patti, and especially my wife can get beyond it.”