(5:35 PM) | Adam Kotsko:

The Wisdom of Mayor Daley

"First of all, it happened at 5:30 in the afternoon [in] the Roscoe Village community. It was seen running between buildings. The cougar charged a police officer," the mayor said.

Daley noted that a principal at an elementary school where a day care program was still going on alerted the police of the cougar's presence in a school parking lot.

"Now, I just want to tell you, if the cougar attacked a child, they'd sue the city because the police officer didn’t do their job. So everybody second guesses, you know. So let the cougar run around and attack children. Everybody would be filing lawsuits, and yelling at the police and all the local officials … Too bad that we didn’t have an animal care and control personnel. [They] were en route to the scene. But again you have to make individual decisions. I didn’t see a neighbor run out and grab it and say, 'Oh I love you' and bring it in the house. This is unbelievable. I mean, I just, I just … 'Don’t worry about it.' "

Added Daley: "A cougar is a beautiful animal. I mean, it really is."

Well, you know, I've said, we have priorities. OK. And let's be realistic. OK. Wrigley Field, all the sports, everybody enjoys it. But we really have priorities. Now I need infrastructure for schools even before we even discuss that. Even before we discuss it you have to really work out infrastructure. You have to set priorities, and if you don't set priorities then you're out on a tangent. As I said, taking our sales tax money on behalf of Wrigley is something … why would we do that? It's a very valuable piece of property.

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