The Chicago Sun-Times reports:
A narrow gangway with a wrought-iron fence running down the middle.
"We can't use it,'' says Ed Olson. "If there is an emergency, we can't get through. If I want to mow my lawn, I'd have to bring a lawn mower through my house.''
At some points, the fence is less than 10 inches from Olson's home.
It's the latest front in a bruising battle between Olson and Vito Barbara, a 28-year-old member of a politically connected family that includes city power brokers, trucking company owners once part of the scandal-plagued Hired Truck program and loads of workers on the public payroll. Many of Barbara's relatives live with him, or within a few houses or blocks in the tightly knit neighborhood. Olson says the feud began in earnest when he refused to sell his home to Barbara after Barbara bought the land next to Olson's property three years ago.
For a look in Vito Barbara's family
tree.Only in
Chicago.Let's quote the end of today's article from the Sun-Times:
Barbara is a member of a clout-heavy family whose roots in Chicago date back a century, when Bruno Roti Sr. immigrated from Italy. Roti was a grocer who the FBI said was one of Chicago's earliest organized crime figures and who was close to Al Capone. Barbara is Roti's distant nephew: His grandmother was Roti's niece. Barbara's distant cousin is Fred Roti, a first cousin of Vito's grandmother. The now-deceased Fred Roti was a longtime city alderman who was convicted in 1993 of taking bribes -- and who the FBI says was a made member of the mob.
Nice people to have on a payroll.
