Brickbat: Lots of Room
(Benkrut / Dreamstime.com)
State and local officials spent $66 million converting Chicago's McCormick Place convention center into an emergency hospital to treat coronavirus patients. It ended up treating just 38 patients, at a cost of about $1.7 million each. Officials hired Walsh Construction, a politically connected Chicago firm, even though the Army Corps of Engineers, which is covering 75 percent of the costs, said the two other bidders for the project were better. One of those bidders, Power Construction, offered to forego any fees or to donate them to coronavirus relief.
