Orlando, Florida. "The signature act of Richard Daley's 22 years in office was the midnight bulldozing of Meigs Field," according to Chicago Tribune columnist Eric Zorn. "He ruined Meigs because he wanted to, because he could," Chicago Tribune columnist John Kass wrote of Daley. "The issue is Daley's increasingly authoritarian style that brooks no disagreements, legal challenges, negotiations, compromise or any of that messy give-and-take normally associated with democratic government," the Chicago Tribune editorialized. The Federal Aviation Administration cited the city for failure to comply with federal law requiring thirty-day advance notice to the FAA of plans for an airport closure. The city was fined $33,000, the maximum allowable. The city paid the fine and repaid $1 million in misspent federal airport development grants. Daley defended his actions by claiming that the airport was abandoned, in spite of the fact that the Chicago Fire Department had several helicopters based on the field at the time, in addition to the dozens of private aircraft left stranded. Hired Truck Program scandal The $40 million-a-year Hired Truck program was the biggest scandal of Daley's first 15 years as mayor. The Hired Truck Program hired private truck companies to do city work. A six-month investigation by the Chicago Sun-Times resulted in a three-day series of articles in January 2004 that revealed some participating companies were being paid for doing little or no work, had American Mafia connections or were tied to city employees, or paid bribes to get into the program. Between 1996 and 2004, companies in the Hired Truck Program gave more than $800,000 in campaign contributions to various politicians, including Daley, House Speaker Michael Madigan, and Governor Rod Blagojevich; Daley received at least $108,575 and his brother John Daley and his ward organization more than $47,500. Mark Gyrion, Daley's second cousin, was a superintendent of garages for the city's Water Management Department, and among his duties was deciding when City-owned trucks should be sold for scrap. Gyrion's mother-in-law's firm, Jacz Transportation, participated in the Hired Truck Program, receiving about $1 million between 1998 and 2004. Jacz Transportation bought a truck three days after the city sold it to a Franklin Park dealership and then leased it back to the city. Gyrion was accused of failing to disclose his mother-in-law's role in the Hired Truck Program and the transfer of the truck. Gyrion was fired and Jacz Transportation was one of 13 truck