People: City Hall

It was no week to be a mayor.

Mayor Martin Kennelly of Chicago, who makes a point of double-quick refuse collecting, got a complaint from a citizen whose wife had accidentally thrown $30 in the garbage: the collectors had whisked the stuff away before the couple could rescue the money. Kennelly quieted the man down—and set a perilous precedent —by forking over $30 out of his own pocket.

Mayor Earl Riley of Portland, Ore., home from a visit to San Francisco, got a visit from San Francisco's Mayor Roger Lapham, who dropped in to...