Dan Rutherford

City Hall smells a rat behind the Northwest Side home of Gov. Blagojevich -- and it has nothing to do with the corruption charges leveled against the governor.

Earlier this week, Chicago Sun-Times photographer John White shot a picture of the governor ducking out of his Ravenswood Manor home to avoid passing through a news media gauntlet.

The photo showed Blagojevich next to a city sign that said, "Warning" and "Target Rats" with a picture of a rat inside a bull's-eye.

Friday morning, Blagojevich left his house by the same back door, but there was something missing. The rat sign had been taken down, even though it was posted in a city-owned alley.

The Daley administration suspects the obvious: that the governor or somebody close to him saw White's unflattering picture and yanked down the sign.

The problem is, the sign was posted for safety reasons. It said: "This block has been safely baited where needed as of 10/6/08."

The sign also includes a phone number for the poison center, in case rat bait is accidentally ingested by a person or pet.

Streets and Sanitation spokesman Matt Smith said he had "no idea who would have taken down that sign."

"We plan to repost [it] some time in the near future when it isn't likely to be the center of attention," he said.

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