Clout City
Thursday, November 5, 2009
Clout City Don't Mess With Big Joe
Posted by Ben Joravsky on Thu, Nov 5, 2009 at 6:29 PM
Two weeks ago, Andrea Raila was eagerly gathering signatures to her nominating petitions and talking about cleaning up our rancid property tax system once she got elected Cook County Assessor.
Today, she withdrew from the race.
Monday, November 2, 2009
Chicagoland, Politics, Clout City Dear Mayor Daley: Thank You For Making Our Point About TIFs
Posted by Whet Moser on Mon, Nov 2, 2009 at 1:21 PM
"To be perfectly frank, I think it’s just a lack of marketing about what [TIFs] do and account for," Daley said. "We just have to show, with better marketing, we have to show what the benefits to the community are."The mayor said that the special taxing districts, which freeze the amount of property taxes collected within a given geographic area for up to 23 years and set them aside for local improvements, have allowed the city to build new police stations, fire stations and libraries.
THAT'S NOT WHAT TIFS ARE FOR. THAT'S SORT OF THE PROBLEM.
Friday, October 30, 2009
Chicagoland, Politics, Clout City From the TIF Archives: "The Schools Scam"
Posted by Whet Moser on Fri, Oct 30, 2009 at 2:28 PM
Since state test scores are among the big news items today, here's an excerpt from Ben Joravsky's 2006 piece "The Schools Scam: Under the TIF system millions of dollars in property taxes are being diverted from education to development"; it's long because the issue is tricky:
Politics, Clout City Pay up, suckers
Posted by Ben Joravsky on Fri, Oct 30, 2009 at 10:40 AM
The latest batch of property tax bills has been sent out and the results are just coming in.
My annual analysis of who pays what (I know, I'm an incurable geek) illustrates what Assessor Jim Houlihan has been saying for the last several years: residents on the south and west sides are seeing the greatest leaps in their assessments, so they're getting the biggest jumps in their bills.
Hey, no one said this stuff is fair. In fact, when you look at how it's affecting some of our esteemed public servants, you'll have to agree it's fairer for some more than others.
Tuesday, October 27, 2009
Chicagoland, Politics, Clout City Goodbye to the 7 Percent Property-Tax Solution
Posted by Whet Moser on Tue, Oct 27, 2009 at 1:46 PM
The Sun-Times has a good but complex piece today on the relationship between rising property taxes and the phaseout of the so-called 7% property tax cap instituted by outgoing Cook County Assessor James Houlihan (here's more on the candidates vying to replace him). Fortunately, Ben Joravsky's been writing about the 7% cap - which is obviously integral to the TIF issue - and his work provides some good background.
Monday, October 26, 2009
Media, Politics, Clout City TIFs: Where It All Began and How Joravsky Sussed It From the Start
Posted by Alison True on Mon, Oct 26, 2009 at 2:02 PM
Sound familiar?
"By the time the City Council's Finance Committee got around to officially approving the . . . deal—a $400 million Loop redevelopment project—almost all of the aldermen had gone home for the weekend. . . . Not that full aldermanic attendance would have changed the outcome. The project . . . had all the trappings of a done deal."
Wednesday, October 21, 2009
Politics, Clout City Fact-Checking Mayor Daley's Budget Address
Posted by Mick Dumke on Wed, Oct 21, 2009 at 2:53 PM
As predicted, Mayor Richard M. Daley proposed a $6.1 billion budget this morning that would be balanced by cutting city jobs, slowing services, and dipping deeper by hundreds of millions of dollars into the pot of money generated by leasing the parking meter system.
Most aldermen I spoke with after the mayor’s somber, half-hour budget address said they didn’t like the idea of using the meter reserve funds, but they bought the mayor’s argument that it was the only viable way to maintain core city functions like policing and garbage collection without a major tax hike.
Thursday, October 8, 2009
Politics, Clout City Service Cuts
Posted by Mick Dumke on Thu, Oct 8, 2009 at 1:02 PM
Since Chicago's first-round failure to bring home an Olympic bid, calls have grown louder for Mayor Daley and the City Council to turn their attention back to running the city and addressing serious problems ranging from street violence to a troubled transit system. But after several years of budget problems and multiple rounds of layoffs—and another huge budget hole for 2010—it's going to be harder and harder to pull off.
A close look at the city's payroll records shows that over the last year and a half the Daley administration has been forced to shed scores of jobs responsible for core service delivery such as policing, criminal investigations, emergency communications, traffic control, garbage pickup, tree trimming, airport security, and public health care.
Wednesday, October 7, 2009
Politics, Clout City Yet another attempt to prevent a parking meter redux
Posted by Mick Dumke on Wed, Oct 7, 2009 at 2:57 PM
Aldermen are already sweating about the 2010 budget process about to heat up at City Hall, because it's clear they're going to be forced to raise taxes, fines, and fees, dip into reserve funds, make additional staffing and service cuts, sell off more city assets, or all of the above. Such is the dilemma facing a city half a billion bucks in the hole.
So even though they've taken all kinds of hell for hastily approving the parking meter deal, most are glad to have the cash from it, some of which will go toward keeping the city afloat in 2010, as it did this year. "Whether we like the agreement or not, the meters are something of a saving grace for plugging this deficit," 44th Ward alderman Tom Tunney told me the other day. "I don't like the idea of using our capital assets to pay for operating deficits, but this is a tough time."
It's not hard to imagine Mayor Daley using that same argument to push another privatization deal in the coming months, or the City Council bitching and moaning as it goes along.
That's why a few aldermen introduced an ordinance today that would try to protect the council from the specter of its own rubber-stamping proclivities.
Politics, Clout City, News Jobs at what price? How about $14,356 apiece?
Posted by Mick Dumke on Wed, Oct 7, 2009 at 11:25 AM
UPDATE: The United deal passed unanimously without debate. Finance committee chair Ed Burke said, "The net effect on the Chicago economy will be tremendous over the next ten years, and this represents an ongoing commitment from United Airlines to its hometown.”
Now that the City Council's Committee on Finance has given its consent, the full council will probably vote tomorrow to approve a deal giving United Airlines $35.4 million in taxpayer-funded subsidies to move its corporate operational headquarters, along with at least 2,500 jobs, into the Willis Tower. That works out to about $14,356 per job.
This money comes on top of $15.4 million in assistance the city gave United just two years ago to move its corporate headquarters and at least 325 jobs from Elk Grove Village to 77 W. Wacker.
