CHICAGO IS BROKE BUT MAYOR DALEY'S GOT $1.4 BILLION

What's so funny Mayor Daley?

Oh, right. You're having your way with the citizens of Chicago. And the gettin's good. You raised our taxes and fees. You laid off city workers and forced countless others to take unpaid days off. Your police department is insanely understaffed. You claim the city of Chicago has no money. But you're still tenaciously pursuing the Olympics. And somewhere, someplace sits a whole lot of money - OUR money, NOT yours - from the leases of the Skyway, the parking garages under Grant/Millennium Park, and the parking meters. You claim you're saving this money for a rainy day. I'm not sure how much more stormy it can get. Didn't you hear?...This is the worst economy since the Great Depression.

And now, comes word of the 2008 TIF report. No Games Chicago reports you are sitting on $1.4 billion dollars:

TIFs have sucked $3.1 billion out of the city’s budget from 1986 through 2007. They have been used, abused and mis-construed. The Mayor demands them from Aldermen in order to get any improvements in the communities. They are like money-draining zombies that can’t be killed and continue draining property taxes out of a neighborhood for decades, no mater why they were started and regardless if they help or hurt local improvements.

So. Mayor Daley and your assorted minions, can you please stop threatening us with your lack of alternate plans for economic development. Stop telling us “It’s the Olympics or nothing.” Release the $1.4 billion from your TIF slush fund and fix our schools, expand CTA service, re-open the shuttered public health clinics and create real, sustainable and equitable community economic development!

So forgive me, Mayor Daley, while I continue not to believe you when you speak about the financial state of this city and say that the Olympics are our only hope.

Thanks to your parking meter debacle and your Olympic nonsense, people are finally catching on. They don't trust you and your henchmen. They are fed up with your corruption and greed. And they can't wait to see your house of cards tumble to the ground.

But don't take my word for it.

The Provocateur: Mayor Daley + Olympics = Gasoline + Fire

The 2016 Olympics will guarantee billions, if not, tens of billions in contracts that the city will have to dole out for construction, security, street cleaning, etc. There is already a standard operating procedure for how these sorts of contracts get doled out now. They go to Daley's friends, admirers, and allies. Only now the budget is infinitesimal compared to what it will be if the Olympics comes here.

Bringing the Olympics to Chicago will allow a corrupt mayor to run the city in the same corrupt manner only with an exponential new sets of resources, responsibilities, and powers. Is that really what the city wants? That seems to me to be pouring gasoline on top of a fire.

Mayor Daley AKA Little Lord Fauntleroy, brought to you by my favorite YouTuber.

I hope Richie Daley is realizing that he could get hauled away in handcuffs too. You know, this guy's got a thick skull. And I don't know if anything can penetrate this guy's thick skull. But I hope for his sake he's realizing it. Judging by his actions, I don't think he is.

photo by Johnye West

Little Daley Fauntleroy. What an accurate description. Just in case you don't know, Wikipedia says:

Little Lord Fauntleroy is most often used as a term of derision. It describes a pompous spoiled brat, usually a young male, who takes his wealth and privilege for granted.