.....Use of more taxpayer money to finance Mayor Richard Daley's Olympic dream was approved today by a key City Council panel. The measure, passed by the Finance Committee and headed for the full Council on Tuesday, is part of a package of city guarantees and agreements required to be included in Chicago's bid, which is due February 12. The ordinance commits the city to use an unspecified amount of tax-increment financing dollars to help build the Olympic Village that would house athletes during the 2016 Summer Games. Source/Read more.Easy Come-Easy Go. There's more:
.....So much for that $10 million. As expected, Daley administration officials told aldermen this morning that the city can’t recover any of the taxpayer-funded subsidies it gave Republic Windows and Doors to keep hundreds of jobs in Chicago—even though the company’s owners abruptly closed its Goose Island plant last month, laid off its entire workforce, and bought a non-unionized facility in Iowa. Source/Read more.Update: Not that it'll make a difference. (Sorry to be so cynical)... If you've got something to say about the TIF Funded Olympic Madness, here's your chance.
.....Chicago taxpayers have no legal recourse to recoup a $10 million subsidy awarded to Republic Windows & Doors because a requirement that the company create 549 jobs and retain them for eight years has expired, Corporation Counsel Mara Georges told aldermen Monday. Source/Read more.
The Lincoln Park Advisory Council (LPAC) invites you to attend a forum, free to the public:
When: Wednesday, January 14
6:45 pm to 8:45 pm
There will be ample time for audience participation and Q&A
Where: The Peggy Notebaert Nature Museum
2430 N. Cannon Drive, just north of Fullerton Ave.
Street parking is usually available on Cannon Drive.
The CTA bus #151 runs along nearby Stockton Drive
For more information, contact LPAC Board Secretary, Tom Tresser at 312-804-3230 or tom@tresser.com
Blognotes: Remember Joe Moore's bravado talk last month? Guess what? Mr. Hot-air, media-hog wasn't even mentioned. Here's who really brought the issue up. Not Joe 'Do-nothing' Moore.
The issue came up before the council’s Committee on Finance at the behest of aldermen Manny Flores and Scott Waguespack, who had argued that the city might be able to recover some of the money it paid to Republic. Source/Read more.That's our great leader, Joe Moore. He's all talk, no action.
13 comments:
STOP THE OLYMPICS!!
The last thing Chicago needs in this rough time, with the city verging on BK, is another multi-billion dollar vanity project.
I wrote an appeal on my own blog to fight this nonsense.
To begin with, it will be a net loss to the taxpayers of at least $1.3 billion, according to its promoters.
However, that's a lie. The experience of Bejing (2008) and London (2012) show that it will cost the city at least $20 Billion, and most likely much more.
The Bejing games cost $44 Billion. Worse, they occasioned a massive diversion of water from parched agricultural provinces to Bejing, causing mass crop failures and massive suffering in those poverty-stricken districts.
The minister in charge of the London games in 2012 says the the cost of event has already exceeded $20 Billion, and counting, and that she wishes that London had not bid the games, calling it a "mistake".
In this city, you can count on it costing at least as much as the London games and most likely much more,given our tendency toward graft and corruption.
Worse, the games will be massively disruptive and we will all feel it, for 10,000 residents in the Washington Park area will be dislocated. Don't think for a minute that this won't mean a "domino effect" of disruptions everywhere else.
The security risk is serious. Remember the Atlanta games. The Olympics has become so laden with symbolism, and so many nations have so much national ego at stake, that the event is a choice target for troublemakers.
Lastly, the games will not only not likely "make money" for the city or create jobs, but, rather, any jobs created will be a)temporary and b)more than offset by the number of people who drift to the city just to get them. The Atlanta games did NOT result in any net gains for local workers or businesses. Instead, many "entry" businesses based elsewhere got the vendor's licenses and imported workers got the job, with no gain for local businesses. In fact, local hotels and restaurants outside the area immediately adjacent to the games actually suffered a net loss of revenues during the event.
It's a lose-lose proposition for Chicago, and it won't enhance this city's stature as a "world class"- JESUS how I loathe that term- city. Chicago already IS one of the world's great cities. This is already an absolutely gorgeous city stuffed with opportunity and amenity, with a very high level of culture, and recreational venues too numerous to count.
Additionally, we are full up to here subsidizing sports venues.
Have we had about enough of fronting the costs of Da Mare's monument-building? This guy's vanity and self-importance are completely out of control. Nobody will benefit from the expenditure and disruption this event entails but a few of Hizzoner's rich cronies,if even.
For more info check out "A Balanced Discussion" on the bid for Chicago Olympics at www.chicago2016.com/2016/
It seems to be another way for "some" people to make money and for the taxpayers to lose
I can't wait for the Olympics to get here. It's going to be so cool!
Please see Tuesday's with Timmy for my suggested funding options.
Meanwhile the city can't afford to plow side streets.
No Olympics, no extension of Lake Shore Drive..no big projects until The Machine is gone.
Our pols and their shills use our aversion to more property taxes as an excuse for our deteriorated water and sewer infrastructure.
If we can even contemplate a Bread-and-Circuses boondogle like the Olympics, why can we not replace our 90 year old water and sewer mains?
Why can we not provide our police dept with more men and with firepower equal (at least) to the criminals?
Why can we not fund a rehab of the Red Line, or an extra leg on the Brown Line into West Rogers Park, let alone an outer "connector" line that would give moderate and low income workers in outer nabes an alternative to clogging the streets with cars?
Why can we not clean up and rehabilitate the parks and recreational facilities we already have, so that our CITIZENS may enjoy them?
Where are our priorities?
Laura Louzader, you hammered the nail deep into the core of the problem! I absolutely agree, Where Are Our Priorities?
After noting the failure to spend these funds on really essential city needs, we must also investigate whose bread will get buttered with many millions of dollars in city contracts doled out for the Olympics . . . and how do residents/taxpayers benefit in the long run?
i will just make this one specific rebuttal of nc's rant- all construction jobs are temporary. there is always someone arguing that the jobs created by some project or another are temporary, but that is the nature of the beast. you have to keep creating construction jobs.
ok, one more-in modern times, only atlanta and munich were marred by violence as far as i can recall.
i can't wait to host the olympics. i completely support the olympic ideal of nonviolent contest between nations are a bridge to a peaceful future. i could not be so hypocritical as to not welcome that ideal to my city. if is an investment in a peaceful future, and worth whatever it costs.
Dear neighbor been there,
You wrote that the Olympic Games are an investment "in a peaceful future, and worth whatever it costs."
As we write, read, and converse on this blog at this very moment there are armed skirmishes, battles, wars, and even genocidal wars, happening right now around our globe. Many nations, including our USA, have a hand in some part of this. Everyday thousands of human beings (adult soldiers, child soldiers, and non-combatant innocent civilians) are being slaughtered or facing imminent death.
Do you really believe that a multi-million dollar Chicago festival and fleeting tourism boost called "The Olympic Games" will have a measurable impact to reduce this state of global madness and help create a peaceful future anywhere in our world?
I ask this quite sincerely inasmuch as it may help me understand you.
michael,
in all honesty, as someone who is a stalwart atheist, and who does not need a lot of ritual in my own life, i do believe in the olympic ideal. i do believe that to achieve anything, you must first visualize. then you must share that vision.
obviously, an end to war is not the work of a moment, or within the reach of a few. it is a million and one tiny skirmishes. or maybe it is a billion and one. so, this repeating ritual will be needed for a long time to keep that vision in focus.
i am not so naive as to think that one day the whole world will drop their weapons. but neither am i so jaded as to think that there is no way for peace to ever come.
there is a famous buddhist monk whose saying has become popular-peace is every step. i like that. i believe that. for a journey this long, we must honor every step. any way that people can set down their differences, and come together, from all over the world, to all be brothers and sisters for a few days is a big step. every athlete that dedicates themselves to the olympic ideal is one more warrior for a better world.
hopefully ritchie & co are smart enough to shake out the money, and we wont hold too much of the bag. there will be lasting improvements, and they will be a lasting reservoir of goodwill that will come back to us for the rest of your life and mine.
peace IS every step.
and ps, i also believe that barack will bring us a more peaceful world in many ways. for this neighborhood in particular, i hope that he examines the idiocy of the "war on drugs". i know he doesn't want to. but i know there is a lot of pressure on him to spend every penny wisely.
and to quote my favorite president- people ask me how i can continue to hope in the face of such a dismal reality, and i say, because there is no choice.
Has "been there" ever seen a wasteful public project she didn't love?
There is a lot of construction needing desperately to be done on our streets, bridges, sewers, water, roads, and rails. These things are desperately needy of repair and improvement, while fuel is still relatively cheap and while the city is at least still nominally solvent.
I would suggest that anyone who thinks we're going to slink by with only a couple of billion in expenditures on the Olympics study the history of all the recent games and their staggering final bills, and consider how much the poor of this city will benefit from money spent on Bread & Circuses for the rich, whilst being diverted from essential services that we need to keep the city safe and sanitary.
ALL of the recent games have run final price tags of at least $20 Billion and often $40 Billion or more.
I've always said that Mayor Daley is an ego-driven monument-builder, the kind of guy who drops $6,000 on a shower curtain while the tub's backed up and the furnace is on the blink. Looks like he's not the only one.
It's especially inappropriate to make this kind of commitment to an empty symbol while ordinary citizens are losing jobs and experiencing falling living standards and gut-gnawing economic insecurity. Face it, neither you nor I will be able to attend this event, and we are already being taxed enough to build sports stadiums and enrich team owners.
I have done research on the olympics and it is the last thing the State Of Illinois needs. It is a losing game. I have a document written but cannot get any of the media to even acknowledge receiving it. It is not written as radical, it is facts with footnotes supporting those facts.
Olympics in Chicago is a joke. There is no room without moving people out. The transportation in the city is the worst I have ever seen and I have been in every major city in the USA many times.
If anyone is interested in my document and helping to STOP THE CHICAGO OLYMPICS please contact me at my registered email.
This web site also needs to be optimized so it shows up when searching for Chicago Olympics. The only way I found it was by using google and searching for stop chicago olympics.
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