A windfall from the sale of Chicago parking meters that was supposed to last for 75 years would be nearly exhausted in just one year to stave off tax increases and provide token property tax relief, thanks to a $6.1 billion 2010 budget approved today.
By a vote of 38 to 12, the City Council approved Mayor Daley's plan to drain reserves generated by city asset sales to solve Chicago's worst budget crisis in modern history. Continue Reading
With all of the money she's gotten in recent years, how could she say no to Da Mare??? One rubber stamp stamps the other...
ReplyDeleteNo suprise Shiller would vote that way.
ReplyDeleteLet's be fair though. If we are keeping "all things Uptown" it should be mentioned in the title that Ald. Smith, who has a portion of Uptown, also voted "yes."
I have to say with this being the great recession having the money in the bank is a huge positive and based on everything going on(stock market/job loss slowing). The budget will be in much better shape next year then the article is saying - Of course - By putting that in the article it would contradict the entire story, but take a look around or read the papers.....Not many layoff annoucements and soon we will be on teh up tick again for 2010.....
ReplyDeleteNothing smart about this. He sold off 99 years of a guaranteed revenue stream (parking meters) to save the operating budget for 1 year. What rabbit will he pull out of his hat for next year's budget? Plus, there wouldn't be such a huge budget shortfall if it weren't for all the city TIF's taking money out of the tax base.
ReplyDeleteHe's just trying to avoid raising taxes at all before the next election. After, if he's still mayor, look out!
Paul, I think you are being a bit over-optomistic. True, there haven't been many mass layoffs noted in the papers lately, but people are still getting layed off. And, the rate of job loss has slowed down. But, you don't hear much about the job market picking up either. Trust me on this one, I know.
What's interesting about this is both the number of Aldercreatures who voted against the budget and who they were.
ReplyDeleteTunney in Lakeview.
Vi Daley in Lincoln Park.
Tom Allen from the NW side.
Those three surprised me. The others are not as surprising.
"Wednesday’s vote did not achieve that lofty standard. Fioretti and Allen were joined by aldermen: Manny Flores (1st), Pat Dowell (3rd), Sandi Jackson (7th), Ricardo Munoz (22nd), Sharon Dixon (24th), Scott Waguespack (32nd), Brendan Reilly (42nd), Vi Daley (43rd), Tom Tunney (44th) and Joe Moore (49th)."
A number of the "no" votes may have mayoral ambitions themselves. Imagine Mayor Joe Moore..............ack.
Allen is pissed off the Mayor didn't support his run for States Attorney.
Tunney and Vi Daley must be scared off the coming election in 2011. Vi Daley was forced into a runoff in 2007.
Tunney has problems because of the parking meters, perceived growing crime, registration fee for dumpsters and just a generally well educated electorate.
2011 is going to be fun.
The message, as always, is GET OUT OF CHICAGO NOW. This city is going downhill. The Mayor and his minions are driving it into bankruptcy. When they do, the white flight is going to start again. If you don't get out now, you stand to lose a ton of money. I know I'm leaving the city as soon as I can sell my place.
ReplyDelete"What rabbit will he pull out of his hat for next year's budget?"
ReplyDeleteour h2o works
Midway
could someone decipher this?
ReplyDeleteShiller on the budget: "TIF reform is hard"
herself must have watched the Seinfeld reunion show because she worked in a "having said that":
I actually think things are a little bit more simple and a bit more complicated. Let me explain why. I don't think it is such a simple thing, actually, as to lay it out in the way we have just heard it. We do have a structural problem, and we don't necessarily -- and we don't at the moment have an answer to it. We don't have an agreement on how to address it. That is this, if we just take the corporate budget, which is the budget
The budget is a difficult budget on the one hand, because it is talking about using a resource that really need to keep for a long time. I don't disagree with that. It is also a fact that today we have more money in our long-term refund then we had a year ago. Both things are true. It is also true that while there has been a description of the dollars we are going to spend, there has not been identified particularly the resource that we are going to have to replace other than a hope that our economy will improved. That goes back to what I said. We have to take this central question seriously, and we have to be able to look at everything and the accountability of everything across the board and specifically how we deal with services, public safety, and how we deal with all the other needs we have in our city so we are not constantly pushing everything against each other. This is very difficult in this environment. Having said that, I think that means we have to figure out ways in which all of us can be much more actively engaged over the course of a year -- from one year to the next and looking at solutions. Maybe we divide that up and take on different projects. I think there really is not another choice in front of us, because we do not have an alternative to fill that budget gap. It is not so simple as saying, cut it out of the corporate budget, because it is not there. We are spending all but $30 million on things that we cannot or will not cut and have to find ways in which to be able to pay for everything else out of our other funds, grants, and our enterprise funds. And that leaves us with a big hole, and this is where we are getting the whole. I would love to have an alternative to that. I know see it. Therefore, I am going to be voting [ inaudible ]
ReplyDeleteUnfortunately, the only solution that is in front of it -- the only solution in front of us is individually [ inaudible ] or whether it comes from the mayor is a proposal that Barrault's money that we have that we wanted to use for another purpose. Those are the dollars to referred to. The vote today is whether or not we will agree to do that. In which case, those of us that will say yes will vote yes. Or whether or not that we think we cannot do that. The question is, how do we get through the end of the year if the vote is no? Even though some of us may make light of the responsibilities to come up with an alternative or be frustrated that there is only one in front of us, we have to have a balanced budget by the end of the year. If I could stand here and say that this is the way in which I think we could do that as opposed to send one idea or the other -- and there are several I have proposed. I hope that there will be some changes that will save us money over the course of the next year and years after that, because I think there are structural changes that will do that. But not enough to fill this whole. If there was enough to fill this whole, I would present a different proposal, but I don't really have one. I do have very strong feelings about policy and how policy needs to be exerted when all other things in the public domain failed. When the market fails to provide what our citizens need and we have responsibility to do so, I think that is what needs to drive a government. I know we do not have a unified point of view about that on this floor. I raise that to say without having a long discussion about it that tiff reform in large measure is much more complicated than has been put on the table. Yet it is also very simple. It is complicated because there are lots of dollars committed that are never incorporated in the discussion, but there is another part of this that I would like to at least raise. There are people that think that tiff dollars more are a primary vehicle and opportunity to be able to make sure that there is fairness in our developments and affordable housing and other things that are necessary that have fewer resources can benefit from people will have stated that tiff would be the way to utilize package and it is critical. The problem is that there are also people that think explicitly because of that tiffs are a tool that we should discard. Then there are others who have questions that I don't disagree with. I think we have to find ways to make it much more understandable so it is not complicated so when we have this discussion we are all talking a common language. While we are doing that, at least for someone like me, it concerns me that there is a wholesale dismissal of tiff without a real discussion about what it takes to make sure that the use of tiff or the things that we got reform on in the year 2000 in the same legislature which was to ensure that tiff would be used to benefit public education and affordable housing that we do not lose those benefits. I've just have to say that, because that has become a center of the discussion here. I think that has to be included when people talk about tiff.
ReplyDeleteWe just had a debate about the mental health and mental health resources, what everyone said was true. It is true that the state has cut a dramatic amount of money for mental health. For various different reasons. It is also true that the city is not able to meet obligations that we have to those who have the most need, including people of mental health needs. And we have to figure out how to do that. We have a new commissioner, in the health department, and hopefully that will be an opportunity for us to revisit this and to seek to structure and make changes that can be effective. We cannot ignore the fact that we end up being the closest to our constituents and the ones that they come into to resolve these issues. We are in a. And Mom and time when a Mike ten and 20 years ago where we had a great deal of resources available to us, that is just not the case today. Every single government is in the same situation we are unlike some others, we have to balance our budget by the end of the year. We are not able to necessarily budget out of it.
ReplyDeleteThe part of the fund of the budget that we don't have any restrictions on. We take from all of the dollars we spend on public safety out of that fund and we add to that in the next year that we are committed to, and we add to that the dollars we are committed to for debt service is. We are left with $30 million. That does not include pension costs, doesn't include [ indiscernible ], doesn't include any other departments than police, fire, and o EMC. We have a serious problem if we don't look -- if we're not able to make changes in those areas. And the problem we have is that we only get this much to say about a lot of those expenses. In the end, as we are negotiating now around police and fire -- Police with the effects of fire, in the end, we are already in arbitration on that. The decision that is like to be made is going to be made by someone not even from the city necessarily, and certainly not from the city council. So, we have some issues here that we have to figure out. We are not talking about quitting public service. There is no desire to cut public service. We have to deal with what we have. I do not think it is this simple. I think we have to understand that, yes, we have got to look at the costs that we have and how we are going to be able to over the course of the next several years begin to address that and change it. That is not a new discussion turned I don't think we can have the discussion just put on the table without also indulging that. I don't think that that means that you throw up your hands and say, there is nothing we can do. I think we have to attempt to deal with what we have to do and get input from our constituents knowing what the all of the bottom lines are, not just mistakes that have not been made in the past and the reality we face today and in the future. I am not sure -- that is why we go after a lot of federal and state dollars. That is why we get creative with dollars we have such as the tiff none of those I think our that clear.
ReplyDeleteLOL What?
ReplyDeleteSounds like the Sarah Palin school of Political Babble
ReplyDeleteGood lawd, Hugh .. where to begin on all of that.
ReplyDeleteI've never seen anyone else take so long to say so much which means so little.
Short version: this woman, once again, has proven, by her own words, that she lacks the mentality and integrity to properly execute the position to which she's been "elected".
If this is what passes for acceptable political response, there's little wonder how the city got into this mess.
And a major wonder of how the hell we're going to get out of it.
Digging through, a bit:
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I actually think things are a little bit more simple and a bit more complicated.
This is an important note to keep in mind while wading through this muck, since the simple/difficult/complicated meme pops up a few times (as incomplete as it may be).
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My fav: The budget is a difficult budget on the one hand
What's interesting about this line is that she shows one hand, yet (as one is wont to do when using the "on the one hand" approach) there is no mention of the "other hand".
The "other hand" is always hidden around here, isn't it?
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For various different reasons.
Redundant much?
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The set up:
Every single government is in the same situation...
The contradiction:
we are unlike some others,
The contradiction to the contradiction:
we have to balance our budget by the end of the year.
Doesn't every governmental body have to balance their budgets?
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This is classic:
When the market fails to provide what our citizens need and we have responsibility to do so, I think that is what needs to drive a government.
(ignore the gapping holes in her sentence structure)
Hm. Based on that silly Constitution, the role of government is to provide equal opportunity, not equal success; but, that aside, how can she blame the market for failing when she herself fails to give the market a chance in her own ward?
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There are people that think that tiff dollars more are a primary vehicle and opportunity to be able to make sure that there is fairness in our developments and affordable housing and other things that are necessary that have fewer resources can benefit from people will have stated that tiff would be the way to utilize package and it is critical.
I have NO idea what her point is, here (which shows that at least she's consistent in her obfuscated bloviations), except that she declares her view of TIFs to be a tool (maybe the only tool) to create affordable housing (when the market fails, of course ... )
Say it with me, folks: self-fulfilling prophecy.
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Then there are others who have questions that I don't disagree with.
Huh?
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This one broke the needle of the irony meter:
I think we have to find ways to make it much more understandable so it is not complicated so when we have this discussion we are all talking a common language.
Is a document dump and curious use of the English language her idea of making things less complicated?
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. I think we have to attempt to deal with what we have to do and get input from our constituents knowing what the all of the bottom lines are
I highlighted the constituents bit because we all know how full of sh1t she is on that, but I am curious as to how many "bottom lines" exist.
Isn't there only 1 bottom line?
Oh, and we don't need to "attempt to deal with what we have to do", we simply need to "deal with what we have to do" - it's not that complicated.
To quote famous muppet:
Do, or do not. There is no try.
Unless, of course, it is that complicated, which it looks to be so that we're actually standing behind that line that we were first standing upon, when we we were standing on it, previously - when we started; and where we need to be standing, in contrast to where we starting from and where we are now standing, on that line, - where we were standing, before.
Right?
Unless, of course, it is that complicated, which it looks to be so that we're actually standing behind that line that we were first standing upon, when we we were standing on it, previously - when we started; and where we need to be standing, in contrast to where we starting from and where we are now standing, on that line, - where we were standing, before.
ReplyDeleteRight?
Not quite.
You left out a "On one hand" at the beginning.
"Doesn't every governmental body have to balance their budgets?"
ReplyDeletehere herself borrows rhetoric from her beloved mentor
Daley loves to point out that state & local gummints can't "print money" like the feds
Daley loves to point out that state & local gummints can't "print money" like the feds
ReplyDelete*cough*
Thank you for the report, Hugh!
ReplyDeletethink she writes her own speeches?
ReplyDeletethink she writes her own speeches?
ReplyDeleteI think she writes her own press releases.
I think Sneetches live on beaches.
ReplyDeleteThe tide is turning. Good night, Gentlemen.
The sad fact is that Alderman Shiller, in her complete arrogance, ends her incoherent diatribes believing that she has given profound insights to all those around her who do not share her (self-perceived) superior intellect and compassionate understanding of the issues. And, when her inability to communicate a logical, reasoned thought and/or her failure to act consistently with her proclaimed beliefs are questioned in any way, she dismisses all inquiries by saying, "That is not my reality."
ReplyDeleteHer use of verbal diarrhea and "alternative reality psycho-babble" are the shields she’s used for years to protect her ego and to avoid reconciling her hip-hops among political parties (from activist Independent to left-wing Lakefront liberal, to right-wing Republican, to Daley Democratic machine hack); and to avoid explaining the totally opposite positions she simultaneously takes on single issues to cater various factions at each end of her 46th Ward; and to avoid explaining her flip-flopping positions; and to avoid acting consistently with her prior statements and her carefully crafted, but phony, public image.
The regular media ignores her and, when she is cornered by constituents who demand answers, she simply refuses to speak and flees the scene.
"What rabbit will he pull out of his hat for next year's budget?"
ReplyDeletegarbage sortation facilities