There was a shooting in Edgewater, at 1109 W. Ardmore, in the early morning hours this morning, according to the major news sources.
Reports indicate that the shooting was not fatal, at least not at the time.
No information is available as to the identity of the victim, or other circumstances surrounding the crime.
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Monday, September 22, 2008
Saturday, September 20, 2008
The Largest Government Bailout In History: Socialism on an Unprecendented Scale
The Party That Wrecked America-our beloved Republithugs- has sponsored the most massive socialistic program-"the mother of all bailouts"- in the history of the world toprop up our wobbling financial system, and has put you and me, and all other taxpayers, on the hook for One Trillion Dollars at least, in addition to the other centi-billion dollar bailouts that have been engineered to prop up the plummeting housing market and our failing banking system.
Not that the Republicans stand alone- Obama has added his voice to that of McCain and his Trailer-Trash running mate, as well as to that of Bush- in supporting this massive misallocation of taxpayer funds at a juncture in our history where they could not be more wanted for other dire necessities.
Our leadership in both parties has totally failed us.
Make you no mistake- this is a bipartisan debacle that will not only elevate your cost of living steeply while robbing our cities and towns of badly needed revenues for dire infrastructure needs and critical civil services- as cities are deprived of "give-backs" of the federal income taxes their populations have paid in-but will drive the U.S. Treasury that much closer to insolvancy.
Those of you who remember my postings as "Paradise" on Craig's blog a few years ago will recall that I Told You So, but even I could not have predicted the cascading failure that is unfolding in front of us now.
If you believe that the bailouts that have been promulgated will in any manner benefit the American taxpayer, homeowner, or typical citizen, then you are delusional, and have clearly been drinking too much Kudlow and Cramer kool-aid on CNBC.
And if you believe that this country has, or ever had, anything resembling a Free Market, then you are so drunk on the kool-aid that all anyone can do for you is check you into rehab.
The trillion dollars or so that the series of bailouts promulgated thus far will be in addition to the $5 trillion of worthless mortgages belonging to FNMA and FNMA that we have been placed on the hook for. And it will not stop there, for remember that the FDIC, which insures your bank deposits up to $100,000 per customer, is also steeply underfunded, and will need more money just to cover the bank failures that are coming down the tube in the next few years. Some prognosticators predict that as many of half of the extant banks out there will fail, representing a couple hundred billion in deposits at least;yet the FDIC at this time has only $50 Billion to insure $1 trillion in deposits.
This disaster will continue to unfold at least for another two years, and the money allocated thus far will be soaked up like three drops of rain on a sidewalk in July.
What does this mean to the denizens of North Coast neighborhoods, as well as to the other citizens of Chicago?
It means that Chicago, one of the largest net taxpayers in the country second only to New York City and Los Angeles, as well as one of the last in line for federal "give-backs" of tax revenue, will suffer more deterioration of critical water, sewer, and transportation infrastructure, while local taxes will escalate to offset the dwindling funding from Washington. It means more income taxes for everyone- and if you believe that McCain can keep income taxes level, let alone lower them, while the federal deficit baloons to the point where the U.S. Treasury can no longer meet its debt service, then you deserve everything that will happen to you and the rest of us as this country continues to lurch toward complete bankruptcy.
It will mean even less money available for the failing war effort in Iraq, and still less available to the military in order to secure our oil supplies allover the world. For that is what our military really is- it is our oil security service, for every war we have fought in the past 80 years has really been about access to oil and safeguarding oil pipelines in the hot spots of the world. Those of you who think such a concern is frivolous and the money spent on it is wasted, be prepared to park your car and do without adequate heat and hot water for a looooooog time.
To those of you who made money flipping condos and houses during the credit-based housing boom of the past ten years- well, I hope you enjoyed yourselves, even though it was at my expense and that of not only every honest citizen who bought only what he/she could afford to pay for or not at all (and less than what they should have been able to buy for the same money), but at the expense of every taxpayer in the country. The party is over now and most likely forever, and you will have to earn your living by honest effort now. I hope you got bagged good and proper on your last attempted flip. May you spend the rest of your lives living in one-room apartments in four-plus-ones.
As for the efficacy of the bailout, it is money shot to hell that will only add to our national debt while the $400 Trillion or so worth of derivatives, based on worthless CDO paper that is worth perhaps a third its face amount, at a ratio of leverage of something like 10:1; will continue to unravel. Will we be able to bailout another ONE HUNDRED TRILLION DOLLARS worth of derivatives based on almost-worthless CDOs?
Such is the price of the spree of greed, fraud, and out-and-out larceny that was the Housing Bubble of the Early 21st Century. The poor are poorer, there are more homeless than ever, housing costs are 40% higher for almost everyone than 8 years ago, and millions of homeowners owe more on their places than they are worth. So much for the fabulous "wealth creation" of the fake boom.
Just one thing more- why have there been no Perp Walks for the financial industry honchos who built themselves $40MM mansions and bought 500' yachts with the proceeds of this rampage? Why, when about 300 million U.S. denizens are being made into unwilling homeowners, are these people permitted to keep the ill-gotten gains of the past 10 years, which include yearly compensation up into the hundreds of millions of dollars?
I mean, when I made a mistake that resulted in a $20,000-plus inventory loss a few years ago, I had to pay back almost every dime (the last $2,000 being "forgiven"). After all, I'm a licensed professional, so of course I had to pay back my losses, for, after all, I got to keep my gains.
So.. why have not the hedge fund managers, insurance and banking and lending executives, and derivatives traders who netted incomes in the hundreds of millions of dollars annually, based on their former profitability, not been compelled to give back their ill-gotten gains that have cost us our financial system?
So, in the future, let no one speak of what a wonderful thing "free markets", and unregulated larceny are and how they help "create wealth". There is no such a thing as a Free Market in a context where "freedom" means the license to steal and defraud while the responsibility for losses is passed on to parties- in this case the body of U.S. taxpayers- who did not get to attend the party but who will be stuck with the losses.
There can be no freedom without responsibility. If you are free, you must accept the responsibility for your actions. You must eat your losses. If you cannot accept the consequences of your mistakes, then you must bear with restrictions and regulations, and it's time to return our financial system to the regulatory framework that prevailed prior to 1980.
Not that the Republicans stand alone- Obama has added his voice to that of McCain and his Trailer-Trash running mate, as well as to that of Bush- in supporting this massive misallocation of taxpayer funds at a juncture in our history where they could not be more wanted for other dire necessities.
Our leadership in both parties has totally failed us.
Make you no mistake- this is a bipartisan debacle that will not only elevate your cost of living steeply while robbing our cities and towns of badly needed revenues for dire infrastructure needs and critical civil services- as cities are deprived of "give-backs" of the federal income taxes their populations have paid in-but will drive the U.S. Treasury that much closer to insolvancy.
Those of you who remember my postings as "Paradise" on Craig's blog a few years ago will recall that I Told You So, but even I could not have predicted the cascading failure that is unfolding in front of us now.
If you believe that the bailouts that have been promulgated will in any manner benefit the American taxpayer, homeowner, or typical citizen, then you are delusional, and have clearly been drinking too much Kudlow and Cramer kool-aid on CNBC.
And if you believe that this country has, or ever had, anything resembling a Free Market, then you are so drunk on the kool-aid that all anyone can do for you is check you into rehab.
The trillion dollars or so that the series of bailouts promulgated thus far will be in addition to the $5 trillion of worthless mortgages belonging to FNMA and FNMA that we have been placed on the hook for. And it will not stop there, for remember that the FDIC, which insures your bank deposits up to $100,000 per customer, is also steeply underfunded, and will need more money just to cover the bank failures that are coming down the tube in the next few years. Some prognosticators predict that as many of half of the extant banks out there will fail, representing a couple hundred billion in deposits at least;yet the FDIC at this time has only $50 Billion to insure $1 trillion in deposits.
This disaster will continue to unfold at least for another two years, and the money allocated thus far will be soaked up like three drops of rain on a sidewalk in July.
What does this mean to the denizens of North Coast neighborhoods, as well as to the other citizens of Chicago?
It means that Chicago, one of the largest net taxpayers in the country second only to New York City and Los Angeles, as well as one of the last in line for federal "give-backs" of tax revenue, will suffer more deterioration of critical water, sewer, and transportation infrastructure, while local taxes will escalate to offset the dwindling funding from Washington. It means more income taxes for everyone- and if you believe that McCain can keep income taxes level, let alone lower them, while the federal deficit baloons to the point where the U.S. Treasury can no longer meet its debt service, then you deserve everything that will happen to you and the rest of us as this country continues to lurch toward complete bankruptcy.
It will mean even less money available for the failing war effort in Iraq, and still less available to the military in order to secure our oil supplies allover the world. For that is what our military really is- it is our oil security service, for every war we have fought in the past 80 years has really been about access to oil and safeguarding oil pipelines in the hot spots of the world. Those of you who think such a concern is frivolous and the money spent on it is wasted, be prepared to park your car and do without adequate heat and hot water for a looooooog time.
To those of you who made money flipping condos and houses during the credit-based housing boom of the past ten years- well, I hope you enjoyed yourselves, even though it was at my expense and that of not only every honest citizen who bought only what he/she could afford to pay for or not at all (and less than what they should have been able to buy for the same money), but at the expense of every taxpayer in the country. The party is over now and most likely forever, and you will have to earn your living by honest effort now. I hope you got bagged good and proper on your last attempted flip. May you spend the rest of your lives living in one-room apartments in four-plus-ones.
As for the efficacy of the bailout, it is money shot to hell that will only add to our national debt while the $400 Trillion or so worth of derivatives, based on worthless CDO paper that is worth perhaps a third its face amount, at a ratio of leverage of something like 10:1; will continue to unravel. Will we be able to bailout another ONE HUNDRED TRILLION DOLLARS worth of derivatives based on almost-worthless CDOs?
Such is the price of the spree of greed, fraud, and out-and-out larceny that was the Housing Bubble of the Early 21st Century. The poor are poorer, there are more homeless than ever, housing costs are 40% higher for almost everyone than 8 years ago, and millions of homeowners owe more on their places than they are worth. So much for the fabulous "wealth creation" of the fake boom.
Just one thing more- why have there been no Perp Walks for the financial industry honchos who built themselves $40MM mansions and bought 500' yachts with the proceeds of this rampage? Why, when about 300 million U.S. denizens are being made into unwilling homeowners, are these people permitted to keep the ill-gotten gains of the past 10 years, which include yearly compensation up into the hundreds of millions of dollars?
I mean, when I made a mistake that resulted in a $20,000-plus inventory loss a few years ago, I had to pay back almost every dime (the last $2,000 being "forgiven"). After all, I'm a licensed professional, so of course I had to pay back my losses, for, after all, I got to keep my gains.
So.. why have not the hedge fund managers, insurance and banking and lending executives, and derivatives traders who netted incomes in the hundreds of millions of dollars annually, based on their former profitability, not been compelled to give back their ill-gotten gains that have cost us our financial system?
So, in the future, let no one speak of what a wonderful thing "free markets", and unregulated larceny are and how they help "create wealth". There is no such a thing as a Free Market in a context where "freedom" means the license to steal and defraud while the responsibility for losses is passed on to parties- in this case the body of U.S. taxpayers- who did not get to attend the party but who will be stuck with the losses.
There can be no freedom without responsibility. If you are free, you must accept the responsibility for your actions. You must eat your losses. If you cannot accept the consequences of your mistakes, then you must bear with restrictions and regulations, and it's time to return our financial system to the regulatory framework that prevailed prior to 1980.
Friday, July 25, 2008
Save The Gale Park Community Center
Help Save the Gale Park Community Center From Privatization!
Thank You, Toni Duncan and Craig Gernhart. Craig, I hope you don't mind that I just cut and pasted your post.
Rogers Park Residents Say No to the Privatization of the New Chicago Park District Community Center at 1610 W. Howard Street!
A public protest rally is scheduled for Saturday, July 26th at 2 P.M. starting at Gale Park, 1600 W. Howard Street (Marshfield & Howard).
The rally will feature speakers from S.O.C.C., (Save Our Community Center), Save Our Parks, SEIU Local 73, Gale Park Advisory Council as well as Rogers Park residents representing seniors and other community organizations.
The rally will conclude with a 4 block march to 49th Ward Alderman Joe Moore’s Ward office at 7356 N. Greenview, where protesters will demand the Alderman cease and desist in his plan to privatize the Gale Park Community Center by sponsoring a ‘turn over’ of the new, unopened building to the Chicago Boys and Girls Clubs, which would limit, if not completely prohibit community access and use of this new, public taxpayer funded, Chicago Park District Community Center.
At several recent community meetings, including this past Tuesday’s Chicago Park District’s North Region Budget Hearing, individuals and organizations, including SEIU Local 73, the Gale Park Advisory Council, S.O.C.C. and Friends Of The Parks, have spoken out strongly against this privatization of Chicago Park District property.
Please join us for this important event to “Save Our Community Center”!
For additional information contact: S.O.C.C. at 773-465-2433
Thursday, July 24, 2008
Edgewater Historical Society Home Tour September 21, 2008
EDGEWATER HISTORICAL SOCIETY
Home Tour, September 21, 2008
St.Gertrude's Church
1400 W.Granville
$25.00 Per Person
The tour begins at noon, and the homes are open
until 5PM. You may pick up your tour booklet
at St. Gertrude's until 4 PM.
The Edgewater Historical Society has announced it's Annual Home Tour. It is always on the third Sunday of September, which will be September 21.
The location is the North Edgewater area and
the refreshments will be at a
superb restaurant in the area - Uncommon Ground - at 1400 W. Devon (at
Glenwood). Notice their new outdoor dining area. You will be sure of having
a nice refreshing experience as you walk around this fine neighborhood.
When you buy your ticket, you will get our home tour book which will serve
as:
a.. your ticket to entrance to each of the homes, St. Gertrude's Church,
and refreshments at Uncommon Ground
b.. guide book with map of the tour area; homes on tour; and Uncommon
Ground, where refreshment area will be
c.. historical information about the North Edgewater community
d.. information and picture of the homes on the tour
e.. and business ads with our friends in the business community - in the
hands of around 500 people in the Edgewater community, as well as other
Chicagoland areas.
This is one of only a few ways we maintain our not-for-profit organization.If
you would like to put an ad in our home tour book - or tell your favorite
businesses about our ad book, please check out our attachments that include
our letter to the businesses and the Invoice that is also an informational
page that shows the ad sizes and costs; where to send the ad and the check
for the ad; and who to call for questions. For 2008 members, the costs are
lower, so check that out. The cost includes a 2009 business membership with
our Edgewater Historical Society and Museum, and ticket(s) to the tour. The
tour tickets are what is described in this email and the ad takers' names
will be listed and be at the tour welcoming table in front of St.
Gertrude's
Church, 1400 W. Granville (at Glenwood) - no advance ticket(s) are mailed to
you.
For non-ad takers, you may send in for the tickets in advance. They are $25
per person, and checks would be sent as follows:
Please mail checks, payable to
the Edgewater Historical Society (or EHS).
Send check to:
Betty Mayian
6033 N. Sheridan - 36K
Chicago, IL 60660
Sunday, June 29, 2008
The Cost of Our Cars: Are Private Autos the Nation's Major Welfare Recipients?
Those who are not living at the bottom of a well may have noticed that oil is now quickly approaching $150 a barrel, and some prognosticators and oil geologists are predicting $200 per barrel by next year. Events are moving more quickly than even I expected, for even I had not expected the $100 threshold to be breached before next year, earliest.
The galloping fuel prices are deeply frightening in their implications and their effect on every cost of day to day life, as anyone shopping for a family of three or four can attest.
Yet, while there has been some 'demand destruction', Americans have not begun to alter their habits, and, most ominous of all, our political and business leaders haven't altered our disastrous public policies that are so slanted toward the support and promotion of private automobiles, to the funding of the public transit and intercontinental railways we will desperately need when 70% or more of our population will no longer be able to afford to run an auto, and will be hard put to it just to keep the house tolerably warm and put food on the table, as the costs of food and utilities are driven remorselessly northward by the escalation of fuel prices.
So, this is a good time to consider just what our cars are costing the public. The linked essay puts to rest whatever notions some people out here have considering the cost of transit to the public, and who is really subsidizing what.
The bald truth of the matter is that if all the costs of procuring and securing our oil supplies, and the costs of maintaining our massive network of roads and highways to the standard required by heavy auto use were passed directly to the user, gasoline would have cost $9 a gallon by 2005. The fact is that car ownership is much more extensively subsidized than public transit, and airlines are subsidized at the expense of over-regulated and over-taxed railroads.
As a libertarian, I believe that if the citizens were, jointly and severally, to make their choices regarding their modes of transportation strictly on economics, and if these choices were not massively subsidized for the past 80 years, that most people would have given up car ownership as impractical and unaffordable even before the interstate highway system was built in order to wreck our cities and decant our populations into auto suburbs.
Public transit would prosper on its own were we not forced to subsidize it's competition as we have been doing for the past 85 years. Let's pull the massive subsidies from private autos, and bureaucratic, government-controlled, inefficient public transit, and see who wins.
My bet is, that within seven years, we would have profitable, efficient public transit, owned wholly by private entities, available to the rapidly growing population of dispossessed former car owners, and that we would be able to reduce our energy consumption by at least 40%.
The galloping fuel prices are deeply frightening in their implications and their effect on every cost of day to day life, as anyone shopping for a family of three or four can attest.
Yet, while there has been some 'demand destruction', Americans have not begun to alter their habits, and, most ominous of all, our political and business leaders haven't altered our disastrous public policies that are so slanted toward the support and promotion of private automobiles, to the funding of the public transit and intercontinental railways we will desperately need when 70% or more of our population will no longer be able to afford to run an auto, and will be hard put to it just to keep the house tolerably warm and put food on the table, as the costs of food and utilities are driven remorselessly northward by the escalation of fuel prices.
So, this is a good time to consider just what our cars are costing the public. The linked essay puts to rest whatever notions some people out here have considering the cost of transit to the public, and who is really subsidizing what.
The bald truth of the matter is that if all the costs of procuring and securing our oil supplies, and the costs of maintaining our massive network of roads and highways to the standard required by heavy auto use were passed directly to the user, gasoline would have cost $9 a gallon by 2005. The fact is that car ownership is much more extensively subsidized than public transit, and airlines are subsidized at the expense of over-regulated and over-taxed railroads.
As a libertarian, I believe that if the citizens were, jointly and severally, to make their choices regarding their modes of transportation strictly on economics, and if these choices were not massively subsidized for the past 80 years, that most people would have given up car ownership as impractical and unaffordable even before the interstate highway system was built in order to wreck our cities and decant our populations into auto suburbs.
Public transit would prosper on its own were we not forced to subsidize it's competition as we have been doing for the past 85 years. Let's pull the massive subsidies from private autos, and bureaucratic, government-controlled, inefficient public transit, and see who wins.
My bet is, that within seven years, we would have profitable, efficient public transit, owned wholly by private entities, available to the rapidly growing population of dispossessed former car owners, and that we would be able to reduce our energy consumption by at least 40%.
Thursday, May 29, 2008
Village Theater Restoration: Our TIF Dollars at Work
A community meeting on the proposed restoration of the Village Theater at 6740 N. Sheridan Road will take place at:
MERTZ HALL-LOYOLA UNIVERSITY
BREMNER LOUNGE
1125 W. LOYOLA AVE.
TUESDAY, JUNE 3, 2008 AT 7:00 PM
The building's new owner, Anthony Fox, of ADF Capital, will be on hand to share his plans to restore the terra cotta exterior of the building, which houses a number of businesses. The current operator of the Village Theatre will be evicted, and Fox states that he hopes to operate the theater after restoration.
The proposal asks for $200,000 in TIF district funding. The property is part of the Loyola TIF district.
Personally, I love the Village Theater building, and I'm ecstatic that the new ownership intends to restore this beloved building. The Village is the last film house left in Rogers Park, and one of the last on the north lakefront. and the building with its broad brick plaza pretty much makes the corner of Columbia and Sheridan.
And $200,000 is not so much money, is it?
It's certainly not the worst use possible of funds made available to private entities by the devices of a program that should not even exist to begin with. What's $200K compared to the $2,000,000 grants to rental property owners and developers of overpriced condos along Sheridan Road,or, most of all, the tens of millions that are being used to fund the restoration and construction of the Mundelein College and other Loyola University buildings? At least the money earmarked for the Village Theater Bldg.will be used to restore a lovely old building that is a landmark of sorts, and for the benefit of businesses that make the neighborhood more attractive and livable.
It is just that the TIF should not exist to begin with. Chicago's 160 or so TIF districts constitute a massive diversion of present and future tax monies from urgent, unmet needs, notably our decrepit water and sewer infrastructure, and underfunded police and fire departments, as well as our public schools and transit.
Our politicians may not have noticed, but Chicago is nearly bankrupt, a circumstance most of its citizens couldn't have imagined 20 years ago, at the beginning of King Richard's reign. Chicago was an extremely well-run city with reasonable taxes, excellent police and fire protection, superior public transit, decent infrastructure,solid finances,and old neighborhoods that were steadily improving by means of private investment unaided by massive public grants to private developers, and far less at the mercy of the whims of politicians armed with TIF legislation and eminent domain rights.
Worse, there is no longer any rhyme or reason to the allocation of public money. All claims on our funds seem to have equal weight; the demand for, say, $20,000 to provide jugglers for a children's event is given weight equal to a public school's need for new textbooks, and a few million clams to renovate a fugly apartment building for the profit of its ownership, is given equal consideration with the need to replace a water main under a major artery before the street collapses and swallows a few automobiles, or provide our police with the manpower and tools they need to compete with the gangs for control of our streets.
Most of all, taxpayers are forced to subsidize strictly private projects whose benefits do not accrue to them, at the expense of necessary public services and public amenities available to everyone. The funds allocated to Loyola U. for campus buildings will benefit only those rich enough to pay nearly $35,000 a year in tuition and housing, to the detriment of public schools available to all citizens. The citizens are paying to subsidize big barn stores in which they might or might not shop, to the detriment of the business who are forced to subsidize their better-heeled competition through their taxes.
We can no longer pretend that we can afford this type of waste. We have too many unmet and really critical needs to fund, and very little time to meet them, before energy prices reach levels that will make it impossible to make basic repairs necessary to keep Chicago's massive street, water, and sewer networks minimally functional, let alone put into place the more efficient systems and vastly expanded public transportation we'll need for the city to be minimally safe and livable in another twenty years.
Instead of frantic, late campaigns to block this TIF or that, or efforts to funnel the money to useful purposes, we need to repeal the 1952 legislation that authorizes TIF districts, and start the process of rolling back most diversions of public money to strictly private purposes, beginning with the massive subsidies to large businesses that destroy true competition and foster the destruction of local business and retail networks; to the countless claims of public funds that drive property and sales taxes and impoverish the population as a whole while making life impossible for most of our small, locally-owned businesses, while starving our public services.
MERTZ HALL-LOYOLA UNIVERSITY
BREMNER LOUNGE
1125 W. LOYOLA AVE.
TUESDAY, JUNE 3, 2008 AT 7:00 PM
The building's new owner, Anthony Fox, of ADF Capital, will be on hand to share his plans to restore the terra cotta exterior of the building, which houses a number of businesses. The current operator of the Village Theatre will be evicted, and Fox states that he hopes to operate the theater after restoration.
The proposal asks for $200,000 in TIF district funding. The property is part of the Loyola TIF district.
Personally, I love the Village Theater building, and I'm ecstatic that the new ownership intends to restore this beloved building. The Village is the last film house left in Rogers Park, and one of the last on the north lakefront. and the building with its broad brick plaza pretty much makes the corner of Columbia and Sheridan.
And $200,000 is not so much money, is it?
It's certainly not the worst use possible of funds made available to private entities by the devices of a program that should not even exist to begin with. What's $200K compared to the $2,000,000 grants to rental property owners and developers of overpriced condos along Sheridan Road,or, most of all, the tens of millions that are being used to fund the restoration and construction of the Mundelein College and other Loyola University buildings? At least the money earmarked for the Village Theater Bldg.will be used to restore a lovely old building that is a landmark of sorts, and for the benefit of businesses that make the neighborhood more attractive and livable.
It is just that the TIF should not exist to begin with. Chicago's 160 or so TIF districts constitute a massive diversion of present and future tax monies from urgent, unmet needs, notably our decrepit water and sewer infrastructure, and underfunded police and fire departments, as well as our public schools and transit.
Our politicians may not have noticed, but Chicago is nearly bankrupt, a circumstance most of its citizens couldn't have imagined 20 years ago, at the beginning of King Richard's reign. Chicago was an extremely well-run city with reasonable taxes, excellent police and fire protection, superior public transit, decent infrastructure,solid finances,and old neighborhoods that were steadily improving by means of private investment unaided by massive public grants to private developers, and far less at the mercy of the whims of politicians armed with TIF legislation and eminent domain rights.
Worse, there is no longer any rhyme or reason to the allocation of public money. All claims on our funds seem to have equal weight; the demand for, say, $20,000 to provide jugglers for a children's event is given weight equal to a public school's need for new textbooks, and a few million clams to renovate a fugly apartment building for the profit of its ownership, is given equal consideration with the need to replace a water main under a major artery before the street collapses and swallows a few automobiles, or provide our police with the manpower and tools they need to compete with the gangs for control of our streets.
Most of all, taxpayers are forced to subsidize strictly private projects whose benefits do not accrue to them, at the expense of necessary public services and public amenities available to everyone. The funds allocated to Loyola U. for campus buildings will benefit only those rich enough to pay nearly $35,000 a year in tuition and housing, to the detriment of public schools available to all citizens. The citizens are paying to subsidize big barn stores in which they might or might not shop, to the detriment of the business who are forced to subsidize their better-heeled competition through their taxes.
We can no longer pretend that we can afford this type of waste. We have too many unmet and really critical needs to fund, and very little time to meet them, before energy prices reach levels that will make it impossible to make basic repairs necessary to keep Chicago's massive street, water, and sewer networks minimally functional, let alone put into place the more efficient systems and vastly expanded public transportation we'll need for the city to be minimally safe and livable in another twenty years.
Instead of frantic, late campaigns to block this TIF or that, or efforts to funnel the money to useful purposes, we need to repeal the 1952 legislation that authorizes TIF districts, and start the process of rolling back most diversions of public money to strictly private purposes, beginning with the massive subsidies to large businesses that destroy true competition and foster the destruction of local business and retail networks; to the countless claims of public funds that drive property and sales taxes and impoverish the population as a whole while making life impossible for most of our small, locally-owned businesses, while starving our public services.
Sunday, May 25, 2008
Construction To Begin on Dominick's in Lakeview
Construction on the new Dominick's store, on the site of the old store that burned down a few years ago, is tentatively scheduled to begin in August, according to sources at the Lakeview East Chamber of Commerce. They could not say for sure whether the store would be built to include four stories of condominiums as originally planned, but they also said that they had not been told of any change in plans. Construction was originally to begin in January of this year.
The new store will occupy the entire lot formerly occupied by the old store and its parking lot. Underground parking will be available for shoppers, and the store will front on Broadway, and have, according to the plans, four stories of condominiums above it.
The rendering of the new building is available to view in PDF format, by clicking on the title link, above, or go to the Lakeview East Chamber site.
The new store will occupy the entire lot formerly occupied by the old store and its parking lot. Underground parking will be available for shoppers, and the store will front on Broadway, and have, according to the plans, four stories of condominiums above it.
The rendering of the new building is available to view in PDF format, by clicking on the title link, above, or go to the Lakeview East Chamber site.
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