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Mayor Daley lashed out at Chicago aldermen on Tuesday for sending back his proposal to give Chicagoans cash payouts to help ease the hit of increased property tax bills. The mayor's plan would use $35 million of the proceeds from the controversial parking meter lease to give an average of $150 to homeowners. The city council's Finance Committee sent the bill back to City Hall, asking that the mayor revise the scope of his plan, as it currently would extend to homeowners earning $200,000 a year.
"Remember, you take a policeman and a nurse working together, they're making 180,000 or 190,000," Daley said, per the Trib. "They have three kids, four kids, and they're sending them to college?" He suggested that frustrated homeowners take their grievances to their alderman. "They're going to go to the alderman, knock on the door and say 'OK, you help me. Here's my real estate tax bill. You have the answer? Fine. The mayor had has his answer, you have a better answer,'" Daley said.
While the calculation of how property taxes are assessed is complex (I won't pretend I understand it in and out), Ben Joravsky at the Reader has been following the this mess for several years (it's not as much about TIFs as you might think). You can read his coverage of this issue, (as well as the involvement of Mayor Daley, House Speaker Mike Madigan and Cook County Assessor James Houlihan) here and here.
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In the spirit of Thanksgiving I'll save everyone the trouble...
blah blah blah daley's a crook blah blah ben joravsky is the greatest investigative journalist to ever expose corruption in chicago blah blah blah city council is the mayor's rubber stamp blah blah blah relatives on the payroll blah blah machine politics blah blah TIFs are evil blah blah mayor's private slush fund blah blah olympics debacle blah parking meter fiasco blah blah blah blah blah city employees are lazy blah hmph pffffft
In turn I'll save the commenters of Chicagoist the trouble of responding to your post...
Thanks for that great post. Insightful, Witty, Clever, and Productive. Glad I clicked on the link to see comments.
I love how Cops are going on how many years without a contract and yet whenever Mayor Tosspot gets his shorts in a bind he talks about the poor policemen and their put-upon families.
This hypothetical nurse and cop making just under 200K with 4 kids all in college...how many of these actually exist? More likely we're talking about some very rich people with investment and rental properties who Mayor Dumptruck wants to grease up a little.
Giving someone 150 bucks when the bills went up 40-50% in some cases is like getting robbed only to have the thief let you keep a couple bucks to catch a bus.
Nevertheless, I'm still betting a slim majority of the electorate remembers that bus ride when they vote for the thief in the next election.
"Hey, the guy wasn't all bad. He even let me keep my gold teeth!"
They may be working without a contract, but the budget every year shows them getting salary increases.
...a policeman and a nurse working together, they're making 180,000 or 190,000...
whatthefuck? working together doing what? Not policework and nursing.
See, this is what really bothers me, Daley has raised taxes on every thing including food, medicine, homes for the last 13 years and now be is mister tax rebate????!
A long term sound tax and fiscal policy has never been part of his lexicon and now when the city probably can least affoard it, he is all about rebates
So essentially Daley is saying that he's created such an environment in this city that you can't get by in Chicago on a "mere" $190k. Got it.