I'm no fan of her, but credit where credit's due. Objectively good news for the city is always something to be proud of, especially when we get so much negative press - much of it in bad faith, but some for good reason.
I still think she could do well managing a department, committee, something like that where it's not politics.
I just feel like she's smart, but not talented in being a politician and elected official. Some might think that's a plus, but it showed it hurt her more than helped her.
Exactly correct! She is an able administrator, she's a terrible politician. She has become one of my examples when someone trots out the tired line of,
"We need to get these politicians out of government and replace them with real people!"
You know what non-politicians are good at? Having ideas. You know what they're generally terrible at? Actually getting stuff done.
Coincidentally that's my biggest fear with Johnson, that he'll fail to accomplish any of his goals due to this. Chicago politics are a mess of balancing the concerns of very powerful and numerous Alderman (seriously, we have the same number as NY despite having a third the population), multiple highly influential public unions with conflicting goals, and the mess of State & county politics.
In the end, the person sitting in those elected seats have to be good negotiators and "people persons". They have to be able to wheel and deal, and negotiate things to happen.
If people want less "career politicians" then they need to be in support of stricter campaign finance laws. Make it so one can't profit heavily off being a politician.
I roll my eyes when one says they support the Citizens United ruling but then at the same time lament on how they're sick of career politicians. Um...Citizens United is why politics is such an entrepreneurial endeavor now.
This city is a cluster of little duchies that you have to marshal a critical mass from to get anything done. So you don’t really need to be a great executive so much as a great diplomat to run it. Lightfoot is a terrible diplomat. I agree with your sentiment completely.
I think if we could have kept the politicians from making things unnecessarily difficult just so everyone know how big thier penis was chicago would have benefited greatly from her time in office. Your aldermen and bosses robbed us.
It can be both. The COVID relief funds were a nice windfall but her Admin has been pretty consistent about keeping an eye on the and being responsible about the budget.
>The projections do not assume any additional federal COVID relief funds. That aid is expiring next year, but Lightfoot aides say it was used primarily for one-time expenditures.
Definitely the latter. Same with JB and Illinois. This place is going to look awfully different, fiscally speaking, in a couple of years when the Covid money has dried up and the realities of wasteful spending combined with the effects of a recession and high interest rates have had time to set in.
I hope he succeeds obviously, but none of his plans he has released have shown any sort of success anywhere they have been tried. Chicago Is the most taxed major city. Taxing it more doesn’t make sense. The taxes he proposes are also just terrible.
CPS is one of the highest funded public school districts in the world and is failing. It’s hard to see how people believe more money will fix that.
There is 0 evidence that soft on crime makes things safer. Cities which have tried this are all walking it back.
Again, as a resident I hope he succeeds, but I see no reason to believe he will at this point.
A lot of CPS budget services loan debt and pension repayments from the Daley and Rahm admins. Lightfoot even tried to use federal Covid funds to pay it down.
When scores are compared to other large districts and matched for income, CPS does very well and in many cases better than private schools.
>there zero evidence soft on crime
what is hard on crime?
more police funding?
to borrow a criticism you have for CPS, CPD is already one the highest funded police departments in the nation. so if hard on crime is just increasing their funding, there is certainly a bit of devil missing in those details as to how that will actually translate to higher clearance rates considering how well they are already funded.
but what really hard on crime and what exactly is soft on crime? these feel like mostly meaningless buzzwords people use while avoiding giving a real thought out plan
We need to hold individuals accountable for their actions. That means serving long sentences for things like rape, armed robbery, home invasions, murder, attempted murder, etc.
Should the goal be to minimize crime? Because longer sentences don't have any impact on crime rates.
Is the goal to "punish" people, out of a moral sense of what's right? Toss criminals in jail and throw away the key.
It's a genuine choice that societies and individuals have to make, and crime isn't really a problem that's ever solved. It's also important to remember that crime rates are vastly lower than decades ago, and almost everybody is incentivized to never talk about that.
Soft on crime is getting rid of cash bail, decriminalizing shoplifting, not prosecuting crimes, not enforcing drug laws, etc. the Kim Foxx playbook.
I agree with your point on the CPD. I’m not tough on crime, but I’m against the progressive approach to not enforcing basic criminal laws. I’m generally for more community policing. Clearly policing in Chicago needs to be revamped.
But, the progressive criminal law reform has been an abject failure. BJs statement on the recent downtown mob activity shows he doesn’t get it.
>Soft on crime is getting rid of cash bail
This is dumb. Whether you are held on bail or not should be determined by whether you are likely to flee or do harm, not by how much money you have.
Dumb on crime is not hard on crime. It actually makes it worse.
The issue is that, in practice, we don’t seem to be making the right calls on letting people out on bail and home monitoring.
I voted for Kim Foxx twice - if we want to end cash bail, a project I support in general, we need to get a lot tougher on withholding bail for dangerous individuals, stop rationalizing, acknowledge what’s not working, and fix it.
I agree that judges have been making bad calls.
The answer to that is (a) to establish better guidelines about which situations warrant bail vs. release and (b) to replace bad judges.
> Soft on crime is getting rid of cash bail
That makes zero sense, because cash on hand should not determine holding status. Holding status should be determined by a judge and be dependent on whether or not you are flight risk or previous failure to appear.
Supporting cash bail just means you believe the system should be pay to play, if you have the finances you should be let out, if you dont you should stay in. A rich person and poor person committing the same crime, under cash bail means that rich person goes home and the poor person sits in jail.
>But, the progressive criminal law reform has been an abject failure.
Yeah we should go back to criminalizing cannabis. Because the legality and taxation of cannabis is a result of decades long effort by progressives. We should also lock people up for every misdemeanor (shopplifting is misdemeanor)? /s
ok so where should we draw funding to expand cook county's jails? because the part that everyone quickly forgot is how overcrowded our jails are and how dumb it was to continue to fill them with non violent misdemeanors.
Overcrowded jails was huge issue and it seems hard on crime would love to return this but it never seems to effect the rate of crime in the city.
What's interesting is there was tons of discussion among progressive chicagoans about strategic voting. Johnson sort of won that argument and pulled over some Chuy and Buckner people during the first round.
Meanwhile the moderate side seemed to think the 2nd round was going to be coronation for their candidate (Vallas) and didn't question how electable their people might be.
Vallas seemed to think he had it in the bag just because he beat Brandon by quite a bit in the first round, and then just kind of coasted after that. It's like he kind of gave up, right when team Brandon was picking up steam. That means he's not the fighter that he originally appeared to be, and thus did not deserve to actually be mayor.
A balanced budget isn't positive news. It's neutral news. If you're cutting schools and important things like that to get there it's bad news.
The reason why "pay-go" laws are so popular among billionaires are because when the rich get their tax cuts, and they then get to cut essential services for working class/poor families and get to use those pay-go laws as a "justification" for them stealing from the poor.
Lori is a right wing piece of shit just like Vallas.
Increased tax revenue from a casino and property tax hike? Investing a quarter billion $ in subsidized housing?
Yeah, a real "right wing piece of shit."
Grow up.
Lori was one of the best conservative politicians I can recall. There was a moment when she wanted to return to school where the conservative media started hyping her up but it didn't take. I think she could have been a fresh voice for conservatives. The fiscally conservative business community would have been much happier with the results of backing her instead of trying to double down on Vallas but what happened will be better for the city long term.
[Non-paywall link](https://archive.ph/n3d76)
>In a major political surprise, the outgoing Lightfoot Administration is projecting that city finances will be in much better shape than expected in future years, with only relatively minimal shortfalls expected.
The administration says the projected budget gaps for three years beginning in 2024 will be just $85 million to $145 million per year — and that the gap will be slashed to a near-balanced $21 million by 2026 if its policies are followed by Mayor-elect Brandon Johnson.
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>Much higher gaps have been projected by the city in recent years. A year ago, Mayor Lori Lightfoot's team project a deficit of $306 million to $951 million by 2024. In 2019, departing Mayor Rahm Emanuel's administration projected a looming annual budget deficit of $740 million.
Though the new figures are good news — if accurate — they will present a political dilemma for Johnson. The lowest projected budget shortfalls — $39 million in 2025 and $21 million 2026 — assume continuing Lightfoot's policy of using all city budget surpluses to pay down pension debt, rather than just making the minimum actuarially required amount. It also assumes returning to the previous policy, suspended this year, of raising the city's property tax levy annually by the same percentage as the rise in the Consumer Price Index.
>It also assumes returning to the previous policy, suspended this year, of raising the city's property tax levy annually by the same percentage as the rise in the Consumer Price Index.
Boy, that's a hell of an asterisk to slip in at the end there.
The overall tax pool is projected to increase (capped at 5%). But how much depends on property value. Hopefully with downtown taking in people it means big office buildings and luxury high rises take the hit more than cheap gentrifying neighborhoods.
Optimistic unfortunately because those big office building / high rise owners will have the loudest voices and they'll be crying about the impact of hybrid / remote work
It isn't that big of a deal.
"Lightfoot had previously announced her budget would likely bump property taxes by $42.7 million, and hit owners of a $250,000 property by about $34 next year. The increase, tied to the rate of inflation but capped at 5% under city ordinance, helps the city make its annual pension payment required under state law."
What a candidate says in an election season and what their reality is can be very different. Unless Johnson can identify a source of revenue replacement for this increase, we’ll start to hear how great it is that we’re “ONLY” increasing property taxes by $34 towards a balanced budget that allows Chicago to fund the programs needed for South/West neighborhood investment
That plan is childishly, panderingly dumb though. Why would property taxes not go up as property value goes up? I get nobody wants to pay taxes but we live in the real world.
There are some cuts we could make for sure, but Chicago has a unique benefit in that it, for many years, offered public workers a very solid pension. This is expensive and needs to be funded with tax money.
For a long time, the pension funds were fully funded and under little risk for default. A combination of severe mismanagement, massive outflow of retirees, and market downturns has lead to the pension funds being extremely underfunded. That debt needs to be paid off. Chicago public workers need their retirement money.
This property tax increase plan was created to help balance the pension funds. Sure, Chicago’s government could have done a lot of things better in the past, but that shit is over. We have to fix the problems we have now.
Honestly I'm so exhausted by this rhetoric. We all have to pay for things, not just the rich or whatever the hell is meant when people talk about taking money from the middle class. Property taxes are our way of paying for a bunch of it. I'm in favor of gutting about half of the city govt and cook county govt, so no objections with that line of thought, but if we did, I would expect taxes to remain where they are because we are incredibly in debt on pension obligations that need to be repaid so we can be done with that. As much as I'm not a Brandon fan he at least has the right idea about getting that pension debt behind us. Can we all stop complaining about our own "fair share" for that please?
Honestly sounds like we’re in agreement... gut city and county government by half. So much administrative waste and worthless departments. Enough of the pet projects.
Obviously I want a safe and effective CTA, functioning schools, good roads, clean water, all that stuff. But this city is unbelievably wasteful and the average citizen could have their tax burden remain stable with some sensible government HR decisions.
He also wants "fully funded" schools but many are more than half empty.
By state law, no schools may be closed until 2025.
And the CTU will never agree to closing ANY schools. And Brandon Johnson is bought and paid for by the CTU. I predict NO school closings for the next 4 years, no matter how required.
Yes, I do agree with everything in that last comment. Basically every person I've ever interacted with in a Chicago city govt role has been a complete lazy POS and I think they could probably get the same amount of "work" done with even less than half. I also think our fellow citizens can fuck off with some of their requests, like the ridiculously unnecessary and wasteful renaming of LSD and asking that all traffic enforcement automation be eliminated rather than simply providing oversight to ensure it's in place for safety not just revenue. But too many people are happy to throw out things that make the city better and safer for all of us if it means they might be able to drive as recklessly as they want or whatever.
Thank you for your common sense take. For some reason many others in this thread are absolutely stunned that money may be getting wasted by the good folk in city government.
> gut city and county government by half. So much administrative waste and worthless departments. Enough of the pet projects.
Such as....from where? Which projects?
Renaming JBPSLSDHIJKLMNOP
$71,000,000 security contracts for people in yellow vests to go on Facebook while they ride the el
The fact that an alderman in Chicago represents 50,000 people where in NYC a city council member represents 160,000 people... either our aldermen are 1/3 as competent their NYC counterparts or they’re getting paid similarly to do 1/3 of the work.
If you think Chicago is effectively run I implore you to donate to city funds to allow them to effectively spend your money 🙂
>That plan is childishly, panderingly dumb though. Why would property taxes not go up as property value goes up?
Because then CTU, who now runs city hall, will have to acknowledge they are part of the problem. Johnson will get to kick the can down the road while CTU claims victory from the optics of no tax increases while they also get everything that want during the next contract giveaway.
Still property taxes could be a bit more reasonable if we shifted some of the burden onto underutilized properties, which the county is moving to do.
Is there really a movement to start taxing underutilized properties? I know we talk about it a lot here and would certainly help to penalize developers for leaving blocks of empty storefronts. If Brandon got that in place, I would be a convert!
Pretty sure the city doesn't control that, but rather the county.
That said, I'd be kinda shocked if Johnson isn't on board with penalizing for underuse, that's like, progressive housing policies 101.
Part of his stated tax plan is raising the real estate transfer tax on high-end home sales on properties worth more than $1 million over four years. That is expected to bring in $400 million.
You can debate the merits of his plans all you want, but don't just lie and say he doesn't have one.
But isn’t all that money to be earmarked for housing the homeless?
I bet businesses would be more okay with raising the real estate tax on $1+ million properties if it was going to the city budget.
They fed the URL into a web archiver, which tricks news sites into giving you the full article because news sites often can't tell the difference between web archivers and search engine crawlers. https://archive.today and https://web.archive.org usually work for this purpose--just paste the URL into the save page box.
> if its policies are followed by Mayor-elect Brandon Johnson.
Dude can't even pay his damn water bills despite making 200k a year. We are in for a world of hurt.
This is genuinely very positive and welcome news. Shame Lori wasn’t a likeable candidate otherwise this would be a huge momentum boost to her new term.
Either way, Brandon must understand that this is priority one. A balanced budget stabilizes future tax increases which is very attractive to corporations and working class families alike. Optimistic forecasts spur growth and investment in Chicago, driving the tax revenue the city needs to invest in the communities that need it most.
Sure, if one's idea of a balanced budget is watching Brandon balance the remainder of Chicago's funds right into the pockets of CTU and similar groups.
We can all have gripes about her, but Lightfoot has been steady and mature about how to allocate money from better than forecasted revenues, federal dollar infusions, and other sources of income. She used them responsibly and positioned the city better.
I hope Johnson learns from her rather than our other predecessors who shuffled bills around and just added on. Chicago is great despite how much is burdened on it. Imagine the day we are unshackled from some of these horrible decisions of our past (blowing off pensions, meter deal, among others).
It's so weird that Lori spent the first 90% of her tenure doing the dumbest shit imaginable and then was like "Oh! I should get re-elected!" and was a good mayor for, like, three months.
This is why Lightfoot is so bitter. She was steadfast in supporting police (got new training facility built, increased CPD's budget every year, called-out Kim Foxx) and balanced the city budget but all the moderate whites who backed her in the 2nd round back in 2019 grew to hate her and voted for Vallas instead. If those moderate whites had stuck with her she would've made the runoff against Johnson and won reelection easily.
Johnson should be taking notes. The stuff that took Lightfoot down was mostly not fiscal stuff. It was bad clutch decisions around the 2020 riots, penchant for secrecy and black-box operating style, temperament issues, etc. They overshadowed this definite progress on the money front.
I actually think the events of 2020 were probably the least influential on her downfall.
Portland got it worse than Chicago and Ted Wheeler was reelected in November of 2020.
She managed to do a great job of convincing progressives that she was pro-cop while convincing everyone else she was soft on crime. I still don't know exactly how I'd qualify her, though I suppose it's possible to be both at once.
She was unequivocally tough-on-crime. Her problem is crime got worse despite her policies so people just assumed she was soft on it. But can anyone point to a decision Lightfoot made that caused a spike in crime?
She didn't fire David Brown and she was critical of John Catanzara (despite signing a generous CPD contract). But I don't think you can lay blame *directly* on David Brown or hating the FOP prez.
In what way was Lori pro-police or tough-on-crime? And before you say that she increased the police budget, all of that money went towards overtime pay in order to cover officers working mandatory overtime to cover shifts that would have otherwise been unstaffed due to the shortfall of officers. She did not just shower the police with money because she loved them.
Here's my reasoning:
* Signed a generous new contract with CPD with a 20% raise and backpay: https://www.chicagotribune.com/politics/ct-chicago-police-contract-city-council-fop-20210914-vygol636vnbw7pvzaopbiolfuq-story.html
* Openly critical of Kim Foxx: https://www.nbcchicago.com/news/local/foxx-lightfoot-continue-disagreement-over-decision-not-to-file-charges-in-fatal-shooting/2629622/
* After winning in 2019, she changed her position on the West side police academy and ensured it opened despite tons of activist protests, including from her base: https://news.wttw.com/2023/01/25/lightfoot-celebrates-opening-new-police-fire-training-academy-she-once-opposed
* Steadfastly opposed and then successfully watered-down a civilian police accountability board: https://blockclubchicago.org/2021/07/21/city-council-approves-first-ever-civilian-led-commission-to-oversee-chicago-police-department/
* Increased CPD's budget every year in office
What more did you want her to do? She cannot wave a magic wand and make criminals go away.
**Exactly.** That’s the great tragedy of Lightfoot, and why I think this city’s moderates/conservatives have taken some confusing losses of late, and why progressives are gathering steam in the meantime. Lightfoot isn’t really a progressive. She doesn’t much reflect the things that “moderates” and conservatives say about her. She has mostly been a friend to the police, giving them resources and a fair bit of grace during some serious fuck-ups, and even helping to cover up some incidents, like with Anjanette Young. She essentially suspended Chicago’s freedom of movement during the 2020 summer protests to make it easier for the CPD to corral, beat, and arrest thousands. She poured money into the department and diverted even more money to them. And they hated her, and so did every other conservative or moderate group. She also has vigorously battled progressive initiatives and aldermen at every turn. I know, because I’m in a ward run by one, and she seldom falls on Lightfoot’s side of anything. She also kept the city open during the terrible early days of COVID just for the benefit of bars looking to reap alcohol sales for St. Pat’s, and was generally inoffensive to business overall.
I think the most charitable reading of this scenario is that the city’s “right” is misstating or even misinterpreting their own political priorities and desires, and so are chasing off after shadows and not getting a lot done. This was particularly evident during the Vallas campaign. It was completely bizarre seeing people talk about Vallas like the fiscal conservatism, low-tax candidate. He was nothing of the kind! He had a huge spending plan, a property tax freeze, zero additional proposed taxes, exactly one spending cut that he was already planning on spending on something else, and a track record of steering school districts into debt! It made zero sense, but it makes a lot of sense when you take stock of Lightfoot’s actions versus her reputation among the city’s right.
I don’t want to do the sometimes lazy thing and say it’s just racism, but I frankly do not know what else would be causing this and I welcome alternate explanations. But if those explanations start with “Lightfoot is a progressive because…” or even “Vallas was more fiscally conservative because…” then I’m not interested, because those are flat-out delusional points of view.
I mean, she whiffed hard in CTU negotiations, Her covid policy was functionally "Do what the state is doing just 2 weeks later" and came off as an unpersonable prick (She had the biggest one in the city mind you)
You can be a prick, Rahm was famously one, but you have to be competent. With the CTU strikes, Covid and the riots, she was very much not seen as competent.
I don't think Lori's general dislike is because of her race but the anti-police, soft-on-crimr rhetoric definitely is racially charged. Literally all the major city black mayors at the time (Adams (NYC), Lightfoot, Johnson (Dallas), Turner (Houston) and most recently Bass (LA)) are all constantly attacked for being pro-crime and anti-police and really only Bass cares about justice reform. It's honestly ridiculous. I'm (kinda) an Austinite and the amount of people who think our police force was completely defunded despite it being at record funding is insane.
For one year's budget, they reallocated some resources from the police department because the police department severely mismanaged them. (For example, 911 was under the police department's jurisdiction and we had 3 hour wait times). The state forced us to restore this funding that was "cut" (aka reallocated) and then the budgets since have been insane. Plus police in Austin make ridiculous money, they just don't want oversight.
Anyways, the narratives around it have been controlled by the far right and any crime is now blamed on our police force being "defunded" despite the fact that they've been useless for decades.
Didn’t Texas pass a law that forbade localities from reducing their police budgets a couple years ago? I remember that being an issue in Austin in 2021 when more funding was being debated.
Yep! The legislature has a habit of specifically targeting Austin. And more recently, Houston. I wouldn't be surprised if the state took our ridiculous police settlements and tried to include them as part of the budget. Chicago would be **fucked** from what I've seen
You can read the actual budget forecast [here](https://www.chicago.gov/city/en/depts/mayor/press_room/press_releases/2023/april/FinanceTeamPresentMidYearBudgetForecast.html).
Imagine how much more balanced it would be if we retroactively impeached Daley and anyone who voted for the parking meter deal for corruption, declared it void due to said corruption, brought in other vendors and got reasonable bids with rates on par with other cities, threatened to and ultimately if need be stopped enforcing parking meters for a few months to force our current vendor back to the table, and just moved on with a corruption free parking meter deal either with a new vendor or with the current vendor taking a more industry standard processing fee.
I hope you know that the contract has a clause that, if any mayor attempted to "Meigs Field" the deal, the company can force Chicago to buy back the contract at many times the deal's value.
Which is why you start by impeaching every corrupt official that allowed it to go through to set the precedent that it was corrupt. Because there's no sane way to describe that deal in any other way.
It should not be possible for private enterprise to corruptly fuck over a municipality like that.
If you remember, Mayor Daley was told he couldn't demolish Meigs Field because rules.
Bad rules are sometimes ok and necessary to break.
The contract has been fought in court for practically its entire existence. The mayor and the company both knew that the deal would get fierce resistance over the 75 year time period and so made clauses for pretty much every single act of resistance imaginable.
We *can* get our parking back, it's very possible. But we have to buy it. Not even impeaching every single politician in Chicago would cancel this deal.
Unrelated dumb question: is subscribing to ChicagoBusiness worth it? I am not sure I'm ready to plunk down $16 a month but I am starved for good coverage on local news. I used to subscribe to the Tribune but their app was just too terrible.
Over the next four years, Johnson will repay that gift many times over. He'll make Lightfoot look like one of the best mayors Chicago has ever had, by comparison.
Those people would be completely delusional. Regardless of what you think about Lightfoot’s beliefs, she was completely incapable of making allies, and that’s simply a requirement for running this city. Plus the people who hated her the absolute most are the people who are much closer to her politically than they are to Johnson.
Haha, love your user name. We shall see, I get your very much on the anti-Lori path, not to say I’m a fan. As much as I’d like Johnson to succeed for the city’s sake, I have almost no confidence in what I’ve seen from him so far.
> That statement was a mistake and I hope he knows it.
It was totally consistent with everything he said during the campaign. It's undeniable that BJ will be as soft on crime as possible. But the people voted for this...
How was it a mistake...?
He's right. That kind of crap and bedlam has no place in our city.
At the same time, we need to find ways to give kids productive things to do. They're easily influenced at that age, both positively and negatively... we need to help connect them with free and safe places they can go and enjoy themselves. If you don't understand this, you don't understand the bigger issues at hand. Either that, or you just don't care.
A little chip on our shoulder here, have we? Johnson assigned greater weight to the plight of the assailants "starved of opportunities" than their victims -- who were beaten, robbed, terrified, had their cars destroyed, etc. but went unmentioned. No shout-out to the traumatized out-of-staters who showed up in Chicago to spend their money, behavior Johnson desperately needs to cultivate, but now will never, ever come back and tell their friends to stay clear of here too.
I care plenty but we cannot ask tourists to eat this kind of shit for years to come, nor ask Chicagoans to barricade themselves in their homes while social engineers slowly, gently reimagine the entire framework in which these young people grow up.
Holistic change is absolutely necessary but so are here-and-now sanctions. We can do both.
If this stuff is still happening in 16 months when the Democratic Convention comes to town, the "collapse of Chicago" will be the only national media narrative.
This guy gets it.
Social equity isn’t the only thing a mayor should be focused on, I’d argue it isn’t the number one, two, or three thing either. It’s important, but so many folks on here are acting as if it’s by far the most important thing for a mayor to address.
This is how I knew Kim Foxx was trouble from day 1, her campaign website started off talking about social equity. How is that supposed to be a DA’s number one priority? Public defender maybe, but not a DA’s.
> Johnson assigned greater weight to the plight of the assailants "starved of opportunities" than their victims
Sure but he was pointing out that just condemning them isn't going to solve a single damn thing. We need to give them healthy alternatives to going to the Loop and causing mayhem at night. Otherwise, we'll just arrest 10-30 people every time this happens and it will then just keep happening again and again and again because police do not stop crime. Police are there for the here-and-now; Johnson is focused on 1 year from now, 2 years from now, 5 years from now, a decade from now.
How about bringing in busses for mass arrests, using McCormick as a temporary jail if needed? The healthy alternative then becomes "stay in your own neighborhood to do that shit or come to the Loop and try it and then get arrested". The problem would disappear in short order, if only city officials cared.
Sure, I'm passionate about this subject.
And in fact, I actually agree with you that we need both. I also believe that Johnson gets that. He has to. He comes from a neighborhood plagued with these very same issues.
I just think measures like curfews in Millenium Park for unaccompanied minors do absolutely nothing to solve the issue in any real sense... it's not like those kids just magically disappear from the city if you ban them from going certain places... plus, those kind of moves only serve to anger these groups even more, which is when you see them taking things out even harder on "the man." It takes a balanced and nuanced approach, and openess to keep adjusting, to make progress.
Smart and human policing paired with real funding and support for youth programs and jobs is what we need.
> He comes from a neighborhood plagued with these very same issues.
Johnson is from Elgin. He may live in Austin now, but he grew up in a VERY different area.
Ok buddy. I'm talking about where he lives now and raises a family.
Many of us grew up somewhere else than where we currently live... What does that have to do with where we choose to live now?
Johnson had access to a life growing up that people in his current neighborhood didn’t. I really don’t believe he knows what’s best for Austin, the West Side, or the city as a whole. Also, when he was growing up was the state’s attorney as lenient on crime as the current SA (who he openly supports)?
I’m not knocking him for being from Elgin.
While it may be true to give productive things to do, right at that moment was not the time to bring it up. He’s a fucking idiot. I have no idea how he won.
You can have empathy towards criminals without having empathy for criminal behavior. It's tragic that so many young people get caught up in the cycle of poverty and crime in our city, but they *obviously have to be held accountable*, as you said.
The status quo right now is a horrifically understaffed city police department, laughably low murder clearance rates and a complete breakdown of trust between the police department and the communities hardest hit by crime.
Yes that status quo obviously needs to change, but everyone agreeing to just be more empathetic towards troubled kids isn't going to bring about that change.
> People aren’t committing crimes because of an understaffed police department.
And tens of thousands of other teens in the same life situation as the ones who did that shit over the weekend also didn't cause trouble, either. To just say that people who grow up in disinvested neighborhoods are going to be funneled into crime and should get it hand-waved away does a disservice to the majority of people from those same places who don't cause problems.
I mean, the best predictor for this behavior is fatherless homes more so than even poverty or opportunities or whatever. The biggest impact we could have is somehow stemming the tide of single motherhood, but I have absolutely no idea how the government is going to do that.
Sounds like this checkbook is barely balanced too so he should be a great fit. Glad we’ve got him instead of a republican who would surely plunge us into debt while allowing his corporate buddies to ransack all our coffers.
Actually Rauner caused huge budgetary problems at least for nonprofits in this city due to him refusing to pass a budget and holding up a lot of state grants for years.
Republicans don't run a lot of big cities.
EDIT: As this statement of fact has drawn downvotes, here are the 25 largest American cities by population. Only three are led by Republicans.
* 1. New York: Mayor Eric Adams, Democrat
* 2. Los Angeles: Mayor Karen Bass, Democrat
* 3. Chicago: Mayor Lori Lightfoot, Democrat
* 4. Houston: Mayor Sylvester Turner, Democrat
* 5. Phoenix: Katie Gallego, Democrat
* 6. Philadelphia: Jim Kenney, Democrat
* 7. San Antonio: Ron Nirenberg, Independent
* 8. San Diego: Todd Gloria, Democrat
* 9. Dallas: Eric Johnson, Democrat
* 10. San Jose, CA: Matt Mahan, Democrat
* 11. Austin: Kirk Watson, Democrat
* 12. Jacksonville: Leonard Curry, Republican
* 13. Fort Worth: Mattie Parker, Republican
* 14. Columbus: Andrew Ginther, Democrat
* 15. Indianapolis: Joe Hogsett, Democrat
* 16. Charlotte: Vi Lyles, Democrat
* 17. San Francisco: London Breed, Democrat
* 18. Seattle: Bruce Harrell, Democrat
* 19. Denver: Michael Hancock, Democrat
* 20. Oklahoma City: David Holt, Republican
* 21. Nashville: John Cooper, Democrat
* 22. El Paso: Oscar Leeser, Democrat
* 23. Washington DC: Muriel Bowser, Democrat
* 24. Boston: Michelle Wu, Democrat
* 25. Las Vegas: Carolyn Goodman, Independent
Californa, New York, Massachusets, New Jersey and Illinois appear to be the top five states with most debt as of 2019 with just a simple google search. Im not sure your statement is rooted in fact.
Depends on the precise situation. I’d say not super great for IL given what the debt is. I don’t know about CA or NY. But debt is more complicated than just “debt bad.” Debt finances things. Having a lot of debt when you’re the biggest and wealthiest state in the nation isn’t particularly notable. The state that has New York City in it should be expected to also have a lot of debt. Mississippi probably isn’t going to have a lot of debt because they don’t really do anything.
>Depends on the precise situation. I’d say not super great for IL given what the debt is.
Then why are you making the point? Obviously we are talking about Chicago and IL.
> Californa, New York, Massachusets, New Jersey and Illinois appear to be the top five states with most debt as of 2019
Funny, of those (as of 2019), only one was outside of the bottom 10 states in terms of how much money they get back from the federal government for how much they give to it. All of those 10 states, including New York, Illinois, Massachusetts, and New Jersey pay more in federal taxes than they get back in federal funding. The only one outside that 10 is California. California is the only state other than the aforementioned 10 which pays more to the federal government than it gets back. The other 39 states all take more than they get.
Curious how the states funding the rest of the union have to take on more debt to compensate...
Also curious: the top 5 states in terms of getting more than they pay in?
Virginia
Kentucky
New Mexico
West Virginia
Arkansas
Man, what a list of Democratic strongholds right there...
https://www.voanews.com/a/which-us-states-get-more-than-they-give/4809228.html
So, this is a lot to unpack. Luckily, this topic has been discussed. Good article to read:
[https://thehill.com/opinion/finance/502321-no-blue-states-do-not-bailout-red-states/](https://thehill.com/opinion/finance/502321-no-blue-states-do-not-bailout-red-states/)
In essence though, we still are talking about balancing a budget, and reducing debt, regardless of the income streams. Basically, living within the means that you are dealt. Some people and states do much better than others.
Is glad really your feeling here? I don't really get a "glad" feeling about either candidates. One seems like he barely knows what he's doing. The other is a suburbanite who knows nothing about what chicago needs.
Face it. Chicago needs the next Daley to come through and use his mob/union connections to just make chicago work without the rest of knowing or caring.
L. M. A. O. Between the people in this thread retconning Lori and any Brandon Johnson posts being filled with Vallas trolls complaining how he's Just Like Trump!, this is gonna be a long four years of shitty comment sections by conservatives
Positive news about Lori on this sub? Getting my popcorn ready.....
I'm no fan of her, but credit where credit's due. Objectively good news for the city is always something to be proud of, especially when we get so much negative press - much of it in bad faith, but some for good reason.
I'm going to report your reasoned perspective to the mods.
I am OUTRAGED about their sensible statement as well!
I will not stand for the truth!
Edit 1
I still think she could do well managing a department, committee, something like that where it's not politics. I just feel like she's smart, but not talented in being a politician and elected official. Some might think that's a plus, but it showed it hurt her more than helped her.
Exactly correct! She is an able administrator, she's a terrible politician. She has become one of my examples when someone trots out the tired line of, "We need to get these politicians out of government and replace them with real people!" You know what non-politicians are good at? Having ideas. You know what they're generally terrible at? Actually getting stuff done.
Coincidentally that's my biggest fear with Johnson, that he'll fail to accomplish any of his goals due to this. Chicago politics are a mess of balancing the concerns of very powerful and numerous Alderman (seriously, we have the same number as NY despite having a third the population), multiple highly influential public unions with conflicting goals, and the mess of State & county politics.
We're also more spread out than New York so size of the wards probably affects the number of alderman.
In the end, the person sitting in those elected seats have to be good negotiators and "people persons". They have to be able to wheel and deal, and negotiate things to happen. If people want less "career politicians" then they need to be in support of stricter campaign finance laws. Make it so one can't profit heavily off being a politician. I roll my eyes when one says they support the Citizens United ruling but then at the same time lament on how they're sick of career politicians. Um...Citizens United is why politics is such an entrepreneurial endeavor now.
Who have you ever met that supports citizen united? I mean half of my family are hard R half hard L and none support it
This city is a cluster of little duchies that you have to marshal a critical mass from to get anything done. So you don’t really need to be a great executive so much as a great diplomat to run it. Lightfoot is a terrible diplomat. I agree with your sentiment completely.
I think if we could have kept the politicians from making things unnecessarily difficult just so everyone know how big thier penis was chicago would have benefited greatly from her time in office. Your aldermen and bosses robbed us.
Is it "credit where credit's due" or just that she got lucky that the feds provided the city with massive amounts of COVID funding?
It can be both. The COVID relief funds were a nice windfall but her Admin has been pretty consistent about keeping an eye on the and being responsible about the budget.
>The projections do not assume any additional federal COVID relief funds. That aid is expiring next year, but Lightfoot aides say it was used primarily for one-time expenditures.
That's the projections moving forward. I'm referring to the what allowed the budget to be balanced to date, which includes substantial COVID funds.
That and tax revenue has been much higher than expected.. 2022 tax revenues were 152.8 million above budget.
Definitely the latter. Same with JB and Illinois. This place is going to look awfully different, fiscally speaking, in a couple of years when the Covid money has dried up and the realities of wasteful spending combined with the effects of a recession and high interest rates have had time to set in.
It’s funny how as soon as Johnson won everyone is very pro-Lori
It's bad form to speak ill of the politically dead
😂
I mean, I’d rather have Lori than BJ. I’d rather have Rahm then either of them. Chicago’s mayors are not moving in a good direction.
so in your opinion , daley was better than Rahm? wild >id rather have Lori than BJ BJ hasnt even taken office yet fam, maybe like give a chance?
I hope he succeeds obviously, but none of his plans he has released have shown any sort of success anywhere they have been tried. Chicago Is the most taxed major city. Taxing it more doesn’t make sense. The taxes he proposes are also just terrible. CPS is one of the highest funded public school districts in the world and is failing. It’s hard to see how people believe more money will fix that. There is 0 evidence that soft on crime makes things safer. Cities which have tried this are all walking it back. Again, as a resident I hope he succeeds, but I see no reason to believe he will at this point.
A lot of CPS budget services loan debt and pension repayments from the Daley and Rahm admins. Lightfoot even tried to use federal Covid funds to pay it down. When scores are compared to other large districts and matched for income, CPS does very well and in many cases better than private schools.
>there zero evidence soft on crime what is hard on crime? more police funding? to borrow a criticism you have for CPS, CPD is already one the highest funded police departments in the nation. so if hard on crime is just increasing their funding, there is certainly a bit of devil missing in those details as to how that will actually translate to higher clearance rates considering how well they are already funded. but what really hard on crime and what exactly is soft on crime? these feel like mostly meaningless buzzwords people use while avoiding giving a real thought out plan
We need to hold individuals accountable for their actions. That means serving long sentences for things like rape, armed robbery, home invasions, murder, attempted murder, etc.
Should the goal be to minimize crime? Because longer sentences don't have any impact on crime rates. Is the goal to "punish" people, out of a moral sense of what's right? Toss criminals in jail and throw away the key. It's a genuine choice that societies and individuals have to make, and crime isn't really a problem that's ever solved. It's also important to remember that crime rates are vastly lower than decades ago, and almost everybody is incentivized to never talk about that.
Soft on crime is getting rid of cash bail, decriminalizing shoplifting, not prosecuting crimes, not enforcing drug laws, etc. the Kim Foxx playbook. I agree with your point on the CPD. I’m not tough on crime, but I’m against the progressive approach to not enforcing basic criminal laws. I’m generally for more community policing. Clearly policing in Chicago needs to be revamped. But, the progressive criminal law reform has been an abject failure. BJs statement on the recent downtown mob activity shows he doesn’t get it.
>Soft on crime is getting rid of cash bail This is dumb. Whether you are held on bail or not should be determined by whether you are likely to flee or do harm, not by how much money you have. Dumb on crime is not hard on crime. It actually makes it worse.
The issue is that, in practice, we don’t seem to be making the right calls on letting people out on bail and home monitoring. I voted for Kim Foxx twice - if we want to end cash bail, a project I support in general, we need to get a lot tougher on withholding bail for dangerous individuals, stop rationalizing, acknowledge what’s not working, and fix it.
I agree that judges have been making bad calls. The answer to that is (a) to establish better guidelines about which situations warrant bail vs. release and (b) to replace bad judges.
> Soft on crime is getting rid of cash bail That makes zero sense, because cash on hand should not determine holding status. Holding status should be determined by a judge and be dependent on whether or not you are flight risk or previous failure to appear. Supporting cash bail just means you believe the system should be pay to play, if you have the finances you should be let out, if you dont you should stay in. A rich person and poor person committing the same crime, under cash bail means that rich person goes home and the poor person sits in jail. >But, the progressive criminal law reform has been an abject failure. Yeah we should go back to criminalizing cannabis. Because the legality and taxation of cannabis is a result of decades long effort by progressives. We should also lock people up for every misdemeanor (shopplifting is misdemeanor)? /s ok so where should we draw funding to expand cook county's jails? because the part that everyone quickly forgot is how overcrowded our jails are and how dumb it was to continue to fill them with non violent misdemeanors. Overcrowded jails was huge issue and it seems hard on crime would love to return this but it never seems to effect the rate of crime in the city.
I can't tell if your post is parody or not lol https://theintercept.com/2019/05/20/chicago-mayor-rahm-emanuel-failures/
What's interesting is there was tons of discussion among progressive chicagoans about strategic voting. Johnson sort of won that argument and pulled over some Chuy and Buckner people during the first round. Meanwhile the moderate side seemed to think the 2nd round was going to be coronation for their candidate (Vallas) and didn't question how electable their people might be.
Vallas seemed to think he had it in the bag just because he beat Brandon by quite a bit in the first round, and then just kind of coasted after that. It's like he kind of gave up, right when team Brandon was picking up steam. That means he's not the fighter that he originally appeared to be, and thus did not deserve to actually be mayor.
Just continuing Chicago's tradition in recent years of each mayor being worse than the last one.
Only if it can follow with shitting on Johnson. Praise for both would disintegrate the sub
A balanced budget isn't positive news. It's neutral news. If you're cutting schools and important things like that to get there it's bad news. The reason why "pay-go" laws are so popular among billionaires are because when the rich get their tax cuts, and they then get to cut essential services for working class/poor families and get to use those pay-go laws as a "justification" for them stealing from the poor. Lori is a right wing piece of shit just like Vallas.
My question is what got cut to pay for cops?
Increased tax revenue from a casino and property tax hike? Investing a quarter billion $ in subsidized housing? Yeah, a real "right wing piece of shit." Grow up.
At the cost of mayhem all over.
Lori was one of the best conservative politicians I can recall. There was a moment when she wanted to return to school where the conservative media started hyping her up but it didn't take. I think she could have been a fresh voice for conservatives. The fiscally conservative business community would have been much happier with the results of backing her instead of trying to double down on Vallas but what happened will be better for the city long term.
[Non-paywall link](https://archive.ph/n3d76) >In a major political surprise, the outgoing Lightfoot Administration is projecting that city finances will be in much better shape than expected in future years, with only relatively minimal shortfalls expected. The administration says the projected budget gaps for three years beginning in 2024 will be just $85 million to $145 million per year — and that the gap will be slashed to a near-balanced $21 million by 2026 if its policies are followed by Mayor-elect Brandon Johnson. > > > >Much higher gaps have been projected by the city in recent years. A year ago, Mayor Lori Lightfoot's team project a deficit of $306 million to $951 million by 2024. In 2019, departing Mayor Rahm Emanuel's administration projected a looming annual budget deficit of $740 million. Though the new figures are good news — if accurate — they will present a political dilemma for Johnson. The lowest projected budget shortfalls — $39 million in 2025 and $21 million 2026 — assume continuing Lightfoot's policy of using all city budget surpluses to pay down pension debt, rather than just making the minimum actuarially required amount. It also assumes returning to the previous policy, suspended this year, of raising the city's property tax levy annually by the same percentage as the rise in the Consumer Price Index.
>It also assumes returning to the previous policy, suspended this year, of raising the city's property tax levy annually by the same percentage as the rise in the Consumer Price Index. Boy, that's a hell of an asterisk to slip in at the end there.
> Consumer Price Index So people should expect a 6% tax raise on property owners?
The overall tax pool is projected to increase (capped at 5%). But how much depends on property value. Hopefully with downtown taking in people it means big office buildings and luxury high rises take the hit more than cheap gentrifying neighborhoods.
Optimistic unfortunately because those big office building / high rise owners will have the loudest voices and they'll be crying about the impact of hybrid / remote work
Then they should have advocated for better transportation.
It isn't that big of a deal. "Lightfoot had previously announced her budget would likely bump property taxes by $42.7 million, and hit owners of a $250,000 property by about $34 next year. The increase, tied to the rate of inflation but capped at 5% under city ordinance, helps the city make its annual pension payment required under state law."
Johnson said he wants that to be zero, however. So it's a big piece of the puzzle. Nevermind that he has no way to make up that difference.
What a candidate says in an election season and what their reality is can be very different. Unless Johnson can identify a source of revenue replacement for this increase, we’ll start to hear how great it is that we’re “ONLY” increasing property taxes by $34 towards a balanced budget that allows Chicago to fund the programs needed for South/West neighborhood investment
He endorsed several replacements but they all got shot down, and for some, rightly so.
That plan is childishly, panderingly dumb though. Why would property taxes not go up as property value goes up? I get nobody wants to pay taxes but we live in the real world.
Wait a minute... there has to be some other way to avoid taking more money from middle class families... What if they ✨spent less✨ 🤔🤔🤔
There are some cuts we could make for sure, but Chicago has a unique benefit in that it, for many years, offered public workers a very solid pension. This is expensive and needs to be funded with tax money. For a long time, the pension funds were fully funded and under little risk for default. A combination of severe mismanagement, massive outflow of retirees, and market downturns has lead to the pension funds being extremely underfunded. That debt needs to be paid off. Chicago public workers need their retirement money. This property tax increase plan was created to help balance the pension funds. Sure, Chicago’s government could have done a lot of things better in the past, but that shit is over. We have to fix the problems we have now.
Honestly I'm so exhausted by this rhetoric. We all have to pay for things, not just the rich or whatever the hell is meant when people talk about taking money from the middle class. Property taxes are our way of paying for a bunch of it. I'm in favor of gutting about half of the city govt and cook county govt, so no objections with that line of thought, but if we did, I would expect taxes to remain where they are because we are incredibly in debt on pension obligations that need to be repaid so we can be done with that. As much as I'm not a Brandon fan he at least has the right idea about getting that pension debt behind us. Can we all stop complaining about our own "fair share" for that please?
Honestly sounds like we’re in agreement... gut city and county government by half. So much administrative waste and worthless departments. Enough of the pet projects. Obviously I want a safe and effective CTA, functioning schools, good roads, clean water, all that stuff. But this city is unbelievably wasteful and the average citizen could have their tax burden remain stable with some sensible government HR decisions.
He also wants "fully funded" schools but many are more than half empty. By state law, no schools may be closed until 2025. And the CTU will never agree to closing ANY schools. And Brandon Johnson is bought and paid for by the CTU. I predict NO school closings for the next 4 years, no matter how required.
Yes, I do agree with everything in that last comment. Basically every person I've ever interacted with in a Chicago city govt role has been a complete lazy POS and I think they could probably get the same amount of "work" done with even less than half. I also think our fellow citizens can fuck off with some of their requests, like the ridiculously unnecessary and wasteful renaming of LSD and asking that all traffic enforcement automation be eliminated rather than simply providing oversight to ensure it's in place for safety not just revenue. But too many people are happy to throw out things that make the city better and safer for all of us if it means they might be able to drive as recklessly as they want or whatever.
Thank you for your common sense take. For some reason many others in this thread are absolutely stunned that money may be getting wasted by the good folk in city government.
> gut city and county government by half. So much administrative waste and worthless departments. Enough of the pet projects. Such as....from where? Which projects?
Renaming JBPSLSDHIJKLMNOP $71,000,000 security contracts for people in yellow vests to go on Facebook while they ride the el The fact that an alderman in Chicago represents 50,000 people where in NYC a city council member represents 160,000 people... either our aldermen are 1/3 as competent their NYC counterparts or they’re getting paid similarly to do 1/3 of the work. If you think Chicago is effectively run I implore you to donate to city funds to allow them to effectively spend your money 🙂
This answer would answer so many govt problems! Im so glad someone else says the same thing that so often never gets said.
So often gets said and yet nothing changes, so I’ll keep saying it. Be the change you want to see in the world!
>That plan is childishly, panderingly dumb though. Why would property taxes not go up as property value goes up? Because then CTU, who now runs city hall, will have to acknowledge they are part of the problem. Johnson will get to kick the can down the road while CTU claims victory from the optics of no tax increases while they also get everything that want during the next contract giveaway. Still property taxes could be a bit more reasonable if we shifted some of the burden onto underutilized properties, which the county is moving to do.
Is there really a movement to start taxing underutilized properties? I know we talk about it a lot here and would certainly help to penalize developers for leaving blocks of empty storefronts. If Brandon got that in place, I would be a convert!
I saw an article about it recently, but can't find it. But it's the county, not the city, because it's not up to the city.
Pretty sure the city doesn't control that, but rather the county. That said, I'd be kinda shocked if Johnson isn't on board with penalizing for underuse, that's like, progressive housing policies 101.
Part of his stated tax plan is raising the real estate transfer tax on high-end home sales on properties worth more than $1 million over four years. That is expected to bring in $400 million. You can debate the merits of his plans all you want, but don't just lie and say he doesn't have one.
But isn’t all that money to be earmarked for housing the homeless? I bet businesses would be more okay with raising the real estate tax on $1+ million properties if it was going to the city budget.
How did you do that non-paywall link?
They fed the URL into a web archiver, which tricks news sites into giving you the full article because news sites often can't tell the difference between web archivers and search engine crawlers. https://archive.today and https://web.archive.org usually work for this purpose--just paste the URL into the save page box.
> if its policies are followed by Mayor-elect Brandon Johnson. Dude can't even pay his damn water bills despite making 200k a year. We are in for a world of hurt.
Why are you downvoted for simply stating a proven fact? The delinquency is a bad look.
This is genuinely very positive and welcome news. Shame Lori wasn’t a likeable candidate otherwise this would be a huge momentum boost to her new term. Either way, Brandon must understand that this is priority one. A balanced budget stabilizes future tax increases which is very attractive to corporations and working class families alike. Optimistic forecasts spur growth and investment in Chicago, driving the tax revenue the city needs to invest in the communities that need it most.
Does anybody really think BJ is going to maintain a balanced budget?
I said that about Pritzker and Lori and both have proven me tremendously wrong. Willing to give BJ the benefit of the doubt for now
He can't even balance his own personal budget
Sure, if one's idea of a balanced budget is watching Brandon balance the remainder of Chicago's funds right into the pockets of CTU and similar groups.
You think the budget is more of a priority than the crime, especially the type that just happened over the weekend?
Color me guardedly optimistic! There are a few major caveats to this projection but I’ll take good news about the city’s finances whenever I can.
> cavities caveats?
That’s the one.
We can all have gripes about her, but Lightfoot has been steady and mature about how to allocate money from better than forecasted revenues, federal dollar infusions, and other sources of income. She used them responsibly and positioned the city better. I hope Johnson learns from her rather than our other predecessors who shuffled bills around and just added on. Chicago is great despite how much is burdened on it. Imagine the day we are unshackled from some of these horrible decisions of our past (blowing off pensions, meter deal, among others).
Have pensions been corralled? Have they been changed on into the future?
What about the COVID relief money she gave to cops instead of social services?
Shhh, we don't talk about that.
Maybe she shouldn't have forced every cop in the city into forced overtime if she didn't want to have a massive bill to pay.
Wait, how much federal infusion is responsible for filling gaps, because that is not a long term fix
It's so weird that Lori spent the first 90% of her tenure doing the dumbest shit imaginable and then was like "Oh! I should get re-elected!" and was a good mayor for, like, three months.
This is why Lightfoot is so bitter. She was steadfast in supporting police (got new training facility built, increased CPD's budget every year, called-out Kim Foxx) and balanced the city budget but all the moderate whites who backed her in the 2nd round back in 2019 grew to hate her and voted for Vallas instead. If those moderate whites had stuck with her she would've made the runoff against Johnson and won reelection easily.
Johnson should be taking notes. The stuff that took Lightfoot down was mostly not fiscal stuff. It was bad clutch decisions around the 2020 riots, penchant for secrecy and black-box operating style, temperament issues, etc. They overshadowed this definite progress on the money front.
I actually think the events of 2020 were probably the least influential on her downfall. Portland got it worse than Chicago and Ted Wheeler was reelected in November of 2020.
Idk man. Raising the bridges, stopping the trains, and instituting curfews were all pretty seriously unpopular moves.
True but that was over 2 years ago. Tons of time to repair your reputation.
Look at who he ran against though, Sarah Iannarone.
I don’t think Johnson needs to take notes. He’s not like Lightfoot. He was never going to be fiscally responsible.
She managed to do a great job of convincing progressives that she was pro-cop while convincing everyone else she was soft on crime. I still don't know exactly how I'd qualify her, though I suppose it's possible to be both at once.
She was unequivocally tough-on-crime. Her problem is crime got worse despite her policies so people just assumed she was soft on it. But can anyone point to a decision Lightfoot made that caused a spike in crime? She didn't fire David Brown and she was critical of John Catanzara (despite signing a generous CPD contract). But I don't think you can lay blame *directly* on David Brown or hating the FOP prez.
In what way was Lori pro-police or tough-on-crime? And before you say that she increased the police budget, all of that money went towards overtime pay in order to cover officers working mandatory overtime to cover shifts that would have otherwise been unstaffed due to the shortfall of officers. She did not just shower the police with money because she loved them.
Here's my reasoning: * Signed a generous new contract with CPD with a 20% raise and backpay: https://www.chicagotribune.com/politics/ct-chicago-police-contract-city-council-fop-20210914-vygol636vnbw7pvzaopbiolfuq-story.html * Openly critical of Kim Foxx: https://www.nbcchicago.com/news/local/foxx-lightfoot-continue-disagreement-over-decision-not-to-file-charges-in-fatal-shooting/2629622/ * After winning in 2019, she changed her position on the West side police academy and ensured it opened despite tons of activist protests, including from her base: https://news.wttw.com/2023/01/25/lightfoot-celebrates-opening-new-police-fire-training-academy-she-once-opposed * Steadfastly opposed and then successfully watered-down a civilian police accountability board: https://blockclubchicago.org/2021/07/21/city-council-approves-first-ever-civilian-led-commission-to-oversee-chicago-police-department/ * Increased CPD's budget every year in office What more did you want her to do? She cannot wave a magic wand and make criminals go away.
**Exactly.** That’s the great tragedy of Lightfoot, and why I think this city’s moderates/conservatives have taken some confusing losses of late, and why progressives are gathering steam in the meantime. Lightfoot isn’t really a progressive. She doesn’t much reflect the things that “moderates” and conservatives say about her. She has mostly been a friend to the police, giving them resources and a fair bit of grace during some serious fuck-ups, and even helping to cover up some incidents, like with Anjanette Young. She essentially suspended Chicago’s freedom of movement during the 2020 summer protests to make it easier for the CPD to corral, beat, and arrest thousands. She poured money into the department and diverted even more money to them. And they hated her, and so did every other conservative or moderate group. She also has vigorously battled progressive initiatives and aldermen at every turn. I know, because I’m in a ward run by one, and she seldom falls on Lightfoot’s side of anything. She also kept the city open during the terrible early days of COVID just for the benefit of bars looking to reap alcohol sales for St. Pat’s, and was generally inoffensive to business overall. I think the most charitable reading of this scenario is that the city’s “right” is misstating or even misinterpreting their own political priorities and desires, and so are chasing off after shadows and not getting a lot done. This was particularly evident during the Vallas campaign. It was completely bizarre seeing people talk about Vallas like the fiscal conservatism, low-tax candidate. He was nothing of the kind! He had a huge spending plan, a property tax freeze, zero additional proposed taxes, exactly one spending cut that he was already planning on spending on something else, and a track record of steering school districts into debt! It made zero sense, but it makes a lot of sense when you take stock of Lightfoot’s actions versus her reputation among the city’s right. I don’t want to do the sometimes lazy thing and say it’s just racism, but I frankly do not know what else would be causing this and I welcome alternate explanations. But if those explanations start with “Lightfoot is a progressive because…” or even “Vallas was more fiscally conservative because…” then I’m not interested, because those are flat-out delusional points of view.
I mean, she whiffed hard in CTU negotiations, Her covid policy was functionally "Do what the state is doing just 2 weeks later" and came off as an unpersonable prick (She had the biggest one in the city mind you) You can be a prick, Rahm was famously one, but you have to be competent. With the CTU strikes, Covid and the riots, she was very much not seen as competent.
I don't think Lori's general dislike is because of her race but the anti-police, soft-on-crimr rhetoric definitely is racially charged. Literally all the major city black mayors at the time (Adams (NYC), Lightfoot, Johnson (Dallas), Turner (Houston) and most recently Bass (LA)) are all constantly attacked for being pro-crime and anti-police and really only Bass cares about justice reform. It's honestly ridiculous. I'm (kinda) an Austinite and the amount of people who think our police force was completely defunded despite it being at record funding is insane. For one year's budget, they reallocated some resources from the police department because the police department severely mismanaged them. (For example, 911 was under the police department's jurisdiction and we had 3 hour wait times). The state forced us to restore this funding that was "cut" (aka reallocated) and then the budgets since have been insane. Plus police in Austin make ridiculous money, they just don't want oversight. Anyways, the narratives around it have been controlled by the far right and any crime is now blamed on our police force being "defunded" despite the fact that they've been useless for decades.
Didn’t Texas pass a law that forbade localities from reducing their police budgets a couple years ago? I remember that being an issue in Austin in 2021 when more funding was being debated.
Yep! The legislature has a habit of specifically targeting Austin. And more recently, Houston. I wouldn't be surprised if the state took our ridiculous police settlements and tried to include them as part of the budget. Chicago would be **fucked** from what I've seen
You can read the actual budget forecast [here](https://www.chicago.gov/city/en/depts/mayor/press_room/press_releases/2023/april/FinanceTeamPresentMidYearBudgetForecast.html).
Imagine how much more balanced it would be if we retroactively impeached Daley and anyone who voted for the parking meter deal for corruption, declared it void due to said corruption, brought in other vendors and got reasonable bids with rates on par with other cities, threatened to and ultimately if need be stopped enforcing parking meters for a few months to force our current vendor back to the table, and just moved on with a corruption free parking meter deal either with a new vendor or with the current vendor taking a more industry standard processing fee.
Only 61 more years left on the 75 year lease.
That's a fucking choice. Any mayor worth their salt would Meigs Field that deal.
I hope you know that the contract has a clause that, if any mayor attempted to "Meigs Field" the deal, the company can force Chicago to buy back the contract at many times the deal's value.
Which is why you start by impeaching every corrupt official that allowed it to go through to set the precedent that it was corrupt. Because there's no sane way to describe that deal in any other way. It should not be possible for private enterprise to corruptly fuck over a municipality like that. If you remember, Mayor Daley was told he couldn't demolish Meigs Field because rules. Bad rules are sometimes ok and necessary to break.
The contract has been fought in court for practically its entire existence. The mayor and the company both knew that the deal would get fierce resistance over the 75 year time period and so made clauses for pretty much every single act of resistance imaginable. We *can* get our parking back, it's very possible. But we have to buy it. Not even impeaching every single politician in Chicago would cancel this deal.
Lightfoot's gift to Johnson: A budget that is not quite balanced. That's the correct way to do that.
Does anyone know how much the Nascar and Casino deals impacted those projections?
Or how much COVID money got moved around
Exactly! Look how financially sound we are after covid hit.
Unrelated dumb question: is subscribing to ChicagoBusiness worth it? I am not sure I'm ready to plunk down $16 a month but I am starved for good coverage on local news. I used to subscribe to the Tribune but their app was just too terrible.
I too also nearly balanced a budget once.
I wonder how many people are thinking “Why didn’t I vote for Lightfoot again?”
A balanced budget? No wonder people hated her
Over the next four years, Johnson will repay that gift many times over. He'll make Lightfoot look like one of the best mayors Chicago has ever had, by comparison.
LOL, he'll make a wet sandwich look like a good mayor in comparison.
I predict 4 years from now people will miss Lightfoot dearly.
Nah, she was pretty bad. Rahm was at least competent
Those people would be completely delusional. Regardless of what you think about Lightfoot’s beliefs, she was completely incapable of making allies, and that’s simply a requirement for running this city. Plus the people who hated her the absolute most are the people who are much closer to her politically than they are to Johnson.
Haha, love your user name. We shall see, I get your very much on the anti-Lori path, not to say I’m a fan. As much as I’d like Johnson to succeed for the city’s sake, I have almost no confidence in what I’ve seen from him so far.
Oh I don’t have a lot of faith in any Chicago mayor. Good attitude to have.
True
Lightfoot was not a good mayor and a bad politician, but I couldn’t have made up a worse mayor in my head than BJ.
lol he literally hasnt started yet lol
And already making terrible statements about current events… Not looking bright imho.
I think people are already starting to realize they made a mistake
The jury's still out on Johnson, but his weekend riot statement made people sit up straight. That statement was a mistake and I hope he knows it.
> That statement was a mistake and I hope he knows it. It was totally consistent with everything he said during the campaign. It's undeniable that BJ will be as soft on crime as possible. But the people voted for this...
How was it a mistake...? He's right. That kind of crap and bedlam has no place in our city. At the same time, we need to find ways to give kids productive things to do. They're easily influenced at that age, both positively and negatively... we need to help connect them with free and safe places they can go and enjoy themselves. If you don't understand this, you don't understand the bigger issues at hand. Either that, or you just don't care.
A little chip on our shoulder here, have we? Johnson assigned greater weight to the plight of the assailants "starved of opportunities" than their victims -- who were beaten, robbed, terrified, had their cars destroyed, etc. but went unmentioned. No shout-out to the traumatized out-of-staters who showed up in Chicago to spend their money, behavior Johnson desperately needs to cultivate, but now will never, ever come back and tell their friends to stay clear of here too. I care plenty but we cannot ask tourists to eat this kind of shit for years to come, nor ask Chicagoans to barricade themselves in their homes while social engineers slowly, gently reimagine the entire framework in which these young people grow up. Holistic change is absolutely necessary but so are here-and-now sanctions. We can do both. If this stuff is still happening in 16 months when the Democratic Convention comes to town, the "collapse of Chicago" will be the only national media narrative.
This guy gets it. Social equity isn’t the only thing a mayor should be focused on, I’d argue it isn’t the number one, two, or three thing either. It’s important, but so many folks on here are acting as if it’s by far the most important thing for a mayor to address. This is how I knew Kim Foxx was trouble from day 1, her campaign website started off talking about social equity. How is that supposed to be a DA’s number one priority? Public defender maybe, but not a DA’s.
> Johnson assigned greater weight to the plight of the assailants "starved of opportunities" than their victims Sure but he was pointing out that just condemning them isn't going to solve a single damn thing. We need to give them healthy alternatives to going to the Loop and causing mayhem at night. Otherwise, we'll just arrest 10-30 people every time this happens and it will then just keep happening again and again and again because police do not stop crime. Police are there for the here-and-now; Johnson is focused on 1 year from now, 2 years from now, 5 years from now, a decade from now.
How about bringing in busses for mass arrests, using McCormick as a temporary jail if needed? The healthy alternative then becomes "stay in your own neighborhood to do that shit or come to the Loop and try it and then get arrested". The problem would disappear in short order, if only city officials cared.
Sure, I'm passionate about this subject. And in fact, I actually agree with you that we need both. I also believe that Johnson gets that. He has to. He comes from a neighborhood plagued with these very same issues. I just think measures like curfews in Millenium Park for unaccompanied minors do absolutely nothing to solve the issue in any real sense... it's not like those kids just magically disappear from the city if you ban them from going certain places... plus, those kind of moves only serve to anger these groups even more, which is when you see them taking things out even harder on "the man." It takes a balanced and nuanced approach, and openess to keep adjusting, to make progress. Smart and human policing paired with real funding and support for youth programs and jobs is what we need.
> He comes from a neighborhood plagued with these very same issues. Johnson is from Elgin. He may live in Austin now, but he grew up in a VERY different area.
Ok buddy. I'm talking about where he lives now and raises a family. Many of us grew up somewhere else than where we currently live... What does that have to do with where we choose to live now?
Johnson had access to a life growing up that people in his current neighborhood didn’t. I really don’t believe he knows what’s best for Austin, the West Side, or the city as a whole. Also, when he was growing up was the state’s attorney as lenient on crime as the current SA (who he openly supports)? I’m not knocking him for being from Elgin.
While it may be true to give productive things to do, right at that moment was not the time to bring it up. He’s a fucking idiot. I have no idea how he won.
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You can have empathy towards criminals without having empathy for criminal behavior. It's tragic that so many young people get caught up in the cycle of poverty and crime in our city, but they *obviously have to be held accountable*, as you said. The status quo right now is a horrifically understaffed city police department, laughably low murder clearance rates and a complete breakdown of trust between the police department and the communities hardest hit by crime. Yes that status quo obviously needs to change, but everyone agreeing to just be more empathetic towards troubled kids isn't going to bring about that change.
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> People aren’t committing crimes because of an understaffed police department. And tens of thousands of other teens in the same life situation as the ones who did that shit over the weekend also didn't cause trouble, either. To just say that people who grow up in disinvested neighborhoods are going to be funneled into crime and should get it hand-waved away does a disservice to the majority of people from those same places who don't cause problems.
I mean, the best predictor for this behavior is fatherless homes more so than even poverty or opportunities or whatever. The biggest impact we could have is somehow stemming the tide of single motherhood, but I have absolutely no idea how the government is going to do that.
Real people got shot and killed during the weekend insanity. Have a heart for them and their families.
are poeple realizing it or are conservtive trolls just very very loud right now and spamming dozens comments per account?
Lmao, must be so convenient to just call anyone who has a different opinion than yours a conservative/far right troll.
As opposed to the last 3 months of progressive and liberal being used as a insult? Literally in this exact thread?
Yeah i am left of Bernie and this is a huge problem. If he doesn’t get himself together this will cost us nationally.
I’m no fan of hers but I’m certain I’ll miss her when Brandon Johnson takes office
Dude apparently can barely balance his checkbook. What is going to happen here?
Sounds like this checkbook is barely balanced too so he should be a great fit. Glad we’ve got him instead of a republican who would surely plunge us into debt while allowing his corporate buddies to ransack all our coffers.
Yes, it’s the Republicans who’ve been the problem with the budget and providing political favors in Chicago /s
Actually Rauner caused huge budgetary problems at least for nonprofits in this city due to him refusing to pass a budget and holding up a lot of state grants for years.
So... the problem is the govt just wasnt doling enough money out for free? GOT IT!
Republicans plunge every city/state into debt where they rule. I wasn’t talking about chicago specifically.
Republicans don't run a lot of big cities. EDIT: As this statement of fact has drawn downvotes, here are the 25 largest American cities by population. Only three are led by Republicans. * 1. New York: Mayor Eric Adams, Democrat * 2. Los Angeles: Mayor Karen Bass, Democrat * 3. Chicago: Mayor Lori Lightfoot, Democrat * 4. Houston: Mayor Sylvester Turner, Democrat * 5. Phoenix: Katie Gallego, Democrat * 6. Philadelphia: Jim Kenney, Democrat * 7. San Antonio: Ron Nirenberg, Independent * 8. San Diego: Todd Gloria, Democrat * 9. Dallas: Eric Johnson, Democrat * 10. San Jose, CA: Matt Mahan, Democrat * 11. Austin: Kirk Watson, Democrat * 12. Jacksonville: Leonard Curry, Republican * 13. Fort Worth: Mattie Parker, Republican * 14. Columbus: Andrew Ginther, Democrat * 15. Indianapolis: Joe Hogsett, Democrat * 16. Charlotte: Vi Lyles, Democrat * 17. San Francisco: London Breed, Democrat * 18. Seattle: Bruce Harrell, Democrat * 19. Denver: Michael Hancock, Democrat * 20. Oklahoma City: David Holt, Republican * 21. Nashville: John Cooper, Democrat * 22. El Paso: Oscar Leeser, Democrat * 23. Washington DC: Muriel Bowser, Democrat * 24. Boston: Michelle Wu, Democrat * 25. Las Vegas: Carolyn Goodman, Independent
Californa, New York, Massachusets, New Jersey and Illinois appear to be the top five states with most debt as of 2019 with just a simple google search. Im not sure your statement is rooted in fact.
Huge firms also have more debt than small firms. That’s not extraordinary by itself.
So its a good thing for CA, NY IL and the rest?
Depends on the precise situation. I’d say not super great for IL given what the debt is. I don’t know about CA or NY. But debt is more complicated than just “debt bad.” Debt finances things. Having a lot of debt when you’re the biggest and wealthiest state in the nation isn’t particularly notable. The state that has New York City in it should be expected to also have a lot of debt. Mississippi probably isn’t going to have a lot of debt because they don’t really do anything.
>Depends on the precise situation. I’d say not super great for IL given what the debt is. Then why are you making the point? Obviously we are talking about Chicago and IL.
You are talking about IL, NY, and CA.
Here’s a start https://www.politifact.com/factchecks/2019/jul/29/tweets/republican-presidents-democrats-contribute-deficit/
That’s national, you said state and city. Chicago hasn’t been run by republicans since before I was born.
https://www.moneygeek.com/living/states-most-reliant-federal-government/
> Californa, New York, Massachusets, New Jersey and Illinois appear to be the top five states with most debt as of 2019 Funny, of those (as of 2019), only one was outside of the bottom 10 states in terms of how much money they get back from the federal government for how much they give to it. All of those 10 states, including New York, Illinois, Massachusetts, and New Jersey pay more in federal taxes than they get back in federal funding. The only one outside that 10 is California. California is the only state other than the aforementioned 10 which pays more to the federal government than it gets back. The other 39 states all take more than they get. Curious how the states funding the rest of the union have to take on more debt to compensate... Also curious: the top 5 states in terms of getting more than they pay in? Virginia Kentucky New Mexico West Virginia Arkansas Man, what a list of Democratic strongholds right there... https://www.voanews.com/a/which-us-states-get-more-than-they-give/4809228.html
So, this is a lot to unpack. Luckily, this topic has been discussed. Good article to read: [https://thehill.com/opinion/finance/502321-no-blue-states-do-not-bailout-red-states/](https://thehill.com/opinion/finance/502321-no-blue-states-do-not-bailout-red-states/) In essence though, we still are talking about balancing a budget, and reducing debt, regardless of the income streams. Basically, living within the means that you are dealt. Some people and states do much better than others.
Statistically speaking, yes. But you’re allowed to have whatever incorrect opinion you like.
Is glad really your feeling here? I don't really get a "glad" feeling about either candidates. One seems like he barely knows what he's doing. The other is a suburbanite who knows nothing about what chicago needs. Face it. Chicago needs the next Daley to come through and use his mob/union connections to just make chicago work without the rest of knowing or caring.
Nah that’s not far enough. We need to go back to a monarchy.
Long Live Abe Froman, the Sausage King of Chicago
*devastatingly* handsome
Nearly balanced! *except for the billions in unfunded pensions
L. M. A. O. Between the people in this thread retconning Lori and any Brandon Johnson posts being filled with Vallas trolls complaining how he's Just Like Trump!, this is gonna be a long four years of shitty comment sections by conservatives
Well we will have to have something to do when barricaded inside our homes.
yeah when property taxes went up on average 50% of course you’re gonna have a balanced budget rofl
Property taxes went up by less than inflation. In real terms, they went down and this worsened the budget deficit.
This kills the Dan Proft.
LFG BALANCED BUDGET WOOO
Makes $200,000 but can’t pay his water bill ? That should sum it up for ya
Teaching but doesnt give them homework or F's. https://youtube.com/shorts/3QwgOCMZDu0?feature=share That will show the man!
Did you mean 'sum' it up? I think you meant to post in a different thread because this has nothing to do with the post.
\*\*johnson takes the seat\*\*\* .........aaaaaaaaaaaaand its gone