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E-mail to a friendIt's almost enough to make you feel sorry for Sam Zell. All the guy's doing is asking for a handout, the sort of thing Mayor Daley dishes out to developers all the time.
"The Trib's Selling and We're Not Buying," read the front page of today's Sun-Times. "Only Sam Zell and his Tribune Co., owners of the ballpark, stand to gain. And in an economic downturn, only the taxpayers stand to lose."
The headline and accompanying editorial -- which had me cheering over my morning coffee -- are referring to the state's proposal to use sales taxes to buy and rebuild Wrigley Field so whoever owns the Cubs can sell more tickets and concessions and make more money.
The paper's zeal is goosed by wanting to make things uncomfortable for its rival, of course, but it's an encouraging turn of events nevertheless. When it comes to corporate welfare, the Wrigley Field proposal is only the tip of the iceberg. In the last year or so, the city's agreed to fork over $8.5 million to Grossinger Auto Corp. to build a car dealership at North and Clybourn, $51 million to a consortium of developers to convert the old downtown post office into a luxury hotel and condos, $58 million to developers to build an 18-story tower on top of Union Station for another hotel and even more upscale condos, $5 million to Navteq, the hugely successful navigations technology company to move from the Merchandise Mart to 100 N. Riverside, and $880,000 to Barry Callebaut to move its corporate office into the old Montgomery Ward building at 600 W. Chicago. Callebaut, by the way, was the company that closed the Brach's candy factory, throwing roughly 3,500 west-siders out of work.
These are all, of course, just some of the more egregious handouts from various tax increment financing districts, the mayor's favorite slush fund. Whenever I talk to community groups about TIFs they want to know why the Tribune and the Sun-Times aren't writing about this scam. In private writers from both papers have told me that their editors basically think the issue's too complicated for their readers to understand.
I think they're underestimating the public's intelligence. In fact, today's Sun-Times editorial did a great job of spelling it out in language that pretty much anyone can follow. In this case, they're writing about a diversion of sales taxes, but the same principle applies when the city diverts property taxes for TIF deals.
"Sales taxes are intended as a source of general revenue to help cover the myriad costs of local government -- teaching children, paying police officers and fixing pot holes," the Sun-Times wrote. "When significant sales tax revenues are diverted to a single special purpose, such as paying for a ballpark, the tax burden grows that much heavier on everyone else."
What kind of asinine logic is that??!!
REPORT the news...let the readers figure it out...if a writer such as Joravsky at the Reader has been exposing the use of TIFS at the Reader, why can't the Trib & Sun Times, give the public the same benefit of the doubt?
Totally egregious lack of reporting on their part...
Let's let you get it really straight.
1. No media representing itself as being truly journalistic would EVER decide to not publish news because '...their editors basically think the issue's too complicated for their readers to understand.".
2. What the 'editors' of both 'major' newspapers, AND every last television 'news' enterprise, use to determine what to report and what not to report is whether or not the 'powers that be' want the public to understand something or do not want the public to understand something.
3. Concerning TIF's, aka Thieve's Incestuous Funding, this is one of the biggest scams that those perpetrating same DO NOT want anyone to understand. Thus the lack of reporting on the subject.
4. To understand the nature of the beast, you must let go of the false presumption that there is no beast, that there is no unified conspiracy to defraud the taxpayers and that most elected officials in this city and county are substantially honest and well meaning individuals.
5. We, who reside and work and live our lives within the boundaries of this city and county, are all victims of an ongoing, criminal conspiracy to defraud us of the full value in public services our taxes are legally bound to provide.
6. Presume the worst about those in city and county government and you will be correct 9 times out of 10.
7. Unless you enjoy turning blue and passing out, don't hold your breath waiting for anyone, but a dedicated few actually working at being journalists, will actually investigate and discover corruption, report the truth and do so as thoroughly, accurately and as honestly as those few.
Ben Joravsky deserves a medal for his work in exposing the TIF scams, but I'm sure he'd be satisfied with being able to report the indictments, or the oustings on election day, of any and all of those individuals responsible for this blatant abuse and misuse of our tax dollars.
Call them as you see them.
1)If Sam Zell wants it, it must be good for Sam Zell.
2) Wrigley Field is not an asset Zell/Tribune wants on the balance sheet as it cannot be converted to a higher/better use and therefore increase in value. This is especially true since it has Landmark status. Nor can the rent increase without affecting ticket sales. If the rent increases it affects the viability of the Cubs. Therefore, the owner Zell, wants the RE/Ballpark off the balance sheet & prefers to rent. It also liberates the money in the RE.
If the State of IL owns Wrigley Field, it`s off the Tribune balance sheet, off the tax rolls & the taxpayers (us) have to make improvements & hope to collect the rent for an asset that can only be used during baseball season.
There is a saying: "Don`t let other people make there problems, your problems". The State should not buy Wrigley Field.
WATCH " The Wire" on HBO.
Meanwhile, anyone wanna bet that Bob and Doug MacKenzie and their buddies at the Daily Conrad would be so concerned about the Cubs and Wrigley Field if anybody else other than the Tribune Co. owned the team and the ballpark? Just more showboating by the sleazy aliens who run the alleged "Progressive, Independent Conscience of the City" that continues to employ neocon morons like Jack Higgins, Neil Steinberg, Stella Foster and Hedy "The Homophobe" Weiss.
"When tax revenues are diverted to a single special purpose, the tax burden grows that much heavier on everyone else."
Do you really think it is a bad thing for the Sun Times to put some heat on the State for making an aid plan for its #1 competitor? Isn't one of the functions of the press to expose exactly this sort of thing?
JBP
"Isn't one of the functions of the press to expose exactly this sort of thing?"
Not according to the owners of the press, print or broadcast.
Their purpose is to do what they are fucking told to do.
Three guesses as to who they take their orders from.
HAVE NO DOUBT, VOTE INCUMBENTS OUT
And you're experiencing one incarnation of that replacement right now.
Interactive journalism.
Refreshing in it's possibilities.
The majority of the voters like who's in office. That's why the majority of the voters picked those INCUMBENTS who stay in ofiice.
Ever think you're the idiot? You're in the minority pal, not US. We're the majority. Get use to it and keep repeating yourself. Very few are listening. Check the polls.
I would ask you to try to be honest, but that's not your forte.
The only 'majority' of voters who 'like' any incumbents are the loyal minions whose personal gain depends upon those incumbents retaining control over the spending of the taxpayers dollars.
And that 'majority' has hardly been a majority of citizens, or even a majority of registered voters, usually only a bare majority of those who've bothered to vote.
Ever think YOU'RE the idiot?
Of course you don't, because you, and those of like mind, think that it's the height of being smart to play so many for fools for so long.
That's not the height of being smart, it's the height of being bent.
Will those citizens who have so far not registered to vote get themselves registered?
Will those citizens who are registered to vote, but rarely vote in elections, begin to vote, in every election?
Will this combined MAJORITY, of citizens heretofore not registered and of citizens registered, but rarely voting, realize how vital to their lives exercising their right and responsibility to vote is?
And will there come a time when the number of citizen, that liars, like yourself will have to successfully fool into voting for 'more of the same old bullshit' from the incumbents you are beholden to, will be so great that liars, like yourself, will find it impossible to tell enough lies to remain in control of the taxpayers' pocketbooks?
"....keep repeating yourself."
Thanks, I will.
HAVE NO DOUBT, VOTE INCUMBENTS OUT
Sergeant on the CPD. Jan PESTKA is now an official with the Mob run United Services Inc. This company hires illegals,at low wages to clean Airports and hotels,for dirt cheap wages. Also Pestka and other officals provide their illegal workers with fake I.D, and Social Security numbers,identity theft prevails. Check the family secrets trial,and you gain an understanding on how Daley works with the Mob.
Morphine theft rampant in the community hospitals,
Wow...After three years I finally understand that some people are just above the law. Surprise... surprise , In a city of corrupt police who can not face prosecution and operate as if they are the Fascist arm of a dictatorship, we as Chicagoans have transcended to a higher level of obscene madness.
Gallons of pure morphine are hitting the 8th 9th and tenth police districts with police co-operation and protection.
Thanks to the efforts of officers like Greg Duran out of the 8th District working tirelessly with nurses like Bonnie Mayo, and Abigail Go currently a cancer nurse at Providence hospital, our streets are safe for drug dealers to ply their trade. Abigail Go was recently dismissed unceremoniously from North Western Hospital after being apprehended at her locker with narcotics, needles, and paraphernalia packaged neatly for distribution in my beloved neighborhood
Al tho nurses and nurses assistants regularly are dismissed for theft of narcotics, the medical community is apparently unwilling to suffer the slings and arrows of bad publicity. Stealing morphine for distribution is a class X felony. It is illegal for the hospitals to conceal evidence to protect the criminal element in there employ. Ironically health care professionals openly laugh at the idea that they will be called to account.
Nurses count on the weakness of a system prioritized to protect their reputation before the communities they serve. They count on crooked cops.
There is a thriving industry in our city protected by opportunistic police and incompetent regulators entrusted by our federal government to watch over the dangerous drugs.
They count on ambitious management such as Mary-Beth-X on 15th floor West, the Oncology, and Hematology department at North Western hospital.to protect their upward professional climb.
We depend on the Government to regulate morphine conscientiously. That's a big mistake.These are not isolated incidents.
Kimball Paul
1-773-475-7771
You keep counting on 'our governments' to 'protect you' from yourself, I'll just say no to doing stupid shit that endangers my health, said stupid shit as defined by me.
Controlling Substances only increases the value of those in demand by consumers.
When individuals choose to do the stupid things that result in their demise, Darwin's principles are confirmed once again.
People who know what their bodies need to function free of pain shouldn't have to pay through the nose for what they need, or pay someone to give them permission.
Just because you need someone to hold your hand, and kiss your boo boo, doesn't mean anyone, or everyone, else needs or wants the same treatment.
This kp fellow must own stock in pharmaceuticals.