With just a few weeks to go in Mayor Daley’s regime, I headed to City Hall to check out one of the last rounds of Tax Increment Financing handouts of the era—that is, the April 12 meeting of the Community Development Commission, which oversees the mayor’s $500-million-a-year TIF program.
Good thing the city and schools aren’t broke.
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This time, actually, I couldn’t really complain about most of their recommendations, which get passed on to the City Council for approval (and it always does approve). At least the money’s earmarked for deals in truly blighted communities—which, of course, is where TIF dollars are supposed to go, as opposed to the Loop or the near south and west sides, which have soaked up most of the money for years.
Still, we’re talking about turning vacant lots into gardens. Even I would probably vote for that if the mayor appointed me to the CDC, as improbable as that is to imagine.
But if they didn’t take our money, they’d take the money Canada offered to move their operations to Quebec. And at least the city of Chicago is using the money to bribe—I mean, convince—an industry to transform an abandoned factory into a facility that will bring decent-paying industrial jobs to a poor community. That’s just what the TIF program is supposed to do. So I have to say: good job, Mayor Daley, from your favorite TIF writer in town.
I was hoping someone on the CDC might ask: Well, if you haven’t spent all the money in the original budget, why do you need more? Or: What particular development deals do you have in mind? Or: Why do you need more TIF money to stimulate growth and development in the area when rising property values suggest it’s already growing and developing? Or: How can you ask to set aside even more property tax money when the schools you’re taking it from are $820 million in the red?
Ben Joravsky discusses his reporting weekly with journalist Dave Glowacz at mrradio.org/theworks.
