When I heard that Mayor Emanuel intends to spend $55 million of your property tax dollars to build a hotel and basketball arena on the near-south side, I thought it must be a cruel joke he’s playing on the people of Chicago.
As I write, protesters have taken to the streets in the hopes that angry demonstrations will accomplish what crying, begging, pleading, and reasonable argument haven’t: convince the mayor to change his mind.
At its essence—if I give it the best possible spin—the TIF program lets the mayor take property tax dollars from the schools, parks, and county in order to invest the money in projects that he hopes will someday generate even more property tax dollars.
And even before the mayor announced a TIF handout, developers were already over there clamoring to build things like hotels and retail and tech centers. In other words, had Mayor Emanuel just stayed out of the way, the area would have boomed on its own, bringing in more money for the schools, parks, and county.
You get a hotel that you’ll probably never stay in. And an arena for DePaul basketball games that you’ll probably never attend. Because let’s face it—there are even fewer fans of the Blue Demons in this town than of the White Sox, who also play in a subsidized facility that doesn’t often fill up.
What this all means is that Catholics who serve the poor should shut up, while those who serve well-off suburban kids are rewarded with money for a basketball arena.
