As we all prepare for Mayor Rahm Emanuel’s proposed property tax hike to pay off billions of dollars in pension obligations, I thought I’d take a trip down memory lane to a not-so-distant era when our leaders acted like we didn’t have a care in the world.
“Women wearing serious jewelry and stunning gowns were welcomed upon their arrival by ‘Adam and Eve’ greeters draped in leaves and dragging a snake,” the Sun-Times reported about the $1,000-a-ticket fund-raiser for the park. “In two big tents, Wolfgang Puck Catering served a dinner of beets and goat cheese, asparagus with prosciutto, potato leek soup with caviar, lobster and beef tenderloin with truffles. Tables were topped with white cloths and tall silver urns holding magnolia leaves; 10-foot-tall water walls were placed through the tents.”
That’s another way of noting that our pension obligations wouldn’t be so gargantuan if we’d been a little more prudent back in the day, and if we’d spent less on things like the underground train station at Block 37 at Randolph and State, which was supposed to be the hub of high-speed rail service to Midway and O’Hare.
I won’t put Millennium Park on the list of stupid expenditures—even though it cost about $280 million in tax increment financing money—because we, the people, actually got something out of the deal.
In 2011, after his administration allowed a rival company to open a garage at 225 N. Columbus, Chicago Loop Parking sued the city for violating the terms of its deal. Last year a panel of arbitrators ordered the city to pay $57.8 million.
Then, in 2008, the final year the Central Loop TIF district was operating, Daley went on one last binge, spending about $365 million.
