-- Connecting the dots between our economy, government and business --
Chicago To Offer Relief For Residents Struggling With Water Bills – WBEZ
October 24, 2019
1 Comment
CTU Strike Is A Political Circus With No Road To A Contract Deal – Mark Konkol – Patch
October 24, 2019
No Comments
Editorial: Why Chicago teachers won’t take ‘yes’ for an answer – Chicago Tribune
October 24, 2019
1 Comment
Here’s what should infuriate Chicagoans: This strike is about power and relevancy for leaders of the Chicago Teachers Union. It always has been….
Additionally, CTU keeps pushing for a three-year deal, even though Lightfoot’s offer of a five-year contract would protect teachers from the potential damage of a recession and rising health care costs. But CTU, being CTU, wants the shorter contract.
Why? To maintain its relevancy. To guarantee that it has leverage during and after the 2023 mayoral election.
Richard Epstein: Two Pyrrhic Union Victories – Hoover Institute
October 24, 2019
No Comments
“The Chicago Teachers Union uses the rhetoric of social responsibility to extract monopoly profits from the City. CPS is so emotionally committed to the CTU’s progressive agenda that none of its counterproposals try to restructure the basic institutional arrangement.”
As Illinois budget projections get worse, more call for tax on retirement income – Center Square
October 24, 2019
17 Comments
The BGA joins the Civic Federation, the Civic Committee of the Commercial Club of Chicago the Center for Tax and Budget Accountability and others in calling for a tax on retirement income.
CTU members take part in civil disobedience training as strike hits 1-week mark – WGN
October 24, 2019
1 Comment
Is Mayor Lightfoot Still Hoping For A State Pension Bailout? – Forbes
October 24, 2019
1 Comment
Community Organizers Work to Save Trees Targeted by Obama – Wall Street Journal
October 24, 2019
No Comments
Next week former President Barack Obama’s eponymous foundation is hosting a summit meeting to promote its planned Obama Presidential Center in Chicago’s historic Jackson Park. But a hardy band of conservationists, determined to save local birds and trees from the designs of our nation’s 44th President, is planning a Friday court filing and a weekend protest. The Obama tree removals have not yet been scheduled. But once they are scheduled, he believes as many as 500 trees could be doomed by the Obama plan, counting land for the center and related transportation projects.
Chicago schools to close for 6th day; union plans civil disobedience training – UPI
October 24, 2019
No Comments
The union indicated it will return to the picket lines at 6:30 a.m. Thursday and would plan to provide civil disobedience training at CTU headquarters “taking a page from the civil rights movement,”
Chicago to raise cloud-computing tax – Crain’s
October 24, 2019
1 Comment
Lightfoot’s budget proposes to boost the city’s tax on cloud-computing services, which was wildly unpopular when it was instituted in 2015, is going up to 7.25 percent from 5.25 percent.
Trustees continue fighting over pension in Maine Township – Chicago Tribune
October 24, 2019
1 Comment
In-fighting among members of the Maine Township Board continued this week as elected officials resumed their dispute over the assessor’s interest in receiving a municipal pension.
The voting members of the board argued with and shouted at each other during a lengthy meeting. At the heart of Tuesday’s disagreement was a desire by three of the five elected officials to appeal the latest determination by the Illinois Municipal Retirement Fund Board that Township Assessor Susan Moylan Krey is pension-eligible.
Lightfoot’s budget won’t stop Chicago’s downward spiral
October 24, 2019
33 Comments
Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot has released her 2020 budget. Like her predecessors, she’s chosen to focus on plugging a one-year budget deficit largely with a one-off deal and a number of tax hikes. And also like her predecessors, she’s failed to attack the real sources of Chicago’s slide toward insolvency.
Lightfoot: We won’t bail out CPS, pay for everything teachers union wants – Chicago Sun-Times
October 24, 2019
5 Comments
Speaking to the Chicago Sun-Times Editorial Board after her first budget address, the mayor showed no signs of caving to end the work stoppage that put 300,000 students out of class and led to tens of thousands of striking Chicago Teachers Union and SEIU Local 73 members shutting down the Loop during her first budget address to City Council Wednesday.