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Many hotels are valued for property tax purposes this year at twice their previous assessments. However, these sharp increases come at a time when many hotels and commercial properties are still clawing their way back to pre-pandemic revenue levels.
Summary and audio linked here.
Chicago’s political leadership is floating a pension buyout program as evidence it is seriously addressing the city’s thirty-six-billion-dollar unfunded pension liability, but Mark Glennon, founder of the Illinois policy research organization Wirepoints, said that the proposal moves debt from one column to another rather than reducing it, and that the broader fiscal picture facing the city continues to deteriorate across every measurable dimension. Audio here.
Expect no retraction or apology. This what they do.
The state’s existing buyout program for its own pensions is the precedent for Chicago, which should be a warning: Look out for similar exaggerated claims and shoddy analysis.
Full interview and summary linked here.
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Hmm, just fill them with illegals. Problem solved.
So, higher room rates, reduced tourism, less local retail revenues, intermediate-longer-term lower revenues for the city. This will not end well.
The IL GOP establishment is complicit in all of this, for they have chosen to be ‘controlled opposition’. They aren’t fooling anyone.
Our lame IL GOP establishment is a symptom of Illinois’s one-party state, not a contributing cause. They’re not complicit in anything because they’re not even present at the negotiation table. Democrats decimated the IL GOP over the past forty years and now there’s no IL GOP. The party has trouble attracting good candidates because there is a near zero chance of R’s winning most state elections. Why would a good, strong conservative waste his time campaigning for a race in a gerrymandered district where he is guaranteed a 10 or 15 point loss? Why would he or she subject himself… Read more »
Perhaps in prior years these hotels had assessment protests handled by the Burke or Madigan law firms that, due to current legal situations, can not be done today.
Ouch.
Certainly pssible.
New assessments 98% – 286% higher than the preceding year show that this is assessment by dartboard. Wish there was a reassessment of the Chicago and Cook. County budgets to separate needs and wants and eliminate the wants. That would ease the tax burden. That is also fantasy.
I am not knowledgeable of the valuation mechanisms in the Cook County property tax code. The article references Kaegi speaking to the occupancy rates in these hotels i.e,, doing better than the pandemic years. But aren’t taxes to be determined by market value and not occupancy or the like? What am I missing? Are valuations random?
Taxes are determined by the amount of money the taxing bodies need. The market value is used to determine what percentage of the money the taxing bodies need is collected from each individual property.
Some of those hotels listed in the article were vastly under evaluated.
By the way, this trash Kaegi just got finished raping the south suburbs and these hotels for cash. You do know the city itself is next and then after that is the northern suburbs. Do you really think he isn’t going to do the same to you?
I’m curious. Where do all the people that vote for this stupidity see the silver lining in all this? What can they point to that says things aren’t as bad as all the statistics, reports and facts show? Is it stupidity or just whistling past the graveyard or both?
Whopper stopper. Current Cook County and Chicago politicians think they can tax and tax and tax their tax-base without tapping-out those property-owners. Michigan Avenue commercial real estate is at least 40% vacant space, if not even more when counting all vacant retail-office space above 1st floor storefronts. At some point the law of “diminishing returns” kicks in, the businesses make the decision to exit, and a vacant commercial building becomes a tax-delinquent property that returns no dollars to government coffers. Look at River Oaks shopping center in Calumet City, soon to be a eminent domain acquisition for municipal Calumet City,… Read more »
You lay down with dogs, you get up with fleas. Did these owners think that the filth that runs Chicago would not turn on them, once they ran out of everyone else’s money? This is what democrats do. They eat all live flesh until its all gone. Just like the maggots they are.
Another nail in the coffin of the Mug Mile.
The goal all along was to destroy the Mag Mile because it once stood as a monument to wealth and capitalism that the communists hate, so it must be destroyed. First with Lori shutting it down practically indefinitely; then she allowed it to be destroyed in the St. George Floyd riots. Then she allowed months of protests, scaring away any potential visitors, followed by a second round of riots and looting in August 2020. Afterward, the criminal element filled the void and Michigan Ave. became a magnet for crime and criminals. Then Brandon took over and is trying to make… Read more »
They are already destroying something else, property taxes on residential properties.
It’s not just Mag Mile either. Some 18 year old kid from Elgin was outside the United Center when he was robbed by teens. He had the nerve to talk back to his muggers so they shot him.
WELCOME TO CHIRAQ
They killed him also, he died from his injuries condolences to the family.
Disgusting Hate Crime, committed, no doubt, by the usual suspects. Sickening!
No, you have it backwards. The problem is the City, County and State employees pay themselves excessive wages, benefits and pensions. This crap has been going on forever, long before Kaegi was born. Kaegi is just finding the money to pay the bills. For all you Republicans out there, it was the closeted “Big Jim” Thompson who signed the law giving all Illinois Government works 3% compounded annual pension increases. Hopefully, the Republicans can sweep the Congress and POTUS and pass a law allowing for State and Municipal bankruptcy. That’s the only way to restore Chicago and Illinois.