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"So, let’s be clear here – of the $4.4 million they needed to raise to open up the grocery store, over $1.5 million (35%) came from taxpayers. This store is a for-profit store. It is a competitor to every other store that offers the same product. I don’t think Jewel, Mariano’s, Target, Walmart, or any other grocery seller had the taxpayers fund 35% of their development costs. This is a socialist model, and they are lying about locally sourced food."
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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Who owns the building? Is it owned by the co-op? Is it leased Does this piece of property pay real estate taxes? Are they exempt? If it is leased does the owner get a tax break?
The building in the same shopping center as a DMV. The DMV recently moved across the shopping center and is now close to the co-op. Most of the rest of the shopping center is abandoned. I have heard rumors that part of the shopping center will be torn down for multi-family housing
If there is any justification for gov’t-funded groceries, it might be in “food deserts.” Lombard is not one.
Atlanta recently opened a “municipal grocery,” which might be of interest here
Also, there was a co-op grocery in Chicago but it closed some years ago.
Do they arrest shoplifters or help them load it into their stolen car?
I wonder who owns stock in this store? They should be required to release the names of the owners and investors. And if they are corporations release the officers and shareholder names.
It’s a co-op, which means there are no shareholders in a traditional sense. Instead, customers essentially own the co-op.
One can be a customer and not an owner. From the website owners get 10% off once a month and are eligible for dividends.(if any) They have been raising funds for over ten years. It finally opened sometime in 2025.I stopped in once, The time I went it did not offer anything that was not in area stores. Prices also higher than than what I usually see at nearby stores. (original article had store about $1.50 less than Jewel on a basket of items, not sure what total basket price was) No reason it get gov money. Lombard and area… Read more »
At 1.5 million we Illinois taxpayers are getting a bargain. The Food Desert Program gave Venice Illinois 2.4 million for a grocery store along with some other scattered stores downstate getting about the same. Count your blessings…it could have been worse
I don’t view this situation as a bargain for the taxpayers. Tell me one area of commercial activity the state is involved in that is well run. The D’s are just virtue signaling to their base with your money.
If you can get a gangster to cut his ransom demand in half, is that a bargain?
Because quite simply this is Illinois and you are going to get these spending events like it or not so, being this scenero is costing less than others in the State, it could have been worse or even much worse.
It’s not a blessing that it could have been worse, it’s an outrage that precious dollars are carelessly spent where they are not needed. Lombard was not in need of a grocery store.