-- Connecting the dots between our economy, government and business --
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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Dixon got a raw deal. She makes sense and appears to understand what a library is AND economic reality.
So much for listening to constituents.
Hope Ms. Dixon lands somewhere she is appreciated.
Oak Park and Evanston are at the top of “The Most Stupid Places In Northeast Illinois”. Chicago is third. I avoid all.
The elephant in the room is the library’s $500,000 debt. Dixon was hired to cut that down but the socialists won. The cost cutting she started has now been reversed and costs will increase with more “restorative justice” hires.
Socialism is great until you run out of other people’s money.
Not sure if this library is a Library District or owned by the City, but if it is a district, it is likely its own taxing body and will likely move toward a tax increase on your property taxes. When they run out of other people’s money, they just figure out a way to take more of it from you.
They are a district with a long track record of high levies and big spending habits.
Public libraries have become homeless shelters with bathroom facilities in many places. If the community member can sleep in a chair he’s got it made.
Library visits and book circulation has been dropping for a decade as the publishing industry shifted all of its focus to on its core readers: liberal white women with mental health problems. The entire library profession went along with them and is filled with woke crazy people who are driving public libraries off the cliff. The ‘librarian’ at my son’s school is a 20 something ‘they/them’ with short haired freak. I told her at the book fair that every parent is monitoring her social media feeds and emails to make sure she’s not trying to be around children for s3xual… Read more »
On the positive side, the book fair this year at the school didn’t have *any* objectionable books unlike in the past. Scholasitc book fair decided to keep the groomer books separate (but has since reversed is decision, in Oct) but schools can choose not to sell them. So that was a positive development.
Spot on, sounds like my library. They promote inclusiveness but not if you are straight, white and conservative. They used to publish all their “staff picks” in their monthly flyer and they always had a bunch of LGBTQ books, some geared towards teens. They toned it down after their drag queen event was cancelled because of the fear of violence.
Mine too. I saw a post on facebook the other day from someone in my community. They said that every 2-3 months for past four years the library youth section organizes groomer get-togethers to discuss groomer books with adult staff. Apparently no one signs up or shows up for them. No one. I mean zero people so the events are cancelled after zero interest. But they keep scheduling them, wasting tax payer dollars promoting and advertising them, sending out emails and flyers. and ZERO people show up every time. So why exactly does the local library keep pushing groomer books… Read more »
They are like lemmings following the dictate of the American Library Association, whose queer president has stated that she will use the association to be a platform for implementing queer theory an DEI.
“Restorative Practices Coordinator” doesn’t involve restoration of books, but rather public library advocacy of “community activism”, which means advocacy of progressive political issues. Quite far from original mission of public library, which was simply the provision and management of a free book-lending program for distribution of reading materials to constituents and residents. Most public libraries now function as a social services center for homeless people, addiction shelter, and advocacy platform-location for woke idealism. Ms Dixon was apparently fired because she sought to make Oak Park Library more “book-focused”. Imagine that, a head librarian who wants to promote book reading as… Read more »
Progressives, whom are really just rebranded communists, seek to takeover every neutral institution and subvert it to push their own values with religious fervor. This of course destroys society and makes it a worse place. Remember, communism is not about the gov. distribution of scarce resources despite what popular influence point out . Communism in practice is the promise to destroy your supporters’ enemies. The communists in charge of libraries promised to destroy normies’ use of the library – the enemies of the LQBTQ+MAP patrons – and they’ve succeeded. They’ve destroyed libraries for normies, who no longer even go there… Read more »
As usual, the openly leftist local Oak Park “newspaper” accepts the consistently toxic local activists BS hook, line, and sinker, unquestioned, no investigating. Some of the activists work at the library. The clowns were sent in.
Look for libraries to become social service centers that provide services to the homeless, drug addicts, unwed mothers and just about everything except a place to read following the Obama edifice currently under construction. Why have a library dedicated to reading when no one can?
The world is a Ghetto get used to it its coming to a theatre near you. This is what you strive for.