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“The sale of this surplus property will generate significant economic opportunities in Chicago’s Lower West Side and McKinley Park communities while also saving the State the cost of annual operating expenses,” a state spokesman said. Selling Damen Silos is part of Pritzker’s initiative to rid the state’s real estate portfolio of properties either obsolete or too expensive to maintain. IDOT took over Damen Silos from a railroad nearly a century ago.
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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