“It was a nasty mess before ICE came,” a resident said, referring to U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement. “So don’t nobody keep putting that s--- on ICE, because that was not ICE. Audio: Wirepoints’ Mark Glennon says Chicago pension buyout plan mostly shifts debt rather than eliminating it, property tax surge doubles inflation over three decades – Chicago’s Morning Answer
April 3, 2026
9 Comments
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.
Illinois lost another 54,000 tax filers and dependents, net, according to the IRS. Since 2000, fleeing taxpayers have taken $94 billion of annual adjusted gross income with them.
ICE goes after the poorest of the poor. Just like Jesus would want all good Christians to do.
Nice try. The Dems imported the Third World into the US, so these illegals are not living in mansions in Lake Forest. But if they’re mowing the lawns at these mansions, ICE may just stop by.
Oh, and I spoke with Jesus this morning. He doesn’t know who you are and He wishes you would stop bringing His name up.
Jesus loves you and the poor immigrants. Learn from the teachings of the bible, Jewish and Christian bible both teach you to treat the poor with respect and help them.
According to the main stream media President Trump went to the building personally and wrecked it. He threw garbage in the hallways, brought in thousands of cockroaches and bedbugs, damaged doors, stole the smoke detector batteries and relieved himself multiple times at different places in the building. So that’s why the place looks like it is.
Also, asking for a friend, does Valerie Jarrett own the building?
According to the Sun-Times article, Chicago’s building inspectors and Police Department took a hands-off approach to the 7500 South Shore Dr. site and allowed a terrible situation to become truly frightening. Nor is this building the only example of such unbelievable mismanagement. Democratic politicians who lost their minds over ICE’s recent raid on this property need to recognize that their willful blindness and weakness made ICE’s overwhelming, strategic intervention the only effective alternative to their own shameful avoidance of responsibility for such a mess. Given the Sun-Times’s hilariously knee-jerk response lately to everything ICE-related, I’m amazed the newspaper devoted a… Read more »
Thanks, but primary credit on this goes to CWB Chicago, which I believe was first to discover what the place was like before ICE.
Honestly, these units look clean compared to some Fast Tracks (demolition case pending). I don’t think people really understand what goes on here or how deplorable living conditions actually are for those less fortunate. Everything is papered over in building court and never makes the news. Nobody addresses the infinite number of violations pending until a tragedy like the E2 stampede, then things go back to normal after a year or so. It’s sad.
I hear similar things from people in the business often.
As much as any story this one crystalizes the hypocrisy, dysfunction, incompetence and likely corruption baked into city government. Residents of that building, “Pritzker’s people”, living in squalor and fear of crime within the building and idiots like Johnson and JB are instead protecting and housing illegals, obstructing law enforcement by prohibiting cooperation with ICE, and putting illegals ahead of residents and way ahead of common sense and their obligations to residents. Detestable “leaders”.
CWBChicago had this story posted on Oct 6.
Right. We posted it then. If CWB had not exposed it I doubt Sun-Times would have done this story, given their ICE-hating standard narrative.
I wasn’t jabbing Wirepoints, but the Sun-Times.
Sun Times never let’s the truth get in the way of a good hit piece.
2 things . Have they ever reported who the slumlord was ? 2nd where were the city inspectors on this ? I wonder if a city hall insider owns it and violations were swept under the rug
Hilarious that actual Chicagoans are calling BS on the fake news Sun-Times.
This is why trust in legacy media is at an all time low, according to Gallup.
You have to feel sorry for Ms. Murray in this article. Her plight is what happens when City Hall purposely neglects its own citizens, and then victimizes them by housing vicious thugs in a buildings filled with regular Chicagoans.
I’m amazed the Sun-Times published this.