A Chicagoan’s letter to Michelle Obama: Thanks for plugging a Chicago Olympics–but no thanks
Michelle Obama is supporting Chicago's Olympic bid, and Mayor Daley's development cronies are licking their chops.
Dear First Lady Michelle Obama:
Speaking as a long-time Chicagoan, I want to thank you for your enthusiasm in regard to bringing the 2016 Olympics to Chicago. We’ll learn the verdict from the International Olympic Committee in just days, and it’s great that you haven’t forgotten your home town. What’s more, I am sure you believe, as many do, that bringing the Olympics here will be a great thing for the Windy City.
I regret to inform you, however, that I am not one of those people. And like many, many people living here, I am beginning to wonder if the leadership in Chicago and its environs has a much stronger case for making Arrogance and Oppression new Olympic sports.
In Cook County, we have the highest sales tax in the nation, thanks to a County Board president who, besides being dumber than a box of rocks, refuses to end patronage–and by most accounts keeps friends and family on the county payroll every chance he can get away with it. Before he took office, the acting Board President held the office for about five minutes, then retired with an inflated pension in the six digits for all her hard work.
Meanwhile, our Mayor Richard M. Daley succeeded in goading his pliant city council into quadrupling parking rates, selling the rights to a private company with ties to his nephew. This sellout was ramrodded through City Council without an ounce of input from the people. Too bad: The most conservative independent estimates show that by rushing the deal through, Daley and Company undervalued the worth of the parking meter lease by at least $1 billion.
These same people think the Olympics will be great for Chicago, but given their lack of fiscal prudence, I can only come to one conclusion: There’s a high likelihood the Olympics would plunge our city deep into debt, and taxpayers like me will wind up footing the bill. Meanwhile, the worst kept secret in Chicago is that Daley’s development cronies are circling prospective Olympic sites like hungry vultures, waiting to pounce on the available land and make a killing flipping it.
Ms. Obama, you’re a smart lady. And you know as well as anyone that this is the Chicago Way. It’s how politics have been practiced here since Capone bootlegged booze, and while Chicago is ready to give the Appearance of Reform, it remains Not Ready for Reform, in the words of one long-gone clownish alderman.
Also: I wonder what the Olympic visitors who venture outside the Magnificent Mile will think when they see red-light cameras sprouting at intersections like mushrooms, ready to hit them up for tickets of $100 or more if they accidentally run a red light or fudge that right on red by a hair. How’s this for a slogan? “Chicago welcomes you! Now pay up, bitch.”
Chicago deserves an Olympics, but it deserves one the city can afford, and its denizens can get behind. Frankly, a lot of people like me–and I’m a positive guy–find it hard to rah-rah root for pole vaulters and synchronized swimmers when we now–much like athletes under the gun–have to sprint back to those new parking boxes every few minutes to make sure we haven’t been ticketed. We have schools that need the money badly, and neighborhoods so unsafe to drive through that ominous police cameras glow blue from every street pole.
Perhaps we could buck up and forget all of this for a few weeks of sprinters and equestrian events. But as long as we have leadership that doesn’t think twice about heaping financial hardship on its citizens, then I find it hard to believe that they can ever pull off and Olympics in a way that is either fiscally prudent or honest.
Chicago deserves an Olympics, with events such as: Hire the hack. Raising your voice to prove you are right. (Mayor Daley is the defending champion). Influence peddling. Sales tax steeplechase. Parking meter dodge.
Hey, it ain’t “Chariots of Fire,” but it’s a start. What do you think, Madame First Lady?
Sincerely, Lou Carlozo, Chicago, Illinois
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Lou, Tom Treser here. I’m a volunteer with No Games Chicago and am in Copenhagen with other volunteers to deliver our message to the IOC that Chicagoans do NOT want the 2016 games. We will print out and deliver your message to the First Lady’s party when she arrives here later today.
You can follow us at http://www.nogameschicago.com – we’re on Twitter and Facebook, as well.
Tom Tresser
tom@tresser.com
Tom: Thanks. Please also spread the message to folks on your Facebook page, and get them to view it here at True/Slant. The Olympics would be an Olympian disaster for Chicago, and everyone knows that, including Mayor Daley. But it doesn’t mean a rat’s ass to him, or anyone else, so long as they can make their friends rich … even while kids a few miles away have to dodge gunfire to walk to school.
A true Olympic spirit would involve proper funding of police protection for those under-served neighborhoods, so those kids never have to live in fear again. But hey, Englewood doesn’t vote and give campaign cash like Lincoln Park, right?
In response to another comment. See in context »Did you see Mary Schmich’s column in the Tribune today? She thinks the thing most Chicagoans who oppose the Olympics fail to see is that it would be fun. Come on, Lou, don’t you think hosting the Olympics in our wonderful city would be just a little bit fun? I do.
Fun? Fun? Is walking to school and having to doge gang gunfire fun? Is letting Todd Stroger, Daley’s City Council and the Army of Hacks tell us how we’re gonna pay up for life in the city and not giving us a say fun?
If I date a gal and know she’s an alcoholic based on the hope she’s gonna stop drinking, I must be dumb. And these folks are drunk on patronage, drunk on being fiscally irresponsible.
Mayor Daley has become very arrogant, to the point that he just raises his voice and shouts when people try to prove he’s wrong. The Strong Arm only understands the strong arm; take away his beloved Olympics and he might listen to the people.
As long as we have a city where there is little or no financial responsibility, and hardly an ounce of social justice, fun figures about as much into the equation as it would for, say, someone about to lose their job.
Like the overwhelming majority, I want my free Sunday parking back. I want to occasionally run a red light by accident and not have to live in fear of a $100 ticket arriving in the mail. I want an alderman who will not rubber stamp “royal decrees” without my input as a citizen.
Getting Daley to pay attention for change and reverse course? THAT’s fun!
In response to another comment. See in context »Lou, yes, it is al about economics. Sure, the Olympics would be fun, notwithstanding the endless traffic jams, endless pork, impossible restaurant and hotel reservations, log-jammed airports and so on. But just visit some of the former Olympics sites and see the vast empty structures and vacant spaces, and the taxpayer debt that will go on for decades, while civic improvements that are really needed go unfunded. We can no more afford this kind of future fun in Chicago, than we can now afford the sales hyper-taxes on Michigan Ave. or the parking spaces that cost more than my Social Security pays.
Lou, why don’t you take the bus?
The Olympics have always been about revitalizing the South Side. Englewood is getting the Olympics, not Lincoln Park. And isn’t that something? Michelle Obama is not just a Chicagoan, she’s a South Sider. And it’s hard not to notice that the opposition tends to come from well heeled North Siders miffed about parking their fancy cars.
Good point. I lived on the South Side for three years, and would drive by the prospective Olympic site at Washington Park on a daily basis. It sure could use revitalization, and the Olympics could provide that.
And yes, I sure do take the bus–and ride my bike–plenty, and not because of the meter increase. It’s better for the environment, and my health.
This to me is more an issue of How Things Work in Chicago … and whom can be trusted. Mayor Daley did not ask the citizens for input on the parking meter deal. He will not ask the citizens for input when–and it will be when–the Olympics run over budget. Every major public works project (see: Millennium Park) goes way over budget in this city.
For whatever benefit the South Side may see, developers and Daley’s cronies will benefit 10-fold. And guess what? You and I will pay to keep them fat and happy.
And just to the west of the Olympic site, kids will still have to walk to school two steps ahead of gang gunfire, because the city budget is strapped to hire a few extra cops.
Have you ever dodged gangs before? I have, as a reporter. Not fun.
I’m all for fixing the South Side, but let’s put first things first.
In response to another comment. See in context »Dodged gangs? There are mature members of Almighty Saints living in my building. I don’t so much dodge them as say hello. They’re not that different than anybody else. They’re worried about surviving and raising their kids. Their kids love baseball and are excited about the Olympics. They’re not interested in my business, except as any other neighbor would be, and I stay out of theirs. And we get along fine.
They tell some good stories.
As reporters, we have opportunities to visit other groups of people and get their perspective instead of just labeling and dodging them. But the Chicago Tribune doesn’t cover this Chicago.
I don’t doubt that Daley and his cronies will benefit from the Olympics. But what’s stopping you or I or anyone else from buying up land along the future thoroughfare of the Olympics:
Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard?
In response to another comment. See in context »I agree with Lou in every single aspect and might post this to my facebook. Fun, fun, fun… our culture is so much about fun that we are forgetting that there will be a bill. I love the idea of the Olympics, I just don’t want to pay for it. Just wait until you see what these slimballs are going to pull on us to make us pay. It’s all going to be a total scam just like everything else. I sell real estate, but I’m going to buy that this is going to save our local economy an bring real estate prices back up to 2006.
Also, if stadiums revitalized a neighborhood, why isn’t 35th and the Dan Ryan the it place to live?
Cally, I’m guessing you haven’t been to 35th and anything in a long time. It IS the It place to live.
In response to another comment. See in context »There is one thing that’s bugging me about this post and it’s that I’m supposed to feel sorry for people who run red lights. It’s not trickery–it’s either you’re a bad/dangerous driver or you’re not.
Geez, I’m almost afraid to post this amidst all the doom and gloom, but it sounds like at worst Chicago after the Olympics will be about the bad as Chicago is right now. You guys should join Chicagoans for Rio – check out my page for info and some more crazy, fun-loving optimism from me.
Thanks Marjie for humoring me on this topic. It’s all in the spirit of good, clean debate and civility–nothing personal.
In response to another comment. See in context »[...] the Olympics were on the outs. (There was a fair sampling on True/Slant as well: Laura Heller, Lou Carlozo, Patrick Somerville all posted paragons of the genre–fearful prognostications about parking [...]
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