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Chicago Tribune
7 days ago
- Business
- Chicago Tribune
Editorial: Soccer-loving Joe Mansueto comes through for Chicago and its Fire
We're longtime fans of The 78, the 62 long-fallow acres of former railroad-owned land bordered by Roosevelt Road to the north, Clark Street to the east, 16th Street to the south, and the South Branch of the Chicago River to the west. It was our preferred site for the Chicago casino, given that it offered excellent existing public transportation, potential river frontage for a convenient suite of waterfront bars and restaurants that could have added to Chicago's riverwalk and would have displaced no one. Once the Lori Lightfoot administration made a different choice for gamblers over this swath of property owned by Related Midwest, we opined last year that the same plot of land would then be an excellent choice for a new stadium for the Chicago White Sox, which could have enjoyed much the same benefits. In both of our editorials, we emphasized another attribute of The 78 that often gets overlooked: its unique geographic ability to activate the potentially symbiotic relationship between Chicago's Loop and both Bronzeville and Chinatown. Its development will remove what for too long has been dead land and thus a psychological barrier that has been a detriment to expanding the economic promise of the South Loop further into a part of the city that we see crucial to Chicago's future. Especially if it is accompanied by housing that could attract young, Black, college-educated professionals who have left the city and who we badly need to return. Can a $650 million soccer stadium for the Chicago Fire, a privately funded plan long known to us as a work in progress but officially announced Tuesday, do all that? It may seem unlikely, but we think it can. Soccer is the most popular sport in the world and the city's essential billionaire investor, Morningstar founder Joe Mansueto, is no fool. He has a sense of humor too. We had quite the chuckle over our coffee Tuesday at what he told The Wall Street Journal as he explained why he had chosen just to write a very big check, as distinct from going cap in hand, Chicago Bears-style, to City Hall or Springfield. 'It would definitely slow down the process to have to engage with political leadership to secure financing,' he told the paper. Ya think, Joe? Always easier to pay your own way, especially in Chicago. But huge public benefit can, and we think will, result. Take a look at what has been happening in Nashville thanks to Geodis Park, a 30,000-seat soccer stadium that opened in 2022, is the home of Major League Soccer club Nashville SC and will later this month host three matches as part of the newly expanded 2025 FIFA World Club Cup, putting relatively small Nashville in the company of New York, Miami, Atlanta and Los Angeles, among others (not Chicago). Geodis Park cost around $350 million, an amount almost fully funded by the team and its billionaire owner, John Ingram. As soon as the stadium opened, development around Geodis Park exploded fast. 'Townhomes have replaced older, single residencies and a growing younger demographic has emerged,' The Tennesseean reported on the one-year anniversary of the stadium. Within a matter of months, the paper said, a local development and investment firm had bought 20 duplex rental homes next to the stadium, even as real-estate values near the stadium rose and developers started to build new housing aimed at younger people. Bars and restaurants moved in too. And they're packed whenever there is a game. Fresh infrastructure also arose for ride-shares and scooters and it was hardly lost on Nashville's city leaders that much of this new tax revenue was accruing from families who live outside city limits. Granted, there were naysayers who wanted the neighborhood to stay the same but then that brings us back to the advantages of The 78; it's a big piece of empty land. That's why it was marketed as Chicago's 78th neighborhood, a riff on the 77 official community areas identified by the University of Chicago in the 1920s. All of this, of course, could still fall apart. And as with any big development project in Chicago, there likely will be those who use race and politics to snag a piece of the pie but, as he well knows, Mansueto has insulated himself and his beloved soccer club against most of that. So, as soccer fans, we congratulate Mansueto on getting to The 78 and making a firm plan before all the other players who've tried but sent the ball either wide of over the crossbar. This isn't the first time Manseuto, said by Forbes to be worth close to $7 billion, has used his formidable resources for the good of the city (remember the glory days of Manseuto's Time Out Chicago, which boosted our arts and entertainment scene?) and, of course, the University of Chicago already has myriad reasons to be thankful for one of its graduate's copious amounts of philanthropy. Soccer needs a dedicated stadium where fans can fill the place: Once this gets cooking and FIFA continues its long-overdue efforts to grow the U.S. game, we wonder if 20,000 seats will be enough. We'd have thought The 78 would have room for another 5,000 or 10,000. But that's up to Manseuto and the Chicago Fire, of course. Just as Evanston should be thankful to the Ryan family for the new football stadium at Northwestern University, almost all built with private funds, so Chicago should appreciate Mansueto for this investment in Chicago sport. Frankly, we don't have that many generous and entrepreneurial billionaires left in Illinois, given how we have chased a few of them away. But here's a $650 million reminder of how important they are to a city. They can score goals and give us all something new to cheer. Thanks, Joe.
Washington Post
02-06-2025
- Business
- Washington Post
Trump rides to the rescue of Chicago's flailing mayor
Two years ago, Chicago voters dumped their unpopular incumbent mayor, Lori Lightfoot, a standard-issue Democratic progressive, and replaced her with Brandon Johnson, who is, if anything, an even harder-left progressive. It was as though voters thought there was only one way to run a city, and they were ready to keep trying until they got it right. Fast-forward to this year, and Johnson's approval rating is 14 percent, according to an Illinois Policy Institute poll in January. Of the 798 registered Chicago voters polled by M3 Strategies, nearly 80 percent had an unfavorable view of Johnson, including 65 percent 'very unfavorable.' Johnson defends his record by pointing to a decline in crime that has been dramatic by some measures — this past April saw the fewest murders in that month since 1962, though violent crime has been declining nationwide. And you might figure a drop in crime should make the mayor's approval numbers rise, not fall close to the level of disdain Americans show for Russian dictator Vladimir Putin (8 percent, according to a Pew Research poll). Beyond crime, the story of Johnson's first two years is a familiar one: lousy public services with a high cost of living exacerbated by seemingly endless tax increases. The Chicago budget passed in December included $181 million in new taxes and fees. These included hiking a cloud services and digital goods tax from 9 percent to 11 percent; raising the streaming and cable TV tax from 9 percent to 10.25 percent; and increasing the parking tax to 23.25 percent. Oh, and adding a $3 ride-hailing surcharge on weekends and increasing the single-use bag tax from 7 cents to 10 cents. Johnson wanted even higher taxes. In 2024, the mayor offered a ballot referendum called Bring Chicago Home that would have raised transfer taxes on properties that sell for more than $1 million and used the revenue to fund homelessness programs, but 52 percent of voters rejected it. When Johnson was a mayoral candidate, one of the few areas where he didn't want to raise taxes was property taxes, and no wonder. The Civic Federation, a nonpartisan local research organization, noted in a report last fall that 'a taxpayer in the City of Chicago pays property taxes to 7 or 8 local governments, depending on which part of the City they live.' (Those local governments include Cook County, the city of Chicago, Chicago Public Schools, City Colleges of Chicago, Chicago Park District, Forest Preserve District of Cook County and the Metropolitan Water Reclamation District. Chicago residents living south of 87th Street also pay property taxes to the South Cook Mosquito Abatement District.) But despite Johnson's campaign promise, he proposed $300 million in property tax hikes in October that the City Council unanimously rejected. After the defeat, the Wall Street Journal editorial board called Johnson 'America's worst mayor.' In Johnson's defense, at the time of that editorial, Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass (D) had yet to be photographed posing for photos at a cocktail party in Ghana while the Palisades Fire was torching a good chunk of her city. This is why we need a playoff system. Living in a big city almost always costs more than in the suburbs or rural areas, but Chicago's city government seems dead-set on wringing money from residents in every way imaginable. Now, they are rationally concluding that the mayor and his administration aren't delivering. With such an abysmal approval rating and no sign of Johnson reconsidering his governing philosophy, you might think it would take a miracle to resuscitate his popularity and political future. Well, that miracle seems to be arriving in the form of the U.S. Justice Department. On May 19, Assistant Attorney General Harmeet K. Dhillon wrote to Johnson, informing him that the Justice Department is investigating his administration to see if it 'engaged in a pattern or practice of discrimination based on race.' The day before, in a speech at the Apostolic Church of God in Chicago's Woodlawn neighborhood, Johnson boasted that his deputy mayors, budget director, chief operations officer and senior advisers were Black, and added, 'When you hire our people, we always look out for everybody else. We are the most generous people on the planet.' That's a thin reed on which to base an accusation of racial discrimination in city hiring, and you're forgiven if you doubt that's the wisest use of Justice Department resources. (If prosecutors can prove that the city is turning away qualified applicants because of their race, that's a different story.) It isn't as if bringing down a Democratic mayor would boost Republican prospects in Chicago; Donald Trump received just 28 percent of the vote in Cook County in November, his worst performance in any Illinois county. If anything, the Trump administration is helping Johnson by going after him; few things could make Chicago Democrats instinctively unite like an attack on the mayor by this White House. If Johnson's numbers improve and the severely underperforming mayor tightens his grip on City Hall, that will ensure Chicago remains a prime example of progressive failure. Perhaps that would be Trump's ultimate, if unintended, revenge on Chicago voters for preferring Kamala Harris to him — getting them to sign up for four more years of Johnson's mismanagement.
Yahoo
01-06-2025
- General
- Yahoo
Editorial: Pedro Martinez served Chicago with courage
Pedro Martinez attended his final school board meeting Thursday as CEO of Chicago Public Schools. The occasion elicited tears from this son of Chicago — a CPS student himself, growing up in Pilsen after arriving at age 5 from Mexico — who called his turbulent time heading Chicago's schools 'the honor of a lifetime.' He thanked the teachers who taught him back in the day, as well as those educating today's youth. Chicago has had some memorable CPS leaders since Mayor Richard M. Daley assumed full control of the schools in the 1990s. Paul Vallas, who lost to Mayor Brandon Johnson in the 2023 election, was Daley's first schools boss after the state-approved takeover. Arne Duncan followed Vallas, ascending from there to become President Barack Obama's secretary of education for the entirety of Obama's presidency. But to our minds Martinez will remain particularly noteworthy, long after he decamps later this month for Massachusetts and a senior state education post. Named CPS CEO by Mayor Lori Lightfoot in 2021, Martinez oversaw the schools as they emerged from the disastrously prolonged period of remote education. Showered with federal pandemic aid, Martinez invested heavily in individual tutoring for students who'd fallen behind, an effort that produced positive results. His record isn't perfect. Once the federal cash stopped flowing, CPS found itself fiscally adrift again, having spent the money as fast as it arrived. But, in a job littered with more political minefields than most government-appointed positions, Martinez pivoted. His true shining moment came in the final year of his tenure when Martinez courageously resisted highly irresponsible demands by Johnson and the mayor's allies at the Chicago Teachers Union to take on hundreds of millions in new junk-rated debt to cover costs the financially teetering district clearly couldn't afford. The clash came to a head during the holidays when Martinez won a court order barring Johnson and his appointed school board members from meddling in a contentious contract negotiation with CTU. That school board, in place for just a handful of months before a hybrid board of elected members and mayoral appointees took office in January, fired Martinez — but only per the terms of his employment contract, which required he be given six months' notice. Was there ever a more honorable firing? We are hard-pressed to think of many. Elected school board members on Thursday were effusive. Che 'Rhymefest' Smith, the South Side rapper who won election to the board and has been an indispensable voice of conscience on the hybrid board, spoke at the meeting, recalling that Martinez was the first to contact him after his win. 'The advice you gave me was to lean into the complexity … peel the layers of the onion until you get to the evidence-based solutions and use the evidence to center children and help children.' Smith said that was the best advice he's gotten in the job. As Martinez prepares to move his family east, we salute him and thank him on behalf of Chicago taxpayers. His legacy is that he did all he could to give Chicago Public Schools a fighting chance at solvency. Now it will be up to his successors to make the necessary tough choices that seem to be beyond the understanding of a compromised mayor. Submit a letter, of no more than 400 words, to the editor here or email letters@
Yahoo
20-05-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Editorial: The hits just keep coming from Chicago's disastrous parking meter deal
How do you sleep at night? That's the question Chicagoans should be asking the private investors behind the city's infamous parking meter lease deal — a group that may soon squeeze another $15.5 million out of taxpayers, not for broken meters or breached contracts, but because former Mayor Lori Lightfoot dared to suspend parking enforcement during a public health emergency. In the early, uncertain days of COVID-19, when people were told to stay home to save lives, Lightfoot chose compassion over citations. She told Chicagoans that tickets would be issued only for safety reasons. At a March 18, 2020, news conference, Lightfoot made it clear: parking at an expired meter wasn't a public safety threat. Still, she said, drivers were expected to keep paying the meters. Chicago Parking Meters LLC, the private entity that's already made billions off its deal with the city, sued her for the loss in income. The investors initially demanded $322 million, citing lapses in meter enforcement, the suspension of ticketing and a later dispute over how parking revenue was shared. Mayor Brandon Johnson called the reduced payout a win. And it is, compared with what CPM originally demanded. But to everyday Chicagoans, it feels like a slap in the face: the meter system keeps raising fees and raking in profits, while drivers just keep feeding the meter. We understand the profit motive. And a deal is a deal. But we also find it coldhearted to nickel and dime the city over Lightfoot's attempts to do the right thing during a time of crisis. Former Mayor Richard M. Daley inked the $1.15 billion, 75-year parking meter lease deal with CPM in 2008, using the quick infusion of cash to cover budget shortfalls. Unfortunately, as readers of this page know all too well, today the city finds itself in much the same financial situation as before, with growing debt and continued budget gaps. CPM, on the other hand, has recouped its initial investment — and then some. In 2024 alone, the company pulled in nearly $161 million, a $10 million jump from the prior year, according to a KPMG audit released in April. That brings total earnings since the deal to just under $2 billion — a staggering figure. The CPM investors already had taken the city of Chicago to the cleaners when they decided to sue over what for them is a rounding error in what they're gaining from this transaction, forcing the city to pay the price for acting humanely in response to a once-in-a-century public health crisis. Sometimes enforcing your 'rights' isn't what's right. Submit a letter, of no more than 400 words, to the editor here or email letters@
Chicago Tribune
20-05-2025
- Business
- Chicago Tribune
Editorial: The hits just keep coming from Chicago's disastrous parking meter deal
How do you sleep at night? That's the question Chicagoans should be asking the private investors behind the city's infamous parking meter lease deal — a group that may soon squeeze another $15.5 million out of taxpayers, not for broken meters or breached contracts, but because former Mayor Lori Lightfoot dared to suspend parking enforcement during a public health emergency. In the early, uncertain days of COVID-19, when people were told to stay home to save lives, Lightfoot chose compassion over citations. She told Chicagoans that tickets would be issued only for safety reasons. At a March 18, 2020, news conference, Lightfoot made it clear: parking at an expired meter wasn't a public safety threat. Still, she said, drivers were expected to keep paying the meters. Chicago Parking Meters LLC, the private entity that's already made billions off its deal with the city, sued her for the loss in income. The investors initially demanded $322 million, citing lapses in meter enforcement, the suspension of ticketing and a later dispute over how parking revenue was shared. Mayor Brandon Johnson called the reduced payout a win. And it is, compared with what CPM originally demanded. But to everyday Chicagoans, it feels like a slap in the face: the meter system keeps raising fees and raking in profits, while drivers just keep feeding the meter. We understand the profit motive. And a deal is a deal. But we also find it coldhearted to nickel and dime the city over Lightfoot's attempts to do the right thing during a time of crisis. Former Mayor Richard M. Daley inked the $1.15 billion, 75-year parking meter lease deal with CPM in 2008, using the quick infusion of cash to cover budget shortfalls. Unfortunately, as readers of this page know all too well, today the city finds itself in much the same financial situation as before, with growing debt and continued budget gaps. CPM, on the other hand, has recouped its initial investment — and then some. In 2024 alone, the company pulled in nearly $161 million, a $10 million jump from the prior year, according to a KPMG audit released in April. That brings total earnings since the deal to just under $2 billion — a staggering figure. The CPM investors already had taken the city of Chicago to the cleaners when they decided to sue over what for them is a rounding error in what they're gaining from this transaction, forcing the city to pay the price for acting humanely in response to a once-in-a-century public health crisis. Sometimes enforcing your 'rights' isn't what's right.
