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TIF for TatChicago ReaderJune 29, 2007By Ben JoravskyWhy the governor is suddenly so interested in the mayor’s pet financing schemeClick here to read the article in its original form on the Chicago Reader's website. In the middle of protracted negotiations over the state budget, with health care insurance, education funding, and public transportation at stake, the state’s top political leaders broke for two precious hours last week to talk about my favorite municipal topic: Mayor Daley’s tax increment financing districts. No, they didn’t do it as a favor to me. Insiders speculate that it’s part of a larger game of political tit for tat in which Governor Blagojevich is attempting to muscle concessions out of House Speaker Michael Madigan. Blagojevich wants to establish a statewide health care plan to protect the uninsured and enhance his lackluster political reputation. Madigan’s opposing him because he doesn’t think the state can afford it—and he doesn’t want Blagojevich to have a legacy if he makes a reelection run against his daughter, Attorney General Lisa Madigan, in 2010. Over the last few weeks Daley and Madigan have been getting kind of chummy. Daley pulled his support from the more generous tax relief plan of senate president Emil Jones and endorsed Madigan’s watered-down home owner’s property tax exemption. Why? According to statehouse sources it’s because Madigan agreed to support an extension of the Central Loop TIF, which was created in 1984 and is set to expire this year. What’s at stake? If the General Assembly extends it, it will continue pumping hundreds of millions of dollars a year in property taxes to a slush fund controlled by Daley for another 12 years. When Blagojevich figured out what Daley and Madigan were up to, he countered by calling in Cook County commissioner Mike Quigley, until then the only elected official who had dared to criticize TIFs. Blagojevich convened a closed-door meeting on June 20. In attendance were Madigan, Jones, Republican house leader Tom Cross, Republican senate leader Frank Watson, and Quigley. On hand representing the mayor were two of his top aides, chief of staff Lori Healey and executive director of Intergovernmental Affairs John Dunne, as well as four aldermen loyal to the mayor: George Cardenas (12th), Latasha Thomas (17th), Ray Suarez (31st), and Carrie Austin (34th). Quigley laid out the flaws in Daley’s TIF programs, which have been cataloged here before: they extract money from blighted communities and shower it on rich ones; they divert tax dollars from the schools, county, and parks; they’re not monitored by any independent body; they’re a hidden tax that doesn’t appear on property tax bills; and perhaps of greatest concern to the state legislators, they exploit the state’s school funding process to the tune of millions of tax dollars annually, obliging the state to compensate for funds sucked into the TIFs. When Quigley finished, the aldermen counterattacked—and you really have to give the mayor credit. If you want to defend an antipoverty program, which is what TIFs are supposed to be, you don’t bring in white aldermen or downtown developers. You bring in minority aldermen—even if it’s their constituents who are getting shafted. And so the aldermen—two black and two Hispanic—laced into Quigley, praising Daley and his TIFs. But as Quigley pointed out, his research, backed by academic studies, shows that TIFs benefit well-to-do neighborhoods more than they do poor ones. Over the last two months, for instance, the city has proposed to spend well over $70 million in TIF dollars on downtown or Gold Coast projects and nothing in the wards of Austin, Cardenas, Thomas, or Suarez. In response Austin brought down the house by telling Quigley, “Professors never built nothin’.” Her point? Aldermen don’t care if the TIF program is logical, fair, or ultimately bound to drive taxpayers bankrupt. They just want the goodies that TIFs provide. Want a new school, a new park, or money for your pet redevelopment project? TIFs are the only game in town. And to get yours, you have to support everyone else’s. What will come of all this? Probably nothing, at least in terms of TIF reform. As one gubernatorial aide told me, “If Daley and the aldermen want to shoot themselves in the head, it’s not our problem.” Madigan’s spokesman, Steve Brown, who attended the meeting, was openly contemptuous of Blagojevich and Quigley and called the session a waste of time. “It’s another day in Rod Wonderland,” says Brown. “It reminds me of a Bible-study thing where the minister comes in and talks about his favorite scripture.” Quigley says he’s not surprised that he’s virtually alone on this issue. Anyone who dares to criticize the mayor’s favorite program can’t expect to have a lot of friends. “Privately senators and reps told me, ‘Good job, you’re right,’ but they were saying it very quietly and looking to see if the mayor’s people saw them talking to me,” says Quigley. “It’s a scary world when you’re afraid to dissent. I don’t know if the mayor recognizes that most of his support comes out of fear.”
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