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Quigley the BraveChicago ReaderMay 11, 2007By Ben JoravskyClick here to read the article in its original form on the Chicago Reader's website.For the last few months Cook County Board commissioner Mike Quigley has been laying low and playing along with the establishment. He endorsed Mayor Daley in February’s municipal election, and he irked many north-side independents first by helping Todd Stroger get elected board president and then voting for his controversial county budget. “I don’t want to be seen as a naysayer who doesn’t work well with others,” says Quigley. “I want the mayor to know that I’m with him when he’s right and against him when he’s wrong.” On the matter of tax increment financing Quigley has come out against the mayor in a big way. On April 19 he released “A Tale of Two Cities: Reinventing Tax Increment Financing,” an analysis that skewers the city’s practice of skimming off close to $400 million a year (and rising) in property taxes. The report, available at commissionerquigley.com, lays out all the warts, familiar to regular readers of this column: how TIFs function as off-the-budget slush funds, raising taxes and diverting money from schools and parks and squandering hundreds of millions in property taxes. Quigley’s the only elected official who’s dared to criticize TIFs publicly. The silence has enabled the city to perpetuate the myth that TIFs don’t raise taxes or deprive schools of money and to go on creating new TIF districts at the rate of one or two a month. The last time Quigley moved to reform the program was last summer, when he proposed that the county at least reveal on your property tax bill how much money goes into the local TIF. The mayor dispatched several aldermen and aides to testify against it at a Cook County Board hearing, and it was embarrassing to watch as one after another of Quigley’s so-called reform allies scurried from the issue rather than upset the mayor. Commissioner Forrest Claypool wasn’t even on the floor when the proposal came up for a vote, and Larry Suffredin voted against it, arguing that too much information would only confuse taxpayers. At around the same time Daley took to needling Quigley when his name came up in public. At a neighborhood budget hearing last fall a resident mentioned the support Quigley had given locals in their efforts to restore a park. “Did he give you money?” the mayor interrupted the speaker, sneering. “Anyone can write a letter.” It was the mayor’s way of sending the message that he had little tolerance for anyone who dared to criticize one of his pet programs. The report was researched by two of Quigley’s aides, Jason Liechty and Jeremy Thompson, and largely written by Thompson, who was laid off a month ago as a result of county budget cuts. So far it’s generated only a few articles and editorials, but Quigley hopes to get more coverage when he revives his proposal to put TIFs on tax bills in the next few months. “I’m not surprised the report didn’t get more attention,” Quigley says. “TIFs don’t have a great sound bite—and sound bites rule. I think it would be a front-page story if we found that TIFs money was being spent on sex clubs. But I have faith the public will understand it—it’s just going to take some time.”
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