I had a hard time following the logic of the recent editorial on city finances (“Mayor Johnson has a budget deficit to close, but don’t ask taxpayers to kick in more,” Sept. 10). After accurately laying out the dire budget circumstances, including the very few options for new revenue, you rightly lay out the perils of a city hiring freeze. Yet your conclusion demands that the mayor not “ask taxpayers to kick in more.”
Like any other longtime city resident on a fixed income, I don’t look forward to paying a higher property tax bill. But I also want my streets cleaned, the potholes fixed, my garbage picked up, police patrolling my neighborhood, firefighters available when I need them, and the kids in my community to get a good education. So where is the money going to come from?
As you have regularly pointed out, the city faces serious long-term fiscal challenges, including its debt to the retirement systems, largely caused by previous mayors who shorted their pension contributions so they wouldn’t have to raise the property levy. (Foisting the city’s current obligations on the school budget is no solution for taxpayers.)
Other budgetary gimmicks, like selling off the parking meters, were bad deals that continue to cost city residents ever more, as your paper reported. And, foolish as it is, a future Bears stadium handout will have no impact on the current budgetary hole.
Yes, inflation is biting us all, but it is also biting the city’s expenses as well, even as the demands on city services are increasing. As Supreme Court Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes famously stated, “Taxes are the price we pay for a civilized society.”
If we want a more civilized city, then we are going to have to pay a little more. The challenge is to do it fairly, so those who can afford more, “kick in more.”
John D. Cameron, West Ridge
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Make candidates submit written policy statements
I have watched many presidential debates in my time. One common thread is the lament that candidates don’t offer specifics on policy. To be fair, each candidate is generally given two minutes, with a one-minute rebuttal. Given that part of that has to be used to rebut attacks, that hardly leaves time for more than policy sound bites.
Some of the sound bites from Donald Trump included more tariffs and door-to-door immigration sweep. Kamala Harris’s included $6,000 child tax credits, building 3 million affordable homes, a $25,000 credit to help first-time home buyers and a $50,000 tax credit for small business start-ups.
While debates are important, what they really provide is an insight to the candidate’s character. What I would like to see, aside from debates, are written policy statements on given topics. These, like debates, would be subject to certain rules. For example, each response would be limited to a specific number of words to insure the response is kept on point. Then, the response should be limited to the candidate’s views, with no comments on their opponent’s views. Any comments about their opponent or that do not pertain to the topic would be redacted. Any redacted parts would count against the total words allowed.
The papers could be available to the public on a neutral site to assure fairness. This would be a better way to get more truth in advertising on the real views of the candidates, which can be referred to when candidates make future claims that may contradict themselves.
John Farrell, DeKalb
Better security would prevent school shootings
As a retired public school teacher, my heart breaks upon hearing about another school shooting which should not have happened.
All schools ought to install a metal detector, one or two armed guards at the school entrance, (or one guard with a trained dog), and have only one entrance/exit accessible. Most schools only have cameras and a receptionist by the door and think they’re OK.
Bottom line: No one should be able to bring a gun, knife or drugs into a school.
I believe residents and school personnel in outlying areas do not want to admit that the precautions that previously sufficed are no longer viable. School and community leaders, police, residents, and parents need to step up and make some changes and stop pretending we’re still living in the 1950s.
I was fortunate during my teaching career to work in a school that had a police presence, dog presence intermittently, and doors locked from the inside, and this was 20 years ago. We did not have violent issues then and along with metal detectors available today, we wouldn’t have school shootings.
Crime occurs mostly in areas where it is tolerated. If crime is tolerated it will come.
Instead of wasting time and money studying criminal “motives,” we need to deal with reality or it will be assumed people are choosing to risk the lives of students and teachers !
Marilyn Fawell, Lombard
Go Sox! From a Mets fan
I am a Mets fan, so I know suffering. We are watching closely as the White Sox close in on the Mets’ record 120 losses in 1962. And we are rooting hard for the White Sox to string together some wins to avoid that record, as the Tigers did by winning five of their last six games in 2003.
The 1962 Mets were a magnificent, miserable mess, totally embraced by the city as National League baseball returned after the Dodgers and Giants absconded to the Left Coast
You all don’t want that record. We do. Let’s go White Sox.
Bob Liff, New York