Big Box Watershed?
Immediately after the City of Chicago passed it's smoking ban, there was a rapid move by the Cook County Board to make the ban countywide. That countywide ban was quietly supported by the same Chicago businesses who opposed the city ban. They figured the best way to keep customers from being driven to restaurants ringing the city was to extend it to the county as well.
Here's my question: if the Big Box Ordinance passes in Chicago today, as is widely expected, will Mayor Daley and the handful of others who opposed the city ordinance becuase they say it will drive jobs abd development out of the city work behind the scenes to enact a parallel ordinance for the county? Could it pass?
UPDATE:
Text messages I'm receiving from within the hearing indicate that atleast two undecided Aldermen have joined the "Yes" column. If they secure a veto-proof majority, making the ordinance countywide might make the most sense for Daley.
12 comments:
thanks for keeping us posted!
The thing no one is talking about is the slap in Daley's face.
I think that's what's driving some of these aldermen...
We'll see if you're right. The anti-Wal-Mart bunch was pretty cocky until the Maryland "big box" health insurance was ruled unconstitutional.
Not sure if President Peraica will stand for the any "living wage" ordinance.
Breaking --
WGN 720 just reported the ordinance just passed 35 yes to 14 no.
If I were Topinka / Birkett, I'd argue this was the Democrat's plan for all Illinois.
Drive out all investment and reduce us to the level of subsistance peasants...
...so yes, please try and roll this out far and wide.
Bill, I think I'd rather be a "subsistance peasant" than a "big box serf." At least peasants had their freedom.
Does anyone have the role call?
My Sig Other just hollared down that they also voted themselves a salary increase...
...no jobs in the neigborhoods but now they make six figures.
Bill,
As if you do a whole to invest in the inner city yourself. Please.
There is no evidence that Wal*Mart will not open the stores that it has constructed... Thus those jobs will go to the neighborhoods.
Wal*Mart can huff and puff all they want (as they have in other cities), but they will open the stores they already planned.
And, guess what, this will help them fend off the inevitable unionization drives that would have come with stores in Chicago proper. Why unionize when your alderman has done the union's job for you?
Guess what else, no conservative has ever come up with credible evidence that increasing the minimum wage (even on as relatively small a scale as Chicago) has cost anyone a job. Sure, you'll have people occasionally whine that they might have received a bigger raise had a minimum wage increase not forced employers to give everyone a raise... but those are weak arguments because minimum wage increases have always spurred, not dampened, the economy.
Finally, the fact alderman make six figures is ridiculous. While public sector executives typically make much less than their private sector counterparts (ie, a mayor's vs a CEO's salary); there's no reason for public sector middle managers to come close to, or exceed, private sector middle manager salaries.
...errrr....
"As if you do a whole lot to invest"
"Subsistance Peasants..."
I thought that was Wal-Mart's gameplan for American workers.
hardly anon... I can't think of another retailer more dependent on gains in disposable income among lower income people.
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