Chicago the City that Works

Arlene Jones over at Austin Weekly News lists some good questions for West Siders to ask at the Budget Hearing Meeting.

Here are a few other things you might want to mention to the mayor and his staff: drug dealing, CTA, Chicago Public Schools, potholes, 9 percent sales tax, city stickers, people putting illegal apartments in basements and attics, parking tickets, jobs for teens, booting of cars, police response time, hired trucking program, affordable housing, loud car stereos, police cameras, public urination, job training programs, privatizing of city jobs, CHA, stores selling loose cigarettes, storefront churches, garbage, businesses with ties to slavery getting city business, predatory lending, racial profiling, programs for seniors, people running stop signs, stores selling alcohol to underage kids, sexual predators being housed predominantly in the black community, traffic lights and why they can't be timed to allow traffic to flow, bicycle lanes, winter parking restrictions, encouraging businesses to locate in Chicago, the Kedzie and Chicago Service Center, speeding of cars on residential streets, redevelopment of the West Side business districts, illegal immigrants who are charged with felonies not getting reported to immigration officials, what to do with the old 15th District station on Chicago Avenue, police patrols, allowing Chicagoans to again register handguns, missing asphalt, Meigs Field, dog-fighting, the $40 million trucking scandal, white-owned businesses pretending to be minority-owned, city contracts to vend at the airport; city employees who now feel they should be able to live in the suburbs and work for the city, police taserings, forcing children to cross gang territories as locals schools are closed, and on and on.

Things to keep in mind next time someone tells you Chicago's never looked better. Yeah, but.... is this the best Chicago can do?

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