Killing Chicago

The pieces are falling into place. From the Sun Times, we're going to deconstruct this thing in pieces:

• The mayor tightened the bureaucratic belt one more notch as aldermen introduced a flurry of property tax alternatives at Wednesday’s City Council meeting.

  They include: raising the fine for red-light camera violations from $90-to-$100;

We don't know what the point of diminishing returns is here, but we imagine the City is coming close. People who get tagged once or twice are learning where the cameras are and modifying behavior at that point. Others who never paid fines because cars aren't registered to them continue to flout the law.

• increasing from 15 cents to 25 cents a development fee on every square foot of buildable floor area;

Way to kill the desire of companies to want to relocate to Chicago...especially manufacturing jobs which are the lifeblood of any economic engine, not to mention the jobs for people to afford to live in the City. Might as well move the entire manufacturing sector to Mexico and China...oh wait, did that.

• raising the city tax on consumers who purchase their natural gas from third-party providers
  

Brilliant! Tax people extra for doing what comes naturally in a capitalistic system - shopping around for the best deal. This ought to put a dent in Daley's reputation as a "green" mayor. Where's the incentive to go green if the mayor's cronies can tax you for making economical choices? And we bet that connected clout companies are the ones who pushed this through.

• and increasing — from 50 to 75 percent -- a liquor tax hike that neighorhood bar owners are already screaming about.

Maggie Daley's campaign against neighborhood bars continues apace. With the statewide smoking ban about to hit next year and this tax hike, you can bet the small, quiet neighborhood bar is on the way out. It's no coincidence a few thousand bars have closed in town in the past 20 years while taxes went up on everything else. Bars were a great revenue generator.

And the kicker:

• The police hirings will be delayed until the third quarter of next year and, instead of 50 officers, the mayor will hire 75. None are expected to hit the streets in 2008. [...]
  

  And “more and more” of the 1,372 vacant positions created by a May hiring freeze will be eliminated, including most of the Traffic Management Authority positions that would have been assigned to direct traffic downtown.

You thought the manpower shortages were acute this year? We're losing 50 officer a month to retirement and we're approaching another wave of "20-and-out" people. Combine that with the hiring freeze on TMA's and you can expect PPO's to be detailed out for events. Cancel a bunch of promotional classes, too.

The slow death continues.