Media outlets in Chicago are turning against the city’s Democrat Mayor Lori Lightfoot as the mayoral election looms.
While the mayor’s office claims Lightfoot is out front ahead of next month’s election, the rest of the polls show her trailing.
Chicago’s soaring violent crime has been a key issue for this election and much of the city blames Lightfoot for the issue.
“She didn’t do anything to stop the looting,” Chicago reporter William J. Kelly said of Lightfoot.
“She didn’t do anything to stop the shoplifting right up to and including today.
“So, you know, she revoked my media credential.
“I filed a federal freedom of press lawsuit against Mayor Lightfoot.
“The questions that she didn’t want me to ask her at city hall, I will be asking her under oath.
“We have arrived at the discovery phase.
“And I intend to get these answers.
“And I intend to cover this mayor’s race, and I intend to expose what really is behind the destruction of our city.
“Every time I went to a city hall press conference to ask our mayor what her plan was to stop the crime and support the business, she screamed at me.
“Every single time she threatened to have the police drag me out of city hall.”
It is not an understatement to say Chicago’s future hangs in the balance with this election. The city is facing a looming pension crisis and if they don’t right the ship, they could pull a Detroit and go belly up.
It’s astounding Ken Griffin and Citadel moved to Florida and the political reaction in Illinois and Chicago is just a collective shrug. The lost tax revenue on his earnings is going to be impossible to replicate in the near term. Literally the most profitable fund of all time. pic.twitter.com/XqZhM1ySvB
— Stuart Loren (@StuLoren) January 23, 2023
Lightfoot is talking about making hard choices and cuts and says she is doing her part but the answer is not to cut but to grow the economy.
Hanging by a thread, Chicago has no margin for error so businesses that have huge tax bills need to stay in the city.
But with crime soaring businesses are fleeing and that is on Lori Lightfoot.
According to The New York Post:
Billionaire Ken Griffin decided it was time to relocate the headquarters of his giant hedge fund Citadel from Chicago after a colleague was robbed while having a gun pressed to his head during a coffee run, according to a report.
Griffin, whose net worth is pegged by Forbes at $31 billion, announced earlier this year that his family and the investment firm would decamp from the Windy City in favor of Miami.
The 53-year-old financial tycoon cited Chicago’s soaring rate of violent crime as a key factor in the decision, telling Bloomberg News that he has personally been affected by Chicago’s descent into what the news site calls “anarchy.”
One of his colleagues went to get coffee when he was accosted by an armed assailant who put “a gun to his head” and robbed him, Griffin told the site.
Griffin said another colleague was outside waiting for a car when he was approached by “some random lunatic just trying to punch him in the head.”
Lightfoot said of the looming pension crisis: “It’s now time for municipalities across the state to get our due.
“All of us have done all of the things that the rating agencies and others have told us to do.
“We have made government work more efficiently.
“In Chicago, we haven’t cut services, but other municipalities have been forced to cut services, have been forced to lay people off.
“And yet, they’re still suffering.
“Springfield and the governor’s office have to take notice and start the process.
“I’m not prepared to talk about specifics here.
“But we have to be at the table with all of the relevant stakeholders and think about structural changes that are necessary to shore up the pensions — not taking away the benefits that existing retirees are getting.
“We’ve got to look at other things that we can do. You know the list.
“What’s missing is the political will. And we’ve got to find it,” she said.
“If we still are pouring money into a system that is fundamentally flawed, it’s gonna become the tail that wags the dog of city government.”
1/21 Terrific reporting by @business on Chicago’s economic and public safety / crime problems. I’ve covered this in depth over the last year, but it’s worth highlighting again the extent of our challenges and some ideas for improvement.
Article link: https://t.co/e6aaINewGV pic.twitter.com/w0LlV5FooM
— Stuart Loren (@StuLoren) September 14, 2022
2/ Here was my original take, which got some traction when @MarginalRevolt picked it up last fall. Unfortunately, as the Bloomberg article makes clear, mostly everything I feared is coming to fruition and getting worse. https://t.co/3pkX3mJSyK
— Stuart Loren (@StuLoren) September 14, 2022
READ MORE: Lori Lightfoot Dances in Streets as Violent Crime Soars in Chicago
