As a sign of my commitment to a new Chicago, I went to Mayor Lori Lightfoot’s inauguration at the DePaul basketball arena, thus breaking my old pledge to never, ever set foot in that place.
That funding was approved in the summer of 2013 on a City Council voice vote, hastily gaveled through by the mayor, as though he wanted to sneak it by the council without public debate.
Before all was said and done, Rahm spent that $55 million in TIF money, originally intended for the arena, on a project at Navy Pier. How that’s legal, I will never know.
Lori Lightfoot Mayoral Inauguration
But, alas, there I was for Monday’s big event, ushered in by Maya Dukmasova, my Reader colleague. Maya said I had to go because . . . it’s history! Plus, I had to write about it.
“Hey, Ben, how many articles did you write criticizing Rahm for using TIF funds for this?” he asked.
I’m not sure what the scoreboard operator was trying to say with that caption. But if taxpayer dollars had anything to do with constructing that scoreboard, that caption may be the best thing we get from this deal.
But, again, we had enough money to build that DePaul arena. Damn, I’m getting outraged all over again!
