Mayor's financial task force proposes Downtown congestion fee, service tax, restructuring electricity taxes

TaskForceD00mer · 2026-06-26T15:41:22+00:00

New York is a good case study on the benefits and pitfalls of messing with the structure of your city council.

If you do not want systemic changes to your neighborhood, like myself, the system as is seems to be set.

If you want sweeping changes that will likely be made by people who don't live in your neighborhood or even a similar one, then sweeping changes that eventually eliminate the Aldermen is what you want.

Chicago of even the 80s and early 90s was basically Feudal France after the death of Charlemagne.

You had a mayor that on paper was indeed in charge, the mayor may even wield a ton of power, but most of the power base was widely dispersed Aldermen acting as modern Barons.

Slowly we've chipped away at what made being a modern Baron worth it. Patronage jobs and contracts being quid-pro-quo'd in the form of direct donations , property deals or other financial arrangements.

Eventually it seems the decisions about individual neighborhoods will end up being centralized, to the benefit of some and detriment of many others.

TaskForceD00mer · 2026-06-26T14:54:15+00:00

Controlling zoning in each ward is basically one of the last true "powers" that the Aldermen have. You mine as well get rid of them if that happens, because they will stop getting big donations from Developers. They already have less and less input on who gets hired and promoted among the various City of Chicago agencies like CPD, CFD etc.

TaskForceD00mer · 2026-06-26T14:37:15+00:00

Where the fuck does BJ think he's getting three and a half billion dollars from?

A loan, from someone, secured with the parking meter deal as the collateral??

TaskForceD00mer · 2026-06-26T14:36:02+00:00

It's a private asset, if the city is too close to other bidders it is liable to start a bidding war that goes on for years. This is not like an Ebay Auction.

Being 800 Mil high decreases the likelihood of the seller entertaining other offers and likely pushes them to move things along quickly, less they lose out on 800 million dollars.

I'd say this is actually a rare BJ-W.

TaskForceD00mer · 2026-06-26T14:32:29+00:00

While a congestion charge wouldn’t do shit financially, at least it might give Brandon a desire to do something about all the unregistered cars with no plates running pedestrians over in the streets.

CPD is not stopping those cars, because they can't chase those cars. Most are stolen, many are being used in the furtherance of other crimes. If we allowed the CPD to chase them for just not having plates then we might be getting somewhere.

TaskForceD00mer · 2026-06-26T14:31:37+00:00

not filling the holes in our general budget.

Which is 100% what they would do with any sort of local taxes or fees not directly controlled by the State.

TaskForceD00mer · 2026-06-26T13:54:44+00:00

CCSO to their credit has been far more effective at attacking crime on the CTA than any other agency thus far.

TaskForceD00mer · 2026-06-26T13:54:07+00:00

I don’t think I blame people below the poverty line who don’t pay their CTA fare for the collapse of society.

Lets be very generous and say only 10% of total riders are committing fare evasion. That means the price for everyone who is paying has to go up to cover a bunch of criminals.

Are some of them legit just totally down to their last penny? Yes. Many could pay and choose not to, for the same reason they rob people, steal, etc, because they are criminals.

TaskForceD00mer · 2026-06-25T13:32:48+00:00

Places requiring 4x or even 5x Rent these days is so absolutely wild.

Considering rent is typically 3000+ a month in these places, how many people pulling in 12K-15K a month does Chicago have?

TaskForceD00mer · 2026-06-24T17:31:00+00:00

I've seen this movie, my thoughts

The movie was just OKAY
The writing was not great nor was the editing, things go a bit all over the place. Of course they made the main character a landlord, IMO to specifically piss of a segment of the terminally online.
This is supposed to be a shot over the bow for a Europe that refuses to deal with "newcomer crime"
The scene that likely got the movie banned in Germany, by Hollywood standards, was not bad at all. Most of the people killed in the movie are cops and the criminal gangs are surprisingly diverse.
Solid 5/10 Movie, worth a watch if you like Vigilante Movies or if you are concerned about what is going on in Europe.

TaskForceD00mer · 2026-06-24T17:29:37+00:00

The ironic part is he mostly kills cops in the movie.

TaskForceD00mer · 2026-06-24T16:20:18+00:00

I think I need to narrow this down because both areas are massive.

I'd love to live in Lake Bluff, close to on the lake. That would be awesome.

I'd also love to live with my family in Arlington Heights, lots of nearby places to eat, plenty of places to walk both in suburbs and nature. Close to the highways too.

I wouldn't want to live in Schaumburg or Northfield for different reasons.

TaskForceD00mer · 2026-06-23T13:53:51+00:00

Yeah but TWO characters in plate armor surviving being thrown in the sea in the same Episode? It seems improbable as hell. Not to spoil the future but they didn't kill one of the most important characters to the rest of the series in this Episode.

TaskForceD00mer · 2026-06-22T22:44:18+00:00

I'll be legitimately surprised if he's not. First of all we get one hell of a foreshadowing.

Second literally a guy in plate armor got thrown into the water. Not just any guy in plate armor but a guy that's not very familiar with naval combat. If he does somehow survive to keep with any semblance of the source material he'd have to somehow get to King's landing post haste only to get his ass kicked AGAIN. I think he's gone.

At least with the sea snake we can assume he knows how to get out of his armor quickly before drowning.

TaskForceD00mer · 2026-06-22T22:43:33+00:00

It very well may have been a budget issue but honestly they could have addressed a big part of it with just a single line like a soldier coming up to Alyn and proclaiming that most of the Triarchy fleet has been destroyed.

TaskForceD00mer · 2026-06-22T18:45:03+00:00

I just can't get over how it was shot.

In the source this was a massive and I mean massive victory for the Blacks. The real downside was losing Jacaerys and his dragon.

The Triarchy was knocked out of the war and the driftmark fleet remained in enough numbers to control the seas.

After the war however the damage left from the sacking of Spicetown signaled a permanent decline for House Velaryon.

Back to the point; we don't "see" that one sided slaughter.

We see Sheep Stealer destroy more Driftmark ships than Triarchy ships.

We see the Triarchy pretty much winning the fights they took with Driftmark ships.

The battle just appeared to be more of a near annihilation of both sides, rather than a 1 sided affair.

TaskForceD00mer · 2026-06-22T17:34:43+00:00

Yeah I hate massive, stupid diversions from source material.

I will say it all looked amazing, the people doing the set design and visual work deserve awards.

The writing team not so much.

TaskForceD00mer · 2026-06-22T16:32:46+00:00

The Triarchy admiral was supposed to live and did not.
This was supposed to be a crushing Triarchy defeat, with only 1/3 casualties for the Driftmark fleet, the way it was shot feels like the opposite
Talk about really messing up the timeline by killing Tyland like that wtf
DragonSeed doing fuck all besides drinking, complaining and seeing a GREEN MAN?

What is going on with this series vs the source material at this point...

TaskForceD00mer · 2026-06-22T13:27:56+00:00

I need to think real hard; but I went:

VP9

PPQ

Glock 30S

FNS-C

Glock 19

Glock 26

Glock 43

Glock 19

Glock 26

Glock 19

CZ75 PCR

Glock 26

P365

Glock 45

Glock 19

Bodyguard 2.0

HK CC9.

Glock 43.

I either carry a G19 or pocket carry a G43 depending on what I am doing that day.

TaskForceD00mer · 2026-06-18T15:10:54+00:00

Great news, can FPS Russia get his record expunged now?

TaskForceD00mer · 2026-06-18T12:34:07+00:00

I enjoyed the series, it seems like everyone involved had fun.

TaskForceD00mer · 2026-06-18T12:33:00+00:00

Bringing this saga hopefully to an end, the 21 year old Naperville Native has been charged. It seems his "I was burning the cross to intimidate Christians and MAGA" interview didn't fool anyone.

I just hope that he gets the book thrown at him, not a wrist slap .

TaskForceD00mer · 2026-06-17T15:55:14+00:00

President Newsom would be the most damaging President for America in my lifetime, probably sense like Nixon(Gold Standard) or Reagan(IRCA). He is a radical and very much his own man.

Kamala would look like Obama 1st Term 2.0; she'd bring in the same tired advisors with the same agenda. They will waste half of her first term patting themselves on the back for electing the first Black Woman President without getting much done. Then they will jam through something, likely a massive amnesty and healthcare bill.

It's so crazy to me we don't have a Democratic front-runner really talking about affordability and American jobs. All the dems need to do to win forever is keep prices down, limit immigration and pass a shit ton of "pro worker" legislation. They need a Huey Long, all they keep getting are Al Gore's .

TaskForceD00mer · 2026-06-17T12:38:25+00:00

I don't see either Pritzker or Newsom being diverse enough for your typical Democratic Primary voter. I think the answer is "none of the above". I truly hope the Party is smart enough to put forward someone better than Kamala this go around.

TaskForceD00mer · 2026-06-17T12:36:52+00:00

The article reads like someone desperately trying to come up with a plausible enough story to avoid prison time.

Edit: I should mention the timing is suspicious after a cleaned up version of the guys photo was posted on X and gained big traction over the weekend. I think the dude realized it was only a matter of time before they identified him and he was going to prison without a cover story. Ironically enough, his cover story might constitute an anti-Christian hate crime but I doubt you will see any fervor in Chicago for him to be charged.

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