HOW MUCH IS A CITY'S SOUL WORTH?

Get ready Chicago...the Olympic smack down is coming. Whether the actual Olympiad makes it to Chicago is out of the United States Olympic Committee's hands but don't tell Mayor Daley that. In what is quickly becoming the beginning of the end for the once unbeatable albeit unchallengeable Mayor Daley, the Olympic pursuit and the slush fund known as the Parking Meter Fiasco/Olympic Fund may prove to be too much for Hizzoner II.

In a magnificent blog written by Greg Hinz for Crain's Chicago Business, he makes the case that what the Mayor did in Switzerland is being questioned by the Alderman and other members of the city and state government. Well that's special considering that when and as all of this was building, no one cared. Support the bid or face the Mayor's wrath. Mention any problems with the CTA or the Chicago Public Schools or the spike in the city's violence and you could miss out on the Olympic cash cow when it gets here.

And in a stunningly stupid move, Mayor Daley goes to Switzerland and sells the future of this city for two weeks of cha-ching. By guaranteeing over $1Billion in "taxpayer free funds" and this came after he said that it wouldn’t cost the city more than $500 Million, and after he stomped his feet and proclaimed that he would NOT sign the International Olympic Committee’s standard host city contract, he all but sealed every citizen in Chicago's fate. The future is up for sale and if 20 or 30 years from now we still aren’t paying for it, I would be surprised.

Property taxes, city sales tax, whatever tax that can be devised will propagate this huge financial mess. Potentially we (Chicagoans) lose from the jump and don't believe the hype and the hot-air coming from the City Council. Those are the same folks who decided that they didn't care about those parking meters and the Mayor selling the rights to them for the next 75 years and underselling just to get that cha-ching! They began to care once they started getting tickets on their cars.

Well here is the truth - fuck the Olympics (and in this age of social network background checks, I'll probably never be invited to work for this great city in ANY capacity), this is about the gentrifying of communities and the ability to make money. In the short term those folks who live along the King Drive corridor and near the old Michael Reese Hospital and the rest of the "urban" areas affected by this wet dream of a two week international sporting event will lose. They gotta go baby! We got kiosks to build and fresh new faces to replace the historically overlooked people who live in the way of progress.

Mayor Daley wants the Olympics - BAD and you do too let him tell it. The money that the Mayor is asking - oops guaranteeing could be used to restore the Chicago Transportation Authority, repair the HORRID educational system and assure that years from now the citizens aren't still paying for the Mayor's fantasy. Chicago isn’t Japan or South America or Spain. They are COUNTRIES not a city like Chicago…the United States isn't financially "backing the bid" - FUCK NO! In insuring that the city’s liability won’t exceed $500 Million, who pays for that guarantee?

Mayor Richard Michael Daley is going to make us pay and go down in history as the man who bankrupted Chicago.