Pro-mayoral budget ad truck makes stops at offices of NW Side aldermen opposing Johnson’s head tax

by BRIAN NADIG

A truck featuring a large ad calling for alderpersons to support Mayor Brandon Johnson’s budget recently was parked in front of two Northwest Side aldermanic offices, temporarily blocking a bike lane and a crosswalk.

Most of the 50 City Council members have signed onto a budget proposal that rejects the mayor’s plan to implement a head tax on companies with 500 or more employees. These companies would pay $33 a month per employee, or as much as $198,000 for every 500 workers.
Calling the plan a job killer, aldermen James Gardiner (45th) and Samantha Nugent (39th) reported that the truck was parked in front of their ward offices for a short time on Tuesday, Dec. 16.

“The 45th Ward would like to highlight the extreme measures some individuals are willing to take in order to secure votes for

Chicago mayor’s office budget proposal,” Gardiner posted on Facebook.

“While hosting a property tax appeal event in our office today, the gentleman in this truck — clearly blocking bike lanes (and) who has paid advertisements to vote for Mayor Johnson’s budget — refused to move his truck from the front of our office (at 5460 N. Milwaukee Ave.), thereby blocking access to our office for a wheelchair-bound senior.

“This is one of many reasons my colleagues and I stand opposed to Mayor Johnson and the
questionable tactics used by his allies to gain favor in City Council.”

Gardiner said that he asked the driver to move but that he refused, forcing a car to drive up onto a sidewalk so that a person using the wheelchair could be dropped off.

Police were called but arrived after the truck had left, Gardiner said. The truck was parked there for about 20 to 25 minutes, Gardiner said.

Gardiner said that he does not know who paid for the truck but suspects that the Chicago Teachers Union, which backs Johnson, a former teacher and a former paid organizer for the union, might have had a role in it.

The truck also parked for a few minutes in front of the 39th Ward office at 4200 W. Lawrence Ave., blocking a crosswalk. Other ward offices in the city reportedly also have had visits from the truck.

“Protecting Chicagoans means asking wealthy corporations to pay a tiny bit more (and) not increasing fees on the rest of us,” one of the messages on the truck said. One of the proposals counter to the mayor’s budget plan had called for an increase in the garbage collection fee, but it has been removed from the proposal.

Both sides have called for hikes in business licensing fees, but no proposal has been finalized, as negotiations continue. Alderpersons who oppose the mayor’s plan recently suggested a bag tax increase and selling ads on downtown bridge houses along with legalizing video gambling at businesses to help balance the $16.6 billion budget, which has a reported $1.2 billion shortfall in revenue. Currently video gambling is only legal in Chicago at the Bally’s casino in the River North area.

Gardiner said that the majority of the council opposes the mayor’s plan but that there may not be the 34 votes required to override any veto, as the mayor has threatened to oppose any budget that lacks a head tax. The city last had a head tax in 2014.

If no budget is in place by Dec. 30, a government shutdown would kick in — believed to be the first in the city’s history.

Some essential services, such as police, fire and snowplowing, are expected to continue during a shutdown, Gardiner said.

Johnson has said that no one benefits from a shutdown.

Also on the Northwest Side, aldermen Nicholas Sposato (38th) and Anthony Napolitano (41st) have voiced objections to mayor’s budget.

“Last year the mayor and his administration attempted to push through a burdensome budget that would have placed more than $300 million in new taxes on the residents of Chicago. My colleagues and I stood our ground. “After extensive debate, we successfully convinced the City Council to eliminate the mayor’s proposed $300 million property tax hike entirely.

“Now, instead of learning from that failure, the mayor has set his sights on policies that will devastate Chicago’s business community, including a job-killing head tax, borrowing to cover contractual salary obligations and sweeping TIF funds away from the taxpayers who financed them in the first place.

Businesses and corporations have already been fleeing Chicago at an alarming rate due to crime and instability created under the last two administrations. And now, to add insult to injury, Mayor Johnson and his team are trying to punish the companies that have chosen to stay by hitting them with a head tax and forcing them out of Chicago,” Napolitano recently posted on Facebook.

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