WOOF
Chicago is really starting to look like they’re in a race to the bottom with San Francisco as far as budgets go. They’d gotten themselves a pretty good fiscal hole dug even before the first bus full of illegals rolled into town to upset residents (not the mayor, of course). But scrambling to take care of the influx of undocumented humans no one but Mayor Johnson welcomed – and even less wants hanging around for the duration – is taking their shovel away in favor of a backhoe.
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Mayor Brandon Johnson is calling his budget forecast a significant challenge for the city of Chicago.
Mayor Brandon Johnson’s administration is estimating a $538 million budget gap reportedly due to rising costs for personnel and pensions, but also the cost to care for the new migrants arriving in Chicago.
There’s a line item $149M for “Special Events” aka migrant services, which the news station says hizzoner’s office expects to go up some 300% over the course of the year, taking care of the uninvi…well, Johnson DID say “C’mon,” come to think of it. One of his very first executive orders was making sure it was very clear Chicago’s status as a “sanctuary city” was inviolate.
There ya go. And it sure looks like the uninvited but really welcome interlopers expect a whole helluva lot from the city. Demanding it, in fact.
📉 Chicago’s $538M Budget Gap: Rising Costs and Migrant Crisis 🏙️💸
Mayor Brandon Johnson’s administration projects a significant budget shortfall, $538 million, driven by personnel and pension expenses, as well as the rising cost of caring for new migrants in Chicago. 📈
Read… pic.twitter.com/Ih1LeHKGaE
— FlashFactsHub (@FlashFactsHub) September 13, 2023
GIMME, GIMME, GIMME
They learn quick.
Meanwhile, the mayor works to find new homes for the illegals – while remaining sensitive to their “dignity” – as opposed to leaving the 1600+ now sleeping in police stations there…
“We’ve identified multiple locations around the city that can be suitable to treat the families of individuals, who by law are seeking asylum constitutionally, legally, to have a place that recognizes their dignity,” Johnson said.
The new effort, first reported by the Sun-Times, suggested a renewed urgency by the Johnson administration to remove migrants from living for days or weeks inside Chicago police stations’ lobbies. The crowded floors have become a symbol of the new arrivals’ plight upon arriving in the nation’s third-largest city that professes to welcome all.
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…or the ones he’s got dumped all over the city. Like the four hundred and some-odd camped out at O’Hare International Airport.
It’s convenient for their panhandling efforts, and hopefully none of them are Sam Brinson types which could really cause problems, right? But there are also other considerations with hundreds of unvetted, illegal, God-knows-who-they-are-and-what-diseases-they’re-carrying foreigners literally living on the floor of a major international travel hub.
It can get downright nasty real fast. And I guess it did.
I know many mentioned that they couldn’t access my interview on FOX Business about the migrant diarrhea outbreaks at O’Hare, at Chicago Police stations, and at migrant shelters. So, here it is! This “crisis” begs the question: if Mayor Brandon Johnson and the City of Chicago… pic.twitter.com/gtLjWdI7qI
— Reporter William J. Kelly #thatreporter (@Williamjkelly) September 13, 2023
Mayor Johnson wants to start moving these people to “base camps,” which includes tents in the winter. The CHICAGO winter.
…Mayor Brandon Johnson offered a peek today at his plans to establish camps for migrants throughout the city and move nearly 1,600 currently living inside Chicago police stations into large tents before winter — his administration’s boldest effort yet to get a handle on a humanitarian crisis that has left local officials vexed.
The mayor said he will “move with expediency” to transition asylum-seekers into “more suitable” base camps as migrants wait for spots in city-run shelters. As of a week ago, 1,576 migrants were living in Chicago police stations and another 418 were sleeping inside O’Hare International Airport, according to city data.
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Brilliant.
Progressives are all about people freezing to death and then he can blame climate change when one of those howling 80mph blizzards blows the tents to IN.
DONCHA LOVE IT WHEN A PLAN COMES TOGETHER?
Why tents? I guess they’re cheaper than all the empty schools they have laying around to heat in a CHICAGO winter.
#Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson has asked all 50 aldermen to identify a 2-acre space in their wards that could accommodate large tents for migrants.
Here’s an idea: some say there are 50 empty CPS schools that could be used. #BorderCrisis #Tuesdayhttps://t.co/65mZTohOkm pic.twitter.com/RlQDvfe0eL— Beverly A. Pekala (@PekalaLaw) September 12, 2023
The Chicago Tribune, lefty rag that it is, took Johnson and former mayor Lightfoot to task, upon recently discovering that neither of them ever had a plan to begin with. This is a revelation to the Tribune, who should spend less time virtue signaling and more time reporting.
They might not be as surprised at what they find out about who they shamelessly helped elect and cover up for. This gross incompetence is only a shock to the editors and owners of the Tribune.
…With Chicago already struggling to absorb such numbers, Mayor Brandon Johnson warned Wednesday that the city can’t continue safely welcoming more migrants “without significant support and immigration policy changes.” Neighborhood resistance to shelters, both for their disruption and strain on public resources, also continues to flare up. Yet the buses from the Texas border are still showing up almost daily.
A Tribune investigation of the city’s response in the past year revealed a costly and at times disorganized approach, often characterized by poor planning, lack of leadership and troubling conditions in shelters.
The Tribune’s review of hundreds of pages of previously unreported internal documents, emails and text messages found decisions made at City Hall under Johnson and former Mayor Lori Lightfoot contributed to the crisis. Lightfoot failed for months to appoint someone to lead the mission, directed migrants to police stations and entered into costly contracts without a clear plan to transition new arrivals out of shelters. The city’s sluggishness to craft definitive and longer-term plans has continued under Johnson.
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In fact, if the Tribune was like the paper of old, they might well not be embarrassed by the reporting of the local NBC station. NBC 5 Chicago took a look at Johnson’s budget, and then took a dive into the numbers. That’s called “journalisming.”
What they found was hizzoner’s incompetent administration was just signing lucrative contracts for migrant services willy-nilly in their panic – hopefully, only panic and not corruption, but it is Chicago – and the amounts Chicago was shoveling out the door in payments is pretty astonishing.
…According to latest budget projections released by the Johnson administration, records show at least $200 million of the deficit stems from special project costs – which includes caring for new arrivals to the city of Chicago.
Recent city estimates indicate the migrant care crisis is already projected to cost Chicago taxpayers more than $255 million by the end of the year – if not more given the expected increase of new arrivals and talks of adding additional shelter space.
…While the city continues to withhold many of the records we’ve requested, NBC 5 Investigates did obtain contracts and a spreadsheet accounting for some of the spending. The records show since October of last year, the city has spent at least $83 million on the crisis.
…The bulk of that money – more than $56 million – went to Favorite Healthcare Staffing – a Kansas-based company whose employees work in the city’s shelters.
In response to our Freedom of Information Act requests, the city has so far provided just two invoices – showing how much Favorite staffers are being paid.
One invoice from the now-closed shelter at Truman College shows a facility manager made $14,000 in one week last December.
Another invoice shows a nurse earned $20,000 during a week in December.
That same week – that shelter manager’s invoice billed for more than $14,000. All those employees’ figures included the employees being paid for overtime. The hourly rate for the registered nurse was $195 an hour. The facility manager earned $135 an hour.
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I’ll BET the city doesn’t want to give any more invoices up. *snort*
Well, hello and well done, local news station.
And this is how Chicago will run out of money…
Paying staffers helping with migrants up to $20k per week! That didn’t raise ANY red flags when reviewing invoices??…
Great reporting from @nbcchicago
Not so great financial oversight from the city.https://t.co/DOYVWHgdKq pic.twitter.com/XjeGl8f6L9
— Stuart Loren (@StuLoren) September 14, 2023
In the meantime, Mayor Johnson can keep the welcome mat out and his pen ready to sign fat new checks, but he’s running out of money and room to maneuver. He’s already played the race card…
Democratic Chicago mayor Brandon Johnson this week blamed racism for criticism of the job he’s done in the first months of his administration.https://t.co/O79g2s0ilA
— Washington Free Beacon (@FreeBeacon) September 7, 2023
…besides telling already unhappy city residents they are going to have to be “ready to sacrifice” because of and for the migrants.
…Meanwhile, Johnson did not rule out new or increased levies to pay for the services.
“So the sacrifices that will be required in this moment will be necessary from all of us, every single level of government,” Johnson said at an unrelated news conference Friday when asked about whether additional revenue will be needed.
“Look, I can tell you that the cost of inaction will be far more substantial,” he said. “The point here is: Police stations being used as landing zones, that’s what I inherited. And I’ve said that from the very beginning that this is not dignified. So my plan is to move, with expediency, families out of police stations into housing and shelter that’s more suitable.”
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Try explaining that coming financial hit to a pissed off citizen, especially after they hear about $20K workweek for migrant services contractors, and then someone tells them FEMA just dumped an additional $33M on the migrants. Not on Chicago – on the illegals, period.
…As with many City Council votes concerning migrant funding over the past several months, some aldermen raised concerns about millions of dollars being designated for the 13,500 asylum-seekers so far who have arrived in Chicago while homeless residents in their wards cannot find housing.
Yeah.
Mayor Johnson had better get up to speed on migrant dollars and sense real fast, or he could have a rough winter on his hands.
