Regarding the article “Dems flex muscles in doling out goodies” (Feb. 11): The Illinois legislature recently approved many pork barrel projects, including a pickleball court in Winthrop Harbor, a skate park in Chicago and a comfortable home for two camels, Jack and Finnegan, in the Decatur zoo.
I’m confused by the legislature’s priorities and think our representatives should instead have used some of the millions of dollars to provide housing for all the asylum-seekers currently sleeping in gyms in Chicago Park District facilities at Brands Park, Gage Park, Piotrowski Park and Broadway Armory Park.
This would have the added advantage of allowing these buildings to be returned to the use for which they were intended — providing a vital source of recreational, educational and social opportunities to the community.
I imagine the asylum-seekers living in gyms and the children, teens, adults and seniors, many of them from low-income and working-class families, who were displaced by the conversion of their parks into shelters would all wonder why camels in Decatur are deemed worthy of more support than they are receiving.
— Ginger Williams, Chicago
No money for kids’ education
The state apparently has money for camels and skate parks, but no money for Catholic schools via the Invest in Kids program. It must be great feeling like Oprah Winfrey with other people’s money .
— Julie Kos, Lemont
More concern for 2 camels
We would love to thank the Tribune for letting all of us know that Gov. J.B. Pritzker cares more about housing two camels than the education of children in Cicero.
— Ann DeFronzo, 1964 graduate of St. Frances of Rome Catholic School, Woodridge
Illinois government’s priorities
There are three stories in the Sunday Tribune that perfectly illustrate the skewed priorities in government in this state.
There is an immigrant family with kids in which the husband is paralyzed and the wife needs to give 24-hour nursing (“Migrant family lands in peril”). This means she can’t work, even if she had the proper papers. But no worry — shelter officials in Chicago threw out the family’s papers with the excuse they had the right to do so. This limits proper medical care, and the family is also in danger of losing its apartment in the next few months.
The second story reports that Gov. J.B. Pritzker is looking at plans for a new Sox stadium (“Pritzker’s office to meet with developers on new Sox stadium”). New stadium? The team already has one still being paid for by the taxpayers! Could we first take care of the human needs of the migrant family, which would be a lot cheaper? This is before we even mention the many people who are homeless and are already here.
The third reports on Democratic pork. Democrats use the excuse that Republicans don’t deserve any benefits because they didn’t support the budget. Now wait just a minute! The money doesn’t go to Republican legislators. It goes to programs in districts where citizens live, citizens who just happen to have Republican representatives. These people are Illinois citizens and taxpayers. They deserve programs, whether or not their representatives voted the right way. Has it occurred to Democrats that this could end up in federal court as a discrimination suit, since all taxpayers deserve their fair share?
As far as I’m concerned, the leadership of this state is about as screwed as never before.
— Laurence Siegel, Manteno, Illinois
Bipartisan spirit in Congress
I read with interest the editorial on the pending retirement of U.S. Rep. Mike Gallagher (“Surprise ‘retirement’ of rising Wisconsin star is a bad sign for the GOP,” Feb. 13).
Mike and I were both elected to Congress in 2016 and, despite our differences in party affiliation and which NFL team we support, we became friends and partners on a number of issues. In fact, we started a bipartisan caucus our first year focused on promoting policies that help middle-class families in a rapidly changing economy.
Our partnership continued over the past two years when Mike became chairman of a new House committee on the Chinese Communist Party, and I was named the ranking Democratic member. Together, we have held many hearings and conducted investigations to help the U.S. compete successfully with our greatest competitor on issues from national security to emerging technologies and building our economic strength. Many observers have cited our committee’s work as an island of bipartisanship and progress in a sea of congressional dysfunction and contempt.
While Mike and I disagree on many things, we have been able to work together through a relationship based on friendship, compromise and respect. We need more of that in Congress, not less.
— U.S. Rep. Raja Krishnamoorthi, Schaumburg
Proliferation of dollar stores
The Tribune Editorial Board gets it right when it says that dollar stores tend not to be beloved. But it gets it wrong when it says that if shoppers didn’t like chain dollar stores, they wouldn’t walk through their doors (“Dollar stores deserve scrutiny, not targeting,” Jan. 29). If shoppers don’t have the benefit of a full-service grocery store nearby, they have little choice but the dollar store. The more dollar stores the city permits, the fewer full-service grocery stores there will be.
Eliminating food deserts requires many solutions. But there is one absolutely essential action: preventing dollar stores from proliferating. By oversaturating neighborhoods, they leech sales away from existing food stores. Grocers report losing as much as 40% of their sales when a dollar store opens nearby. Shaving off even a small percentage can kill a grocery store — and, when it closes, the neighborhood loses a crucial anchor, setting off a chain reaction of challenges.
When one of us, Tulsa, Oklahoma, City Councilor Vanessa Hall-Harper, tried to recruit a national grocery chain to her district, every single company turned her down. Why? Because her district was overrun with dollar stores, and none of the grocers believed there would be enough unmet market demand for one of their stores to survive there.
She didn’t give up. She successfully pushed for an ordinance mandating a minimum 1-mile distance between new and existing dollar stores. Then she launched an initiative to create a full-service grocery store. Partnering with the Tulsa Economic Development Corp., the city and others, she helped raise the money to build a grocery store building and find someone local with the skills needed to own and operate the business. Oasis Fresh Market opened more than two years ago. It’s a unique hybrid for-profit store and nonprofit community hub — and it’s building local wealth, rather than sending profits off to distant shareholders.
Every city can do what Tulsa has done. But it requires the political will to do the hard work needed to create the options the city’s neighborhoods really need, rather than giving in to dollar stores’ relentless push to put a store on every street corner.
Relegating neighborhoods to dollar stores sends a message that residents don’t deserve better. We believe that the city of Chicago wants better options for its residents — and, with every new dollar store that enters a neighborhood, those options slip further away.
— Vanessa Hall-Harper, city councilor, Tulsa, Oklahoma, and Kennedy Smith, senior researcher, Institute for Local Self-Reliance, Arlington, Virginia
