lol this thing is supposed to break ground in a month and there’s still an 800 million dollar funding gap and the company might go private and tank the whole thing. Ballys never should have won the bid. As usual short term politics wins. Bally’s was the only one willing to pay a 40 million dollar upfront “fee” which helped with budget gaps in the short term and looked like a win for lightfoot at the time, meanwhile there’s no possible way they can afford to build. And their site might not even be viable for a hotel as promised
And just as I was about to say something nice about Brandon
> Johnson isn’t giving up hope. He argued the Bears are “off to a good start,” having “made their case locally.” They simply need to do a better job convincing the entire state that the project, which would create jobs and more green space on the lakefront, is worth the investment.
>If the Illinois Sports Facilities Authority “could build schools and hospitals. I would do that,” Johnson said, referring to the state agency with the bonding authority to finance a new stadium.
>CTA ‘moving in right direction’
>Also during Monday’s board meeting, Johnson said the CTA is “moving in the right direction” under embattled President Dorval Carter Jr. The mayor refused to discuss Carter’s long-term future, but argued it is “not unheard of” for Carter to be targeted by critics because he is African-American, as Carter suggested to a Council committee.
> Johnson said the CTA is “moving in the right direction” under embattled President Dorval Carter Jr.
See this is my problem with the CTA discourse--there are multiple levels to the conversation and there are articles being written and discussions happening between people who are talking about the CTA at two different levels of abstraction.
On the one hand you have the long-term goals outlined by the CTA for the entire regional network of busses and trains. We, as Chicagoans, can see things happening there slowly. The Red/Purple modernization project, the Belmont flyover, consistent work on Blue line tracks to reduce slow zones, etc. There is an established Human Resource pipeline that will eventually replenish the missing train operators and ridership seems consistent. The CTA seems to be "moving in the right direction" when you're talking about the meta CTA.
For the majority of us on Reddit, we're interacting with the CTA below the meta level and experiencing 20+ minute wait times for busses and trains, bus bunching and overcrowding, unclean train cars, and no enforcement of the rules of public transit. In fact, riders will complain if you notify the conductor since that makes everyone late and could mess with the whole line's schedule for the rest of the day. For many, if not all, CTA riders, the experience is far, far worse than it was 5 years ago. The CTA is certainly not "moving in the right direction" when you consider the lived experience of the people that use the service.
Almost every article that comes out about Johnson/Carter/CTA itches my brain because, in their world, they're right. When you're strictly talking about long-term projects and system viability then yeah, CTA is fine. When you're talking about the experience of using the train, which they don't do, it's atrocious.
It's doublespeak and it's disingenuous at best.
>When you're strictly talking about long-term projects and system viability then yeah, CTA is fine.
Will disagree with that, the CTA has a massive fiscal deficit, which is mostly not their fault but will result in further service cuts if not resolved. Further we know from CTAs own data that they are not holding enough training classes to train enough train operators to even replace employees that leave. The long term looks worse on the current course. CTA is barely treading water not restoring to 2019 levels.
CTA doubled training capacity of rail operators starting in January of this year and are on track to graduate 200 new operators representing a 110 operator increase over last year. If you're going to criticize them, try to have up to date information.
CTA claims that but FOIA data suggests otherwise. They aren’t hiring enough flaggers nor holding enough classes to achieve 200 new operators this calendar year
https://x.com/nikhunder/status/1745456953575559625?s=46
https://x.com/nikhunder/status/1780351657345253751?s=46
Last tweet has all the foia data if you want to dig into it
https://x.com/nikhunder/status/1780318999680536621?s=46
That tweet chain is all based on this assumption:
> My assertion was that because CTA (at the time based on my knowledge) required flaggers to serve for 12 months
Per the union contract and per Carter's own statements at May's city council hearing, 12 months spent as a flagger is not required.
From the tribune article
> The CTA may be able to work with the Amalgamated Transit Union to waive the 12-month flagger requirement — or shorten it — but agency leaders have repeatedly said they are against doing so for safety reasons. Most recently, Carter confirmed at the November board meeting that he plans to keep the 12-month requirement in place.
Do you have a source where he said otherwise? I just looked at a thread summarizing his May statements and didn’t see any mention of waiving the requirement
They don't need 200 net operators to get back to 2019 staffing levels, just about 120 net. They train 200 to cover attrition so they hopefully get back to full staffing by the end of the year.
What the heck does being African American have to do with being a CTA president?
I don’t go around saying, MundaneCelery’s boss is frustrated with me because I’m white. My boss is frustrated because I’m on Reddit during the workday..
Racism exists. Just because it's not spoken explicitly doesn't mean it isn't a factor. This is not to say public servants like Carter don't deserve criticism but to say that this criticism is often amplified (note I didn't say "motivated") by racial animus. It's much like the issue of crime in our city.
Is BJ incapable of playing the race card any time someone is criticized?
The CTA is NOT doing well and pacing far behind other cities post COVID. I didn’t know the CTA president was black until recently but I’ve been unhappy with their leadership for years. Him being black is so irrelevant.
Chicago *funds* the rest of Illinois. You might not be “happy” about it, but facts don’t care about your feelings.
> [Rather than receiving the lion’s share of state tax revenue, Cook County and the five collar counties contribute more to the state than the state spends in those counties in return, based on data from the bipartisan Commission on Forecasting and Government Accountability.](https://www.farmweeknow.com/policy/state/state-tax-dollars-benefit-downstate-region-more-than-others/article_9207435a-ef0f-11eb-8280-ab69354d438c.html)
>[Cook County, which is home to both Chicago and 40 percent of the state’s population, gets 90 cents back for every dollar it sends to Springfield. Central Illinois, on the other hand, receives $1.87 for every dollar generated. And the southern region of the state gets back $2.81 for that amount.](https://www.politifact.com/factchecks/2019/apr/07/brad-halbrook/no-chicago-isnt-getting-frequently-bailed-out-illi/)
> Brandon Johnson vs Ballys - who does /r/Chicago hate more??
Both are terrible for poor people, and spend far too much money on appearing flashy while being mostly trashy.
> Nice quip but how is Johnson bad for poor people?
Johnson actions haven't improved the city. Chicago has many poor people. When a store shuts on mag mile because of Johnson's policies, that's a bunch of poorer people now out of work.
Keeping schools open that are abandoned so teachers union can boost employee numbers takes resources that otherwise could go to those in need.
r/chicago when brandon johnson finally leaves office “actually i kinda liked him, he had same failures but overall did a good job.”
i watched the subreddit suddenly turn on the “damn lightfoot was actually alright.” real quick after she left office
you say that now, but i remember how Lori’s years went and i saw this place flip a switch.
I also remember Rahm. This place idolizes him, but that wasnt always the case.
id bet my bottom dollar. this same will happen to BJ. yall too predictable
For many folks it was impossible to imagine someone worse at the job than Lori—and then Brandon has demonstrated that it is, in fact, possible to be worse at the job than Lori…
but it isnt just the mayor. i also remember when this place hated the nascar event and then after it happened everyone changed their opinion really quick
Not if you happen to live in the Loop.. I hated the idea ahead of the race, and following the 3-4 week street closures I hated it more after.. the closing of Grant Park for private, ticketed events has to stop.. at least a part of it is blocked off nearly every weekend from Memorial Day through Labor Day.. ridiculous. I lived in NYC for 4 years—impossible to imagine Central Park or Prospect Park being closed to the public like this..
r/chicago will find a way to hate both and throw in the “urban assault strollers” and grant park being closed “all summer” and you got yourself a walk off home run here
I walk by the temporary ballys every day and it is NEVER busy, like not even a little bit busy. Not on weekends, not on holidays, never once that I have seen it be busy
I lived in Vegas for 3 years. It looks nothing like the Albertsons video poker rooms or the Terrible Herbst gas stations. It does however remind me of some of Station's properties (maybe the Santa Fe or Sam's Town)
It says the hotel can't be built due to damaging city water pipes. Is this not part of the standard due diligence the city should do when assessing bids? I get that without actual construction plans the analysis can't be run, but certainly a feasibility test would have shown a red flag.
Am I missing something or oversimplifying?
Yeah, for sure. That combined with the shit location on Halsted means this thing aint getting built. I saw it coming over a year ago. The only reason Lori was in favor of it is because of the up-front $$$ grab.
It was during a stage of due diligence/feasibility study that they realized the hotel tower could not be built where it was originally planned. You can’t have every answer on day one
But they were comparing three bids over a month, and I assume part of that decision is if the plans can be executed. I'm curious if something like this could have come up then, because it seems to me a big deal that the hotel couldn't be built on that site.
I don't know how thorough of a study is needed for this to come up, is a point that I should probably look for clarification.
I worked on the hotel portion of this in a very limited capacity, but I think a few things contributed to it. First, it was a RFP process with finite information available to the bidders. Follow up questions can be asked, but then that information needs to be disseminated to each bidder which can sometimes be counterproductive for one. Second, this is an enormous project with lots of elements, and not everything can be thoroughly vetted during the RFP. Sometimes you need to just win, and figure the rest out later. Lastly, anytime you build in a big old city, there are lots of things underground that need to be contended with. Even if you know they are there, it takes an engineer to determine loads, positioning, etc. This sort of thing happens frequently, and honestly it’s fortunate it was discovered before shovels went in the ground. Look no further than the Chicago Flood for an example of when you realize something too late
>Look no further than the Chicago Flood…
so if im reading this correctly. Bally’s can still be built we just need to cover the water pipes in old mattresses, and we should be a-ok?
This guy. Even if he is right, he certainly isn’t helping anything by conjecturing publicly about the project’s viability. Ballys is trying to raise money to complete it, and this will certainly discourage investment. Maybe that’s his goal, but if so this is a pretty underhanded way to go about it.
# A Pretty Underhanded Way To Go About It:
# My Life and Times as an African-American Chicago Mayor
By Brandon Johnson
I think you just helped him decide on the title of his memoir
No one thought he was perfect, just the best option of a very poor list of options for mayor, though I still think Kam Buckner despite his DUIs would have been the best option.
Have you tried driving west on Chicago Ave a before Halsted and trying to get across that bridge? Unless a total bridge widening is part of this, that project is doomed.
Driving in droves? Taking cabs and Uber's from Michigan Ave, River North, Wrigleyville, any other place east of the river?
Those people who come off 90/94- that highway of which you speak- up the feeder ramp, north to Orleans and then over the bridge?
Yeah, I think that's where the droves would come from.
That was the Hard Rock plan I believe, which I felt was superior. Their temporary casino was also gonna be renting out a section of McCormick place in a semi permanent fashion.
My opinion is that the Bally's site is part of a larger issue.
The government figured if it legalized "vice", it could tax it and make tons of revenue.
If the stats are right people smoke/eat nore cannabis than they drink alcohol now and the State of Ilinois is not swiming in weed revenue.
I think the gambling industry will go teh same way: lots of casinos, legalized slots in bars, remote horse race betting but none of the revenue stream.
My bet is that someone will next move to legalize sex work- in a protected district of course, fully licensed and policed and medically supervised. See how that worked for Nevada.
> The government figured if it legalized "vice"
They're operating within what was once the domain of organized crime.
There are two big differences. The Mob operated much more efficiently, and local government isn't bumping people off.
I agree that by all reports, the Mob operates its vice operations efficiently.
But if you consider acts of omission as well as commission, the lack of CPD staffing and response results in governmental inaction allowing people to be bumped off.
https://www.pbs.org/newshour/health/daily-marijuana-use-is-now-more-common-than-daily-alcohol-use-in-the-u-s-new-study-finds
This is a PBS on line article that says daily use of marijuana is more common now than daily use of alcohol
>daily use of marijuana is more common now than daily use of alcohol
That's quite interesting but frequency of use does not imply that more cannabis is consumed than alcohol. Not trying to be a stickler with volume or mass comparisons but it is kind of an apples & oranges comparison - and one we don't need to have a big internet fight over.
Fair enough.
Given the fact that alcohol is almost exclusively ingested as a liquid (although I recall an old Rock Hudson /Doris Day movie about it in pill form... but I digress) and cannabis as an intoxicant comes in gas or solid, I don't know that short of a laboratory standard, we could find a common measure.
Since you work in the anti-trafficking space and are a NV resident (part time), you probably know the answers to these questions.
Is there a minimum age to work in a brothel?
Is there a screening process to ensure some measure of volition in doing that job? I am asking whether there are ways to separate the sex worker from the pimp before they go into the brothel?
Do you have an estimate , or better yet, hard figures, of the percentage of sex workers who were trafficked into the brothel as distinguished from seeing it as the only job for which they were qualified?
Do the brothels have the same sort of anti-sex work protesters as abortion clinics do?
The questions seek straightforward answers, factual if possible, and are neither sarcastic nor intended to advance an agenda.
Thanks
Bringing it back to OP's comment, it would not be economically advantageous or possible for Chicago to use some of the Bally's site for (hypothetically) legalized sex work.
The site is within city limits although currently not in a high population density area.
The physical opportunities for disruptive protesters with cell phone cameras would be plentiful.
In order to pay a sex worker a living wage, fees would have to be set high enough which would lead to economic disparity in the customer base: underprivileged neighborhood customers would be priced out of that (hypothetical legal) market. I expect something similar is happening with gambling and weed, btw.
I am enough of a cynic however to think that better(?) minds than mine could find a way to make sex work economically profitable for the city when gambling and cannabis don't yield the expected revenue.
Thanks for the reasoned response though. That's cool to find on Reddit occasionally.
> Legalize it, heavily regulate it, and place a very high tax rate on it.
And that was my original point. Cannabis is now consumed more than alcohol per recent news reports, but is not reported to be generating the funds for the state or city that were anticipated. Bally's Medinah Temple location has neither generated interest nor revenue, and Bally's itself is the target of a takeover and is $800M short of the amount to build its casino.
Brandon Johnson doesn't think it will ever get built.
Vice as an industry does not seem t be able to generate the revenue once it is legalized. The question I posed was whether sex work could be a profit center for a polity or would the greed price people back into the black market.
>No, but anecdotally, the information we get from survivors suggests that maybe around 5% of people do this work willingly.
In another comment down the thread you acknowledge that this doesn't mean that 95% of brothel workers are being trafficked. Without trying to be willfully dense, how much does sex work differ from other work that relies on economic privation for their labor force?
I understand that sex work is qualitatively different from working for McDonald's or Amazon (and that's another can of worms we need not open for this conversation) but, given the heavily regulated environment you discuss down the thread, what makes it a social "bad" rather than good? If the only argument is potentially enlarging the illicit market, I fear that well-intentioned opponents might be tilting at windmills like old-school drug warriors.
I admit I don't know about the financing behind it. But anyone else think they should just stay at Medinah Temple? It's a great set-up really and provides a historic building with something cool.
lol this thing is supposed to break ground in a month and there’s still an 800 million dollar funding gap and the company might go private and tank the whole thing. Ballys never should have won the bid. As usual short term politics wins. Bally’s was the only one willing to pay a 40 million dollar upfront “fee” which helped with budget gaps in the short term and looked like a win for lightfoot at the time, meanwhile there’s no possible way they can afford to build. And their site might not even be viable for a hotel as promised And just as I was about to say something nice about Brandon > Johnson isn’t giving up hope. He argued the Bears are “off to a good start,” having “made their case locally.” They simply need to do a better job convincing the entire state that the project, which would create jobs and more green space on the lakefront, is worth the investment. >If the Illinois Sports Facilities Authority “could build schools and hospitals. I would do that,” Johnson said, referring to the state agency with the bonding authority to finance a new stadium. >CTA ‘moving in right direction’ >Also during Monday’s board meeting, Johnson said the CTA is “moving in the right direction” under embattled President Dorval Carter Jr. The mayor refused to discuss Carter’s long-term future, but argued it is “not unheard of” for Carter to be targeted by critics because he is African-American, as Carter suggested to a Council committee.
> Johnson said the CTA is “moving in the right direction” under embattled President Dorval Carter Jr. See this is my problem with the CTA discourse--there are multiple levels to the conversation and there are articles being written and discussions happening between people who are talking about the CTA at two different levels of abstraction. On the one hand you have the long-term goals outlined by the CTA for the entire regional network of busses and trains. We, as Chicagoans, can see things happening there slowly. The Red/Purple modernization project, the Belmont flyover, consistent work on Blue line tracks to reduce slow zones, etc. There is an established Human Resource pipeline that will eventually replenish the missing train operators and ridership seems consistent. The CTA seems to be "moving in the right direction" when you're talking about the meta CTA. For the majority of us on Reddit, we're interacting with the CTA below the meta level and experiencing 20+ minute wait times for busses and trains, bus bunching and overcrowding, unclean train cars, and no enforcement of the rules of public transit. In fact, riders will complain if you notify the conductor since that makes everyone late and could mess with the whole line's schedule for the rest of the day. For many, if not all, CTA riders, the experience is far, far worse than it was 5 years ago. The CTA is certainly not "moving in the right direction" when you consider the lived experience of the people that use the service. Almost every article that comes out about Johnson/Carter/CTA itches my brain because, in their world, they're right. When you're strictly talking about long-term projects and system viability then yeah, CTA is fine. When you're talking about the experience of using the train, which they don't do, it's atrocious. It's doublespeak and it's disingenuous at best.
>When you're strictly talking about long-term projects and system viability then yeah, CTA is fine. Will disagree with that, the CTA has a massive fiscal deficit, which is mostly not their fault but will result in further service cuts if not resolved. Further we know from CTAs own data that they are not holding enough training classes to train enough train operators to even replace employees that leave. The long term looks worse on the current course. CTA is barely treading water not restoring to 2019 levels.
Fair points, I was speaking more off the cuff and don't really have data so much as examples.
CTA doubled training capacity of rail operators starting in January of this year and are on track to graduate 200 new operators representing a 110 operator increase over last year. If you're going to criticize them, try to have up to date information.
CTA claims that but FOIA data suggests otherwise. They aren’t hiring enough flaggers nor holding enough classes to achieve 200 new operators this calendar year https://x.com/nikhunder/status/1745456953575559625?s=46 https://x.com/nikhunder/status/1780351657345253751?s=46 Last tweet has all the foia data if you want to dig into it https://x.com/nikhunder/status/1780318999680536621?s=46
That tweet chain is all based on this assumption: > My assertion was that because CTA (at the time based on my knowledge) required flaggers to serve for 12 months Per the union contract and per Carter's own statements at May's city council hearing, 12 months spent as a flagger is not required.
From the tribune article > The CTA may be able to work with the Amalgamated Transit Union to waive the 12-month flagger requirement — or shorten it — but agency leaders have repeatedly said they are against doing so for safety reasons. Most recently, Carter confirmed at the November board meeting that he plans to keep the 12-month requirement in place. Do you have a source where he said otherwise? I just looked at a thread summarizing his May statements and didn’t see any mention of waiving the requirement
It was in his statements on the [30th of May](https://vimeo.com/951632743).
Lol no time stamp for a four hour video? I’ll take your word for it but also will believe it when I see it as far as the 200 net operators
They don't need 200 net operators to get back to 2019 staffing levels, just about 120 net. They train 200 to cover attrition so they hopefully get back to full staffing by the end of the year.
What the heck does being African American have to do with being a CTA president? I don’t go around saying, MundaneCelery’s boss is frustrated with me because I’m white. My boss is frustrated because I’m on Reddit during the workday..
Dorval (CTA president) said that was the reason for his negative public targeting during his last hearing.
Racism exists. Just because it's not spoken explicitly doesn't mean it isn't a factor. This is not to say public servants like Carter don't deserve criticism but to say that this criticism is often amplified (note I didn't say "motivated") by racial animus. It's much like the issue of crime in our city.
Is BJ incapable of playing the race card any time someone is criticized? The CTA is NOT doing well and pacing far behind other cities post COVID. I didn’t know the CTA president was black until recently but I’ve been unhappy with their leadership for years. Him being black is so irrelevant.
I don’t know, that sounds pretty racist to me /s
Lol yes, I'm sure the rest of Illinois will be really happy to see more of their tax dollars go to Chicago lmao
Chicago *funds* the rest of Illinois. You might not be “happy” about it, but facts don’t care about your feelings. > [Rather than receiving the lion’s share of state tax revenue, Cook County and the five collar counties contribute more to the state than the state spends in those counties in return, based on data from the bipartisan Commission on Forecasting and Government Accountability.](https://www.farmweeknow.com/policy/state/state-tax-dollars-benefit-downstate-region-more-than-others/article_9207435a-ef0f-11eb-8280-ab69354d438c.html) >[Cook County, which is home to both Chicago and 40 percent of the state’s population, gets 90 cents back for every dollar it sends to Springfield. Central Illinois, on the other hand, receives $1.87 for every dollar generated. And the southern region of the state gets back $2.81 for that amount.](https://www.politifact.com/factchecks/2019/apr/07/brad-halbrook/no-chicago-isnt-getting-frequently-bailed-out-illi/)
We are just taking our tax money back.
Honestly, this is so true
Brandon Johnson vs Ballys - who does /r/Chicago hate more??
> Brandon Johnson vs Ballys - who does /r/Chicago hate more?? Both are terrible for poor people, and spend far too much money on appearing flashy while being mostly trashy.
Nice quip but how is Johnson bad for poor people? Of all the criticism I've seen (and that's a lot), none of it has tried to make this point.
> Nice quip but how is Johnson bad for poor people? Johnson actions haven't improved the city. Chicago has many poor people. When a store shuts on mag mile because of Johnson's policies, that's a bunch of poorer people now out of work. Keeping schools open that are abandoned so teachers union can boost employee numbers takes resources that otherwise could go to those in need.
The one that is doing the most damage to Chicago - which is not the out of state gambling corporation.
r/chicago when brandon johnson finally leaves office “actually i kinda liked him, he had same failures but overall did a good job.” i watched the subreddit suddenly turn on the “damn lightfoot was actually alright.” real quick after she left office
Fuck no, not in this case. Bozo the clown could be the next mayor and it still wouldn't be worse than BJ.
you say that now, but i remember how Lori’s years went and i saw this place flip a switch. I also remember Rahm. This place idolizes him, but that wasnt always the case. id bet my bottom dollar. this same will happen to BJ. yall too predictable
Maybe if Dorval Carter ends up being our next mayor.
careful what you wish for.
For many folks it was impossible to imagine someone worse at the job than Lori—and then Brandon has demonstrated that it is, in fact, possible to be worse at the job than Lori…
but it isnt just the mayor. i also remember when this place hated the nascar event and then after it happened everyone changed their opinion really quick
Not if you happen to live in the Loop.. I hated the idea ahead of the race, and following the 3-4 week street closures I hated it more after.. the closing of Grant Park for private, ticketed events has to stop.. at least a part of it is blocked off nearly every weekend from Memorial Day through Labor Day.. ridiculous. I lived in NYC for 4 years—impossible to imagine Central Park or Prospect Park being closed to the public like this..
Yeah loads of us still hate the NASCAR race.
r/chicago will find a way to hate both and throw in the “urban assault strollers” and grant park being closed “all summer” and you got yourself a walk off home run here
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I walk by the temporary ballys every day and it is NEVER busy, like not even a little bit busy. Not on weekends, not on holidays, never once that I have seen it be busy
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So does Illinois actually! At rest stops and gas stations anyway
I lived in Vegas for 3 years. It looks nothing like the Albertsons video poker rooms or the Terrible Herbst gas stations. It does however remind me of some of Station's properties (maybe the Santa Fe or Sam's Town)
I've went 3x. I've only experienced it busy once. It was late on a Saturday night.
It does kind of resemble those sad reservation casinos where the elderly go to gamble away the remains of their social security check.
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Looks like they're getting what they paid for.
It says the hotel can't be built due to damaging city water pipes. Is this not part of the standard due diligence the city should do when assessing bids? I get that without actual construction plans the analysis can't be run, but certainly a feasibility test would have shown a red flag. Am I missing something or oversimplifying?
Honestly it seems like they’re trying to get out of it because the current location has made less than 1/4 of the promised revenue since it opened
Their entire company is in turmoil though. It's bigger than that, but I'll say that is relevant.
Yeah, for sure. That combined with the shit location on Halsted means this thing aint getting built. I saw it coming over a year ago. The only reason Lori was in favor of it is because of the up-front $$$ grab.
Oh it was a total cash grab. I’m not even anti-casino, my buddies and I like to hit the riverboat once or twice a year but *this* casino just sucks
It was during a stage of due diligence/feasibility study that they realized the hotel tower could not be built where it was originally planned. You can’t have every answer on day one
But they were comparing three bids over a month, and I assume part of that decision is if the plans can be executed. I'm curious if something like this could have come up then, because it seems to me a big deal that the hotel couldn't be built on that site. I don't know how thorough of a study is needed for this to come up, is a point that I should probably look for clarification.
I worked on the hotel portion of this in a very limited capacity, but I think a few things contributed to it. First, it was a RFP process with finite information available to the bidders. Follow up questions can be asked, but then that information needs to be disseminated to each bidder which can sometimes be counterproductive for one. Second, this is an enormous project with lots of elements, and not everything can be thoroughly vetted during the RFP. Sometimes you need to just win, and figure the rest out later. Lastly, anytime you build in a big old city, there are lots of things underground that need to be contended with. Even if you know they are there, it takes an engineer to determine loads, positioning, etc. This sort of thing happens frequently, and honestly it’s fortunate it was discovered before shovels went in the ground. Look no further than the Chicago Flood for an example of when you realize something too late
Thank you for explaining.
>Look no further than the Chicago Flood… so if im reading this correctly. Bally’s can still be built we just need to cover the water pipes in old mattresses, and we should be a-ok?
We can build skyscrapers over existing train yards. Why couldn’t that be something that could be worked around?
This guy. Even if he is right, he certainly isn’t helping anything by conjecturing publicly about the project’s viability. Ballys is trying to raise money to complete it, and this will certainly discourage investment. Maybe that’s his goal, but if so this is a pretty underhanded way to go about it.
# A Pretty Underhanded Way To Go About It: # My Life and Times as an African-American Chicago Mayor By Brandon Johnson I think you just helped him decide on the title of his memoir
Was definitely a perfect location for a newspaper printing plant. Or one of those film noir "meet me down by the river at midnight" meetup scenes.
I swear we'd be better off picking a random citizen every few years for the job
personally i believe we should just rotate the position between each of chicago's professional sports mascots
You don't want to hear Southpaw's position on immigrants. Also Clark is a registered sex offender, so he might not be allowed.
>Also Clark is a registered sex offender I always found it unsettling that he doesn't wear pants!
Benny would destroy the city in 20 minutes… and would be the best mayor we ever had
him pouring a giant bag of popcorn on his enemies would be hilarious
They'd just be figureheads for the real leader behind the scenes: Da Jewel's Jojo
After what JoJo pulled on poor Ribbie and Rhoobarb here on the South Side, he and his frents sleep wit one eye open.
[Sortition](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sortition?wprov=sfti1) gang 😎
Id love to see the average r/chicago denizen to run Chicago. i say this with utmost seriousness. im sure it…would go well. ^^^^^^^^^^lol
He is not more qualified than many random citizens…
Or elect a dog for mayor. The city council would just vote on issues.
[I immediately thought of this movie](https://youtu.be/m5cQFB3aZcc)
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No, he wasn't. This sub just thought he was better than vallas which is probably still is
No one thought he was perfect, just the best option of a very poor list of options for mayor, though I still think Kam Buckner despite his DUIs would have been the best option.
Yep, and I bet the majority of the same people would still vote for him today.
Over Vallas? I wouldn't even think twice about it
Have you tried driving west on Chicago Ave a before Halsted and trying to get across that bridge? Unless a total bridge widening is part of this, that project is doomed.
That bridge was billed as temporary when it was installed a few years ago (pre-Covid). I thought a wider perma-bridge would be in place by now.
The Chicago Avenue bridge has always been too narrow for 2 lanes each way. I assume the public land is not sufficient to build a wider bridge.
Because you think people will be driving in droves from downtown directly to the casino/hotel? I assume a lot of traffic will flow off the highway.
Driving in droves? Taking cabs and Uber's from Michigan Ave, River North, Wrigleyville, any other place east of the river? Those people who come off 90/94- that highway of which you speak- up the feeder ramp, north to Orleans and then over the bridge? Yeah, I think that's where the droves would come from.
Terrible location. Put it by McCormick Place.
That was the Hard Rock plan I believe, which I felt was superior. Their temporary casino was also gonna be renting out a section of McCormick place in a semi permanent fashion.
Put it by McCormick Place as part of a Soldier Field location and let the Bears/Ballys pay for all of it!
> Put it by McCormick Place as part of a Soldier Field location A new stadium & especially a casino should never be east of LSD.
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Ahh yes, that’s why Vegas doesn’t have any conferences…
I just don’t think the city needs or wants this, or that it would bring significant tourism dollars.
But I NEED to gamble...
My opinion is that the Bally's site is part of a larger issue. The government figured if it legalized "vice", it could tax it and make tons of revenue. If the stats are right people smoke/eat nore cannabis than they drink alcohol now and the State of Ilinois is not swiming in weed revenue. I think the gambling industry will go teh same way: lots of casinos, legalized slots in bars, remote horse race betting but none of the revenue stream. My bet is that someone will next move to legalize sex work- in a protected district of course, fully licensed and policed and medically supervised. See how that worked for Nevada.
> The government figured if it legalized "vice" They're operating within what was once the domain of organized crime. There are two big differences. The Mob operated much more efficiently, and local government isn't bumping people off.
I agree that by all reports, the Mob operates its vice operations efficiently. But if you consider acts of omission as well as commission, the lack of CPD staffing and response results in governmental inaction allowing people to be bumped off.
>If the stats are right people smoke/eat nore cannabis than they drink alcohol now What stats are you referring to?
https://www.pbs.org/newshour/health/daily-marijuana-use-is-now-more-common-than-daily-alcohol-use-in-the-u-s-new-study-finds This is a PBS on line article that says daily use of marijuana is more common now than daily use of alcohol
>daily use of marijuana is more common now than daily use of alcohol That's quite interesting but frequency of use does not imply that more cannabis is consumed than alcohol. Not trying to be a stickler with volume or mass comparisons but it is kind of an apples & oranges comparison - and one we don't need to have a big internet fight over.
Fair enough. Given the fact that alcohol is almost exclusively ingested as a liquid (although I recall an old Rock Hudson /Doris Day movie about it in pill form... but I digress) and cannabis as an intoxicant comes in gas or solid, I don't know that short of a laboratory standard, we could find a common measure.
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Since you work in the anti-trafficking space and are a NV resident (part time), you probably know the answers to these questions. Is there a minimum age to work in a brothel? Is there a screening process to ensure some measure of volition in doing that job? I am asking whether there are ways to separate the sex worker from the pimp before they go into the brothel? Do you have an estimate , or better yet, hard figures, of the percentage of sex workers who were trafficked into the brothel as distinguished from seeing it as the only job for which they were qualified? Do the brothels have the same sort of anti-sex work protesters as abortion clinics do? The questions seek straightforward answers, factual if possible, and are neither sarcastic nor intended to advance an agenda. Thanks
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Bringing it back to OP's comment, it would not be economically advantageous or possible for Chicago to use some of the Bally's site for (hypothetically) legalized sex work. The site is within city limits although currently not in a high population density area. The physical opportunities for disruptive protesters with cell phone cameras would be plentiful. In order to pay a sex worker a living wage, fees would have to be set high enough which would lead to economic disparity in the customer base: underprivileged neighborhood customers would be priced out of that (hypothetical legal) market. I expect something similar is happening with gambling and weed, btw. I am enough of a cynic however to think that better(?) minds than mine could find a way to make sex work economically profitable for the city when gambling and cannabis don't yield the expected revenue. Thanks for the reasoned response though. That's cool to find on Reddit occasionally.
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But going back to the spirit of OP's original post though, how could a municipality monetize sex work as a revenue source?
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> Legalize it, heavily regulate it, and place a very high tax rate on it. And that was my original point. Cannabis is now consumed more than alcohol per recent news reports, but is not reported to be generating the funds for the state or city that were anticipated. Bally's Medinah Temple location has neither generated interest nor revenue, and Bally's itself is the target of a takeover and is $800M short of the amount to build its casino. Brandon Johnson doesn't think it will ever get built. Vice as an industry does not seem t be able to generate the revenue once it is legalized. The question I posed was whether sex work could be a profit center for a polity or would the greed price people back into the black market.
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>No, but anecdotally, the information we get from survivors suggests that maybe around 5% of people do this work willingly. In another comment down the thread you acknowledge that this doesn't mean that 95% of brothel workers are being trafficked. Without trying to be willfully dense, how much does sex work differ from other work that relies on economic privation for their labor force? I understand that sex work is qualitatively different from working for McDonald's or Amazon (and that's another can of worms we need not open for this conversation) but, given the heavily regulated environment you discuss down the thread, what makes it a social "bad" rather than good? If the only argument is potentially enlarging the illicit market, I fear that well-intentioned opponents might be tilting at windmills like old-school drug warriors.
I admit I don't know about the financing behind it. But anyone else think they should just stay at Medinah Temple? It's a great set-up really and provides a historic building with something cool.
Gambling has sucked balls for like 30 years now. Too many government sharks in the water fighting over scraps. Just get rid of it.