Is the casino about to deal a losing hand for aldermanic privilege?
One thing is becoming very clear: In order to push through the Chicago casino, and score the projected $150 million or so in new city revenue, Mayor Lori Lightfoot is going to have to go all in against aldermanic prerogative.
Why? Simple. All of the aldermen representing the wards still in consideration for the big gambling emporium say they would prefer the mayor take her craps tables someplace else.
This is hardly surprising. Aldermanic fortunes rise and fall based on how the residents of their wards perceive the quality of their representation at City Hall. And now that all the projected sites — The 78, the Chicago Tribune printing campus and the One Chicago development that not yet is — have had their public meetings, we can authoritatively state that almost no one in Chicago wants to live right next to a casino. And all the fancy consultants and traffic studies and beautification plans are not about to change their minds.
This is one of the consequences of the city and state’s collective decision to ramp up, and profit from, undesirable activities. Few people would want to live next door to a weed dispensary, either. And you can be for legalized pot and still throw your hands up in horror at the recently announced proposal for a marijuana dispensary at the former site of the Rainforest Cafe, cute frog and all. This is progress for Chicago? Casinos cleaned up their acts decades ago, but they still bring people, neon, congestion and 24/7 action. In Chicago, they also bring an element of the unknown. Residents wonder who might be lingering, ecstatic or broke, outside their doors. They worry about their property values and, maybe, what their kids might see from their bedroom windows. Even if they like playing blackjack, that doesn’t mean they want the Megabucks jackpot ringing just a few hundred feet away.
So aldermen are singing the NIMBY tune, even at The 78, which is theoretically an entirely new Chicago neighborhood. Ald. Byron Sigcho-Lopez, 25th, doesn’t like The 78 as a site, arguing in part that it would prey on residents of Chinatown, long targeted by casinos. Ald. Pat Dowell, 3rd, says she “cannot support” the One Central proposal from Hard Rock, which is looking especially unlikely.
Ald. Walter Burnett Jr., 27th, nearly turned himself into a pretzel trying to hedge his bets, telling a Block Club reporter that he “really doesn’t want to be bothered” with a casino that clearly is bothering his constituents in nearby condos to the Tribune site.
No fool, Burnett has figured out there is no way to win. “No one wants to be in this position because you’re darned if you do, darned if you don’t,” he said. Not exactly a ringing endorsement, even if his equivocation, plus the recent Crain’s Chicago Business revelation that Bally’s had paid less in proposal fees to the city than its rival Rivers, led some around town to wonder if the fix was in for Bally’s and River West.
No one yet knows. The more interesting long-term question is whether Lightfoot will pick one of these three finalists in the face of this aldermanic opposition, thus striking a blow against the quaint Chicago tradition known as aldermanic privilege, in which the boss of the ward gets to approve or veto all major development projects.
This page has railed against this notion for years, not least on the grounds that it’s too tempting an opportunity for graft, as we have seen in the allegations involving Ald. Edward Burke, 14th, and the interplay of former Illinois House Speaker Michael Madigan with Ald. Daniel Solis, 25th.
Business interests know which one person they have to please and offer up favors of varying degrees of legality, putting aldermen in the way of temptation. It’s not a good thing for the city. And while many aldermen see it as the root of their power, it’s not good for aldermen either, at least those who don’t want to be put in potentially compromising positions.
Lightfoot could fold her cards entirely, or argue that the big casino is a citywide benefit of a scope that goes beyond quotidian bows to the person closest to a neighborhood and then go back to business as usual. There are precedents, arguably including the Lincoln Yards development. Maybe the casino interests will be presumed upon to sweeten neighborhood pots with assurances and amenities; Burnett sounds pliable.
We’d rather see this an opportunity to think as a city about what’s best for everyone, whether it’s a casino, a fancy weed store, a trash incinerator or whatever else. NIMBY protests have their place and while we don’t all have a backyard, most us lay down our heads somewhere we wish to be amenable.
But there are things that are good for a city, but not necessarily for those in the surrounding blocks. That’s why we elect a mayor and the City Council votes as a whole.
Neighborhoods have the right to be heard. But sometimes a functional city must act in unison.