Opinion| Lawrence David| Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot has been reduced to pleading with major retailers to rebuild in her city. Mayor Lightfoot is reacting to the possibility of losing millions of dollars in taxes each store generates annually.
Lightfoot should have thought about that before she ordered the police not to protect the properties from looting and arsonist… something she was called out for by Alderman Raymond Lopez…
(CBS Chicago) As looters were ransacking businesses throughout the city more than a week ago, Mayor Lori Lightfoot and Ald. Raymond Lopez (15th), one of her harshest critics, engaged in an angry and foul-mouthed argument over the city’s handling of the widespread violence.
During a conference call with all 50 aldermen on May 31 to discuss the city’s response to the looting, Lopez accused the mayor of being unprepared when looting spread from downtown to the neighborhoods that weekend…
Afterall, why does anyone pay taxes if not for protection before anything else? That goes for businesses as well.
Inner city residents, many of them economically challenged, depend on major retailers for food and clothing at affordable prices.
If these businesses disappear residents will be forced to line up in bodegas where necessities are often more expensive, or to leave the city to shop at big box retailers like Walmart that locate elsewhere… costing the city millions of dollars in tax revenue.
Finally awakening to the conundrum she’s put her constituents in, Mayor Lightfoot held a conference call pleading with these retailers not to abandon Chicago…
CHICAGO (WBBM NEWSRADIO) — Mayor Lightfoot said she’s hopeful major retailers will reopen the Chicago stores that were looted or otherwise damaged during protests surrounding George Floyd’s killing by police in Minnesota. But, she’s unsure of one of the biggest.
Mayor Lightfoot said she was on a conference call with Walmart and other major retailers that had stores looted or heavily damaged during the unrest in Chicago. She said she pleaded with them to not abandon Chicago.
Recent calls by radical leftists running major cities to defund and/or disband their police departments is only adding to the calculus being done by retailers and other corporations that operate… or operated… inside Democrat dominated inner cities where already high insurance costs can be expected to go even higher.
Among those companies Mayor Lightfoot is fearful of leaving is the world’s largest retailer, Walmart. Walmart, has been a favorite punching bag of left wing politicians for decades. The retailing mammoth may finally have had enough.
Funny how liberal lies about corporations not paying their fair share of taxes comes so clearly into focus when the threat of losing those dollars becomes obvious.
