Chicago Suburbs Block Government-Imposed Migrant Housing with Big Hotel Taxes
Two Chicago suburbs have enacted steep $1,000-per-month taxes on hotels in an effort to stop plans by the state of Illinois to use the facilities for long-term migrant housing.
The latest city to enact this harsh tax is northwest suburban Schaumburg, which implemented the tax for those staying longer than 30 days after hearing that state officials were looking at three hotels in the city to use for long-term housing for illegal aliens, the Daily Herald reported.
The general procedure in the past has been for the state to contract directly with hotel operators without involving local government officials.
The first city to enact such a tax — aimed to convince hotels not to engage in such contracts — was Rosemont, a town with a long strip of hotels that usually caters to the convention business. The hotels surround the Donald E. Stephens Convention Center, an 840,000 sq. ft. facility that hosts a wide array of events.
Rosemont is also right at the eastern edge of O’Hare International Airport, and many of the hotels in the city cater to travelers out of one of the world’s busiest hubs.
Rosemont Mayor Brad Stephens, though, was alarmed by plans being floated by Chicago developer Mike Reschke, who was hoping to pull in up to eight hotels in the area to host thousands of illegals.
Like Mayor Stephens, Schaumburg Mayor Tom Dailly was alarmed by the plans for the region’s hotels. “The goal here is to protect our hotels,” he recently said.
Still, Schaumburg Village Manager Brian Townsend pointed out that there are already migrants in his town, and they have settled in just fine. And he insisted that the steep hotel tax is not an effort to keep migrants away from Schaumburg.
“We want to make sure it’s done in a planned and responsible way,” Townsend explained. “We’ve developed a solution we think works.”
Both cities added provisions that residents affected by house fires or other disasters or corporate employees living in the area for an extended but not permanent period would be exempt from triggering the tax.
Schaumburg and Rosemont apparently hope to avoid the experience of Burr Ridge Mayor Gary Grasso, who, in September 2022, discovered that the city of Chicago had dropped off dozens of illegals at the Burr Ridge hotel after the hotel agreed to house migrants. The housing plan, though, was a total surprise to Grasso and his city council, neither of which were informed of the plan ahead of time.
The two towns are also likely wary of the idea of housing migrants in hotels, especially after the many problems seen at similar facilities in Chicago.
WATCH: Immigrants Make Camp, Scatter Belongings and Trash in Police Stations Around Chicago
Rebecca Brannon, Independent Photojournalist/LOCAL NEWS X /TMXChicago’s 42nd Ward Alderman Brendan Reilly, for instance, became highly concerned after city officials contracted with a hotel in his Ward when the area surrounding the hotel became a locus for criminal behavior, prostitution, drug dealing, litter, and noise complaints.
Reilly wrote a letter to the mayor’s office in July, speaking of the “concerns my office receives daily regarding new arrivals living at the Inn of Chicago.”
Reilly warned that his voters are expressing “concerns about migrants loitering, littering, illegally parking their vehicles, and leaving human waste on the sidewalks near the hotel.”
The alderman also noted that residents are reporting that illegals “have been seen selling narcotics and engaging in lewd activity, including possible prostitution” in and around the location.
Residents organized in Chicago’s Hyde Park neighborhood in August when the city quietly arranged to house migrants in the Lake Shore Hotel in the district. The hotel had been used to stockpile dozens of migrants in the past, and residents said that crime, loitering, drugs, litter, and other forms of lawlessness increased immediately upon the arrival of the border crossers.
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Chicago Mayor Cancels Public Gallery in City Council Chambers After Public Protests of His Sanctuary City Policies
The self-professed “progressive” Mayor of Chicago Brandon Johnson is taking heat for the “antidemocratic” move of shutting down the public gallery in the city council chambers after weeks of citizens filling the gallery and vociferously protesting his sanctuary city policies.
The mayor has canceled the open-door policy for the second-floor gallery where citizens once could take a seat to watch the proceedings of the council as it debates issues, sets policies, and works to pass statutes.
In the past, the gallery was open to the public on a first-come, first-serve basis. But now, the mayor has changed the rules with a new policy where gallery seats are doled out only to those who have asked an alderman for permission to attend a session.
The change in the gallery seating policy comes after months of sometimes disruptive behavior from citizens who came to watch over the city council’s business, and in almost every case recently, the spark for that disruption was the mayor’s migrant spending plans.
Citizens will be allowed to sit in the third-floor gallery, but this small viewing platform is high above the chambers and is also behind glass where any catcalls or comments will go unheard by the council members and the mayor down below.
The change is sudden enough that city hall’s written rules still say, “The public is admitted to the Gallery’s non-reserved seats on a first-come, first-served basis,” a policy that used to apply to both the second and third-floor balconies.
But as of this week, citizens have been directed only to the third floor and have been told that the second floor is for reserved seating only.
A story by WBEZ, the outlet that broke the news, says the new gallery plan “has not been published publicly” but “will remain indefinitely.”
The new policy set Chicago’s Better Government Association (BGA) on edge.
The BGA railed about the sudden and unannounced change in the gallery policy and insisted that “Personal relationships with elected officials should not be a determining factor in the public’s access to public meetings. Any new rules or restrictions should be applied equally to all attendees, with no carve-outs for aldermanic or mayoral invitations.”
The BGA went on to torch Johnson who came to office claiming that he would have the “most transparent” city hall ever:
Despite pledges of greater transparency during his campaign and a “City Hall Open House” photo-op at his inauguration, Mayor Johnson has more significantly restricted access to the upper floors of City Hall – including aldermanic and mayoral office suites as well as the council chambers – than any of his predecessors. The public is not even allowed access to the stairs or elevators until shortly before public meetings, and the new, unpublished seating rules banish most attendees to the upper balcony, which offers more limited viewing and hearing, as well as suffering from overcrowding and overheating.
The Chicago Tribune equally excoriated this “transparent” mayor in an editorial on Thursday calling Johnson’s move “antidemocratic.”
The Tribune added:
Johnson is intent on pushing through a City Council dominated by progressives like him a host of policies that strike hard at business in Chicago. He also has taken controversial steps on addressing the migrant crisis, the source of much of the recent unruliness in the council chamber. And this from for a mayor who styles himself a game-changing politician of the people. If the mayor believes the public supports these policies, he shouldn’t be afraid to face some of what he clearly views as negative optics.
The paper also slammed Johnson for changing the policy with neither public notice nor public debate:
The substance of what has happened here isn’t the only thing disturbing about this move. A civic decision of this magnitude isn’t ordinarily communicated solely via a strikingly sycophantic story in an outlet the mayor perceives as friendly. The tactic just raises more questions about this administration’s competence in handling basic functions and its lack of an effective and transparent communications operation.
“City Council works for the people,” the Tribune concluded. “They have a right to watch in person.”
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