The announced closure of the Save-A-Lot store at 79th and Halsted is yet another disappointment for the residents of Auburn Gresham’s 17th Ward.
This outcome raises serious questions about the judgment exercised by the local alderman David Moore and the city’s planning and economic development officials when they championed this project. Community members were encouraged to believe that the operator, Yellow Banana, represented a transformational, Black-led investment in the neighborhood. At numerous public meetings, Michael Nance served as the public face of the venture through Yellow Banana/127 Wall Holdings LLC while Joe Canfield was widely understood to be the company’s principal executive and driving force behind the enterprise.
The community was repeatedly assured that this leadership team — and the credentials they touted, including a Yale Law education — would bring the expertise and vision needed to succeed where others had struggled. Those assurances have not translated into a sustainable neighborhood grocery store.
The reported passing of Canfield has also been cited as a significant factor in the company’s decline, underscoring how dependent the venture may have been on a single individual.
For residents, however, the reasons matter less than the result. They are once again left with fewer essential services in a community that has endured a steady erosion of neighborhood institutions.
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Residents deserve more than ribbon cuttings and optimistic announcements. They deserve leadership that performs meaningful due diligence, asks difficult questions before celebrating new ventures, and delivers investments that can withstand the test of time. Auburn Gresham has heard too many promises and witnessed too many closures. The community deserves better.
— Timothy “Tim” Thomas Jr., secretary of the 79th and Peoria Block Club, Chicago
Witch hunt
Sen. Rand Paul ought to be ashamed of himself for bullying Dr. Anthony Fauci in the committee hearing. Fauci invoked the Fifth Amendment rather than fall into Paul’s trap to incriminate the epidemiologist in the Republican-driven witch hunt. Fauci worked tirelessly to ameliorate the effects of COVID-19 pandemic while President Donald Trump rejected the seriousness of the pandemic. Many more people could have died had Fauci not been at the helm.
— Michael Oakes, Chicago
Show trial
So, the latest entry in Republicans’ desperate efforts to keep control of Congress is The Anthony Fauci Show Trial.
Typically, Trump was never as interested in effectively countering COVID-19 as he was in shifting or avoiding blame for it. Those without first-term amnesia will remember examples like Trump not wanting to allow U.S. citizens to come ashore from a cruise ship that had suffered a COVID outbreak because allowing them to return to their home country would make his numbers look bad. He suggested that there should be less testing for COVID-19 because testing increased the case count. He promoted quack cures for the disease that, surely, cost lives as people were diverted from actual remedies, like vaccines.
Trump obsessed, and is likely still obsessing about a malignant Chinese origin for the coronavirus. He claimed that the Chinese were withholding information, implying that the pandemic was their fault. At that point, stopping transmission of the virus was much more important than its home address was, but the latter interested Trump far more than the former did.
If the Senate wants to investigate something about the pandemic, I suggest that it follow up on the congressional testimony of Dr. Deborah Birx, who led the White House COVID-19 response team. She estimated that, because of things done and not done by the Trump administration, 130,000 Americans died unnecessarily because of the pandemic.
During or soon after the Fauci Show Trial would be a good time to rerun the House January 6th hearings so people can see each with a fresh memory of the other and judge for themselves which stands up better to the comparison.
— Curt Fredrikson, Mokena
Cutting townships
Recent mailings from candidates who will be on the ballot in November claim that they will work to lower property taxes. Of course everyone wants lower property taxes, but what is missing is how that will happen. Comments such as, “spend less,” do not have any meaning when specific areas of where to spend less are never defined.
Andy Shaw’s recent article in the July 28 Tribune, “The side of Illinois Pritzker would rather ignore”, speaks to the many units of government in Illinois. Illinois has the notoriety of having more units of government than any other state, and by a bunch! Each unit of government layers more taxes on our property tax bill. Many of these units of government, such as townships, predate municipalities and are legacy government units that are now redundant.
If people running to represent taxpayers are really serious about lowering property taxes, it seems they should be talking about structural changes for Illinois. Decreasing units of government is a large area to work on with some low hanging units, such as townships. This would not be easy as each of these government units are invested in staying as they are and will claim important benefits for the community. This type of structural reform would really address waste and inefficiency, and contribute to long-term positive tax change. Government unit reductions deserve attention and candidates should be addressing this issue if they claim they want to lower property taxes.
— Laura Davis, Inverness
Absurd
The July 30 Tribune editorial describes the platform of the Democratic Socialists as “absurd” (“What do Democratic Socialists want? We took a look at their platform”). Given some of the ideas such as abolishing prisons and defunding the Pentagon, that seems like a reasonable argument.
But let’s look at what 77 million Americans voted for two years ago: A convicted felon and sexual predator as president. The pardoning of over 1,000 violent criminals who attacked the United States Congress. A Justice Department with the primary mission of getting revenge on the president’s enemies. Armed, masked troops in our cities harassing and arresting contributing members of our communities based on their skin color or ethnicity (and killing innocent people). A Fox News host running the Department of Defense and mishandling a war that most of us did not want and Congress did not approve. An anti-vaxxer in charge of the nation’s health. A campaign to disenfranchise millions of voters. The intimidation and harassment of journalists and judges who do not agree with the president.
It seems our current situation is just as “absurd”, or more so, than what the socialists are proposing.
— Sanford Stein, Evanston
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