McHenry County Blog

100 politicians showed up to show their support of a consensus for raising taxes for mass transit, the Chicago Tribune reported Wednesday.

Here’s the press release complete with subhead

Status quo for transit funding is not sustainable

To find the names of your local officials (I see 3 from McHenry County) , read the press release. If you want to have some fun, ask them which tax they favor hiking.

There was, of course, a regional consensus among similar

politicians, transit officials, labor representatives, businessmen and community activists

in 1973 when the Regional Transportation Authority Act was passed.

That “consensus” deteriorated to a 50-50 referendum passed by less than 13,000 votes at the primary election in March 1974.

Some consensus.

Rumor has it that Roger Stanley, the RTA Citizens Committee for Better Transportation’s pollster, found kNOw RTA forces were gaining one percentage point a day in the closing days of the campaign. (Stanley paid bribes to Metra Board member Don Udstuen and got a lighter sentence, after protesting loudly that he would not flip, for helping in the George Ryan corruption case.)

Of course, Chicagoland’s politicians have learned from that experience.

No future tax hike will have to be approved by referendum.

You can bet on that.

I do find almost quaint the title of the consensus report:

Moving Beyond Congestion

In whose lifetime?

Incidentally, blogger Dan Johnson-Weinberger is doing work for the project.