There are numerous ways in which we could afford to make this additional tax reduction without impacting health and human services, or in fact the delivery of any of our essential city services. In fact there is also the potential to add at least an additional $2 million to our condo rebate fund which is woefully backlogged. As of mid-day on October 30th we owed just over $3.9 million in rebates filed and passed for years prior to 1997. This means that the $4 million currently budgeted for 1999 will guarantee payments of these outstanding debts only through the end of 1996. This time next year we will be exactly where we are today: almost three years behind.

I also proposed a change in the parking/towing administrative adjudication process to allow the refund of towing charges to drivers who win hearings on parking tickets for which their cars were towed; diversity training for all personnel working in adjudication sites; conflict resolution and diversity training for all CAPS beat facilitators and District Advisory Council members; a rethinking of planned expenditures out of the Cable Fund for equipment to be used by the Office of Emergency Communications in order to put money aside for the eventual wiring of the City Council Chambers to allow for cable transmissions; and a comprehensive winter tree trimming plan for the beetle quarantine area.

While there is some agreement to evaluate and possibly pilot some of these suggestions, it was made clear to me that there will not be any additional property tax relief; that any additions to the condo line item will be very limited; and that any plans for wiring city council for cable are off the map let alone any table for discussion.

I have a long standing concern about how what we do in these chambers impacts the affordability of Chicago. For this reason, the material impact of additional property tax relief was worth bargaining for. However, this was not to be.