The Trust was a bust. Now where's Bill and Randi?
Back in 2012, Rahm's proposed Infrastructure Trust got him him great press, especially with flack David Axelrod pumping it like it was the second coming of the Marshall Plan. The New York Times hailed it as the $7 billion plan that would "transform the city’s infrastructure from the skies above to the pipes underground".
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| Rahm flew Randi in to tout the Trust. |
I quoted this from the Sun-Times report:
Emanuel was seated onstage next to Randi Weingarten, president of the American Federation of Teachers, whose largest member union, the Chicago Teachers Union, [was] taking a strike-authorization vote this week, frustrated with Emanuel’s administration, which killed a negotiated 4 percent raise for the teachers last year.Well, the last time I looked, the city's infrastructure was still crumbling and the underground pipes still rusting and leaking. The teachers never did get the 4% raise that was promised them. Rahm claimed the city couldn't afford it but could afford $2.7 million in city funds to help set up the Trust. What followed was the historic teachers strike that shook the city and Rahm's administration to its heels.
But the Trust goes down as only the latest in a series of mayoral financial flops that has led the city to the brink of collapse.
Now Crain's reports:
Three years after creating a city infrastructure bank with a huge splash, Mayor Rahm Emanuel has decided to remake management of the finance unit, which by many accounts never has lived up to its Mike Klonsky's SmallTalk Blog: The Trust was a bust. Now where's Bill and Randi?: