LETTERS Corporate interests
April 15, 2015
To the Editor:
Windy City Times touts the presence of five LGBTQ members on the new Chicago City Council. But before we congratulate ourselves with high fives, think a moment about whose class interests a couple of these political operatives promote. Are they serving all members of our community? Or do they promote the interests of the already wealthy elites?
Witness Tom Tunney: He’s the millionaire restaurateur and Belmont Avenue real-estate baron who apparently doesn’t want to share a bit of the wealth with his busboys and wait staff. For Tunney was one of five Council members who voted against raising the minimum wage in Chicago to $13 by mid-2019. Hiking the wage, he said, would “be bad for business profits,” though he was careful not to mention that his own profits might suffer as well. Even the Chicago Tribune told Tunney to be “more independent” of his ward’s business interests.
And witness James Cappleman: He’s the toady of real-estate developers who presided over the loss of more than 900 low-rent single-room occupancy ( SRO ) units in his ward between 2011 and 2014, which almost equaled the total loss of SRO units for the rest of Chicago combined! This is the same guy—a former social worker, no less—who barred a Salvation Army food truck from visiting his ward because it would encourage poor people to hang around.
Back when most LGBTQs thanked Helen Shiller for her AIDS and gay-rights advocacy, Cappleman launched shrill attacks against her for defending the poor in the 46th Ward.
So it’s possible to be gay and, at the same time, serve corporate interests against working and nonworking Chicagoans, both gay and straight.
Tunney and Cappleman have made an art form of it.
Bob Schwartz
Roger Fraser