Imperialist Mayor Lori Lightfoot is in the middle of the spotlight again this week. Instead of spending federal Covid relief money on the people who are struggling to get by, she spent it on something that has liberals more furious than conservatives, the Police.
Liberal Mayor does the unthinkable
On Friday, Chicago Mayor Lori (Betelgeuse) Lightfoot ranted and raved in defense of her decision to divert $281.5 million in federal CARES Act money into Chicago police payroll costs. With imperial disdain for the masses, she calls her critics “just dumb.” It’s all about the free money from Washington.
“We saved taxpayers hundreds of millions of dollars by saying yes to the federal government. Should we have said no? ‘No, no, no, federal government, we’ll incur this expense, we’ll put this burden entirely on city of Chicago taxpayers and you can take your money elsewhere.'” Instead the taxpayers will be forced to cover the expenses of “badly needed housing, health care and business lifelines to struggling residents.”
Lightfoot is unapologetic for taking “advantage” of the Imperial Palace handout.
It was earmarked for “COVID-19 related expenses” but somehow managed to cover “about 33% of the Police Department’s entire $862 million 2021 budget for the patrol division.” Criticism she acknowledges, “comes with the job of mayor but this one’s just dumb.”
Local city official Edward Burke respond that “If we believe the criticisms, according to what the mayor said, are ‘just dumb,’ these numbers that you’re testifying to today would make most observers highly suspicious, and I don’t think ‘just dumb.'”
Liberals are hopping mad that the money would actually go to police. They were supposed to be defunded, now they get money that could be going into their own pockets.
The lid blew Wednesday
Mayor Lightfoot and her office kept a tight lid on the scheme but the lid blew off on Wednesday at a city council meeting. That’s when Lightfoot causally asked for a little $60 million transfer. She wanted to move the “unspent federal COVID-19 money into the 2021 budget.”
Someone was smart enough to ask her “why?” Well, she replied, because we can. The Imperial Palace “waived Federal Emergency Management Agency local funding matches and extended the deadline to spend federal dollars until the end of this year.”
Back in June, city officials swore up and down that “no federal money had been spent on Police Department reimbursements” but they had to amend that after the comments the mayor made this week to disclose that well, “specific coronavirus-related police costs between March and May were later identified as eligible for the federal relief funding.”
They insist it was all Covid related though, every bit of it. The $281 million allegedly went to “things such as police performing wellness checks on residents, airport security when travelers had to be screened for COVID-19, security at the McCormick Place coronavirus field hospital and security at virus testing sites.”
Alderman Raymond Lopez isn’t buying what Lightfoot is trying to sell. He argues that “it seemed like the administration was using the federal money to retroactively paper over structural problems in the 2021 city budget.”
According to Mayor Lightfoot, that’s just dumb. Her constituents wonder how much of the federal money went to the personal protection squad she and her lesbian lover enjoyed over the summer from all the peaceful protests.
