This is going to be an article that a lot of my readers are not going to like. But I feel that it needs to be said, even though it’s not going to win me a lot of friends.
There’s been a lot of effort lately to organize against Assessor Fritz Kaegi. This effort has produced angry meetings and appeals for money to support someone, anyone, who will run against him and get him out of office.
The main rationale for doing this is that he has “targeted” owners of commercial real estate, “unfairly” upping our assessments and, by extension, our taxes. He is, in a word, being blamed for all that is wrong with Chicago, Cook County and Illinois government.
Not that there isn’t a lot to complain about. There is. I’ve been one of the loudest critics. But this one is different. On this one, I truly believe we are directing our collective anger at the wrong target.
