Mayor Lori Lightfoot’s gas card program advances, after tweaks to appease skeptical aldermen

CHICAGO (CBS) — A key City Council committee on Wednesday advanced Mayor Lori Lightfoot’s plan to spend $12.5 million in taxpayer funds to give out thousands of gas and transit cards to Chicagoans, despite pushback from some aldermen who have called it a “a promotional gimmick for a re-election campaign,” and argued the money would be better spent elsewhere.

The Budget Committee voted 15-12 to approve the mayor’s “Chicago Moves” program, which would provide 50,000 prepaid $150 gas cards, and 100,000 transit cards that could be used to cover $50 worth of CTA fares. 

Many aldermen who voted in favor of the program nonetheless sounded reluctant in their support.

Ald. Michael Rodriguez (22nd) said he would have preferred having that money go to the city’s first-ever guaranteed basic income program, which will begin accepting applications later this month.

“But again, at its core, we’re taking resources and putting them towards working class people, and to that extent, I find it hard to be against that,” he said.

Rodriguez said he’s received lots of calls from constituents in his ward interested in applying for the program, adding, “I’m not sure I’d be able to muscle through overturning this effort.”

Many opponents have complained that the program appears to be no more than a political stunt in response to millionaire and mayoral candidate Willie Wilson’s gas giveaways. 

“It’s no secret that, in just a few months, we’re going to have to start campaigning, and have to face the voters, and there are many questions in terms of where this program came from, if it was inspired by [mayoral candidate] Dr. Willie Wilson’s gas giveaway. I’ve heard from some constituents who have said that they feel like this is the mayor trying to prove that she has the biggest gas hose,” said Ald. Carlos Ramirez-Rosa (35th)

Ald. Anthony Beale (9th), one of the mayor’s most frequent and outspoken critics, called the program “a promotional gimmick for a re-election campaign.”

“I think our priorities are messed up, and I think this is a gimmick once again,” he said.

Lightfoot has denied her program is a reaction to Wilson’s gas giveaways, and City Comptroller Jennie Huang Bennett said the plan was modeled on programs in other cities and states offering government-funded gas card and transit card programs.

Meantime, Ramirez-Rosa also raised concerns that the mayor’s name will appear on the gas cards that will be given out, particularly with the next mayoral election less than a year away. The mayor’s office has provided sample images of the gas cards, which look much like debit cards, featuring the Chicago skyline, the name of the “Chicago Moves” program, and the mayor’s name in the upper left corner.

But Budget Committee Chair Ald. Pat Dowell (3rd) shrugged off concerns about having the mayor’s name on the gas cards as trivial.

“Let’s not be petty. The mayor’s name is on everything. You get off a plane, you’re coming into Chicago, it says Mayor Lori Lightfoot. Your check says Mayor Lori Lightfoot. That is a non-issue, and really very, very petty,” she said.

The mayor’s plan has faced significant pushback from many aldermen since she first announced it earlier this month, prompting Lightfoot to make a series of changes to her plan, including reducing the income threshold from 140% of the area median income – or $140,000 for a family of four – to 100% of the area median income – or $93,200 for a family of four.

Even that lower threshold was not enough to win over some aldermen.

“$93,000 is a pretty good chunk of change to be giving people a gas card. At least in my neck of the woods it is,” said Ald. Susan Sadlowski Garza (10th), who said she would prefer to see the $12.5 million spent on “more sustainable” programs such as improving mental health care programs, or reducing food deserts in the city.

After other aldermen complained that even the lower threshold would not ensure the gas and transit cards would go to Chicagoans who are forced to drive because they either don’t feel safe riding the CTA, or don’t have easy access to public transportation, Lightfoot made further changes to her proposal, to set aside 75% of the 50,000 gas cards to be given away for people living in South and West side neighborhoods deemed to be “high mobility hardship” areas with the remaining 25% being given away citywide.

That’s the same distribution plan the mayor had already planned to use for the transit card giveaway.

The mayor’s staff told aldermen that determining which parts of the city qualify as high mobility hardship areas was based on three factors: the percentage of workers in an area who commute and have a commute of more than 90 minutes, the percentage of an area’s population that is disabled, and transportation costs as a percentage of income within an area.

Ald. Howard Brookins (21st), who voted in favor of the mayor’s plan, said deciding how best to distribute the gas and transit cards to Chicagoans amounted to a “no-win situation.”

“When people ask us to describe our job as aldermen, I always use the analogy that we’re like a person going to a grammar school birthday party with 30 kids in the class, and we have five cupcakes, and that we’re going to give the cupcakes out,” “If you give them to the first five kids, 25 kids are going to say they got nothing, and you did nothing for me. If we cut them all up and give everybody some, the people are going to say that you only gave us crumbs,” he said. “If we’re going to do something, I think that this provides a meaningful and a significant help to the people who do use a car to get around.”

Ald. Brendan Reilly (42nd) said, rather than subsidizing gasoline usage, the city should be spending money to improve safety on the CTA to convince more people to use public transportation.

“I just have a fundamental disagreement, as a matter of policy, using taxpayer dollars to subsidize big oil,” he said. “I would much rather see us invest this money in making the CTA, especially the trains, much safer than they are today,” “If we’re encouraging folks to use that, especially folks who depend on it to get to and from work early in the morning and late at night, we need it to be safe. So I would much, much rather take this gas card money and use that to put cops on the trains where the should be, like every city does.”

Ald. George Cardenas (12th), the mayor’s floor leader, said aldermen could argue there are a lot of other needs that the city could be addressing, “and I think we’ve seen in this city that it never stops.”

“But this is something that is in the moment that is happening, probably will happen all this year, and probably the early part of next year. So I do support it,” he said.

With the Budget Committee’s approval on Wednesday, the mayor’s gas and transit card program now goes to the full City Council for a likely final vote next week.