JUST IN: City Council narrowly approves Mayor Lori Lightfoot's gas card and transit card plan, by a 26-23 vote.
The City Council on Wednesday narrowly approved Mayor Lori Lightfoot's $12.5 million plan to give out prepaid gas cards and transit cards to thousands of Chicagoans.
"I applaud this council and I applaud you for trying to address an issue that our neighborhoods are seeing, but this is 100% the wrong way to go," said Ald. Raymond Lopez , who has announced he is running for mayor in 2023."To say it comes off as a gimmick would be an understatement. We have hundreds of millions of dollars that we can use to improve the lives of our residents, and this is the route that we're going. This body should do better. This body can do better.
Lightfoot shrugged said criticisms that the gas card and transit card plan is a political gimmick were"nonsense." "Many of us don't have the luxuries of other communities, and I look at this as a way to help those that have been most challenged, not only by COVID, but most challenged by economic conditions, and most challenged in life, period. Anything that we can do to help give people a leg up, a hand up, I think is something we as a body need to do," he said.
Ald. Brendan Reilly said, while high gas prices are obviously a problem for drivers in Chicago, he doesn't believe the city should be subsidizing fossil fuels, especially just after celebrating Earth Week
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