Expressing her disappointment that in the
spans of two days, court decisions banned the Litter Tax, and dismissed
the city's gun manufacturers lawsuit, 34th Ward Alderman Carrie Austin
said those rulings, along with the one on the ant-loitering ordinance,
"makes it look like the legal and legislative bodies here are working at
cross purposes. We [city council] look like we don't know what constitutionality
means. In the case of the litter tax many alderman were seeing the end
results of some purchases. In my case, I have auto parts stores where people
come in and buy stuff like oil. They put it in their cars in the store's
parking lot and throw the empty containers on the ground. I also live on
the corner on my street. It's nothing for someone passing by in a car to
just throw their used up fast food wrappings and bags out the window on
to the streets. That's why you can see plastic bags hanging on the fences
of some of the homes in my ward. The owners try to discourage littering
by providing somewhere to put empty wrappers and soda cups.
I took all of this into consideration when
I cast my vote for passage. But, the Judge's [Thomas Quinn's] ruling was
based on different criteria which was equal protection. He delineated that
some was, and some wasn't subject to the tax, and it wasn't applied equally.
I can't argue with his rationale; but as a legislator I'm going to be more
cognizant of what Ordinances would pass muster, if challenged in the courts.
The city has lost several serious ordinances in the past two years and
that can only be attributed to the fact that we [aldermen] only see the
problems after they've manifested themselves, then we attempt to legislate
sort of order," Austin continued.
Austin said that in her opinion, the reasons
given by Quinn in his ruling would be hard to overcome when an Appeal is
filed because the merits cannot be reargued, but judicial error has to
be shown. "However, Judge [Stephen] Schiller's dismissal of the gun lawsuit
should be appealed and it appears that it will be."
Austin ended her comments saying "one can
of worms that will surely be opened up is the refund of the close to $2
million dollars collected by the litter tax. It will go to the companies
that paid it and it shouldn't! Customers are entitled to it because they're
the ones who paid it. The courts have just handed the restaurants and fast
food stores a nice, tidy profit, at least I won't have to deal with that
headache as an Alderman."