With Mayor Brandon Johnson’s $300 million property tax increase headed for defeat, City Council members want to get it over with to prevent the mayor from running out the clock.Twenty-nine alderpersons co-signed a call for a special Council meeting at 9 a.m. Wednesday to vote down Johnson’s property tax increase and force the mayor back to the bargaining table to find alternative sources of revenue, budget cuts or a combination of the two. If 26 members show up, they'll have the quorum they need to proceed with a special meeting. However, they will need 34 votes to suspend the rules and immediately consider and then vote on the increase, which has not yet been approved by committee.Ald. Ray Lopez (15th) and Anthony Beale (9th), Johnson’s leading Council critics, are certain there will be enough votes to both suspend the rules, and then kill the tax hike. In fact, Lopez predicted all 50 members would show up, fearing it will send the wrong message to tax-weary constituents if they don’t.“The mayor has postponed, delayed and deflected to try to force City Council to be put into a corner where they have to vote on his property tax, his budget because we don’t have enough time to do this in a deliberative, thoughtful and collaborative way, or Chicago shuts down and he forces the first government shutdown in history and blames City Council for it, even though he’s the one who authored the delays,” Lopez told the Sun-Times.“We are not going to be played. People deserve better. City Council is basically short-circuiting his political gimmicks in order to have a real conversation with him and his leaders about what we want as our budget priorities and how we would pay for that,” he said. Beale accused the mayor of postponing his budget address by two weeks in the political equivalent of a basketball team ending a game by going into a four-corners offense.“We believe that the administration is trying to run the clock out to force aldermen to vote for something before the end of the year,” Beale said."That’s why the budget was delayed. ... Everything is delayed to run the clock out to force the aldermen to vote for something under the pretense that we have to pass something before the end of the year. We defeat that by re-setting the clock and forcing the administration to come up with something that’s better for the city of Chicago.” Related Mayor Brandon Johnson’s budget is ‘dead on arrival,’ Council critic says Southwest Side Ald. Marty Quinn (13th) said there's no appetite for what would be Chicago’s largest property tax increase in a decade. It would be a double-whammy for Chicago homeowners and businesses already reeling from higher bills in the wake of reassessment.“If we know that today, recognizing that the process started two weeks late, I don’t want to be in a situation where, at the eleventh hour, we don’t have time to make adjustments,” Quinn said.“Strategically, it makes great sense to move this process up so we’re not backed up against the corner where it’s a take-it-or-leave it scenario.”If and when the property tax increase is defeated, the Council will be on the clock to replace that $300 million, either by cutting spending, raising revenue or both.During opening day of Council hearings on the mayor’s proposed $17.3 billion budget on Wednesday, alderpersons had suggested everything from skipping or reducing a $275 million pension advance to using federal stimulus money and reducing redundant layers of middle management.There was also talk of challenging Johnson’s allies in organized labor to accept the pay cuts that come with unpaid furlough days, canceling $55 million in new programs and merging the Chicago Board of Elections and the Commission on Animal Care and Control with Cook County’s version of those agencies.Beale has also proposed lifting the Chicago ban on video gaming to generate the jackpot of new revenue a temporary Bally’s casino in River North has not and negotiating with the state to get a bigger cut of video gaming revenues.The mayor's communications director could not be reached for immediate comment on the call for a special meeting. By pushing a property tax increase, Johnson is setting himself up to break one of his signature campaign promises.Earlier this week, senior mayoral adviser Jason Lee reiterated Johnson is open to negotiating with the Council."What the mayor said is, 'The values are not negotiable. The details are.' Been saying that from Day One. We've encouraged aldermen to bring ideas to the forefront," Lee told the Sun-Times."If they've got ideas on strategic cuts that don't gut services or force working people into the unemployment lines or if they've got progressive revenue or otherwise revenue ideas that can mitigate the property tax, the mayor is willing to listen."But, Lee warned: "Whatever direction you go, there's gonna be some group that's antagonized on the revenue side. We don't want to just impose that. We want the Council to tell us which fight are they willing to take."