The Obama Foundation has been given priceless lake front property inside Jackson Park to build what is being called The Obama Center. This is a straight-up land grab engineered by the University of Chicago who owns dozens of properties near the site.
Various players from the near South Side have been maneuvering to broker various concessions and plan amendments - purporting to speak for the community.
Some activists want a Community Benefits Agreement (CBA) with the Obama Foundation and "the community" that will guarantee jobs and other features as a consideration for locating in the neighborhood.
The Obama Foundation does not want to enter into a CBA.
What to do?
We believe it's important to first state that no community group has the right to bargain away public land. Secondly, we are extremely skeptical of so-called community benefit agreements done between under-resourced groups supposedly representing community interests and powerful and well-funded (and well-lawyered) special interest groups. The burden to prove delivery on the CBA is entirely on the community group. What a joke.
The Chicago Community Trust, under the leadership of Joanna Trotter, Senior Program Officer for Economic and Community Development, awarded $250,000 to an entity known as Next Street to craft a new nonprofit organization to broker the process of connecting the Obama Center to the community.
Joanna used to be the Director of Civic Engagement for the University of Chicago.
The new entity was swiftly organized with an absurdly weighty name, The Woodlawn, Washington Park and South Shore Community & Economic Development Organization (WWPSSCEDO - oh, heck, let's just call it WWPSS).
The new organization's board is co-chaired by Arne Duncan, who was Mayor Richard M. Daley's controversial CEO of the Chicago Public Schools from 2001 to 2009 and then served as President Obama's Secretary of Education from 2009 through 2015. Mr. Duncan is not liked in many progressive circles for his championing of charter schools and the privatization of public education.
Also on the board are:
So a tight group of powerful insiders will bless the land grab and broker deals made by the Obama Foundation related to the project and the community.
We believe that the powerful players connected to the Obama Center and its city allies will run the WWPSS with so-called community representatives acting as figure heads. This is very typical of how major projects are pushed in Chicago.
We believe that quarter of a million dollars would've been better spent on building up the legal and grassroots efforts of a real public interest champion like Friends of the Parks. But no one asked. Meanwhile, the totally grassroots Jackson Park Watch provides comprehensive reporting around all the rigged planning projects surrounding Jackson Park, including a new golf course designed by Tiger Woods.
When the Machine pushes through a huge land grab like this the public ALWAYS pays.
On Friday, February 23, 2018 the city revealed the costs associated with retooling the public way surrounding the Obama Center. The announced cost is a staggering $175 million for starters. But buried in the news story is the tidbit that the project requires taking 236 parking spots off-line. How many of these are metered? It matters because we are required to pay Morgan-Stanley, the lease-holder on our parking meters, about $2 million for every meter we take off-line (communication to the author from Alderman Scott Waguespack). If they ALL are metered, then add another $472 MILLION to the public cost of giving President Obama 18 acres of public land.
This one grant from the Chicago Community Trust back-stopped a terrible piece of public policy foisted on the people of Chicago. This project has stirred cries of racism by people backing the Center against people who oppose it being sited on public land. One of this site's authors, Tom Tresser, personally experienced this sort of hate-filled rhetoric when he was part of the No Games Chicago campaign to defeat the bid for the 2016 Olympics. He was accused of being "anti-black" and wanting to keep the poor down by opposing the 2016 Summer Games in Chicago.
Various players from the near South Side have been maneuvering to broker various concessions and plan amendments - purporting to speak for the community.
Some activists want a Community Benefits Agreement (CBA) with the Obama Foundation and "the community" that will guarantee jobs and other features as a consideration for locating in the neighborhood.
The Obama Foundation does not want to enter into a CBA.
What to do?
We believe it's important to first state that no community group has the right to bargain away public land. Secondly, we are extremely skeptical of so-called community benefit agreements done between under-resourced groups supposedly representing community interests and powerful and well-funded (and well-lawyered) special interest groups. The burden to prove delivery on the CBA is entirely on the community group. What a joke.
The Chicago Community Trust, under the leadership of Joanna Trotter, Senior Program Officer for Economic and Community Development, awarded $250,000 to an entity known as Next Street to craft a new nonprofit organization to broker the process of connecting the Obama Center to the community.
Joanna used to be the Director of Civic Engagement for the University of Chicago.
The new entity was swiftly organized with an absurdly weighty name, The Woodlawn, Washington Park and South Shore Community & Economic Development Organization (WWPSSCEDO - oh, heck, let's just call it WWPSS).
The new organization's board is co-chaired by Arne Duncan, who was Mayor Richard M. Daley's controversial CEO of the Chicago Public Schools from 2001 to 2009 and then served as President Obama's Secretary of Education from 2009 through 2015. Mr. Duncan is not liked in many progressive circles for his championing of charter schools and the privatization of public education.
Also on the board are:
- Terry Mazany, the former President of the Chicago Community Trust (and briefly ALSO the head of Chicago's public schools)
- Chicago Planning Commissioner David Reifman,
- Andrea Zopp, a former Chicago School Board member when 49 public schools were closed and former Deputy Mayor and Chief Neighborhood Development Officer and recently named by Mayor Emanuel to the $375,000/year position of CEO of World Business Chicago
- Michael Strautmantis, former Chief of Staff to Valerie Jarrett when she worked for the Obama White House, who is the Obama Foundation's Vice President of Civic Engagement
- Reverend Byron Brazier, Pastor of the Apostolic Church of God
So a tight group of powerful insiders will bless the land grab and broker deals made by the Obama Foundation related to the project and the community.
We believe that the powerful players connected to the Obama Center and its city allies will run the WWPSS with so-called community representatives acting as figure heads. This is very typical of how major projects are pushed in Chicago.
We believe that quarter of a million dollars would've been better spent on building up the legal and grassroots efforts of a real public interest champion like Friends of the Parks. But no one asked. Meanwhile, the totally grassroots Jackson Park Watch provides comprehensive reporting around all the rigged planning projects surrounding Jackson Park, including a new golf course designed by Tiger Woods.
When the Machine pushes through a huge land grab like this the public ALWAYS pays.
On Friday, February 23, 2018 the city revealed the costs associated with retooling the public way surrounding the Obama Center. The announced cost is a staggering $175 million for starters. But buried in the news story is the tidbit that the project requires taking 236 parking spots off-line. How many of these are metered? It matters because we are required to pay Morgan-Stanley, the lease-holder on our parking meters, about $2 million for every meter we take off-line (communication to the author from Alderman Scott Waguespack). If they ALL are metered, then add another $472 MILLION to the public cost of giving President Obama 18 acres of public land.
This one grant from the Chicago Community Trust back-stopped a terrible piece of public policy foisted on the people of Chicago. This project has stirred cries of racism by people backing the Center against people who oppose it being sited on public land. One of this site's authors, Tom Tresser, personally experienced this sort of hate-filled rhetoric when he was part of the No Games Chicago campaign to defeat the bid for the 2016 Olympics. He was accused of being "anti-black" and wanting to keep the poor down by opposing the 2016 Summer Games in Chicago.
Mission statement of the newly formed, Chicago Chicago Trust backed organization.
