Read the strongly worded editorial from the November 1, 2019 edition of Gazette Chicago.

“The TIF fund has a $1.5 billion (yes $1.5 with a “B”) balance. That’s way more than being just a “mayor’s slush fund,” and the CivicLab has launched the TIF Elimination Project to redistribute the $1.5 billion to schools, parks, libraries, and essential City services.

We join with them. We are fed up with developers lining up at the TIF trough to help with their glass and concrete towers. We are also tired of aldermen (several of them currently or formerly from this community) whining about how much we need TIFs to jump-start developments city-wide. The majority of the dollars funnel into the Loop and downtown district and other affluent communities such as West Loop and Fulton Market. Meanwhile, under-served and under-developed communities get crumbs, and the tax dollars that should have stayed locally in schools, libraries, and parks get directed elsewhere.

It’s ironic that TIFs were created by Mayor Harold Washington, because he did it to help blighted neighborhoods. Instead, Mayors Richard M. Daley and Rahm Emanuel turned the program into Robin Hood for the rich, robbing the money from poorer areas of the city to give it to rich developers. The CivicLab called the TIF program racist, but it is more than that. It is classist. The corporatists do not care if the money is taken from black, brown, or white people, just so long as it is taken away from the less well-to-do to be provided to the rich.

TIFs are sucking the lifeblood out of our communities, and this charade needs to end, now. The mayor has proposed closing out five TIFs, but we do not think that goes far enough.”

Read the front page story covering our announcement of the campaign, which was done at the University of Illinois’ “Future of Chicago” lecture presented by Professor Dick Simpson and the Political Science Department.