Below is an email we sent with our sister org, Raise Your Hand, on January 30, 2019.

RYH and more recently, our sister-org, RYH Action have been leading the fight for TIF reform in Chicago for 9 years. One of our first campaigns in 2010 was delivering 5,000 letters and emails to Mayor Daley demanding he declare a TIF surplus to help plug the budget hole at CPS. This led to over $90M being returned to the schools.

On Tuesday, January 29, 2019, we joined our friends at Chicagoans United for Equity (CUE), Chicago Lawyers' Committee for Civil Rights (CLCCR), and Blocks Together for an event, Everything You Need to Know About TIFs.

Below is our presentation (with photos and many links) given by our part time parent organizer, Huu Nguyen. You can find video of the entire event here. 

Now is the time to call your alderman and tell them not to sign off on the two mega TIFs—Cortland Chicago River and Roosevelt/Clark. This isn’t just a North Side issue—taxes are raised on all of us from Rogers Park to Roseland pay for this development.

On Friday January 11, 2019, CPS and other taxing bodies will sign off on the creation of two new mega-TIF districts at the Joint Review Board Meeting. City agencies such as CPS, the County, Chicago Park District, the Water Reclamation District and City Colleges will agree to the diversion of hundreds of millions of dollars to their orgs for TIF districts that will benefit private developers, at the cost of $2.4B total to taxpayers. This isn’t sound policy and should be vetted before a new city council and new Mayor---and with a more robust public dialogue.

On Wednesday October 12th, we were thrilled to hear that plans to build a new selective enrollment high school, the project known as Obama Prep, were postponed indefinitely. This frees up $60 million in tax increment financing funds---$30 million of which can go back to CPS as part of a TIF surplus.