FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: Tuesday, January 17, 2017

For Information:
Andy Thayer, Uptown Tent City Organizers & Gay Liberation Network, 773.209.1187, LGBTliberation@aol.com
Rick Garcia, rickgarcia60@cs.com, 312.560.0405

Activists Move for Court to Quash

City TIF Subsidy for Luxury Housing
Jan. 17, 2017 Lawyers for activists who last year filed an Open Meetings Act lawsuit
against the Chicago City Council, today moved for the court to quash a City Council vote
last June that approved a notorious TIF subsidy for luxury hi-rises in Chicagos
Uptown neighborhood.
The City Council approved the Montrose-Clarendon $15.8 million TIF subsidy for luxury
housing on prime lakefront property despite numerous protests by many who saw it
as an insulting expenditure of taxpayer dollars while homeless literally shivered
underneath Lake Shore Drive viaducts just yards away. Several advisory referendums
in the ward had also opposed the use of TIF funds such purposes.
After months of testimony and document releases, todays motion noted that It is undisputed that not a single
member of the public waiting in line without a preferential seat reservation was able to attend the June 22, 2016
CITY COUNCIL meeting [that voted to approve the TIF subsidy] until hours after it started. This is a violation
of the plain text and express purpose of the Open Meetings Act and necessitates declaring the vote null and
void pursuant to OMA Section 3(c).
In the event that the City attempts to appeal a favorable ruling by the Court on todays motion, it notes that As
the Appellate Court noted, where OMAs purpose is undermined by non-compliance with its provisions, a public
bodys actions will be declared null and void. Id. (emphasis added). The express purpose of [OMA] is to
require public bodies to deliberate and act openly. Here, CITY COUNCIL violated OMAs express purpose and
took final action by voting on the TIF provision when not a single member of the public without a seat
reservation was allowed in. As a result, this vote should be declared null and void.
On December 20, Judge Diane Larsen ruled that the Chicago City Council violated Illinoiss Open Meetings Act
(OMA) by refusing to allow members of the public to testify at its meetings in accordance with the Act. Larsen
issued her order in response to activists Andy Thayers and Rick Garcias July 25th motion for a preliminary
injunction to force the Chicago City Council to follow the OMA after the general public was largely barred from
attending and testifying at both the May 18 and June 22 meetings of the City Council. The City has said it will
appeal that ruling.
Affordable housing activists from the Uptown Tent City Organizers and North Side Action 4 Justice groups
contend that the Council and the wards Alderman James Cappleman rushed through the $15.8 million TIF
ordinance at the Councils June meeting so as to beat a July deadline under which it and all other future
developments using city funds would be required to set aside significantly higher resources for affordable
housing units. At the June Council meeting, Alderman Ed Burke noted "there is an urgency to this matter,"
according to the minutes of the meeting (01:16:37).
The City should cut to the chase and admit that barring the general public from Council meetings is indefensible
under the Open Meetings Act, said co-plaintiff Andy Thayer. Mayor Emanuel and Alderman Cappleman should
stop wasting public tax dollars on fruitless actions by city attorneys and handouts to politically connected luxury
developers, and instead spend that money on housing the homeless.