The filed and stamped copy of the motion for the injunction can be downloaded here: https://www.clccrul.org/s/20190619Brief-in-Support-of-Preliminary-InjunctionDRAFT6192019-FINAL.pdf

Two community organizations filed a motion seeking a preliminary injunction in circuit court yesterday to force the City of Chicago to freeze its plan to create the Cortland and Chicago River TIF District with up to $1.3 billion in taxpayer money for a luxury development in Lincoln Yards.

Grassroots Collaborative and Raise Your Hand for Illinois Public Education filed a lawsuit in April through a team of attorneys from Chicago Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights and the National Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law. The injunction argues that the TIF district where the Lincoln Yards development is located does not meet the legal standard for use of TIF subsidies in a “blighted” community, violating the state’s TIF law.

You can watch the press conference announcing the filing of the motion for the injunction here. You can find our live tweets here. We are honored to work with the Chicago Lawyers' Committee for Civil Rights, National Lawyers' Committee, and Grassroots Collaborative on this important next step. We will post updates and we will be using the following hashtags: #TIFequity, #TIFreform, #ReimagineChicago.

Want to learn even more about this lawsuit? Please see our original post here. And visit the Chicago Lawyers' Committee for Civil Rights web page about the lawsuit with many links here. 

Press Coverage

Chicago Tribune: Lincoln Yards opponents ask judge to stop city from spending any money on the megaproject

Sun-Times: Group wants to block work on Lincoln Yards project

One Illinois: Grassroots Groups ask injunction against Chicago River development

WGN TV: Injunction filed against Lincoln Yards development

WVON: Interview with Megan Reid (National Lawyers Committee for Civil Rights) and Reverend Hatch (New Mount Pilgrim Church and Leaders Network)

Brenda Delgado, CPS Parent & RYH Board President, Press Conference, June 19, 2019

I am the parent of three children enrolled in CPS. I have served on several Local School Councils. I am the Board President of Raise Your Hand for Illinois Public Education.

Raise Your Hand is a nonprofit organization of public school parents who have been advocating for quality public education for all children in Chicago and Illinois since 2010. Over the years, the city’s administration of the TIF system has hurt our schools and our children by siphoning off funds which should go to our public entities such as our schools. Our roofs leak for years and hurting kids wait months for a social worker, because of lack of funds.

The vast majority of CPS students are African American and Latinx, and if the Cortland and Chicago River TIF District proceeds, these students and the communities in which they live will be shut out from critical funding they would otherwise receive over the 23-year lifespan of the TIF. This unnecessary and illegal diversion of up to $1.3 billion means hundreds of millions of dollars lost from CPS, while our cash-strapped schools lack nurses, social workers, intact roofs, full special education services and staffing, librarians, and basic supplies like paper. It is egregious to spend public money on a luxury development in a wealthy area while the children of Chicago are not prioritized.

In the past, the City's unelected school board has purposefully created segregated school attendance boundaries to lock out low-income minority students from the best-performing schools. This project perpetuates an old and ugly cycle; those who stand to benefit from Lincoln Yards are predominantly White and affluent communities, to the detriment of the majority of Black and Brown CPS students.  

That is why Raise Your Hand worked with other organizations to obtain over 1,000 signatures on a petition to delay any action on the Cortland and Chicago River TIF District and the Roosevelt/Clark TIF District until a Racial Equity Impact Assessment could be completed. An REIA would analyze the TIF Districts’ possible impacts on affordable housing, public parks, public transit, public schools, and economic development from a race equity lens. We want the city to stop contributing to widening racial inequity, and that starts with TIF reform.

Thank you.

Press Release