Work related to
Obama Presidential Center to cost Illinois taxpayers nearly $200 million
Charles
Birnbaum of the Cultural Landscape Foundation speaks out on 'The Ingraham
Angle.'
The controversial Obama Presidential Center in Chicago will
benefit from almost $200 million in taxpayer funding for work on infrastructure
projects near the center on Chicago’s South Side.
The Chicago Sun Times first
reported Friday that Illinois lawmakers had approved $174 million for roadwork
in and around Jackson Park related to the development of the center.
Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel, a former Obama White House chief of
staff, described the infrastructure improvements as “money well spent.”
“Bringing the Obama Presidential Center to Chicago took
leadership and vision, and we are gratified that our partners in Springfield
also saw the potential for what this means for all of Illinois,” Emanuel said
in a statement Friday.
His office said that the
funding would go toward meeting "the transportation infrastructure needs
related to the Obama Center, from road construction to traffic mitigation to
pedestrian safety to parkland enhancement."
“The state’s $174 million investment in infrastructure
improvements near the Obama Center on the South Side of Chicago is money well
spent,” he said.
The Washington Examiner reports
that Illinois taxpayers will also shoulder half of a $50 million project to
overhaul an above-ground rail stop two miles from the center. The other half
will be funded via a Transportation Department grant.
The Center won approval from Chicago’s city council last month,
despite significant resistance and protests from its opponents, who are
skeptical of the Obama Foundation’s claim that the center will support
thousands of new jobs and have a total economic impact of $3.1 billion in its
first 10 years.
Opponents doubt that the center will yield those benefits to
local residents, have expressed anger at the lack of a formal agreement with
the local community, and others have challenged the use of local parkland for
the project.
The Center still has a series of approval steps to go through,
including a federal review, but has also faced a lawsuit by Protect Our Parks,
which alleged that the city was engaging in a “short con shell game” to get the
12-story museum and library built on parkland.
The lawsuit argued that while the purpose of transferring the
land was to house the official Obama presidential library, the center will not
include his presidential papers, only a digital copy.
"Defendants have chosen to deal with it in a classic
Chicago political way, known as a short con shell game, a corrupt scheme to
deceive and seemingly legitimize an illegal land grab, one that will endure for
centuries to come, regardless of future changing public park needs and
increasingly consequential environmental conditions,” the lawsuit said.
But the Obama Foundation and Chicago officials have pushed back
on that narrative, saying that the center will be an enormous benefit to the
local community.
“The Obama Presidential Center will be a transformational
project for Chicago’s South Side, and this state funding demonstrates Illinois’
commitment to honoring the legacy of Chicago’s favorite son and daughter,”
Mayor Emanuel said.
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