Chicagoans Kick-Off "Take Back Chicago" from mayor

About 1,500 Chicagoans and a lineup of city and state elected officials convened Tuesday night to announce their intention to “take back Chicago” from a city administration they describe as rewarding corporations while punishing working people.

A wave of recent cuts has left almost 50 Chicago public schools shuttered, six mental-health clinics closed and thousands of public workers without jobs. According to a report released last week, these cuts have primarily hit Black and Latino neighborhoods, even as majority white and downtown neighborhoods have prospered—thanks in part to the city’s Tax Increment Financing, or TIF, program. TIFs are meant to revive blighted areas by funneling property tax dollars to development projects, but critics see the program as a corporate giveaway, diverting dollars from public coffers to private corporations.

Tuesday's event marked the official launch of a campaign by the Grassroots Collaborative, the alliance of 11 neighborhood, housing and labor groups that commissioned the report, to correct these inequities through a host of measures such as fairer tax allocation, increased resources for education, living wage jobs and affordable housing.


http://inthesetimes.com/working/entry/15758/grassroots_collaborative_launch_campaign_to_take_back_chicago/

(via Occupied Chicago Tribune)