Protect Our Parks is pushing back at a federal ruling that allows the Obama Presidential Center to use part of the historic Jackson Park.
The parks group plans to file a motion asking the courts to reconsider allowing the Obama center to go up in the South Side public park. The move could potentially further delay the project that was first announced in the summer of 2016.
Last week, the 7th Circuit Court of Appeals issued an opinion in a lawsuit filed by Protect Our Parks against the Chicago Park District and the City of Chicago questioning the transfer of Jackson Park to the Obama Foundation to build the presidential center.
Now comes the parks group saying: “The opinion issued last week does not prevent Protect Our Parks from its legal right to stop - in an appropriate court and at an appropriate time - the defendants’ breach of Public Trust and Ultra Vires acts,” the group said in a statement Thursday, also saying it has the standing to sue on behalf of Chicagoans to prevent the land transfer.
The Obama Center didn’t respond directly to the park group, but issued a statement to Playbook saying: “We are pleased with the panel's ruling in favor of the city in this lawsuit and remain eager to deliver on the many community and economic benefits of the Obama Presidential Center. We appreciate the inputs and involvement of the thousands who participated in the rigorous public process the panel referenced in its decision.”
It’s hard not to think about another parks group that put a crimp in a museum’s plans to build in Chicago. In 2016, Friends of the Parks successfully fought plans for the Lucas Museum of Narrative Art to build in Chicago. Ultimately, movie mogul George Lucas took his museum to Los Angeles, where construction is expected to finish in 2021.
Funny that:
Obama never went back to his “hometown” of Chicago
That Chicago really doesn’t want Obama back.
This is just like the 0buttWadd Crap Care. People are being forced to accept something that they don’t want. Ain’t Marxism great.
$500 million for a liebrary?
Let the Kenyan from Indonesia build his monument to himself in Kenya or Indonesia.
When Obama left office, it was claimed that al the records had to be archived and could not be researched until his Presidential Library opened. Is that still the case? If so, all this delay is no accident.
The faster they build it, the sooner we can smear paint, graffiti and throw bags of feces at it.
Barry could set up the library more modestly and effectively in a disadvantaged neighborhood, the community organizer so beloved. His library could be a teaching/learning center for disadvantaged youths. Instead he wants to foist his monstrous library on a historic public park that is unwelcome and expensive. Senator Tim Scott’s opportunity zones are multiple times better for the local black communities. Fraud king Barry and his self aggrandizing pomposity cares zilch for his Chicago brothas and sistas.