Progress Illinois

The city’s tax increment financing, or TIF, program is an economic development tool, but it should really be called a Chicago bailout for private companies, some Uptown residents said at a town hall meeting Thursday night as part of the CivicLab’s TIF Illumination Project.

“Why don’t we call (TIF) Chicago welfare,” 46th Ward resident Ryne Poelker asked at the meeting held at the Peoples Church of Chicago. “Why don’t they call it a bailout?”

Property taxpayers in the 46th Ward paid out about $87.6 million for TIF projects in the area since the inception of the program under former Chicago Mayor Harold Washington through 2010, according to the CivicLab’s data analysis.

More than half of that money went to private developers for projects such as the Wilson Yard, a retail space at 4400 N. Broadway Ave., that houses a Target, Aldi grocery store and low-income housing units. The project received more than $50 million in TIF funds, according to the CivicLab. Read more »

For the past 100 years, Delano Elementary has been a staple in the West Garfield Park neighborhood, but its teachers may be fired at the end of the year and the school turned into Melody Elementary as part of the Chicago Public Schools recent round of actions to address school utilization.

Under CPS’ plan, once Melody students and staff relocate to Delano’s building, the new school would offer air conditioning in every classroom, a library, an upgraded computer lab and iPads for students in 3rd through 8th grades, among other facility and capital improvements.

But West Side Ald. Jason Ervin (28th) said CPS officials didn’t have the “decency or courtesy” to offer any additional academic enhancements at the new school, such as a STEM or fine arts program. The only academic enhancement, he said, is an iPad.

“An iPad is a dime a dozen,” Ervin said at the first of three public meetings last night on the proposed school action. “More kids got iPads than adults have iPads.” Read more »

As Congress works toward the final stages of an immigration reform plan, a new issue brief from the Center for American Progress explores how immigration and the growing Latino population could impact the future political landscape in key states.

Immigration issues among Latino voters were crucial in swinging the 2012 presidential election.

And the rapid growth and voting power of the Latino population also ensured key swing states such as Florida, Colorado and Nevada voted for the current Democratic president, according to the brief.

Key states such as Arizona and North Carolina are also reaching demographic tipping points that could shift the states reliably blue, said Philip Wolgin, senior policy analyst for immigration at the Center for American Progress.

“These are states that are becoming swing states in a way that I think nobody really envisioned would have happened in the past,” he said.

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Internet advocacy groups Demand Progress and the Internet Defense League have united to campaign for reform and updates to the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act (CFAA) with the launch of a week of action.

Participating organizations, which include members of the Internet Defense League such as Reddit and Wordpress, have asked their users to contact Congress this week to express their support for reform of the CFAA.

A 1986 law designed to reduce Internet hacking, the CFAA allows the federal government to prosecute Internet users for various computer-related offenses.

“The CFAA is punishing too much of our behavior online and too much of our activity,” said Matt Wood, policy director for Free Press Action Fund. The Free Press is a member of the Internet Defense League (IDL). Approximately 30,000 websites participate regularly in the organization’s Internet freedom campaigns.

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