Protect our parks
To the Editor:
It has become a sad affair when Mayor Emanuel’s desperate efforts to engineer and hype the building of a private and towering Obama Center on historic and dedicated public parkland in Jackson Park, AND NOWHERE ELSE IN CHICAGO, has also seemed to addle his brain. The Protect Our Parks lawsuit filed against the City and the Park District raises far reaching Constitutional park protection issues about the bait and switch shell game he is playing on the public; and Rahm calls it “frivolous”. Protect Our Parks, an eleven year old Illinois incorporated 501(c)(3), (www.parkguardians.org) composed of near life long Chicago residents, and alumni of the University of Chicago in Hyde Park where they have lived and earned degrees, are accused by the Mayor of being a “Milwaukee outfit”. By the way, where did Rahm spend all of his time before he became Mayor?
Deceiving the people may be an established politician’s way of doing business, but in this case it shames the Mayor, and it will only serve to tarnish the cherished reputation and heritage of former President Obama if he permits these illegal acts to be done in his name.
Herb Caplan
Protect Our Parks
July 2, 2018 @ 4:50 pm
The federal lawsuit (Protect Our Parks vs. Chicago Park District and City of Chicago) to prevent the destruction of Jackson and South Shore Public Parks by a private-interest group is not at all “frivolous”. The case sets out very clearly and incontrovertibly why the scheme to transfer public park land to the Obama Foundation is illegal. (The text and exhibits of the lawsuit can be found online as Case: 1:18-cv-03424, in U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Illinois). The plaintiffs have also shown convincing evidence of: a pattern of behavior intended to evade Illinois law and Federal laws. Their description of the Obama Presidential Center as “short con shell game” is also accurate: what started out as a “presidential library” has morphed into something like a full-blown “Obamaland” theme park, for the amusement and profit of the Obamas and their private political associates. The Protect Our Parks group have done a courageous public service by calling out former President Barack Obama and Mayor Rahm Emanuel’s disregard for the law, environmental destruction, and disrespect for the people of Chicago. The likely outcome of Obama’s greed will be relocation of the Obama Presidential Center to a different location not in Jackson Park.
July 24, 2018 @ 3:47 pm
Totally on point and succinct.