Tom Helps to Keep Lincoln Park Public

Tom has been active with a group of neighbors from the Lincoln Park community in Chicago who have been fighting the privatization of the treasured lake front jewel. We formed a grassroots group, Protect Our Parks, and sued the Chicago Park District and the Latin School of Chicago to stop them from building an artificial turf soccer facility in the heart of Lincoln Park that would've been for the exclusive use of this very wealthy private school. We sued and won. Now we're working to roll back the illegal construction and return the field to an open grass meadow. We have seen citizens groups in a number of states rise up to stop the privatization of their local parks. Judges in New York City have blocked two separate projects, one on Randall's Island involving a consortium of 20 private schools building private soccer fields and one involving the installation of an upscale restaurant into Union Park.