Want to get Illuminated? Attend this one hour “TIF 101” webinar on January 6. It’s free. Tom Tresser of the TIF Illumination Project, will present. Please purchase a seat via EventBrite:
Author Archives: Tom Tresser
Tell The Mayor To Tell Us Where Our $1.4 Billion Is!
PLEASE SCROLL DOWN AND SIGN THIS PETITION.
Go the TIF Illumination Project to get the full 2014 analysis of Chicago’s TIF program.
Contribute to the TIF Illumination Project via PayPal (and get some swell swag). We’ve been turned down ten times by national and local foundations.
Chicago Is NOT Broke – Far From It
I don’t believe Chicago is broke. I don’t believe we should’ve been asked to pay $600 million more in property taxes. 15 aldermen agreed. But the rest rubber-stamped Mayor One Percent’s Budget From Hell. Read my op-ed piece in Huffington Post. I lay out three large pots of money that SHOULD’VE been on the table BEFORE we are hit with any new taxes or fees.
I am looking for speaking engagements and presentation opportunities to share this platform. “Chicago is NOT Broke – Funding the City We Deserve.” Use the contact form below to connect…
I Ask the Mayor About TIFs And He Answers!
What a night at Malcolm X College. About 300 people showed up for the first 2016 Budget Town Hall presided over by Mayor Emanuel and attended by all his department heads. Dozens of folks got one minute to ask a question or make a statement. The room was filled with supporters of the Dyett High School hunger strikers. People young and old expressed their anger and aspirations, stepping up to the mike and demanding that the mayor first meet with the hunger strikers and accept the community-development proposal to transform Dyett into a global leadership and green technology academy.
There were also calls for coming clean on TIFs and releasing TIF funds into the general stream of local government agencies – especially our beleaguered public schools. I asked the mayor to release all documents proving his claim that most of the $1.4 billion sitting in TIFs on January 1, 2015 are NOT available for distribution. The mayor and his budget director actually responded. Budget Director Alex Holt promised Tom a meeting in the near future to answer all our questions on where the money is. Stay tuned.
Watch the exchange here:
Listen to the full exchange here.
2014 TIF Analysis Ready!
Thanks to the tireless TIF illuminators who downloaded, opened and poured over all 150 2014 Chicago TIF reports we now have our comprehensive analysis of Chicago’s TIF activity for last year!
Click over to the TIF Illuminator web site for all the TIF news that’s fit to print.
Help The TIF Illumination Project Survive!
The CivicLab has closed but the TIF Illumination Project can survive and thrive. But only if YOU pitch in. Please contribute to our crowdfunding campaign today. Happy Birthday, America!
CivicLab Closes June 30
After two years of jam packed work and hosting 17 social justice and organizing groups the CivicLab must close its doors on June 30, 2015. We’d love to hear from folks who used the space or who found what we did there valuable. Please visit our Facebook page to comment. Thanks!
No Games Chicago Told (Briefly) @ Do Not Submit
There’s a new venue for community-based storytelling in town – The Do Not Submit series. On May 18, 2015 the first instance came to Lincoln Park. I went over to City Grounds Coffee and shared this seven minute story about No Games Chicago.
Tom Interviewed on WGN – Talkin’ Democracy
Michael Stephen of Outside the Loop Radio interviewed Tom on WGN on April 1, 2015. They talked TIFs, what the CivicLab is all about and the need to DO democracy. 17 minutes.
CivicLab Profiled in NewCity
Check out this profile of the CivicLab in the April 22, 2015 issue of NewCity.
Thanks, Mike Workman!
“Among all the different types of maker spaces throughout the city, there’s really not another quite like the CivicLab in the city’s West Loop neighborhood. Operated by Tom Tresser and Benjamin Sugar, the space is a gathering place and laboratory for what Tresser describes as “civic science,” the enthusiasm in his voice rising as he seizes on a topic he is clearly passionate about, “we make Democracy here.” As a longtime public defender in the city, he is perhaps most well known for heading up the No Games Chicago initiative that opposed former Mayor Daley’s efforts to bring the Olympics to the city. “