Tom Launches “Great Public Report” – First Episode on the Hoover Dam
I’ve been thinking about “public” and working to define, defend, and expand it for the past 12 years. Here is the first of a new series of webisodes I’m calling the “Great Public Report” as a way to talk about and stimulate dialog around the concept of “public.” Please watch it at our YouTube Channel and subscribe. Follow me at @tomstee and post using #MorePublic. If we don’t protect the Public, it will be taken from us.
America Needs #MorePublic. Desperately.
I gave these short remarks at the April 2019 NewFounders Conference in Chicago. If you agree, please follow me @tomstee!
Abolish TIFs and New Path to Economic Development for Chicago
Check out the multiple perspectives on economic development for Chicago in the April 6, 2020 issue of Crain’s Chicago Business. I call for the abolition of TIFs and a new approach to grassroots economic development. The CEO of Sterling Bay has a different idea!
My Take On Just Economic Development
“The key to spreading prosperity, justice and opportunity across Chicago requires turning the page on old neoliberal market-based and clout-driven economic development programs. This was true long before coronavirus fallout clouded the financial picture for not just the city but the nation.
The first program that needs to bite the planning dust is tax-increment financing districts, which the rich and powerful have used to siphon billions of dollars of property tax revenues from important public needs, such as schools, parks and libraries.” Read the entire op-ed from the April 6, 2020 issue of Crain’s. If you agree with us that TIFs need to be ABOLISHED, join the campaign here.
Why We Need A Robust “Public”!
The utter failure of the Trump Administration to deal with the global pandemic is a stark reminder of why we need a strong, competent, nimble, and service-oriented PUBLIC sector – ready to act powerfully for the public good. Take a look at Douglas Amy’s book “Government is Good – An Unapologetic Defense of a Vital Institution.” If you want a great response to these times, then check out the movement for a Green New Deal and help make it happen!
Tom Joins Inaugural National Advisory Board of the Public Banking Institute
I’m proud to be a member of the inaugural National Advisory Board for the Public Banking Institute.
They are the premiere organization in America explaining, organizing, and making public banking happen.
Gazette Chicago Endorses Campaign To Eliminate TIFs
Read the strongly worded editorial from the November 1, 2019 edition of Gazette Chicago.
“The TIF fund has a $1.5 billion (yes $1.5 with a “B”) balance. That’s way more than being just a “mayor’s slush fund,” and the CivicLab has launched the TIF Elimination Project to redistribute the $1.5 billion to schools, parks, libraries, and essential City services.
We join with them. We are fed up with developers lining up at the TIF trough to help with their glass and concrete towers. We are also tired of aldermen (several of them currently or formerly from this community) whining about how much we need TIFs to jump-start developments city-wide. The majority of the dollars funnel into the Loop and downtown district and other affluent communities such as West Loop and Fulton Market. Meanwhile, under-served and under-developed communities get crumbs, and the tax dollars that should have stayed locally in schools, libraries, and parks get directed elsewhere.
It’s ironic that TIFs were created by Mayor Harold Washington, because he did it to help blighted neighborhoods. Instead, Mayors Richard M. Daley and Rahm Emanuel turned the program into Robin Hood for the rich, robbing the money from poorer areas of the city to give it to rich developers. The CivicLab called the TIF program racist, but it is more than that. It is classist. The corporatists do not care if the money is taken from black, brown, or white people, just so long as it is taken away from the less well-to-do to be provided to the rich.
TIFs are sucking the lifeblood out of our communities, and this charade needs to end, now. The mayor has proposed closing out five TIFs, but we do not think that goes far enough.”
Read the front page story covering our announcement of the campaign, which was done at the University of Illinois’ “Future of Chicago” lecture presented by Professor Dick Simpson and the Political Science Department.
Abolish Racist TIFs Now!
The CivicLab, through our TIF Illumination Project, has been investigating Tax Increment Financing districts here since 2013. After 143 public meetings and interacting with over 8,000 people all over the city, we declare that the TIF program is a racist slush fund and must be abolished.
Read our arguments and sign the online petition at www.endtifsnow.org.
Visit our online Action Center to become part of the TIF Elimination Project!
Social Justice Needs a Home – The Case for the CivicLab
“Chicagoland’s civic health is on life support.”
That was the grim assessment from the 2010 report “Chicago Civic Health Index.” The report was prepared by the McCormick Foundation and the Citizen’s Advocacy Center. “The 2010 Chicago Civic Health Index demonstrates the failure of the region to prepare its youngest citizens for their adult civic responsibilities, along with the effects of endemic political corruption and the widespread cynicism and disengagement it spawns.” Ouch.
Fast forward to 2019. How are we doing?
Not so well.