Obama Presidential Center Advances At City Hall, As Officials Vow To ‘Monitor’ Displacement

Hopey-Changey and his minions in City Hall (*Emanuel*) stick it to the citizens of Chicago, particularly its pooorest inhabitants, big time!

Obama Presidential Center Advances At City Hall, As Officials Vow To ‘Monitor’ Displacement
Officials acknowledged the $500 million project could push longtime South Side residents out of their homes.

CITY HALL — Aldermen Thursday endorsed a revised agreement that will allow the Obama Presidential Center to be built in Jackson Park, as officials acknowledged for the first time that the $500 million project could push longtime South Side residents out of their homes.

Department of Planning and Development Commissioner David Reifman said city officials “recognized the potential for displacement” near the center, set to be built in Ald. Leslie Hairston’s 5th Ward.

“We will closely monitor property values and other indicators and implement appropriate measures,” Reifman said.

Former President Barack Obama and the Obama Foundation have resisted calls to sign a community benefits agreement that mandates 30 percent of all new and rehabilitated housing to be set aside for low- and moderate-income Chicagoans as well as a property tax freeze to thwart gentrification.

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The hearing before the Housing Committee was in contrast to a raucous meeting of the Plan Commission in May, when dozens of critics of the plan urged officials to send the proposal back to the drawing board to better protect longtime residents and preserve open space in Jackson Park. Instead, the two-hour hearing was mostly filled with paeans to Obama, the first African American president.

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The state budget approved in May included $172 million to cover the cost of closing Cornell and Marquette drives, diverting southbound traffic on Cornell to Stony Island Avenue, and widening Stony Island and Lake Shore Drive while adding stoplights and extending barrier walls on Hayes Drive.

https://blockclubchicago.org/2018/10/12/obama-presidential-center-advanc...

Okay, first off I’ll point out the really funny part. His papers aren’t even going to be stored in this edifice. They’ll be in a warehouse in Kansas City. Everything in the edifice will be ‘digitized’. Like the article points out, there’s plenty of vacant warehouses in Chicago. (If everything is going to be digitized, all the bastid needs is a big room full of computerized equipment.)

Second, it’s hilarious that the guy who didn’t do squat for anyone but the rich keeps touting this ‘first African-American President’ crap like he had one damn thing in common with poor people, black people in particular. Or that he ever did a damn thing for them. He’s a schmuck who was raised by his white mothers family. His main caretaker, his grandmother ‘Toot’ was the Vice President of the Bank of Hawaii. He has no idea of what it’s like to not have money, to be hungry, to be homeless.This selfish greedy bastid never wanted for anything in his life. In fact, his economic policies were designed specifically to benefit the well-to-do (like Granny) and stick it to the poor and middle class. He sure got the job done. Bonuses for Wall Street, Austerity for the rabble.

Obama Budget Proposal: Cuts To Target Working Poor, Middle Class & Students

https://m.huffpost.com/us/entry/822689

Obama Budget to Include Cuts to Programs in Hopes of Deal

https://www.nytimes.com/2013/04/05/us/social-programs-face-cutback-in-ob...

As for his much touted ‘transparency’ we lost more rights under that guy than we did under any previous president. He turned the Intelligence community loose and now everything we write in letters and text messages or say over the telephone is monitored and recorded. This guy wanted to put us and our kids in prison for crap he did, like smoking pot. (When his darling daughter got caught doing the same thing she got a year to travel around the world and have a good time for punishment.) Now the SOB is going to take away the homes of the poor who live in South Chicago. He and his crew even REFUSE to set aside part of that land, slightly less than 1/3 of the surrounding area, for the poor people that are being booted out of their homes. Whatta humanitarian.

But I guess I should look at the bright side..,

The center will be open free to the public 52 days a year, in line with other Chicago museums, according to the agreement.

ibid

How kind. The poor will be able to access the monument to his greatness that their homes used to stand on for free 52 days a year. Just like the other ‘museums’.

Top Chicago Museum Tickets & Passes

https://m.viator.com/Chicago-tours/Museum-Tickets-and-Passes/d673-g8-c31

That phony bastid was a ringer groomed specifically to fool people into thinking he cared about the Great Unwashed. Now he’s reaping his reward and the poor people and taxpayers of Chicago get to pick up the tab. Hopefully history will not be kind to this greedy bastid. Because in the here and now, he’s making out like a bandit.

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WaterLily's picture

“We will closely monitor property values and other indicators and implement appropriate measures,” Reifman said.

Whatever the eff that means.

Actually, I know what it means: diddly-squat.

This whole thing is so infuriating, even more so because there's nothing anyone can do to stop it.

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gulfgal98's picture

@WaterLily I would like to know what they can and will do about "property values" and displacement.

This is complete and utter bull. Yes, they can monitor those things, but that is about it. This is basically an Urban Renewal project and that means the poor will pay the price for this shrine to one of the biggest phonies ever elected President.

I personally am very opposed to the whole concept of individual Presidential libraries.

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Do I hear the sound of guillotines being constructed?

“Those who make peaceful revolution impossible will make violent revolution inevitable." ~ President John F. Kennedy

Cant Stop the Macedonian Signal's picture

@gulfgal98 They will "monitor" it? Am I supposed to be impressed?

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"More for Gore or the son of a drug lord--None of the above, fuck it, cut the cord."
--Zack de la Rocha

"I tell you I'll have nothing to do with the place...The roof of that hall is made of bones."
-- Fiver

gulfgal98's picture

@Cant Stop the Macedonian Signal have worked in a political environment, we see through this political empty promise. It is meaningless.

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Do I hear the sound of guillotines being constructed?

“Those who make peaceful revolution impossible will make violent revolution inevitable." ~ President John F. Kennedy

Bollox Ref's picture

the library-without-papers looks very shrine-like, so that should satisfy the o-bots at least.

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Gëzuar!!
from a reasonably stable genius.

divineorder's picture

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A truth of the nuclear age/climate change: we can no longer have endless war and survive on this planet. Oh sh*t.

divineorder's picture

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A truth of the nuclear age/climate change: we can no longer have endless war and survive on this planet. Oh sh*t.

snoopydawg's picture

@divineorder

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Which AIPAC/MIC/pharma/bank bought politician are you going to vote for? Don’t be surprised when nothing changes.

snoopydawg's picture

That he had to fight with the insurance company when she was on her deathbed? And that's why he wanted "no Americans to have to do that with their families" and why he wanted us to have decent health care. Blehh.

Even before he left office there was talk about his library and that it would built on the south side and would displace the poor.

Officials acknowledged the $500 million project could push longtime South Side residents out of their homes.

Building it in one of the empty warehouses wouldn't let him stick it to the poor and cut down any trees. How people can't see him for who he is just boggles my mind.

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Amanda Matthews's picture

@snoopydawg
the ‘common’ people.

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I'm tired of this back-slapping "Isn't humanity neat?" bullshit. We're a virus with shoes, okay? That's all we are. - Bill Hicks

Politics is the entertainment branch of industry. - Frank Zappa

@snoopydawg There are multiple vacant sites on the south east side of Chgo. That used to be factories or steel mills and can't be used for residential housing due to contamination of the land from the former tenants. Any one of them would make a great location for a library that probably wont be visited by many anyway. As a life long Chicagoland native I can tell you the ptb have had their eyes on the south side for about 20yrs. It is the only area left of Chgo. that hasn't been gentrified or under gentrification. BTW a lot of the s.side especially around where they want to put the library is walking distance to lake Michigan so that makes it prime real estate. Lots of money to be made at the expense of the poor. Same as it ever was!

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snoopydawg's picture

@pro left

Lots of money to be made at the expense of the poor. Same as it ever was

Isn't that typical? What is the risk from climate change for Lake Michigan? I'm not up on what might happen with the big bodies of water with it. Be a shame if the library flooded.

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WaterLily's picture

@snoopydawg From your lips ...

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@snoopydawg as far as I can tell and like I said lots of money to be made. As for the flooding anything is possible with the climate in chaos. I'm not sure of the exact location of the library, Jackson Park is 500 acres but is basically on the lake front. Btw this area was developed in 1893 for the Chicago World's Fair. Wikipedia has good info for anyone interested.

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Daenerys's picture

@snoopydawg After eight long years of W's garbled word salads people yearned for a more eloquent speaker. Now he's sandwiched between W and yet another dipshit who can barely string a sentence together. It's the only thing that makes any sense, anyway.

Fuck capitalism!

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This shit is bananas.

snoopydawg's picture

@Daenerys

Speaking coherently was pretty much all we little folks got from him.

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Amanda Matthews's picture

@snoopydawg
was lying his ass off and putting the screws to us.

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I'm tired of this back-slapping "Isn't humanity neat?" bullshit. We're a virus with shoes, okay? That's all we are. - Bill Hicks

Politics is the entertainment branch of industry. - Frank Zappa

Cant Stop the Macedonian Signal's picture

@snoopydawg They don't see it because they can't bear to see it. It's actually quite simple, albeit stomach-turning.

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"More for Gore or the son of a drug lord--None of the above, fuck it, cut the cord."
--Zack de la Rocha

"I tell you I'll have nothing to do with the place...The roof of that hall is made of bones."
-- Fiver

@snoopydawg @snoopydawg

contemplated men of color. (Not those exact words, but the concept was unmistakeable.) I believe that was in the book he had her read before it was in final form, so she could make suggestions. How selfishly cruel was that?

After she died, he expressed regret about how he had treated "the one constant in my life."

Sociopath.

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Pricknick's picture

Here's to hope and change.

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Regardless of the path in life I chose, I realize it's always forward, never straight.

Not Henry Kissinger's picture

@Pricknick

obama finger.jpg

Mótmæli - Lara Högg iceldand.jpg

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The current working assumption appears to be that our Shroedinger's Cat system is still alive. But what if we all suspect it's not, and the real problem is we just can't bring ourselves to open the box?

@Not Henry Kissinger

How mature and classy of him!

I remember Raymond A. doing things like that in elementary school,thinking he was too funny and clever for words, when he was just yet another puerile fifth grader.

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of bile. That none of us saw this side of Obama is amazing. I have read blogs that talk about how the trees in that area of the park house thousands of migratory birds every year (tree shelter next to a water source). So you can toss out "Obama the environmentalist" too.

On top of all of this, Michelle Obama says the other day that she loves W and that he is a sweet and funny man. A sweet and funny man. She has lost her mind too.

I would love to see more reporting sites talk about what Obama is doing in Chicago. Think we can get Marcos to write one??? HAHAHAHAHA!

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"Without the right to offend, freedom of speech does not exist." Taslima Nasrin

@Fishtroller 02

Some of us (not I) saw it in 2007-2008, while he campaigned for his first Presidential term. Others (like me) saw it as we (and cameras) watched him pen the final changes to the Affordable (HA!)Care Act for adoption by the House via reconciliation (meaning, by the vote of simple majority). Others saw it by the end of his first term, despite all the exhortations to give him slack until after he was re-elected (as if all America putting up with crap for an extra few years were less important that his reelection). By then some of us had begun a "draft Sanders" movement (but Sanders declined). And some of us saw it by the time he ended his second term.

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snoopydawg's picture

@HenryAWallace

but back then I still voted lesser evil. I gave up on him between the FISA vote and his cabinet picks. The final straw was asking Rick Warren to say the prayer at his inauguration. In what world did that make sense? What message was he trying to send us? Oh well. At least he passed Lily Ledbetter right? Single payer? Oh no. This would interrupt the profits of the insurance companies. Can't have that.

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Cant Stop the Macedonian Signal's picture

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"More for Gore or the son of a drug lord--None of the above, fuck it, cut the cord."
--Zack de la Rocha

"I tell you I'll have nothing to do with the place...The roof of that hall is made of bones."
-- Fiver

@Cant Stop the Macedonian Signal

all the fuss about his birth certificate, while I knew of none about his parents' marriage certificate. Even if there were a wedding, it would have been void because father had a wife in Africa when he met Obama's mom and he returned to her in Africa after his stint in the US, taking with him a woman he met in NY.

Remember how gallant Obama was about no attacks on Palin's daughter who, in 2008, was pregnant out of wedlock? Perhaps that was authentic protective of offspring or perhaps he knew he didn't want that can of worms touched with a ten-foot pole, or a bit of both. If I am correct, that would, I think, make Obama not only our first African-American President, but also our first President born out of wedlock,"not that there's anything wrong with that." (Reference: Seinfeld)

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snoopydawg's picture

@HenryAWallace

I knew nothing about this. I'm surprised that didn't get more attention.

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Century old trees bulldozed to make make way for this temple to Holy Obama, Blessed be his Name.

Sickening. Environmentalists would be protesting if it were Trump or Bush or Romney.

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I've seen lots of changes. What doesn't change is people. Same old hairless apes.

Barack empty suit Obama is an incredibly self-centered, self-absorbed POS, who believes that no sacrifice on the part of others is too great to make in the service of glorifying him undeservedly.

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too young to remember.

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