Community Residents Demand Fairness and Equity in Chicago City Budget

Residents Lay Out Revenue Options to Protect Working Families and Require Rich to Pay Fair Share

CHICAGO, IL — In reaction to the City holding it’s first neighborhood budget hearing since 2011, Grassroots Collaborative will hold a press conference with residents and community leaders outlining revenue solutions that would generate millions of dollars to fund vital city services and programs.  The wide menu of progressive revenue includes: millions in additional TIF reforms, renegotiating financial fees, ending bad bank deals, and reining in corporate tax breaks and subsidies.

“After years of excluding neighborhood residents from the city budget process we are glad that Mayor Emanuel has decided to listen to what the people of Chicago have to say.  What remains to be seen is if  the administration will take these ideas seriously. Our communities need immediate action to shift the budget burden from working families to the big banks and downtown developers profiting while neighborhoods suffer,” said Amisha Patel, Executive Director of Grassroots Collaborative.

A Press conference with community leaders calling attention to a multitude of progressive revenue solutions the City of Chicago could implement instead of cutting from working families and most vulnerable residents, was held yesterday at Malcolm X College, 1900 W Van Buren St, Chicago prior to Mayor Rahm Emanuel’s budget hearing. Following the press conference participants testified at the city budget hearing.

Participating in the press conference were Community leaders and neighborhood residents, parents and teachers being impacted by CPS cuts to Special Education, Dyett Hunger Striker.