Tom explains TIFs and Illuminates the TIFs of Kane County and Aurora in his 225th public meeting since 2013. He was the guest of Aurora Alderman John Laesch and Working Families Auroura. They are working to stop the city of Auora from giving a billionaire casio operator $58 million in public TIF dollars! Sign the petition.
“I applaud Tom Tresser for his dedication to public service and civic engagement – especially through his TIF Illumination Project. Tresser has been diligently investigating TIFs for over ten years and doing public meetings to share findings. I attended his well-attended workshop that covered TIFs of Woodstock a few years ago and all my misgivings about TIFS were confirmed. My familiarity with Tax Increment Financing goes back to the 1970’s when I was a member of the Illinois House of Representatives and the TIF legislation was approved. I am so happy I voted against that legislation. It had all the hallmarks of massive grabs of taxpayers’ money. And that’s how it turned out. I have been following TIFs ever since, especially the ones that cost me higher taxes so developers can be subsidized by these municipal slush funds. The process is so secretive, yet so costly to everyone not in the TIF districts. The type of light that Tom has focused on this massive scam needs to continue and be spread nationwide. TIFs are corrupt and need to be abolished. Tresser is the only civic player I know of who is on top of the TIF scheme.” – Cal Skinner, Crystal Lake, IL, former 16-year member of the Illinois House of Representatives and McHenry County Treasurer (property tax collector)
Read all about it – hundreds of millions of public dollars gone missing in Cicero. This story in the Cicero Indpendiente was based on TIF Illumination Project data generated from our review of ALL of Illinois’ TIFs for 2020 (funded by the MuckRock Foundation). More to come…
Read this great article on TIFs and our TIF training and organizing
Read this in-depth coverage of the TIF protest, the TIF Illumination Project, and El Peublo Manda!
We held our 222nd public meeting on civic finance and TIFs on April 27. Our host was El Publeo Manda (The People Rule). We covered “TIF 101” and there wias Spanish translation. We covered the Pilsen TIF and the new TIF for Project 78 in depth. We discussed the city’s proposal to DOUBLE the size of the Pilsen TIF and the crowd was not happy. They are planning major and sustained pushback. They believe the future of their community and their own ability to STAY there is being seriously threatened.
The MuckRock Foundation has awarded the CivicLab a grant of $10,000 from its Gateway Program to investigate and expose ALL the Tax Increment Financing Districts in Illinois. The headlines and all the data for all of Illinois’ TIFs for 2020 is now available!
Watch This Video and Get Illuminated!
We delivered the comprehensive workshop “TIF 201 – Chicago Details + Organizing Strategies” on October 16, 2021. This video is available for rental viewing and is one hour, 43 minutes in length. We cover (1) the basics of how TIFs work – why we call them a slush fund, (2) the complete details of the TIFs of Chicago for 2020, Cook County, and Illinois – NO ONE else can give you this info!, (3) The public policy issues TIFs raise – the harms they do do our communities – which represent organizing hooks for civic engagement and policy change. Reach us at info@civiclab.us.
We are proud to announce that the CivicLab’s TIF Illumination Project was a finalist for the MIT Solve Global Challenge “Antiracist Technology in the U.S.”! Seven winners were be chosen from the 15 finalists from this challenge. There are four other global challenges and over 1,800 solutions were submitted from 29 countries! The 35 winners across all five challenges will share in a $2 million prize pool! We were proud to be a finalist – see our solution at http://tinyurl.com/Vote-4-CL-Tech-Challenge – Watch the pitch below…
Our 2020 TIF analysis is front page news for the November 2021 issue of Gazette Chicago – “City has $2 billion in TIF money ‘slush fund but it is not spending it, CivicLab charges”
Read coverage of our 183rd public meeting from September 22, 2021 when we lit up the TIFs of Evanston.
Listen to this wide-ranging interview on WVON from September 20, 2021 covering Mayor Lightfoot’s 2022 Budget Address and the state of civic equity in Chicago. (30 min)
Listen to Tom Tresser explain how TIFs work and reveal the headlines for Chicago’s 2020 TIF activities from WGN’s “Outside the Loop” Program from September 18, 2021. (11 min, 11 sec)
Listen to this interview from May 19, 2021 from Chicago Public Radio’s “Reset” Program with Jonathan Peck and TOm Tresser.
Chicago Tribune reports on “What’s a TIF and where do your tax dollars go? This group wants to help people get answers.”
Sign petition to abolish TIFsJoin our campaign to ABOLISH TIFs!
Cincinnati Educational Justice Coalition Coordinator Michelle Dillingham said this of Tom Tresser’s work with them: “On behalf of the Cincinnati Educational Justice Coalition we want to thank you again for your contribution to Cincinnati’s fight against the expansion of the Tax Increment Financing (TIF) Districts in Cincinnati, Ohio. While we were not successful in convincing City Council to not approve 14 new TIF Districts in December 2019, your advice and support throughout our campaign was invaluable. Your presentation to the Cincinnati community was incredibly helpful in helping us understand TIF’s, and your testimony before Cincinnati City Council as a subject matter expert was impactful. You went above and beyond to help us, including speaking to local press, and sharing your years of research and findings with us.” Bring us to YOUR community!Tom Tresser reacts to Mayor Lightfoots’s so-called TIF “reforms”
From Kyle Sneed, President of the Wicker Park Committee: “Tom did a great job! He clearly articulated how tax increment financing (“TIF”) works, where districts are located in the 1st, 2nd, and 32nd wards, and issues with TIF. TIF isn’t necessarily the most “exciting” topic but our nearly two hour meeting flew by because of Tom’s presentation and audience engagement. Feedback from our meeting was very positive and folks walked away feeling educated and empowered to talk to others about the issues associated with TIF.” – Read the coverage from Inside Publications (click below). Bring us to YOUR community and we’ll light up the TIFs that are taking your public $. Contact us @ info@civiclab.us
Download article covering the Wicker Park meeting…
Cincinnati Educational Justice Coalition Coordinator Michelle Dillingham said this of Tom Tresser’s work with them: “On behalf of the Cincinnati Educational Justice Coalition we want to thank you again for your contribution to Cincinnati’s fight against the expansion of the Tax Increment Financing (TIF) Districts in Cincinnati, Ohio. While we were not successful in convincing City Council to not approve 14 new TIF Districts in December 2019, your advice and support throughout our campaign was invaluable. Your presentation to the Cincinnati community was incredibly helpful in helping us understand TIF’s, and your testimony before Cincinnati City Council as a subject matter expert was impactful. You went above and beyond to help us, including speaking to local press, and sharing your years of research and findings with us.” Bring us to YOUR community!
TIFs threatening YOUR community? Bring us to town ASAP!
Our work is funded in part by Illinois Humanities with support from The Crossroads Fund, The Joseph & Bessie Feinberg Foundation, the Muckrock Foundation, and from Leonard C. Goodman and from many small donors. Thank you!
