Suggested Speakers
- Tom Tresser | @tomstee
The CivicLab TIF Illumination Project
Across USA 1000’s of TIFs pull $20 billion from public schools annually. What’s going on? This session will explain TIFs & how to cover them
Session Description
Tax Increment Financing (TIFs) are in almost every state. They siphon billions property tax dollars from local governments across America annually. Ostensibly for development in “blighted” areas, TIFs have become the last locally controlled slush fund available to mayors across the country. In Chicago thye program has gone off the rails and has been the source of scandal and conflicts-of0interest for decades. The all-volunteer TIF Illumination Project has been using data mining, investigatory reporting, graphic design and community organizing to review and expose the hyper-local impacts of TIFs in Chicago. We’ve done 47 public meetings in and around the city in front of 4,700 people (all done with no budget or marketing). This workshop will review what TIFs are and do, how big a deal they are and explain our work and the civic engagement and public policy ripples this work has had here. It is a PERFECT way for media platforms – print, online, TV, radio – to engage their communities AND recruit volunteers to dig into stories that revolve around how people’s property taxes are being used and abused. This session will be of interest to reporters covering urban policy, planning, economic development, community organizing, grassroots social justice, data visualization and peeer-to-peer reporting efforts.
How does your submission contribute to the diversity of the conference?
I am an educator, organizer and good government geek. I feel that most of the organizations or entities that are SUPPOSED to be watching our public backs have abandoned their posts. In Chicago, our media is a shell of what it once was. Our City Council is a docile rubber stamp for the mayor. Our major downtown civic institutions serve the interests of their corporate board members. And across the neighborhoods we see disinvestment, skyrocketing youth unemployment and a staggering lack of civic imagination. This work is straight out of the hood – combining tough question-asking, research, civic tech, graphic design and popular education. THOUSANDS of people have come out to get and process this work. There is a HUGE opportunity for some news platform to partner up and take on this sort of reporting and civic engagement. People (in Chicago, at least) know the City is lying to them about the TRUE state of local finances and see, over and over again, public money being showered on the undeserving rich, insiders and campaign donors. If you operate a local news platform and get into this work, you will be rewarded with fans, colleagues and collaborators.