History books of the future might not mention this, but the City Council meeting that gave the Obama Presidential Center final permission to build in Jackson Park included votes by Freddy Krueger, Prince, and a trio of giant animal heads.
The speakers were ardent, the officials distracted.
Whereupon—like a bolt of lightning on a dark and stormy night—rules were suspended, a roll-call vote was taken, and both OPC ordinances were resoundingly passed, 48 to zero.
Jackson Park Watch, which had urged the council to defer the vote, said in its own statement that no construction can occur until federal reviews are complete, and that those reviews will examine problems the group had noted: “loss of parkland, impacts of the discretionary roadwork, and displacement of local residents.”
