This made my day.
After stumbles, Chicago on course to host Obama libraryBy KATIE GLUECK and EDWARD-ISAAC DOVERE 2/19/15
Chicago soon may win the Obama presidential library in spite of itself.
Earlier this month, it was far from a done deal. Although the Windy City was where Barack Obama launched his career and started his family, and where his former chief of staff Rahm Emanuel now serves as mayor, a seemingly mundane land use dispute nearly derailed the proposal to build the library at the University of Chicago. Meanwhile, Columbia University, Obama’s alma mater, stepped into the breach — offering 17 drama-free acres in upper Manhattan.
It took personal intervention by Emanuel, who faces reelection next week, to find a way to end the land dispute and put Chicago — specifically, the city’s South Side — back at the front of the pack. That would locate the library in the neighborhood the president represented in the state Senate, anchor it to the school where he used to teach and put it within walking distance of the home he still owns.
The Barack Obama Foundation, the nonprofit charged with siting the library, is set to announce the location by the end of next month. Obama was set to visit the neighborhood on Thursday and get a briefing by foundation members on the library plans.
“Now that they’ve done the real estate deal, it’s probably Chicago’s to lose,” said Benjamin Hufbauer, an expert on the politics of presidential libraries, who also teaches at the University of Louisville and has followed the bidding process closely, even as he noted that Columbia’s bid is a competitive one.
Emanuel has vowed to “move heaven and earth” to make sure the library is built in his city, either to the University of Chicago or to a less likely spot offered by the University of Illinois-Chicago.
The land dispute that nearly scuttled the University of Chicago’s proposal arose because the university didn’t actually own all of the land it offered up, prompting significant concerns from the foundation. Some of it was park land, and some residents who opposed losing public green space have threatened a lawsuit.The dispute simmered for weeks until Emanuel brokered a proposal under which the Chicago Park District would transfer control of several potential sites to the city, which could then offer them to the foundation.
The move was touted as a show of strength, buoyed by support from the vast majority of the city council. And last week, following heated and lengthy public hearings, the Chicago Park District unanimously approved that transfer, which will happen only if the University of Chicago is chosen.
The Obama Foundation said that move “improves Chicago’s bids.” And while the city council still needs to approve that decision next month, it’s expected to pass easily.
“We had received some feedback from the Foundation that not having the land assembled for the library was problematic, and so I believe that the Park District vote to transfer the park land to the city of Chicago actually gives [the foundation] more clarity and certainty about the land assembly process,” said Alderman Pat Dowell, whose ward includes Washington Park, one of the potential sites.
Columbia University, which has long been the University of Chicago’s biggest competition, has taken a lower-profile approach and offered no comment beyond an official university statement. But observers note it also has put forth a very attractive package. The site is located in a part of town that is already up-and-coming, allowing the library to be part of the story of revitalization. And Columbia, which Malia Obama visited recently on a college tour, already owned the land and had other city issues worked out early on.
That’s an advantage that Susan Sher, who is spearheading the University of Chicago’s bid, acknowledged in December.
“I won’t make an argument on behalf of New York, but I will say an advantage they have, which is fortunate for them, [is that] for other purposes they have already identified, cleared and gone through all the public processes required,” said Sher, who served as Michelle Obama’s chief of staff.
Asked about that remark in an interview with POLITICO, Sher noted that Columbia went through their process years ago as part of a campus expansion, and praised Emanuel and the city for moving “very quickly.”
“I don’t know how it affects our chances, but I’m very gratified by the vote by the Park District commission,” she said. “We’re also very pleased there is so much community support, that people from the community were there to testify.”
Bids were submitted in December, which is when foundation sources started raising concerns about the properties that Chicago proposed.
In addition to Columbia, the University of Hawaii — in Honolulu, where Obama was born and raised — has long been working on its own bid. As early as 2010, a committee there was exploring the process, and has been openly wooing Obama allies for longer than the University of Chicago or Columbia. It has always had one serious drawback — its distance from the U.S. mainland.
“Part of the idea of a presidential library is to have the maximum political and cultural impact,” Hufbauer said. “Hawaii is obviously a spectacular site, an amazing place, but in terms of having maximum impact, it doesn’t seem like the ideal site.”
For many political observers, the notion that the library would be anywhere but Chicago has long been unfathomable.
David Axelrod, who served as a senior campaign adviser to Obama and was instrumental in running his successful bit for the White House, heads the school’s Institute of Politics. He said this month that it would be “inconceivable” for the library to be located anywhere other than Chicago.
“We knew what we had to do,” said an operative familiar with the process, “And we are slowly doing it.”
http://www.politico.com/story/2015/02/obama-library-chicago-115326.html#ixzz3SK8ovD4F
