Rauner Signs Legislation Aiding Obama Library, Lucas Museum
CHICAGO (CBS) -- Gov. Bruce Rauner signed a measure Friday designed to give additional legal protection to plans to build the Barack Obama Presidential Library and filmmaker George Lucas' museum in Chicago.
"It will be a wonderful institution for the people of our great state and to help drive economic development and tourism and visitors from all over the United States," Rauner said in approving the legislation.
The library will be placed in either Washington Park or Jackson Park, two sites proposed by the University of Chicago, where the president once was a law professor.
As Rauner was signing the bill permitting the use of park land, the group known as Friends of the Parks were issuing a plea to President Obama to forbid such a plan, CBS 2 Chief Correspondent Jay Levine reports.
"Please leave us the double legacy of a world class library and world class parks. Find a site that does both," the group said.
Little more than a week ago, Illinois lawmakers fast-tracked a proposal designed to clear possible hurdles to the Obama library or the Lucas Museum of Narrative Art.
The measure would reinforce that the city of Chicago and Chicago Park District are allowed to build the Barack Obama Presidential Library in Washington Park or Jackson Park on the South Side, and to locate the Lucas Museum of Narrative Art along the lakefront, just south of Soldier Field.
The legislation gives the city the authority to build museums or libraries on parkland, including "formerly submerged land," language intended to protect the Lucas museum from a lawsuit filed by the Friends of the Parks, who have argued the city cannot transfer land that was once part of Lake Michigan to a private entity. The chosen site for the Lucas Museum is lakefront property that was created with landfill in the 1920s.
The park advocacy group also has threatened to file a lawsuit against the city if park land is used for the University of Chicago's proposal to host the Obama library. They have said there are plenty of places the Obama Library could be built in Chicago, without selectively amputating part of an existing park. They also have claimed placing the Obama Library in a public park would set a dangerous precedent for transferring park land to private control.
The city, however, has passed an ordinance that would require any park space used for the library be replaced by an equal size of new park land elsewhere.