Others Chime In On UNO Rogers Park

Just wanted to post some additional material related to our presentation at CPS last night. (Good coverage here.)  First, Professor Isabel Nunez from Corcordia University Chicago chimes in. She sent this letter to the Board. I have no idea if that means the hearing officer gets a copy; I have my doubts. It's probably sitting on a fax machine somewhere.

Remenber--- when B3's staff gets something like this, they summarize it for B3, and I'm guessing the summary reads something like, "Concordia  professor gets it, is on board."

And here, Northside Save Our Schools joins with our previous statement about UNO Rogers Park.

I've worked with the wonderful people at Northside Save Our Schools; they're the ones quarterbacking the Save Our Uptown Schools rally on April 27 at Stewart School. None of these groups have the charter budgets, the PR firms, the political connections--- we meet in church basements and people's apartments. So we might not be able to stop the UNO juggernaut, but we're not going to stop trying. 

Also, I read from Megan's notes last night that UNO has referred to a $12m state grant they received for some construction at one location or another. Don't forget that the UNO financial model is that of a bubble--- they need to keep expanding in order to pay off pre-existing debt. Somewhere down the line, the bubble pops, and if they're lucky--- if they're too big to fail--- they get bailed out by taxpayers.

So, I was curious about the $12m because I hadn't heard about it before. There's two ways for the state to grant $12m to UNO for charter construction. One way would be for the state to raise $12m for the project through revenue. Another way would be for the state to remove $12m from somewhere else in the state budget and hand it over to the UNO/d'Escoto nebula. I'm guessing they didn't raise a tax. Here's the state budget proposal from ISBE.