Slavery claim could block parking deal
(http://www.suntimes.com/news/metro/117893,CST-NWS-slave31.article)

October 31, 2006

BY FRAN SPIELMAN City Hall Reporter

Mayor Daley's $563 million plan to privatize the Millennium Park and Grant Park garages hit a surprise roadblock on Monday: The City Council's champion for slave reparations is threatening to seek a court order blocking the deal because she believes Morgan Stanley Investment Management lied about its past ties to slavery.

Ald. Dorothy Tillman (3rd) is furious because the firm chosen to lease and operate the 9,178 downtown spaces for the next 99 years claimed in a sworn affidavit that neither it nor its "predecessor entities" had profited from or invested in slavery or slaveholder insurance.

According to Tillman, that's a "lie" laid bare by the evidence about Riggs, Peabody and Co., a predecessor of J.P. Morgan Chase, that her daughter uncovered in 2004 during exhaustive research at the Library of Congress.

Claim: Slaves were collateral
Ebony Tillman's search ultimately prompted J.P. Morgan Chase to acknowledge that its predecessor banks in Louisiana allowed 13,000 slaves to be used as collateral on loans and took ownership of 1,250 slaves when those loans defaulted.

Morgan Stanley split from J.P. Morgan and Co. in the 1930s.

At a Finance Committee meeting Monday where the parking garage deal was approved by a 15-to-2 vote, Dorothy Tillman accused city Corporation Counsel Mara Georges of failing to police a 2002 slave reparations ordinance that demanded that city contractors search their records and come clean about past ties to slavery.

"The whole world is watching us just disregard this law for black people. . . . We're being totally disrespected as a people," Tillman said.

Chief Assistant Corporation Counsel James McDonald said the economic disclosure statement is a "self-enforcing affidavit" and the Law Department lacks the manpower to verify it. Since the slave reparations ordinance did not define "predecessor," the pivotal term is open to interpretation, he said.

Earlier this month, Daley unloaded the four premier downtown garages. The 99-year lease allows the city to retire $208 million in debt tied to the Millennium Park garage. It also paves the way for $122 million in capital improvements for neighborhood parks.

On Monday, a parade of aldermen staked their claim to a share of the money and Chicago Park District Supt. Tim Mitchell disclosed how some of it will be spent. Projects to be financed include those with state grants and tax increment financing already lined up to stretch the Park District contribution even further. They include: $4 million for a new park in Little Village; $3 million for a Jesse Owens field house; $2.5 million for a field house to replace a trailer at Valley Forge Park; $3 million to expand Taylor-Lauridsen Park; and $1 million for a band shell in Garfield Park.

fspielman@suntimes.com