Nothing is better at making Barack Obama look good than Donald Trump.
The crowd of 150 18- to 24-year-olds jumped to their feet to greet him and were clearly thrilled to participate as Obama conducted a “reverse town hall” where he asked questions and they gave answers about societal problems they intend to solve and how they’ll bring about change.
And they’ve got the organizing thing down: Jackson Park Watch, which started as online posts by two concerned south-side residents, announced in September that it has become a formally organized nonprofit (operating under the fiscal sponsorship of Friends of the Parks). “We were reluctantly concluding that the Obama Foundation was really not paying attention to community concerns,” says cofounder Margaret Schmid. Now JPW is raising money to hire the experts who can help it determine, for example, whether the shifting footprint of the Obama Center is cause for a legal challenge.
Speaking for the coalition, Kenwood-Oakland Community Organization executive director Jawanza Malone says there’s precedent: the ordinance will be loosely modeled on an agreement that was hammered out and passed by the council for the proposed Chicago Olympics.
