This past Friday, Illinois Governor Bruce Rauner signed a bill that could help end the legal battle over the location for the Lucas Museum of Narrative Art. A statement issued by the Rauner administration’s office said that the governor “believes the Lucas museum will be a big benefit to the state of Illinois and the city of Chicago.”
The future of the museum has been hanging in the balance since an environmental organization, Friends of the Parks, filed a federal lawsuit claiming that building the museum on Chicago’s lakefront is in violation of a law that prohibits construction on “formerly submerged land.”
The new law states that the Chicago Park District has the authority to lease land for a presidential library or a museum, even if located on such land.
Friends of the Parks, which also opposed the building of the Obama Presidential Library on park land, released this statement:
“It is deeply troubling that our mayor and state public officials are trying to use the Obama Library as a shield to sneak the Lucas Museum on to Lake Michigan. It basically authorizes the city to run a mall up and down the lake so long as they call it a museum. It is a complete blank check to abdicate the legal duty of protecting the lake for the people of this state and for generations to come.”
Legal experts say that the new law could “greatly hurt” the group’s lawsuit against the Lucas Museum, thereby allowing the construction to move forward.
Source: Chicago Tribune
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