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10 X 10 To Win to Host Community Town Meeting on Tax Increment Financing in Chicago’s 21st Ward

The political action organization 10 X 10 To Win will host a community town meeting on Thursday, August 20, 2026, from 5:00–7:00 p.m. to explain how Tax Increment Financing (TIF) districts work and reveal the full details of how TIFs have impacted Chicago’s 21st Ward.
The meeting is free and open to the public.

The simple URL for this Facebook Event = www.tinyurl.com/TIF-8-20-26

10 X 10 To Win believes in the principles and practices of democracy and in ensuring that democracy lives out its meaning for every person in our society. The organization believes the democratic process in Illinois has been compromised by corporate money and the Supreme Court’s Citizens United ruling, which held that corporations and other organizations can make independent political expenditures protected as speech.

The organization seeks to restore and re-energize the democratic process in Illinois by registering and activating 100,000 new Black voters.

“We are presenting this community forum to expose how Tax Increment Financing has been bastardized as another means to rip off Black communities,” said Mark Wallace, founder of 10 X 10 To Win.
The forum will explain how TIF districts work and examine their impact across Chicago, Cook County, and the state of Illinois. Presenters will share the full history of the TIF districts in the 21st Ward, the community where the meeting is being held and outline the many ways the organization believes TIFs harm communities, particularly communities of color.

Organizers say the meeting will provide information that the general public has rarely had the opportunity to hear presented in one place.

The presenter will be Tom Tresser, founder and lead organizer of the TIF Illumination Project at www.tifreports.com.

“This will be my 234th public TIF meeting, or Illumination, as we call them,” said Tresser. “I have been on this beat since 2013, and attendees will learn things at this meeting that the Powers That Be do NOT want them to know. If you want to know why your property taxes are so high and why your community has been so neglected for so long, you must attend this meeting.”

Wallace added: “I’ve been working, organizing, and educating in the Black community for 15 years, and we need to get to the bottom of TIFs and the causes of economic inequality that plague our people and put an end to them.”