The odds may favor Chicago landing the the Obama library and museum — with the University of Chicago, the University of Illinois at Chicago being two of the four finalists — but that doesn’t mean voters want tax dollars used to help make it happen, a new poll shows.
A Chicago Tribune poll of 800 registered voters shows that 54 percent of those polled oppose state tax dollars being used for construction of the library. Thirty-nine percent said tax dollars should be used, whle 7 percent had no opinion.
The University of Chicago bid includes three sites: one near Hyde Park High School, at 6220 S. Stony Island; the area near 55th and King Drive; and the South Shore Cultural Center, 7059 S. South Shore. The University of Illinois at Chicago bid offered sites near its West Side campus and the university’s nearby Medical Center campus, plus one in the Lawndale neighborhood, a parcel bordered by Fifth Avenue, Roosevelt Road, Kostner Avenue and Kildare Avenue.
The poll found Chicago voters supportive of a state investment in a future Obama library — 61 percent to 31 percent. But voters in every other region of the state were opposed. In the collar counties, which tend to lean Republican, and in the 96 counties outside the Chicago region, the opposition was 2-to-1.
Via Chicago Tribune
