Protesters Demand Parks Group Drop Lucas Museum Lawsuit
CHICAGO (CBS) -- Scores of protesters rallied outside the Loop headquarters of the civic group Friends of the Parks on Thursday, demanding they drop their lawsuit blocking filmmaker George Lucas from building his proposed museum on the lakefront.
Some protesters wore hardhats, while others carried signs calling Friends of the Parks their enemies.
Rev. Leon Finney Jr. said minorities and youths need the jobs that construction of the Lucas Museum of Narrative Art would create.
The Friends of the Parks have obtained a court injunction prohibiting work from starting on the Lucas family's preferred site, just south of Soldier Field, while the advocacy group moves forward with a federal lawsuit alleging the project would be an illegal private development on protected lakefront land.
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Because of the ongoing court battle, Lucas and his wife, Mellody Hobson, have begun looking at other potential homes for the museum outside of Chicago – specifically in San Francisco and Los Angeles.
Finney was asked if the fight to keep the museum in Chicago is a lost cause.
"I have faith that, ultimately, we will win this museum for the city of Chicago. So my faith, even though it may look dim, I believe that we are going to have this museum here in the city of Chicago as long as we demand, and as long as the people demand," he said.
The Emanuel administration has asked the 7th Circuit Court of Appeals to order a federal judge to dismiss lawsuit filed by the Friends of the Parks. The city's filing calls the lawsuit "frivolous," and claims the city cannot wait for the case to go to trial, because the museum would abandon its efforts to build in Chicago before the lawsuit gets that far.
