Illinois Treasurer Dan Rutherford has re-adopted and re-posted the Citizen CRA
(Community Reinvestment Act) complaint form, negotiated by the Community
Reinvestment Organizing Project (COP) two years along as a bank accountability
process for Illinois citizens with concerns by limited or non-existent CRA activity
of state depositories.
COP leaders became aware that the form was no longer on the web site of the
Illinois treasurer’s office in February during a meeting with senior officials of the
city of Chicago treasurer’s office to discuss a similar CRA policy for municipal
depositories.
Leaders of COP met with Treasurer Rutherford and urged re-adopting the policy
and commitment to hold banks that receive public deposits and investment
accountable to Illinois citizens and communities struggling with the impact of
foreclosure, rising fees, branch closings and abandoned properties that taxpayers
pay to maintain.
Illinois Sen. Kimberly Lightford arranged the meeting.
“We fought too hard and long for this bank accountability policy to no longer
continue as policy for the new treasurer,” Mark Allen, chairman of the Community Banking Coalition, a COP affiliate group, said in a press release.
“And now that the policy of a process for filing a compliant on legitimate grounds and concerns of reinvestment is back in place, we must begin to use it to effectively win commitments that offer hope and change for economically struggling communities, urban and rural.”
For more information, contact Otis Chandler Monroe III at The Monroe Foundation at 773 315-9720.
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