Cook County Board President Toni Preckwinkle in 2022 announced a program that would target businesses owned by minorities, women, the disabled and veterans to receive $10,000 grants from federal COVID relief funds. County officials have yet to award the money, and have announced they are retooling the program after a white Edison Park business owner filed a class action lawsuit.

Rich Hein/Sun-Times file

A lawsuit by a white North Side businessman has forced Cook County officials to revamp a program that would have paid out $10,000 grants to minority- and women-owned businesses hurt by the COVID 19 pandemic.

Announced in 2022, the Source Grow Grant Program was to pay out some $71 million in federal COVID relief funds as grants to “historically excluded businesses — including those owned by entrepreneurs of color, women, veterans, LGBQT+ and persons with a disability — to close racial wealth and opportunity gaps.”

Three months after the program was launched, Edison Park chiropractor Domenic Cusano filed a lawsuit backed by the California-based Pacific Legal Foundation, seeking an injunction to bar the program from releasing any grants because the program would “disadvantage his application in comparison to similarly situated applicants who identify as nonwhite or Hispanic.”

The county received 22,000 applications from business owners, but no funds were awarded and county officials this week announced they would redesign the program and ask applicants to resubmit.

Court records indicate Cusano’s request for an injunction was dismissed earlier this month by the judge because the county had announced the program was “rescinded” on Feb. 27.

It was not clear from the lawsuit whether Cusano, who said he identifies as …read more

Source:: Chicago Sun Times