Court Opinion

ID: 9958344
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2024-04-08 22:01:18.531829+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T08:18:12.950777
License: Public Domain

In the

     United States Court of Appeals
                 For the Seventh Circuit
                     ____________________
No. 22-3190
PROTECT OUR PARKS, INC., et al.,
                                                Plaintiffs-Appellants,
                                 v.

PETE BUTTIGIEG, Secretary of Transportation, et al.,
                                         Defendants-Appellees.
                     ____________________

         Appeal from the United States District Court for the
           Northern District of Illinois, Eastern Division.
          No. 1:21-cv-02006 — John Robert Blakey, Judge.
                     ____________________

     ARGUED OCTOBER 24, 2023 — DECIDED APRIL 8, 2024
                ____________________

   Before ROVNER, WOOD, and HAMILTON, Circuit Judges.
    WOOD, Circuit Judge. This appeal represents, we hope, the
ﬁnal installment in the long-running challenge led by a group
called Protect Our Parks, Inc. (“POP”), which strenuously ob-
jects to the location of the planned Obama Presidential Center
in Chicago. See Protect Our Parks, Inc. v. Chicago Park Dist., 971
F.3d 722 (7th Cir. 2020) (“POP I”), cert. denied sub nom. Protect
Our Parks, Inc. v. City of Chicago, 141 S. Ct. 2583 (2021); Protect
Our Parks, Inc. v. Buttigieg, 10 F.4th 758 (7th Cir. 2021) (per
2                                                     No. 22-3190

curiam) (“POP II”); Protect Our Parks, Inc. v. Buttigieg, 39 F.4th
389 (7th Cir. 2022) (“POP III”). Throughout the present phase
of the case, the Center has been under construction. But the
rub is this: it is rising in a corner of Chicago’s historic Jackson
Park on a site selected by the Barack Obama Foundation. POP
contends that Jackson Park should have been oﬀ-limits, and it
insists that the Center easily could have been placed else-
where. Raising a bevy of arguments—seven based on federal
law, eight on state law—all seeking to prevent the construc-
tion of the Center in Jackson Park, POP and its co-plaintiﬀs
sued numerous state and federal defendants. (We refer to the
plaintiﬀs collectively as POP unless the context requires oth-
erwise.) Construction is now well underway, and the Center
is expected to be completed in late 2025.
   Earlier adverse rulings from this court, plus the on-the-
ground reality of the construction, have not deterred POP.
Most recently, it asked us to enjoin construction until the
courts resolve its federal-law theories. But it failed to make
the requisite showing that it was likely to succeed with those
contentions, and so we declined to grant the preliminary in-
junction it sought. See POP III, 39 F.4th at 397. In the mean-
time, the district court refused POP’s request to amend its
pleadings and dismissed the state-law causes of action. At the
request of the parties, the district court then awarded sum-
mary judgment against POP on the federal-law theories.
    POP has now asked us to overturn the district court’s ﬁnal
judgment in its entirety. In support of its federal-law theories,
it presents the identical factual record that we reviewed in
POP III, supported by the same arguments. Those arguments
remain unpersuasive. Moreover, we have identiﬁed no legal
error in our earlier analysis of POP’s case, and so we stand by
No. 22-3190                                                   3

that decision. We also conclude that POP’s state-law theories
were rightly dismissed and that the district court did not
abuse its discretion when it denied POP’s motion to amend
the complaint. In summary, we aﬃrm the judgment of the dis-
trict court.
                       I.     Background
   Although this ground has been well trodden, we review
the underlying facts and the course of the litigation for the
convenience of those who do not wish to track down and re-
read our earlier decisions.
           A. The Proposed Locations for the Center
    In March 2014, the Barack Obama Foundation (“the Foun-
dation”), a private not-for-proﬁt organization, initiated a na-
tionwide search for a future home for the Obama Presidential
Center (“the Center”), a presidential library that would honor
the work and legacy of the 44th president. Various organiza-
tions around the country and in Chicago recommended po-
tential sites for the Center.
    The University of Chicago proposed two locations near its
campus: one in Washington Park and another in Jackson Park.
Both are historic public parks in Chicago’s South Side; the lat-
ter is a 551-acre park that sits in the Hyde Park and Woodlawn
neighborhoods where President Obama once lived, worked,
and began his public career. The Foundation eventually
ranked these potential sites as two of its top three choices for
the future location of the Center and communicated its assess-
ment to the City of Chicago (“City”).
    In 2015, the Chicago City Council passed an ordinance
(“the 2015 Ordinance”) in which it expressed its “robust com-
mitment to bringing the Presidential Center to Chicago.” The
4                                                  No. 22-3190

City Council determined that the Center would “expand the
City’s cultural resources, promote economic development,
strengthen surrounding communities, … and serve other im-
portant public purposes.” The 2015 Ordinance described sev-
eral possible locations for the Center, including the Jackson
Park site that the University of Chicago had proposed. That
site is a 19.3-acre portion of parkland that lies on the western
edge of Jackson Park, bounded on the north by Midway
Plaisance Drive North, on the east by South Cornell Drive, on
the south by East Hayes Drive, and on the west by Stony Is-
land Avenue.
    The 2015 Ordinance did not authorize any kind of devel-
opment. It stated only that “the City will introduce a separate
ordinance authorizing the development, construction and op-
eration of the” Center on whatever site was chosen. But to
achieve the “public purpose of facilitating the location, devel-
opment, construction and operation of” the Center, the 2015
Ordinance authorized the City to accept a transfer of the pro-
posed portion of Jackson Park from the Chicago Park District
(“the Park District”) if the Foundation settled on that site.
    The Park District had held Jackson Park in the public trust
since 1934, when a law passed by the Illinois General Assem-
bly took eﬀect. That law consolidated all existing parkland
that lay entirely or partly within the territorial boundaries of
Chicago and created the Park District to manage it. See 70
ILCS 1505/1. (The Park District later lost authority over park-
land outside Chicago’s corporate limits, but that change has
no eﬀect on our case. See id. 1505/1a.) Before the 1934 legisla-
tion, the parkland was held by the South Park Commission,
which had been created in 1869 with the authority to select
certain lands that would “be held, managed and controlled by
No. 22-3190                                                    5

them and their successors as a public park, for the recreation,
health, and beneﬁt of the public, and free to all persons for-
ever[.]” 1 LAWS OF THE STATE OF ILLINOIS 1869, at 360. In addi-
tion to enjoying the status of public-trust land since it was ac-
quired by the South Park Commissioners, Jackson Park has
been on the National Register of Historic Places since 1972 for,
among other things, serving as part of the grounds for the
1893 Columbian Exposition.
    Shortly after the City passed the 2015 Ordinance, the Gen-
eral Assembly amended the Park District Aquarium and Mu-
seum Act. See 70 ILCS 1290/1 (“Museum Act”). The amend-
ment, which became eﬀective on January 1, 2016, allows cities
and park districts to build museums, including presidential
centers, in their public parks. Id. It also authorizes cities and
park districts to contract out the construction, maintenance,
and operation of those museums to private entities organized
for that purpose. Id. Finally, the amended Museum Act “reaf-
ﬁrmed” the General Assembly’s view that museums “serve
valuable public purposes[.]” Id.
           B. The Selection of Jackson Park as the Site
    After evaluating its options, the Foundation selected Jack-
son Park as its preferred site for the Center. It then submitted
a speciﬁc proposal to the Chicago Plan Commission to build
the Center at that location. Along with the proposal, the Foun-
dation applied for the various permits and approvals needed
to undertake the development. According to the plans, the
Center will include four buildings and an underground park-
ing facility, all situated on a campus at the northwestern edge
of the park. It will feature a museum, a branch of the Chicago
public library, spaces for cultural and educational events, ath-
letic spaces, green space, and an archive commemorating the
6                                                   No. 22-3190

lives and legacies of President Barack Obama and First Lady
Michelle Obama. In its proposal, the Foundation oﬀered to
cover all costs associated with the Center’s construction.
    The Plan Commission reviewed the Foundation’s submis-
sions, held public hearings on the proposal, and in May 2018
unanimously recommended approval of the application. The
City Council approved the Plan Commission’s recommenda-
tion and granted the necessary permits. A few months later,
the City Council passed an ordinance (“the 2018 Ordinance”)
that allowed the City to accept title to the Jackson Park site
from the Park District. The 2018 Ordinance also authorized
the City to enter into agreements governing the Foundation’s
use of the site. A second ordinance authorized the City to va-
cate portions of Midway Plaisance Drive South and Cornell
Drive to make way for the Center.
    Pursuant to the 2018 Ordinance, the City entered into an
agreement with the Foundation (“Use Agreement”) that set
the terms of the Foundation’s use of the Jackson Park site. It
provides that the Foundation may use the Jackson Park site
for 99 years, but that the City will retain title to the land and
acquire title to the buildings and site improvements built on
it. The Use Agreement also requires the Foundation to fund
the construction of the Center and to operate it consistently
with the requirements of the Museum Act. Finally, an option
allows the City to terminate the Use Agreement if the Foun-
dation fails to use the Center for its authorized purpose.
    In May 2019, the City and the Foundation ﬁnalized a sec-
ond agreement (“Master Agreement”). Section 12 of the Mas-
ter Agreement sets forth various conditions precedent to the
City’s obligation to execute the Use Agreement. Relevant here
are sections 12(h), which requires the Foundation to certify to
No. 22-3190                                                    7

the City in writing that it has received funds equal to the pro-
jected total cost of constructing the Center, and 12(j), which
requires the Foundation to establish an endowment for the
purpose of operating and maintaining the Center during the
term of the Use Agreement. A provision in the Master Agree-
ment gives the City the option to waive these or any other
conditions precedent. Found in the ﬁnal paragraph of section
12, it states, in pertinent part, that “[i]f any one of the above
conditions [including 12(h) and 12(j)] is not satisﬁed by the
Closing Date, the City may, at its option, waive such condi-
tion[.]”
                 C. The Federal Review Process
    The federal government took no part in the process of se-
lecting the Jackson Park site as the location for the Center, nor
did it participate in the design of the campus. The City did not
need federal approval to close portions of existing roads in
Jackson Park. But the project was not entirely clear of federal
legal obligations. The choice of Jackson Park triggered ﬁve
mandatory federal reviews: (1) one by the Federal Highway
Administration (“Highway Administration”) pursuant to sec-
tion 4(f) of the Department of Transportation Act of 1966
(“Transportation Act”), see 49 U.S.C. § 303; (2) a joint environ-
mental assessment by the National Park Service (“the Park
Service”) and the U.S. Department of Transportation pursu-
ant to the National Environmental Policy Act (“NEPA”), see
40 C.F.R. § 1501.4 (2019); (3) a review by the Park Service un-
der the Urban Park and Recreation Recovery Act (“UPARR
Act”), see 54 U.S.C. §§ 200501–200511; (4) a review by the
Highway Administration pursuant to section 106 of the Na-
tional Historic Preservation Act (“NHPA”), see 54 U.S.C.
§ 306108; and (5) a review by the United States Army Corps
8                                                    No. 22-3190

of Engineers of the City’s requests for a section 408 permit, see
33 U.S.C. § 408, and a permit to ﬁll less than an acre of navi-
gable waters temporarily, see 33 U.S.C. § 1344(a).
    We thoroughly examined each of those agency reviews in
POP III. See 39 F.4th at 393–96. None of the parties has pointed
to any ﬂaw in the recitation of the facts we drew from the ad-
ministrative record and set forth in that decision. Indeed, the
parties jointly stipulated that there are no pertinent facts other
than those in the administrative record and there are no dis-
putes of material fact relevant to the legal theories before us.
Thus, rather than restate undisputed facts, we simply assume
familiarity with this portion of POP III.
                      D. Procedural History
                             1. POP I
    In 2018, POP (along with a few others not involved with
this case) launched a lawsuit arguing that the plan for the
Center violated the Takings Clause of the Fifth Amendment
and the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment.
When that lawsuit came before this court, we aﬃrmed the dis-
trict court’s grant of summary judgment for the defendants
on the constitutional theories, but we vacated judgment on
the state-law theories and dismissed them without prejudice
because POP had not suﬀered an injury in fact and thus
lacked Article III standing. See POP I, 971 F.3d at 728.
                             2. POP II
    No sooner was the ink dry on POP I when POP joined
forces with others who share its opposition to the Jackson
Park site: Nichols Park Advisory Council, which is an Illinois
not-for-proﬁt organization that shares POP’s mission of advo-
cating for public parks, and ﬁve individuals who reside in
No. 22-3190                                                                 9

Chicago and who have long used and appreciated the aes-
thetic beauty of Jackson Park. POP and its new allies initiated
the present action in April 2021 against the City and the Park
District (collectively, “the City”), the Foundation, and a group
of federal and state oﬃcers. The individual defendants, all of
whom were sued only in their oﬃcial capacities, 1 are Pete
Buttigieg, the Secretary of Transportation; Shailen Bhatt, the
Administrator of the Highway Administration; the Environ-
mental Programs Engineer of the Illinois Division of the High-
way Administration; 2 Deb Haaland, the Secretary of the Inte-
rior; Frank Lands, the Deputy Director of Operations of the
National Park Service; Christine Wormuth, the Secretary of
the Army; and Kenneth Rockwell, the Commander of the Chi-
cago District of the Army Corps of Engineers.
   POP relied on the Administrative Procedure Act, 5 U.S.C.
§ 702, for seven of the ﬁfteen counts in its new complaint.
Those counts raised the following theories: (1) the City, the
Foundation, and the Highway Administration defendants vi-
olated section 4(f) of the Transportation Act (Count I); (2) all
federal defendants violated NEPA (Count II); (3) the City, the
Foundation, the Park Service, and the Department of Interior
violated the UPARR Act (Count III); (4) all defendants

    1 Some of the officials named in POP’s complaint have since been re-

placed by new officers. Pursuant to FED. R. APP. P. 43(c)(2), we have sub-
stituted the current officials.
    2 This office is currently vacant. We note that it is unclear whether

entities such as the Environmental Programs section of the Highway Ad-
ministration are suable entities. The answer here does not matter, how-
ever. This is not a jurisdictional question, and the presence of the City, the
Secretary, and the Administrator assures us that there are ample proper
defendants.
10                                                    No. 22-3190

violated section 106 of the NHPA (Count IV); (5) the City and
the Army Corps violated section 408 of the Rivers and Har-
bors Act, 33 U.S.C. § 408, and section 404 of the Clean Water
Act, id. § 1344 (Count V); (6) all defendants violated Article I,
Section 1 of the United States Constitution (Count X); and (7)
all defendants violated section 110(k) of the NHPA, 54 U.S.C.
§ 306113 (Count XIV).
    The other eight counts allege violations of various state
laws: the public-trust doctrine (Count VI); the prohibition on
ultra vires actions (Count VII); Article VIII, Section 1 of the Il-
linois Constitution (Count VIII); the Takings Clause of the Il-
linois Constitution (Count IX); Article II, Section 1 of the Illi-
nois Constitution, which prohibits improper delegations of
authority (Count XI); Article I, Section 2 of the Illinois Consti-
tution (Count XII); Article I, Section 16 of the Illinois Consti-
tution (Count XIII); and the Illinois State Agency Historic
Preservation Resources Act, 20 ILCS 3420/1 (Count XV).
Those counts fall within the district court’s supplemental ju-
risdiction. See 28 U.S.C. § 1367.
    Soon after ﬁling its complaint, and just days before the
Foundation was scheduled to break ground on the Center,
POP moved for a preliminary injunction based on the federal-
law theories. It insisted that construction of the Center in Jack-
son Park had to be enjoined because the federal review pro-
cess fell short—woefully so, in its view—of the statutory re-
quirements. The district court concluded that POP was un-
likely to prevail on the merits of its contentions and promptly
denied its motion. POP then turned to us, seeking a prelimi-
nary injunction pending appeal, but, ﬁnding that POP had not
shown the necessary likelihood of success on the merits, we
denied this interim relief. See POP II, 10 F.4th at 763.
No. 22-3190                                                  11

                            3. POP III
    POP then moved ahead with its appeal of the district
court’s order denying its motion for a preliminary injunction.
See 28 U.S.C. § 1292(a)(1). After full brieﬁng and oral argu-
ments, we held that POP failed to make “at least … a ‘strong’
showing of likelihood of success … under any of the theories
it … invoked.” POP III, 39 F.4th at 397. POP’s principal theory
was that the federal agencies’ decision not to prepare a full-
blown environmental impact statement for purposes of NEPA
(as opposed to a more abbreviated environmental assessment,
which was done) was arbitrary and capricious. It was unlikely
to succeed on this theory, we said, because “the record shows
that the Park Service and Department of Transportation took
the necessary hard look at the likely environmental conse-
quences of the project before reaching their decisions.” Id. at
398. The agencies had “thoroughly studied the project
through the lens of the required regulatory factors before
reaching their decision that no environmental impact state-
ment was required,” and so, we concluded, their decision
“implicates substantial agency expertise and is entitled to def-
erence.” Id. at 399 (quotation omitted).
    POP’s second theory was that the Park Service and the De-
partment of Transportation were under an obligation im-
posed by NEPA to evaluate alternative locations for the Cen-
ter throughout Chicago. The agencies had avoided this al-
leged requirement, POP contended, by treating the City’s se-
lection of Jackson Park as a given. It saw the Department’s de-
cision not to question the selection of the Jackson Park site as
an unlawful “segmentation” of the project to make the envi-
ronmental impact appear smaller.
12                                                 No. 22-3190

    We concluded that this argument was “fatally ﬂawed for
three reasons.” Id. “First, NEPA reaches only major federal ac-
tions, not actions of non-federal actors,” and because “[t]he
Center was not a federal project, … no federal agency had the
authority to dictate to the [Foundation or the City] where the
Center would be located.” Id. Second, POP failed to establish
causation. We explained that “NEPA requires agencies to con-
sider only environmental harms that are both factually and
proximately caused by a relevant federal action.” Id. Notably,
“the federal government has no authority to choose another
site for the Center or to force the City to move the Center, and
so no federal action was a proximate cause of any environ-
mental harms resulting from the choice of Jackson Park.” Id.
at 400. Finally, we said that POP “ignore[d] the ‘reasonable’
half of the reasonable-alternatives requirement” because “[i]t
would be unreasonable to require agencies to spend time and
taxpayer dollars exploring alternatives that would be impos-
sible for the agency to implement.” Id.
    The same problems undermined many of POP’s other the-
ories. For example, it argued that the Highway Administra-
tion should have evaluated alternative locations for the Cen-
ter when conducting its section 4(f) review. But the Highway
Administration’s decision to take the location of the Center as
a given was not arbitrary and capricious because the agency
“could not have compelled the City to locate the Center at a
diﬀerent site.” Id. at 401. POP’s other arguments suﬀered
from the same ﬂaw. Thus, after thoroughly reviewing the ad-
ministrative record and addressing each of POP’s arguments,
we concluded that the district court had properly denied its
request for a preliminary injunction.
No. 22-3190                                                   13

                   4. Events Following POP II
    A few things happened between the time POP ﬁled its in-
terlocutory appeal and the date of our decision in POP III. In
August 2021, the Foundation broke ground on the project. The
construction in Jackson Park continues to this day. Press re-
ports indicate that the Foundation expects the Center to be
completed by late 2025. See, e.g., Lynn Sweet, Halfway Built,
the Obama Presidential Center Is Already a South Side Landmark,
CHICAGO SUN TIMES (Oct. 13, 2023).
    Back in the district court, there were two important devel-
opments. First, the City and the Foundation ﬁled a motion to
dismiss the state-law counts for failure to state a claim. See
FED. R. CIV. P. 12(b)(6). Second, after the motion to dismiss was
briefed and argued but before the court ruled on it, POP
sought leave to amend the complaint pursuant to Federal
Rule of Civil Procedure 15(a). It wanted to add breach-of-con-
tract and unjust-enrichment theories against the City and the
Foundation, on the ground that two conditions precedent of
the Master Agreement had not been satisﬁed. The district
court concluded that the two theories would be futile because
POP had no enforceable rights under the Master Agreement;
it accordingly denied leave. About three months later, the
court granted the motion to dismiss the state-law counts.
    Following this dismissal and our mandate in POP III, the
parties submitted a joint stipulation to the district court. As
we noted earlier, they agreed that all pertinent facts could be
found in the administrative record and that no additional
brieﬁng was necessary beyond what was submitted at the pre-
liminary-injunction stage. They also requested a ﬁnal judg-
ment on the federal-law counts in favor of the defendants in
order to pave the way for appellate review. The district court
14                                                     No. 22-3190

adopted the parties’ proposed order and entered ﬁnal judg-
ment for the defendants.
   POP now appeals the judgments dismissing its state-law
theories and awarding summary judgment to the defendants
on the federal-law counts, as well as the district court’s order
denying leave to amend. We address these rulings in reverse
sequence.
                   II.     The Motion to Amend
    POP ﬁled its motion to amend in November 2021, seven
months after its initial complaint. The amendment would
have added two additional state-law theories against the City
and the Foundation. The ﬁrst asserts that the City violated the
Master Agreement because the conditions precedent to the
transfer of parkland to the Foundation set out in sections 12(h)
and 12(j) were not satisﬁed; the second attempts to raise an
unjust-enrichment claim predicated on that failure. The dis-
trict court denied the request, concluding that amendment
would be futile because the Master Agreement does not con-
fer legally enforceable rights on any of the plaintiﬀs. We re-
view that decision for abuse of discretion. See Johnson v. Cy-
press Hill, 641 F.3d 867, 871 (7th Cir. 2011).
    Once the time for amendments as a matter of course has
expired, a party may amend its complaint only with leave
from the district court or written consent of the adverse par-
ties. See FED. R. CIV. P. 15(a)(2). Although a district “court
should freely give leave when justice so requires,” id., “leave
to amend is not to be automatically granted,” Johnson v. Meth-
odist Medical Center of Illinois, 10 F.3d 1300, 1303 (7th Cir. 1993),
and “[a] district court does not abuse its discretion in denying
a motion to amend when amending the pleading would be a
No. 22-3190                                                       15

futile act,” Wilson v. Am. Trans Air, Inc., 874 F.2d 386, 392 (7th
Cir. 1989). An amendment would be futile “if the amended
pleading could not survive a motion for summary judgment.”
Wilson, 874 F.2d at 392.
    POP’s ﬁrst new theory, as we said, focuses on sections
12(h) and 12(j) of the Master Agreement. Section 12(h) pro-
vides that the Foundation must certify in writing that it has
suﬃcient funds to cover the cost of constructing the Center;
12(j) requires the Foundation to establish an endowment to
operate, enhance, and maintain the Center for the duration of
the lease term set forth in the Use Agreement. According to
POP, neither of these conditions was satisﬁed by the time con-
struction of the Center began. As we noted earlier, the Master
Agreement authorizes the City to waive any conditions prec-
edent to the contract, but no one suggests that the City pur-
sued this option.
    Even assuming, as we must, that the requirements of sec-
tions 12(h) and (j) have not been satisﬁed, POP’s breach-of-
contract theory is still futile. It is a “rather vanilla statement of
contract law” that “a cause of action based on a contract may
be brought only by a party to that contract, by someone in
privity with such a party, or by an intended third-party ben-
eﬁciary of the contract.” Northbound Group, Inc. v. Norvax, Inc.,
795 F.3d 647, 651 (7th Cir. 2015) (quotation omitted). The Mas-
ter Agreement is a contract between only the City and the
Foundation: the plaintiﬀs play no part in it.
    Neither can POP point to any rights as a third-party bene-
ﬁciary of the Master Agreement. “Illinois law holds a strong
presumption against creating contractual rights in third par-
ties, and this presumption can only be overcome by a showing
that the language and circumstances of the contract manifest
16                                                    No. 22-3190

an aﬃrmative intent by the parties to beneﬁt the third party.”
Estate of Willis v. Kiferbaum Const. Corp., 830 N.E.2d 636, 642–
43 (Ill. App. Ct. 2005) (citing Bates & Rogers Const. Corp. v. Gree-
ley & Hansen, 486 N.E. 2d 902 (Ill. 1985)). Section 34 of the Mas-
ter Agreement states that the contract confers no beneﬁts
upon non-parties, thereby expressly disavowing any inten-
tion to confer contractual rights on POP and its co-plaintiﬀs.
    POP does not argue that general principles of contract law
provide the necessary enforceable rights. Rather, it argues
that it can enforce the terms of the Master Agreement because
the plaintiﬀs are municipal taxpayers and residents. POP con-
tends that Malec v. City of Belleville, 891 N.E.2d 1039 (Ill. App.
Ct. 2008), supports this theory. We read that case diﬀerently.
Malec is one of several cases holding that, under Illinois law,
“‘a taxpayer has standing to bring suit, even in the absence of
a statute, to enforce the equitable interest in public property
which he claims is being illegally disposed of.’” Id. at 1042
(quoting Martini v. Netsch, 650 N.E.2d 668, 670 (Ill. App. Ct.
1995)). Those cases might allow a taxpayer to challenge a land
use that violates state or municipal law, see id. at 1042–43, but
they do not establish that an alleged violation of a municipal
contract is grounds for a taxpayer suit. Malec does not recog-
nize a cause of action that would allow a plaintiﬀ to challenge
a land use made in violation of a contract to which it is not a
party. POP has not directed us to any authority that supports
its position, and so it would be futile for it to add the proposed
breach-of-contract claim.
   Perhaps recognizing that its ﬁrst theory falls short, POP
suggests an alternative theory that we charitably will call un-
usual. It tells us that its self-styled breach-of-contract claim is
actually a “taxpayer derivative action,” and that it is merely
No. 22-3190                                                   17

trying to enforce contractual rights belonging to the City.
While we appreciate POP’s creativity in this respect, we are
unable to connect this new line of argument with the claim
POP described in the proposed amended complaint. Illinois
courts do allow a taxpayer to bring suit “on behalf of a local
governmental unit to enforce a cause of action belonging to
the local governmental unit.” Scachitti v. UBS Fin. Servs., 831
N.E.2d 544, 550 (Ill. 2005). But recovery must run in favor of
the local government. See Feen v. Ray, 487 N.E.2d 619, 621 (Ill.
1985). Here, POP seeks relief against the City (which is a de-
fendant-appellee in this case, and which is having no trouble
speaking for itself). The lack of a relation between the relief
requested in the amended pleading, on the one hand, and the
nature of a taxpayer derivative suit, on the other, shows that
this theory would not so much recharacterize the claim as it
would transmogrify it. Because POP’s proposed complaint is
inconsistent with this new theory, it does not belong in the
case. See Vidimos, Inc. v. Laser Lab Ltd., 99 F.3d 217, 222 (7th
Cir. 1996).
    POP’s second proposed new theory is also doomed. Un-
der Illinois law, unjust enrichment “is a condition that may be
brought about by unlawful or improper conduct as deﬁned
by law.” Alliance Acceptance Co. v. Yale Ins. Agency, Inc., 648
N.E.2d 971, 977 (Ill. App. Ct. 1995) (quotation omitted). A
party may not dress up an unsuccessful contract claim in the
garb of unjust enrichment, but that is what POP is doing here.
Its unjust-enrichment claim cannot stand on its own: “the re-
quest for relief based on unjust enrichment is tied to the fate
of the [breach-of-contract] claim.” Vanzant v. Hill’s Pet Nutri-
tion, Inc., 934 F.3d 730, 740 (7th Cir. 2019). The district court
acted well within its discretion when it denied leave to
amend.
18                                                    No. 22-3190

                III.    The Federal-Law Theories
   We now turn to familiar ground: POP’s federal-law argu-
ments. The district court awarded summary judgment to the
defendants on all seven of those counts. On appeal, POP has
presented adequate arguments challenging the rulings on
only three of them. (We brieﬂy address its four other points in
Part V of this opinion.) We evaluate the district court’s ruling
de novo, construing the record in the light most favorable to
POP and drawing all reasonable inferences in its favor. See
Burton v. Downey, 805 F.3d 776, 783 (7th Cir. 2015).
                A. Application of Law of the Case
    As we noted at the outset, we covered much of this terri-
tory in POP III, where we concluded that POP had failed to
establish a strong likelihood of success on the merits. See 39
F.4th at 397. With that decision in hand, the defendants urge
us to conclude that POP III establishes the law of the case.
    “The law of the case doctrine is a rule of practice, based on
the sound policy that, when an issue is once litigated and de-
cided, that should be the end of the matter.” Tully v. Okeson,
78 F.4th 377, 380 (7th Cir. 2023) (cleaned up). It “establishes a
presumption that a ruling made at one stage of a lawsuit will
be adhered to throughout the suit.” Avitia v. Metro. Club of Chi-
cago, Inc., 49 F.3d 1219, 1227 (7th Cir. 1995). Nonetheless, the
rule is neither “a straitjacket,” id., nor “hard and fast,” Tice v.
Am. Airlines, Inc., 373 F.3d 851, 854 (7th Cir. 2004). The
strength of the presumption “varies with the circumstances.”
Avitia, 49 F.3d at 1227.
   POP argues that the law-of-the-case rule has no force here
because POP III was a preliminary-injunction ruling. As it
sees things, a court may apply the doctrine only if its prior
No. 22-3190                                                    19

ruling was a ﬁnal judgment on the merits. This argument mis-
understands the doctrine.
    It is true that in many circumstances it is inappropriate to
allow a decision granting or denying a preliminary injunction
to supply the law of the case in a later appeal. See, e.g., Hunter
v. Atchison, T. & S. F. Ry. Co., 188 F.2d 294 (7th Cir. 1951);
Thomas & Betts Corp. v. Panduit Corp., 138 F.3d 277 (7th Cir.
1998). We noted in Thomas two reasons why “[a] court must
be cautious in adopting ﬁndings and conclusions from the
preliminary injunction stage in ruling on a motion for sum-
mary judgment.” 138 F.3d at 292 (quotation omitted). First,
“ﬁndings of fact and conclusions of law made at the prelimi-
nary injunction stage are often based on incomplete evidence
and a hurried consideration of the issues.” Id. Second, “diﬀer-
ent standards apply in the two contexts (reasonable likelihood
of success on an injunction, and the existence of any genuine
issues of material fact on summary judgment).” Id. As we
have noted elsewhere, “a less-than-developed record, a short
timeline, and a concomitant truncated legal analysis … usu-
ally counsel against invoking the law of the case doctrine in a
way that would preclude a full merits determination.” Tully,
78 F.4th at 381.
    But “rarely” does not mean “never.” We, like our sister cir-
cuits, have recognized that “this general rule does not apply
to ‘a fully considered appellate ruling on an issue of law made
on a preliminary injunction appeal.’” Id. (cleaned up and
quoting 18B Charles Alan Wright, Arthur R. Miller & Edward
H. Cooper, Federal Practice and Procedure § 4478.5 (3d ed.
2019)); see also Howe v. City of Akron, 801 F.3d 718, 740 (6th
Cir. 2015) (collecting cases from other courts of appeals). In
other words, where the concerns we have discussed are not
20                                                   No. 22-3190

present, an earlier legal conclusion underlying a ruling on a
motion for a preliminary injunction may establish the law of
the case.
    This case falls comfortably into that exception to the gen-
eral rule. We had ample time in POP III to consider the iden-
tical record that is now before us, and so there are no new facts
we must incorporate. The legal issues have also remained the
same. These were litigation choices POP made. All it has done
during this round is to present the same legal arguments that
we rejected in POP III and to insist that our earlier conclusions
of law were erroneous. Its arguments are no more persuasive
now than they were then.
    In the interest of completeness, however, we are willing to
consider whether POP has oﬀered any reason that would jus-
tify our setting aside those earlier legal conclusions. A party
is “free to argue that an intervening change in law or other
changed or special circumstance warrants a departure” from
law of the case. Tice, 373 F.3d at 854. We have identiﬁed vari-
ous circumstances in which the court ought not to follow the
law of the case, such as when there is “a decision of the Su-
preme Court [or of this court sitting en banc, see Kathrein v.
City of Evanston, 752 F.3d 680, 685–86 (7th Cir. 2014),] after the
ﬁrst review that is inconsistent with the decision on that re-
view … [or] a conviction on the part of the second reviewing
court that the decision of the ﬁrst was clearly erroneous.” Chi-
cago & N.W. Transp. Co. v. United States, 574 F.2d 926, 930 (7th
Cir. 1978).
   We can ﬁnd no decision of either this court or the Supreme
Court that both post-dates and is inconsistent with our ruling
in POP III. POP draws our attention to several decisions in
which the Supreme Court has invoked the so-called “major
No. 22-3190                                                   21

questions” doctrine. See Am. Hosp. Ass’n v. Becerra, 596 U.S.
724 (2022); Becerra v. Empire Health Foundation, 597 U.S. 424
(2022); West Virginia v. EPA, 597 U.S. 697 (2022). It argues that
judicial deference to administrative agencies is now disfa-
vored. That may be so (we have no need to express a view on
the matter), but POP does not argue that this case presents a
major question, nor has it drawn any other connection be-
tween this supposed general legal development and the is-
sues raised in this case. It has not, for example, suggested that
those cases changed the way courts review claims under the
Administrative Procedure Act. And in any event, each of
those decisions was issued before our decision in POP III, and
so they do not present the kind of unusual circumstances that
warrant displacing the presumption that law of the case ap-
plies.
    In a last gasp, POP also contends that our decision in POP
III was clearly erroneous. See Agostini v. Felton, 521 U.S. 203,
236 (1997) (“The doctrine does not apply if the court is con-
vinced that its prior decision is clearly erroneous and would
work a manifest injustice.” (cleaned up)). Rehearsing the
same arguments that we heard and rejected in our earlier rul-
ing, it urges us to reverse course and accept them this time
around. We decline the invitation. Far from ﬁnding “manifest
error” in our earlier analysis, Tully, 78 F.4th at 381 (quotation
omitted), our fresh look at the matter convinces us that POP
III was correctly decided. Our earlier ruling therefore controls
the federal-law theories on appeal. We could stop there, but
for the sake of completeness, we summarize our key ﬁndings
on POP’s principal federal theories.
22                                                           No. 22-3190

                            B. NEPA (Count II)
    As in POP III, POP argues that the defendants violated
NEPA in three distinct ways. It ﬁrst says that the federal agen-
cies were required to prepare an environmental impact state-
ment, rather than an environmental assessment. Their deci-
sion that the assessment was enough was arbitrary and capri-
cious in POP’s estimation, because the project requires the
City to remove approximately 800 trees that provide nesting
spaces for local and migratory birds, and it will aﬀect an his-
torically and culturally signiﬁcant area. This argument fails
for several reasons.
    First, it misunderstands what NEPA is supposed to do.
“‘The only role’ for a court in applying the arbitrary and ca-
pricious standard in the NEPA context ‘is to insure that the
agency has taken a “hard look” at environmental conse-
quences.’” Highway J Citizens Group v. Mineta, 349 F.3d 938, 953
(7th Cir. 2003) (quoting Kleppe v. Sierra Club, 427 U.S. 390, 410
n.21 (1976)) (alteration omitted). In other words, NEPA is a
process statute, not one that imposes enforceable environ-
mental standards. As we explained in POP III, the administra-
tive record shows that “the agencies were very thorough.” 39
F.4th at 398. The environmental assessment includes, among
other things, a Natural Resources Technical Memorandum
that discusses the habits of migratory birds and how the pro-
ject will aﬀect their nests, as well as a Tree Technical Memo-
randum that considers each species of tree that will be cut
down to build the Center. 3 After reviewing each of these ef-
fects, the agencies concluded that none would have a

     3 Given the broad scope of the relief measures POP seeks, the fact that

the trees are by now long gone does not render this appeal moot.
No. 22-3190                                                   23

signiﬁcant impact. The environmental assessment thus con-
ﬁrms that the agencies took the necessary hard look at the
likely environmental impact before reaching a decision. Hav-
ing found and explained that “the proposed action will not
signiﬁcantly aﬀect the environment,” the agencies were not
also required to prepare the more elaborate environmental
impact statement. Indiana Forest Alliance, Inc. v. United States
Forest Service, 325 F.3d 851, 856 (7th Cir. 2003).
     Second, POP argues that the agencies unlawfully seg-
mented their NEPA review. Segmentation “‘allows an agency
to avoid the NEPA requirement that an [environmental im-
pact statement] be prepared for all major federal action with
signiﬁcant environmental impacts by segmenting an overall
plan into smaller parts involving actions with less signiﬁcant
environmental eﬀects.’” Mineta, 349 F.3d at 962 (quoting City
of West Chicago v. United States Nuclear Regulatory Comm’n, 701
F.3d 632, 650 (7th Cir. 1983)). In an eﬀort to prove that the
agencies unlawfully segmented the project when reviewing
it, POP points solely to the fact that the Foundation’s selection
of the Jackson Park site requires the City to close some road-
ways and construct new ones using federal highway funds.
    The City’s plan to use federal funds to construct new roads
near the site does not have the implications POP believes that
it does. NEPA covers only “major Federal actions.” 42 U.S.C.
§ 4332(2)(C); see also Mineta, 349 F.3d at 962. The project is a
local, not a federal, initiative. The federal agencies had (and
have) no control over where the Center is being built, and
NEPA imposes no requirement that they oversee the Founda-
tion’s or the City’s actions. For that reason too, this argument
fails; we need not restate the many other problems with it. See
POP III, 39 F.4th at 399.
24                                                  No. 22-3190

   POP’s third contention is that NEPA required the federal
agencies to consider alternative sites for the Center. This ar-
gument suﬀers from the same ﬂaws as the last two. The fed-
eral agencies lacked the authority to dictate where the Center
would be located, and so it would be unreasonable of them to
waste time and resources exploring potential alternative sites.
The federal agencies did all that NEPA required of them.
                 C. Transportation Act (Count I)
    POP makes much the same reasonable-alternatives argu-
ment in support of its assertion that the City, the Foundation,
and the Highway Administration defendants violated section
4(f) of the Transportation Act. Under that section, the Depart-
ment of Transportation may approve a “transportation pro-
gram or project” in a public park only if “(1) there is no pru-
dent and feasible alternative to using the land; and (2) the pro-
gram or project includes all possible planning to minimize
harm to the park … or historic site[.]” 49 U.S.C. § 303(c). Ac-
cording to POP, section 4(f) required the defendants to con-
sider reasonable alternatives to the Jackson Park site.
    Its view is mistaken. The Highway Administration had no
authority either to tell the Foundation to build the Center
somewhere else or to forbid the City from authorizing that
location. As we explained in Old Town Neighborhood Associa-
tion, Inc. v. Kauﬀman, “[e]ntities that proceed on their own
dime need not meet conditions for federal assistance or ap-
proval.” 333 F.3d 732, 736 (7th Cir. 2003). POP points out that
the project in Old Town did not involve the use of federal
funds. But the federal agencies did not somehow acquire the
authority to approve or deny the Jackson Park site through
the City’s request for road-building funds. The only diﬀer-
ence that the request makes is that it required the Highway
No. 22-3190                                                     25

Administration to conduct federally mandated reviews. The
agency was entitled to take the Jackson Park site as a given
when carrying out its duties.
                       D. NHPA (Count IV)
     POP’s NHPA claim is the last of the federal-law theories.
It argues yet again that a federal agency—here again, the
Highway Administration—was required to consider alterna-
tive sites for the Center. The Highway Administration con-
ducted a review pursuant to section 106 of NHPA, which is a
procedural statute that requires agencies to “take into account
the eﬀect of the[ir] undertaking[s] on any historic property.”
54 U.S.C. § 306108. Like NEPA, section 106 applies only to fed-
eral projects, not to local work such as the Foundation’s plan
to build the Center with the City’s assistance. For that reason,
and because the Highway Administration followed the pro-
cedural requirements of section 106, the defendants were en-
titled to summary judgment on this count.
                    IV.     State-Law Theories
    We arrive, ﬁnally, at POP’s supplemental state-law theo-
ries. Upon a motion by the state defendants, the district court
dismissed all eight of them pursuant to Federal Rule of Civil
Procedure 12(b)(6). POP now appeals that decision, but we
deem it necessary to discuss only two grounds. In so doing,
we take a fresh look at the district court’s decision to dismiss
those two theories, accepting all well-pleaded factual allega-
tions in the complaint as true and drawing all reasonable in-
ferences in POP’s favor. See St. John v. Cach, LLC, 822 F.3d 388,
389 (7th Cir. 2016). To survive a motion to dismiss, “the com-
plaint must state a claim that is plausible on its face,” id. (quo-
tation omitted), which means that the “factual content [must
26                                                   No. 22-3190

allow us] to draw the reasonable inference that the defendant
is liable for the misconduct alleged,” Ashcroft v. Iqbal, 556 U.S.
662, 678 (2009).
                 A. The Public Trust (Count VI)
    POP’s primary state-law contention rests on the public-
trust doctrine, which, it alleges, was violated by the actions of
the City and the Foundation. It argues that Jackson Park is
public-trust property under Illinois law, and, drawing an
analogy to private trust law, that the City is akin to a trustee
subject to ﬁduciary duties. The City breached its ﬁduciary du-
ties, says POP, by transferring a portion of its parkland to the
Foundation and giving the Foundation control over it.
     Although we had no occasion to resolve POP’s public-
trust theory in POP I, we did explain the contours of the doc-
trine upon which it rests. In brief, “the public trust doctrine,
established in American law by Illinois Central Railroad Co. v.
Illinois, [146 U.S. 387 (1892),] prohibits a state from alienating
its interest in public lands submerged beneath navigable wa-
terways to a private party for private purposes.” 971 F.3d at
729. As originally formulated in Illinois Central, the doctrine
permitted a state to “alienate publicly owned submerged land
to a private party [only] if the property will be ‘used in pro-
moting the interests of the public’ or ‘can be disposed of with-
out any substantial impairment of the public interest in the
lands and waters remaining.’” Id. (quoting Illinois Central, 146
U.S. at 453).
   The public-trust doctrine has evolved in Illinois so that it
now applies to a broader swath of lands. Thus, as an Illinois
appellate court has explained, although the doctrine applies
to “mostly submerged land under Lake Michigan or the
No. 22-3190                                                   27

Chicago River,” it extends also to “parks” and “conservation
areas.” Trinity Christian Schools v. Village of Western Springs,
675 N.E. 168, 174 (Ill. App. Ct. 1996). What matters is that land
has been acquired and dedicated for a public purpose “by the
sovereign,” at which point “the agencies created by [the sov-
ereign] hold the properties in trust for the uses and purposes
speciﬁed and for the beneﬁt of the public.” Paepcke v. Public
Bldg. Comm’n of Chicago, 263 N.E.2d 11, 15 (Ill. 1970).
   Illinois courts have developed a three-part test for deter-
mining whether a plaintiﬀ may prevail on an alleged public-
trust violation:
       [T]o state a cause of action under the public trust
       doctrine, facts must be alleged indicating that:
       certain property is held by a governmental body
       for a given public use; the governmental body
       has taken action that would cause or permit the
       property to be used for a purpose inconsistent
       with its originally intended public use; and such
       action is arbitrary or unreasonable.
Paschen v. Village of Winnetka, 392 N.E.2d 306, 309–10 (Ill. App.
Ct. 1979); see also Timothy Christian Schools, 675 N.E.2d at 174.
The parties agree that Jackson Park is public-trust land that
has never been submerged, and that the Park District was cre-
ated to administer it for the beneﬁt of the public. See 1 THE
LAWS OF THE STATE OF ILLINOIS 1869, at 360; 70 ILCS 1505/1.
Their disagreement turns on whether the construction of the
Center and the formation of agreements allowing the Foun-
dation to maintain the Center violate the requirement that the
parkland be put to a public use.
28                                                   No. 22-3190

    We observed in POP I that a “[d]edication to a public pur-
pose isn’t an ‘irrevocable commitment,’ and judicial review of
any reallocation is deferential, particularly if the land in ques-
tion has never been submerged.” 971 F.3d at 730 (cleaned up
and quoting Paepcke, 263 N.E.2d at 16). When a reallocation of
trust land to a new public purpose is challenged, “‘[t]he courts
can serve only as an instrument of determining legislative in-
tent as evidenced by existing legislation measured against
constitutional limitations.’” Friends of Parks v. Chicago Park
Dist., 786 N.E.2d 161, 170 (Ill. 2003) (quoting Paepcke, 263
N.E.2d at 21). So long as constitutional limitations are not
transgressed, our role is limited to ensuring that “there has
been a suﬃcient manifestation of legislative intent to permit
the diversion and reallocation contemplated by the plan.”
Paepcke, 263 N.E.2d at 18.
    The Illinois General Assembly expressly permitted the
construction and operation of presidential centers in parks
held in the public trust with the passage of the Museum Act.
See 70 ILCS 1290/1. That law authorizes cities and park dis-
tricts “to purchase, erect, and maintain within any such public
park or parks ediﬁces to be used as … museums … , includ-
ing presidential libraries, centers, and museums[.]” Id. The
Museum Act also permits municipalities to contract with cer-
tain private entities to erect, maintain, and operate presiden-
tial centers. Id. In enacting this legislation, the General Assem-
bly “reaﬃrmed and found that the … museums [] described
in this Section, and their collections, exhibitions, program-
ming, and associated initiatives, serve valuable public pur-
poses[.]” Id. Among those purposes are “furthering human
knowledge and understanding, educating and inspiring the
public, and expanding recreational and cultural resources
and opportunities.” Id.
No. 22-3190                                                   29

    We have no doubt that the Center falls within this legisla-
tive grant of authority. As part of its eﬀorts to honor the leg-
acy of the nation’s ﬁrst Black president, the Center will feature
records and artifacts from that president’s administration and
oﬀer educational programming and initiatives to the public.
It was also within the City’s authority to contract with the
Foundation, which was “organized for the construction [and]
maintenance and operation of” the Center. Id. The Museum
Act, coupled with the intended use of the Center and the
City’s existing arrangements with the Foundation, is enough
to satisfy us that the portion of Jackson Park set aside for the
Center will continue to serve a public purpose, as Illinois’s
public-trust doctrine requires.
     POP does not dispute that the Center will bring these ben-
eﬁts to the public. Instead, it argues that we must apply some
form of heightened scrutiny to the proposed land use, be-
cause, in its view, the Use Agreement and the Master Agree-
ment were ﬂawed transactions. In POP’s telling, these trans-
actions somehow undermine the Center’s eligibility for pub-
lic-trust treatment, because the doctrine incorporates well-es-
tablished ﬁduciary duties from private trust law. But POP
supports this theory with just two sources: a law review arti-
cle that does not discuss the public-trust doctrine in Illinois
and a decision from a New York state trial court. It has not
directed us to any decision from an Illinois court recognizing
this theory, nor have we found such a case. That is the end of
it. POP brought this contention to federal court under the sup-
plemental jurisdiction, 28 U.S.C. § 1367, and so we are bound
to apply the existing law of Illinois, not whatever POP hopes
Illinois law may someday be. See id. § 1652; see also Felder v.
Casey, 487 U.S. 131, 151 (1988).
30                                                     No. 22-3190

    Changing tacks, POP argues that the General Assembly
had no authority to modify the public purpose that originally
supported the establishment of Jackson Park. It points to a
passage in Paepcke that “refer[s] to the approach developed by
the courts of … Wisconsin, in dealing with diversion [of pub-
lic-trust land] problems.” 263 N.E.2d at 19. The approach to
which Paepcke refers involves the application of ﬁve factors,
one of which is to consider whether “the public uses of the
original area would be destroyed or greatly impaired” by the
proposed reallocation. Id. But that language is plainly dicta:
the court referred to the Wisconsin approach only “[i]n pass-
ing,” and it stated that the approach was “not controlling”
and only “a useful guide for future administrative action.” Id.
More recent cases conﬁrm this understanding of Paepcke. In
Friends of Parks v. Chicago Park District, for example, the Su-
preme Court of Illinois understood Paepcke as we have here,
without mentioning the passage POP seizes on. See 786
N.E.2d at 170.
    Finally, although POP has not alleged any speciﬁc proﬁts
that the Foundation will receive, we assume that the Founda-
tion will beneﬁt from maintaining and operating the Center.
But under Illinois law, beneﬁt to a private organization does
not by itself violate the public-trust doctrine. See id. The doc-
trine would of course be violated if “the direct and dominat-
ing purpose here would be a private one” or if “the public
purpose to be served [would] be only incidental and remote.”
People ex rel. Scott v. Chicago Park Dist., 360 N.E.2d 773, 781 (Ill.
1976). But, as we have explained, the General Assembly de-
termined that the main purpose of museums such as the Cen-
ter is to beneﬁt the public and there is nothing in the record
that suggests otherwise. POP’s allegations suggest at most
that any “beneﬁt to private interest [is] to further [the] public
No. 22-3190                                                     31

purpose and [is] incidental to the public purpose.” Id. (dis-
cussing People ex rel. Moloney v. Kirk, 45 N.E. 830 (Ill. 1896),
which upheld a grant of submerged land to a private organi-
zation because the beneﬁts to that organization were inci-
dental to the public purpose). It is not our role to second-guess
the re-purposing of a portion of Jackson Park for that new use,
especially because the park was never submerged in naviga-
ble waters. Compare Paepcke, 263 N.E.2d 11 (never submerged
land), with Scott, 360 N.E.2d 773 (submerged land). For all
these reasons, POP has failed to state a plausible public-trust
claim.
               B. Improper Delegation (Count XI)
   POP also argues that the City unlawfully delegated its au-
thority to ﬁx the location of the Center to the Foundation in
violation of Article II of the Illinois Constitution, which pro-
vides that “[t]he legislative, executive and judicial branches
are separate. No branch shall exercise powers properly be-
longing to another.” ILL. CONST., art. II, § 1. Its “smoking-gun”
evidence appears in a recital in the 2015 Ordinance:
“Whereas, while the City Council is conﬁdent in the quality
and thoroughness of both UIC’s and [the University of] Chi-
cago’s proposals, the City defers to the sound judgment of the
President and his Foundation as to the ultimate location of the
Presidential Library[.]” POP sees further proof of unlawful
delegation in the City’s decision to defer to the Foundation’s
preferred location for the Center.
    Under Illinois law, “the legislature cannot delegate its leg-
islative power to determine what the law should be.” East St.
Louis Fed. of Teachers, Local 1220 v. East St. Louis Sch. Dist. No.
189, 687 N.E.2d 1050, 1063 (Ill. App. Ct. 1998). Nevertheless, it
“may delegate the authority to do those things it might
32                                                    No. 22-3190

properly do, but cannot do as understandably or advanta-
geously, if the authority that is granted is delineated by intel-
ligible standards.” R.L. Polk & Co. v. Ryan, 694 N.E.2d 1027,
1033 (Ill. App. Ct. 1998) (citations omitted). Although this rule
usually is invoked when the legislature confers authority
upon an executive agency, it also has been applied when au-
thority is delegated to a private organization. See, e.g., People
v. Pollution Control Bd., 404 N.E.2d 352, 356 (Ill. App. Ct. 1980).
Even though the Illinois courts have not formulated extensive
principles “on the question of delegation of legislative power
to private parties,” id., they consistently have held that legis-
lative bodies may not confer upon private organizations the
authority to “decide what the law shall be,” People ex rel. Chi-
cago Dryer Co. v. City of Chicago, 109 N.E.2d 201, 204 (Ill. 1952).
   We ﬁnd no possible (let alone plausible) problem with del-
egation in POP’s complaint. The recital at the heart of its alle-
gations does not delegate anything; it is merely a statement
by the City acknowledging that the Foundation was conduct-
ing a nationwide search for a location for the Center and ex-
pressing its desire that the site be in Chicago. A look at an-
other recital in the 2015 Ordinance conﬁrms that the City did
not delegate any authority to the Foundation. It states that
“the City will introduce a separate ordinance authorizing the
development, construction and operation of the Presidential
Center on the Selected Site, if [the University of] Chicago’s
proposal is selected[.]” The City did exactly that when it ap-
proved the plan and passed the 2018 Ordinance.
    POP apparently takes issue with that process as well, but
it cites no authority supporting the notion that preparing a
project proposal is a legislative function, let alone a power
that may not be delegated. And the fact that the City
No. 22-3190                                                     33

ultimately approved the location is evidence that it, not the
Foundation, exercised the legislative function of authorizing
the proposed development. Because POP’s complaint con-
tains no allegations of wrongful delegation, it fails to state a
claim under the separation-of-powers clause of the Illinois
Constitution.
                    V.     Remaining Theories
     As we have now said several times, POP’s complaint is
chock-full of alternate legal theories, all directed at the same
end: stop the Center and restore Jackson Park to its previous
condition. We have discussed every approach that was ade-
quately developed in the briefs, but there are still more. Four
of the remaining theories (Counts III, V, X and XIV) are based
on federal law: the UPARR Act; section 408 of the Rivers and
Harbors Act and section 404 of the Clean Water Act; Article 1,
Section 1, of the United States Constitution; and section 110(k)
of the NHPA, respectively. Each of the other six theories
(Counts VII, VIII, IX, XII, XIII, and XV) alleges a violation of
Illinois law. The district court rejected all ten. On appeal, POP
insists that it is actively pursuing all ﬁfteen. Yet its briefs say
hardly a word about the remaining ten, and so we will be
equally brief with them.
    “An appellant who does not address the rulings and rea-
soning of the district court forfeits any arguments he might
have that those rulings were wrong.” Hackett v. City of South
Bend, 956 F.3d 504, 510 (7th Cir. 2020). The briefs are entirely
silent on Counts III, V, IX, XII, XIV, and XV, which means that
POP has forfeited any challenges to the district court’s rulings
on those theories. See Klein v. O’Brien, 884 F.3d 754, 757 (7th
Cir. 2018).
34                                                   No. 22-3190

    POP devotes a little space to Count VII, which alleges an
ultra vires claim against the City, and so, therefore, will we. It
describes three allegedly unlawful acts, but it does not iden-
tify a law that was violated or otherwise explain how the City
acted unlawfully. Because POP’s contentions in this connec-
tion are “unsupported by pertinent authority,” United States
v. Berkowitz, 927 F.2d 1376, 1384 (7th Cir. 1991), they have been
forfeited.
    Last, we have Counts VIII, X, and XIII. The single sentence
POP oﬀers to support the ﬁrst and last of these is representa-
tive of the way it treats all three: “as Plaintiﬀs’ constitutional
claims in Counts VIII and XIII rely upon the transfer and the
sham nature of the ‘use’ agreement, it was erroneous for the
[district court] to dismiss those claims for similar reasons.”
We do not know which “similar reasons” it intended to in-
voke, but that vagueness is not the only problem here. As we
have said, “[a] skeletal ‘argument’, really nothing more than
an assertion, does not preserve a claim. Especially not when
the brief presents a passel of other arguments, as [POP’s] did.”
United States v. Dunkel, 927 F.2d 955, 956 (7th Cir. 1991) (per
curiam) (citation omitted). Any arguments about the district
court’s disposition of these three theories have been forfeited.
                        VI.     Conclusion
    POP and its co-plaintiﬀs have opposed the City’s plan to
build the Center in Jackson Park from the start. When we last
had this case before us, the plaintiﬀs were trying to secure a
preliminary injunction against the entire project, but they
failed to show that they were entitled to such extraordinary
relief. Construction of the Center is now well underway, and
yet the plaintiﬀs demand that we put a stop to it and, we as-
sume, order the defendants to restore the site. But they have
No. 22-3190                                                 35

failed to show that they are entitled to any relief relating to
their overarching claim against the Center, no matter under
what theory. The district court did not abuse its discretion by
denying the plaintiﬀs’ request for leave to amend. The court
also properly ruled that the state-law counts had to be dis-
missed and, consistent with POP III, that the defendants were
entitled to summary judgment on the federal-law counts.
   The judgment of the district court is AFFIRMED.