Cassandra Francis Explains Her Departure From Friends Of The Parks

• Friends of the Parks
• Cassandra Francis is going far, far away.

Friends of the Parks president Cassandra Francis inspired some creative speculation last week, when she abruptly left her job.

So the speculation swirled.

All Francis originally said about her departure was that it was a good time to be “moving on.”

But Wednesday, the Washington Post Style blog reported a much more mundane reason for Francis’s exit. She’s joining her husband, Northwestern University law professor Clinton Francis, whose appointment as founding dean of a new NU-mentored law school in Qatar was announced in February. According to the Post, she said she’d “put off leaving as long as she could.”

Meanwhile, Friends of the Parks board chair Lauren Moltz says that Francis’s resignation was definitely not requested by the board, and that the group’s strategy and positions remain unchanged. FOTP wrote Governor Bruce Rauner this week, requesting a meeting and asking him to veto HB 373.