Tuesday, October 20, 2009

Aldermen Respond To Community Safety Concerns

Okay.... the Tribune's front page story is about citizens uniting to make their neighborhoods safer. You're an alderman with highly publicized violent outbreaks in your ward. What do you say in an email blast to your concerned constituents?

16 comments:

  1. It's as if she ignores crime completely in her ward. Obviously when kids are being beaten to death and bullets are flying, it's time for a "hands on" approach, Shiller. Take a page out of one of your neighboring alderman's "work"books and get actively involved with helping your concerned citizens stop crime.

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  2. Hey now, let's be fair to Helen.

    She's been incredibly busy working on ... um. Hm.

    Well, a lot of her time is being spent with her actively participating in the ... er ... uh.

    Ok. You got me there. I have no idea what she does with her time that actually promotes public safety; but, if history is an indicator of future behavior, she will release a verbose, frolicking and obfuscating stem-winder of a press release in a matter of ... weeks.

    Unless, of course, there's no media pressure to publicly embarrass her - in which case, her cricket symphony will continue.

    Again (for the lurkers out there), no one expects Helen to solve all of society's ills, or make gang violence disappear with the sweep of her broom.

    But when aldermen in surrounding wards jump out in front of violence issues in their ward, it leads people to wonder why our alderman continues to remain silent.

    Further, when our alderman does (finally) address the issue and states that she is, essentially, working "behind the scenes" with police - and then the violence escalates from fisticuffs into gun fire, her effectiveness is subject to scrutiny.

    Personally, there is a certain level of crime/violence which I can/will tolerate while living in a large metropolitan area.

    Having the same corner be the focal point of the aforementioned escalation is simply unacceptable.

    As someone stated in the Trib comments, yesterday - why not just permanently station a squad car on that corner and see what happens?

    That would at least publicly resemble effort.

    And when it comes right down to it, a little effort would satisfy a lot of people.

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  3. I have to agree, a little effort will satisfy alot of people and maybe that would cut down on the number of people that bad mouth her. Don't keep acting like it's not happening, at least acknowledge the problem.

    I am baffled as to how she alienates so many of the ward residents but seems to easily think she will take the next election. Who is she paying off??

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  4. You're so right, yo. She's been doing a lot of things to address safety and it's her #1 goal. She does all kinds of things everyday. That's what she told the Channel 2 reporter who forgot to ask her for specifics, but it's all kind of things.

    I remember hearing her blame budget cuts on part of the problem. I wonder if she blames cuts in the Cease Fire program. Has anyone heard if she's trying to restore that funding?

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  5. From what I hear, CeaseFire is a big old waste of money anyway. Kinda like the D.A.R.E. program, which didn't work.

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  6. I would in no way defend our Alderbeast, but most every night while I ride through the area on my bicycle, I see police all over...from Montrose to Lawrence, on Sheridan and Broadway. We do have a huge police presence. That's the only thing that makes me not as upset about the property tax hike. I wish we didn't need so many marked and unmarked squad cars in Uptown, but I'm glad they're here!

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  7. Actually, Miss Kitty, a recent newspaper article praised CeaseFire's efforts and attributed the recent increase in juvenile crime, in part, to its cutbacks.

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  8. Anyone who wants to know more about Cease Fire should check into the real reason why their funding was cut. It was primarily due to gross mismanagement of state funds.

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  9. I think that is right, Holy Moley. I read the report that was done at NWU and the data concerning the effectiveness of the program was pretty convincing. However, if management wasn't taking care of state funds properly that is a legitimate reason for the state to eliminate funding.

    Anyone have any links to news articles on the fiscal management aspect of CeaseFire?

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  10. Although only an opinion Gayle, you might wanna read this regarding CeaseFire:

    http://www.beachwoodreporter.com/column/the_monday_papers_174.php

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  11. OK - since I can't get the link to post, go to beachwoodreporter.com and look for the search box on the right. Type in "ceasefire" for a good take on that program. Was a good commentary posted there on Monday.

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  12. Miss Kitty, you can always go to www.TinyURL.com. You put a long URL into it and get a short one back that links to the same article.

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  13. Thanks Caring Neighbor. Let's try this:

    http://tinyurl.com/ylkacae

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  14. This continued behavior of not acknowledging issues we all care about is heart-breaking, pathetic, irresponsible and dangerous. She can disagree with how to deal with the issue, but there is NO EXCUSE for her not to continue to promote dialog.

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  15. Thanks for the link, Miss Kitty. Looking over some of these articles quickly and trying to remember reviewing that very long NWU report, I see that most of the criticisms are still about the financial management.

    Folks who don't like CeaseFire are looking for evidence they may never get. Very rarely can criminologists give one clear reason why something happened or didn't happen. No doubt CeaseFire was only one factor. People who like the overall approach and think it is good tactic will be happy with that ambiguity and people who think its somehow flawed will need better evidence. Maybe NWU could have produced better evidence with the data they had. I don't remember enough of their report to say.

    Interesting stuff.

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  16. Perhaps CeaseFire does work. They lost me on their mismanagement of funds.

    I'd rather spend money on things I know that do work in stopping gang violence rather than giving tax money to something because it sounds nifty.

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