informative, kind, and constructively critical emails. We read every single one.
It’s been a long time since we tidied up our inbox and shared some of the highlights with you.
This is a pretty lengthy post, divided into subsections. Be sure to click on “Read More” to see the full content and skip to sections that interest you.
LP Parking Ticket Errors
Strange thing happened yesterday morning [Wednesday, November 13]- I know it’s not real crime – but, it’s costing people hard earned money. Lucky I was out front of my apartment when a Dept of Revenue employee started writing parking tickets for street cleaning on the 2800 – 2900 block of N Burling Street. First of all – the permanent metal signs attached to the lamp posts indicate street cleaning on the east side of the street is the first Wednesday of the month which was November 6th but the Dept of Streets & Sanitation forgot to remove the orange signs on the trees. I explained this to the employee who responded that as long as the orange signs were there she was going to write tickets. My explanation fell on deaf ears and she proceeded to write about 25 street cleaning violations to the entire 2 block area. I did e-mail Ald Tunneys office at 9 AM I did receive a response around 2 in the afternoon to say they were looking into this. Later I received another e- mail from them telling me to call or come in with the ticked any they would have it non-suited. Just a heads up to the people that received the bogus tickets . . . call or go into the office and have it taken care of. Contact Erin Duffy@cityofchicago.org or call 773-525-6034.
Police Staffing & Performance
This email’s been around for a few weeks as you can tell:
We’ve had repeated problems with our alley. In fact, directly behind our building.
We cannot leave our windows open due to “secondhand” smoke. We have kids. They are bad enough on sugar.
A year ago, our alley neighbor’s kid and her dealer went down. I was given a Sgt # by a plainclothes. I am not sure what the catalyst was, but, for the first time in year, I used the Sgt #. I’m over it. We can’t sleep. Our kids can’t sleep. It ebbs and flows from 2-6 kids (teens to mid 20s) to 16-18. […]
Just booze, drugs, a good time. And, it has escalated since school is back in town with Lakeview HS all of a block and half away.
The good news!!!… we called 911. Twice. And we got a response, both marked and unmarked. Within in hour! I credit this blog and three different beat cops on telling me how to get someone to show up. And, we got a good response! Thank you to our boys in blue.
I’m not naive, but I do hope it is a trend in the right direction.
Graffiti Removal
You can report graffiti to the city using this link. The link is a permanent part of the side bar when this blog is viewed on computers or phones using “web version.”
I submitted a graffiti removal request to 311 on 9/12, after seeing someone else post about an ignored removal request several weeks prior to that on CWB. I just checked and it’s STILL OPEN. So I posted on Tunney’s FB page asking about it. He just responded on his FB page that they’re going to put up a fence on top of the building and remove the graffiti bc it’s out of the reach of the Graffiti Blasters team of the city. Craptastic answer, but figured I’d let you know that he at least has provided some answer to this.
Keep up the kickass work. I appreciate everything you do, and thank you for keeping me (and everyone else) truthfully informed about what’s going on in the neighborhood.
Loitering
The 19th district CAPS office has created “official-looking” signs that warn against loitering. Email the CAPS office HERE for info.
Here is a blurb from the Internet on the loitering laws in Chicago. The ACLU went guns a blazing on this law in the 90’s believing it was unconstitutional and won. I believe the revised law that Chicago tried to implement was also later deemed unconstitutional. Along with stop and frisk laws.
In 1992, the City of Chicago adopted an anti-loitering law …aimed at restricting gang related activity, especially violent crime and drug trafficking. The law, which defined loitering as “remain(ing) in any one place with no apparent purpose,” gave police officers a right to disperse such persons and in case of disobedience, provided for a punishment by fine, imprisonment and/or community service. It was ruled unlawful by the Supreme Court of the United States … as unacceptably vague and not giving citizens clear guidelines on what the acceptable conduct was.
In 2000, the city adopted a revised version of the ordinance, in an attempt to eliminate the unconstitutional elements. Loitering was then defined as “remaining in any one place under circumstances that would warrant a reasonable person to believe that the purpose or effect of that behavior is to enable a criminal street gang to establish control over identifiable areas, to intimidate others from entering those areas, or to conceal illegal activities.”
Yep, Things Have Changed..’specially at night
I found your blog about a month ago and I read it daily religiously. I work in the boys town area. I work at one of the night clubs in the area…
I work at [Halsted St bar] and I have friends at [bar],[bar], [bar] etc. The general consensus is the same. Years ago it was safe in the area. Lake view was one of the safest areas in Chicago.
I remember when I was 18 years old my friends and I would come to the area to eat at the Ihop and walk around. We would get stopped by the police. We were questioned and then let go. Some people would say we were racially profiled but I did not care about being racially profiled because that meant we were safe and they were watching. That is what I took out of it.
A lot of these crimes center around these clubs and as a person that is being employed by a club I see a lot of predators and things that go on. Nothing is done about them. after work my friends and I go to [bar] and that area is the worst. Security does not do a thing about the people who are outside.
Boys town has become law less and the criminals know that. This is why they come to the area from the south and west side. I don’t live on the northside, I live on the south side area and it breaks my heart to see what this area has become. I truly think something needs to be done and fast. I hate to say it the clubs are one of the main problems for the rise in crime.
I am sorry for the long e-mail but I just wanted to tell you please keep up informing those who wish to remain in the know.
SELVN
And, finally, some of the publishable voices from Monday’s SELVN meeting.
Just to state a point – No one is saying all people served by the BYC are criminals. No one is saying that all homeless or LGBTQA youth/people are criminals. Some people commit crimes in the neighborhood and the BYC has opted to hide them or harbor them from police investigations, in the past. If they can’t be counted on to help keep the neighborhood safe, and to not harbor or hide criminals, then they shouldn’t be allowed to operate in the neighborhood, period. They are only being asked to be a good neighbor, and in the past, they’ve proven at prior locations that they are not a good neighbor…
I am the attendee who questioned Lara Brooks’ (Director of Broadway Youth Center) divisive and deliberately inciting words to describe the homeowners, residents and tax payers of Lakeview in the letter she emailed to supporters late last week.
I called upon Alderman Tunney to reject the letter and to repudiate Ms Brooks who was in attendance but chose not to speak. He remained silent. Three residents brought to the Alderman’s attention incidents of crime committed at or in the BYC facility and the systematic obstruction of justice by the BYC staff (documentation was provided).. Alderman Tunney distanced himself from one resident with a patronizing remark, stared silently at another and told another that his comments were best directed at a representative of BYC…who later casually dismissed the information as things that happened last year at the former location.
Several weeks ago, it should be noted, Alderman Tunney, himself, placed a 911 call to report a group of youths causing a disturbance outside of the BYC.
Neither Alderman Tunney nor anyone from his staff attended the October SELVN meeting. That’s unfortunate as he would have seen resident after resident line up to express their serious, legitimate, well-founded concerns over safety and crime issues in connection with the BYC. They sited BYC’s documented problematic history in the neighborhood as well as personal experiences they’ve had since BYC moved into the church on Wellington.
[…]
We don’t need an unenforceable “good neighbor agreement” fabricated by BYC and the Alderman that has no strictly articulated and enforced consequences. Lara Brooks’ own slanderous words aimed at the homeowners, residents and tax payers of the community give a hint of the type of neighbor BYC is.
We need strict independent oversight and regulation put in place over these reckless organizations that demand verifiable results-based programs that ensures responsible operation…but those programs cost money, and that would take away the cash flowing to the high salaries of the directors (four salaries at the Night Ministry account for 8% of their total budget).
A residential street is the wrong location for the BYC and Alderman Tunney knows that just as the residents know that. This is a watershed moment. Alderman Tunney has constructed his Crime Task Force Committee. Changes, serious changes need to be made in this dangerously faltering neighborhood, and one of those changes needs to be reigning in the several social service organizations that are a constant source of trouble in the area. Alderman Tunney needs to do whatever is in his power to deny the BYC’s special use zoning request or he labels himself as just another source of the neighborhood’s trouble and exposes his Crime committee as a sham.
