May 24
At its first meeting since being established on January 1, the Missing and Murdered Women Task Force began to review its responsibilities and establish its work processes. The task force is required to meet once each quarter and deliver a report at the end of the year. It advises the director of the state police and the CPD superintendent, recommends ways to reduce and end violence against Chicago women and girls, and acts as a liaison between related government agencies and non-governmental organizations. Among its many designated tasks are to examine and report on the systematic causes behind violence against Chicago women and girls; ways to track and collect data about that violence; policies and institutions that affect such violence, including the investigation and prosecutions of crimes of gender-related violence; and measures to address and reduce violence as well as to help victims, their families, and their communities prevent and heal. The Illinois Criminal Justice Information Authority (ICJIA) will be a resource for the task force. Although much of the discussion revolved around Black women and girls, members voiced the need to include other vulnerable groups, especially Latinx and immigrant communities. The task force plans to reach out to other states with similar task forces, such as Montana, Minnesota, Washington, and Wisconsin.
The meeting of the Chicago Board of Education recognized teachers, staff, and a student for their achievements in the past school year, including national honors. A report by Chicago Teachers Union vice president Jackson Podder noted an historic reset in labor relations between the Board and CTU, citing joint advocacy for CPS by CPS CEO Pedro Martinez and CTU President Stacy Davis Gates during a trip to the state legislature in Springfield. Podder also called attention to a new process of open meetings allowing the public to review board agendas before decisions are made. There were no committee reports, but Martinez updated the board on the three-year move to needs-based budgeting from student-based budgeting. The 2023-2024 budget is increasing by over $215 million from the originally planned $150 million increase. CPS Chief Education Officer Bogdana Chkoumbova recognized four teachers who won Golden Apple Awards for excellence and a principal who won for leadership. Five of the 534 CPS school nurses were recognized for extraordinary service that demonstrated “health-related issues are not a barrier to student education.” Other staff honored included the district’s bus aides who, Chkoumbova noted, are “rarely in the spotlight” and counseling teams at six schools honored by the American School Counselor Association. Vanessa Rios, a student at Edwards Elementary, is scheduled to represent Illinois at the National History Day Contest in Maryland and to display her exhibit at the Smithsonian’s American History Museum.
May 25
The Community Commission for Public Safety and Accountability (CCPSA) at its meeting covered much ground, including changes to CPD’s proposed revisions to a policy prohibiting police involvement with “criminal organizations” and an update on the Commission’s review of pretextual traffic stops, which enable speculative criminal investigations unrelated to the traffic stop. In connection with a court-ordered CPD consent decree, the CCPSA is charged both with appointing the chief of the Civilian Office for Police Accountability (COPA) and members of the Police Board as well as creating processes to make the appointments. Drafts of those documents are available on its website for public review and comment, including comments at its June 29 meeting. The Commission is also asking for feedback on its recommendations for police superintendent through a ten-minute survey and e-mails sent to the Commission’s office. The survey and the two consent-decree drafts are available on the CCPSA’s home page at three separate links. Among the consent decree’s goals are to implement “reforms that govern police training and policies and provide officers the support they need” to do their jobs effectively, according to the Illinois’ Office of the Attorney General’s website. The Commission heard that meetings of the twenty-two new police district councils are under way. The councils are designed to provide residents with a say in improving relations between the communities and the police.
June 1
At a City Colleges of Chicago Committee on Academic Affairs and Student Services & Board of Trustees meeting, trustees approved eight million dollars in grants to reduce the cost of tuition and to provide additional resources for students. Temporary housing for migrants at Daley College through part of December was approved. Eight faculty or executive staff appointments were confirmed, including the reelection of CCC provost Mark Potter. Payment of an additional $1.65 million to seventeen key vendors was considered in order to adjust underpayments due in part to urgent issues caused by the pandemic. A number of allocations for vendors were authorized, including, for example, four separate expenditures for IT services totaling $438,000; fitness equipment ($126,000); a scoreboard and shot clock ($30,000); marketing and communications staffing ($500,000); five years of adult education testing ($300,000), and lab equipment for online biology students ($300,000).
At its meeting the Board of Commissioners of the Metropolitan Water Reclamation District of Greater Chicago (MWRD) noted that MWRD could extend its Stormwater Partnership Program to communities outside the district’s service area for a fee. The program helps fund drainage and flooding infrastructure projects. Commissioner Cameron Davis, who chairs the Stormwater Committee, said he was encouraged that the results of a survey of several communities indicate interest in potential extensions. The Board recognized June as Pride Month by raising the Pride flag at its headquarters and seven other MWRD facilities. In 2019, the MWRD became one of the first government agencies in Illinois to take that step. Commissioner Marcelino Garcia reminded the Board that Puerto Ricans celebrate their culture and heritage in June. The appointment of MWRD President Kari K. Steele to the Public Building Commission of Chicago was approved.
June 2
Activists, survivors of police violence, police district council members, and others supported reforms required by a court-ordered consent decree during one of two CPD Consent Decree Independent Monitor Hearing meetings. At one meeting some nineteen speakers told of CPD interactions, almost all involving negative experiences, including bias, brutality, and corruption. One incident occurred sixty years ago. Independent Monitor Maggie Hickey, an attorney responsible for keeping tabs on CPD’s progress in fulfilling the consent decree’s mandates, scheduled two hearings to collect community comments, in part on police traffic stops. A recent report, “A New Vehicle for Stop and Frisk,” found an increase in pretextual traffic stops in Chicago, in which police stop vehicles for a traffic violation and then search for evidence of unrelated criminal activity. Most speakers related personal experiences, including a woman who said that in 1963 police ransacked her family’s home looking for her brother. Another speaker from a community organization said police had handcuffed him together with others and threw them on the hoods of hot cars. Also speaking was Fred Hampton, Jr., whose father, Chairman Fred Hampton, a nationally known leader of the Black Panthers, was killed in a law enforcement raid in 1969. Joe Ferguson, formerly the inspector general for Chicago, said he supports CPD compliance with the consent decree and that the cyclical turnover in city government hampers reform efforts.
This information was collected and curated by the Weekly in large part using reporting from City Bureau’s Documenters at documenters.org.