Editor’s Note

Welcome to Newswire — your weekly guide to Chicago government, civic action and what action we can take to make our city great, featuring public meeting coverage by City Bureau’s Documenters.

Quote of the Week

“Building a plane and flying it at the same time is a really bad idea. If anyone ever asks you to fly a plane while it’s being built, you should say no. But these seven people said yes and they said yes even though this isn’t a plane that’s been built before.”

—Adam Gross, executive director of the Community Commission for Public Safety and Accountability, commending the commission’s inaugural members for working to make policing and public safety more democratic

Brass Tactics

In 2020, City Council passed the Grassroots Police Accountability ordinance, the culmination of years of organizing for community oversight of Chicago Police. Four years later, the complex oversight structure it created — 24 different public bodies and 73 seats — may be getting into the weeds at last. Here are the latest developments:

May 30 marked the last meeting of the interim Community Commission for Public Safety and Accountability. 

“It fills me with great hope to know that there are still a lot of people that are angry at us, because I believe that was the purpose of this commission,” said Oswaldo Gomez, one of the outgoing commissioners. “At the end of the day, it’s about the community and I hope that the commission is held to a great level of accountability, in the same way that we want to hold all the agencies that we oversee to that level of accountability.”

In August 2022, Mayor Lori Lightfoot appointed seven interim commissioners to get the new public body up and running. The interim commission has hosted public forums on topics like gunshot detection technology, nominated current CPD Superintendent Larry Snelling and shut down CPD’s controversial gang database. 

But it has also encountered roadblocks. When some police officers were found to have ties to the Proud Boys and Oath Keepers, CCPSA developed a draft policy to address affiliation with hate groups. CPD then declared it wouldn’t discipline those officers for the alleged far-right extremist affiliations.

In April, Mayor Brandon Johnson selected seven nominees to populate the “permanent” commission, with current leadership Anthony Driver Jr. and Remel Terry remaining in place and staggered two- and four-year terms. 

CCPSA was created to give everyday Chicagoans a more direct say in CPD policy and reform. Twenty-two councils — one for each police district — were elected to advance these efforts on a local level, but expectations for police engagement were never spelled out. 

Now, CCPSA may require CPD leadership to communicate and collaborate more closely with their local district councils. 

At a meeting of the 2nd Police District Council — which includes parts of Bronzeville, Washington Park and Hyde Park — attendees discussed a draft policy under review by CPD. The proposal calls for police commanders to participate in monthly check-ins, information sharing and police representation at police district council meetings.

Currently, police involvement with district councils varies widely. While some district councils meet regularly with their police commander and hold meetings at their local station, many reform-minded councils have found police to be absent and unresponsive. Others have questioned whether police should attend their meetings at all if it impacts how freely other attendees speak.

Police district council members can also shape public safety policy from the ground up.

At a quarterly meeting of all police district councils last week, members from across the city met to discuss ideas like transferring investigation of cops’ ties to hate groups from the Chicago Police Department to the Civilian Office of Police Accountability, ending pretextual traffic stops and improving 911 call responsiveness, reining in the police union’s power in collective bargaining, and changing how officers are evaluated to emphasize quality of interactions over quantity of arrests, stops, etc.

The group is still coming up with a process for prioritizing and selecting policies. With the spectrum of perspectives held by police district council members — from “back the blue” to ACAB — how they’ll put the theory of community accountability into practice remains to be seen.

  • Police District Councils quarterly meeting by Ebony Ellis

“Love it. Live it.”

A new ad campaign is part of a City Colleges of Chicago rebrand that aims to move the schools beyond being a “best-kept secret” to having a reputation as Chicago’s most affordable, convenient and friendly option for further education. 

The community college system is also expanding training pathways into the clean energy jobs sector, in fields such as solar power, electric vehicle mechanics, smart buildings and more. 

Meanwhile, a contract extension means Wilbur Wright and Richard J. Daley colleges will continue to serve as migrant shelters through August. 

A version of this story was first published in the June 12, 2024 issue of the Newswire, an email newsletter that is your weekly guide to Chicago government, civic action and what we can do to make our city great. You can sign up for the weekly newsletter here.

Have thoughts on what you'd like to see in this feature? Email Editorial Director Ariel Cheung at ariel@citybureau.org.