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Documenters surveyed neighbors, siblings and co-workers about the last time the Democratic National Convention was in Chicago and found striking similarities to the present day.
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Last year, we doubled the size of the Documenters Network by expanding the program from seven sites to fourteen.
We’re thrilled to welcome Resolve Philly and Dallas Free Press to the Documenters Network sites, our first cohort of 2023
5 things we learned from gathering 15 partners from across the country
As a new city council prepares to take office Chicago Documenters reflect on a "City Council 101" event hosted by the Better Government Association
We asked Documenters to interview friends, family and colleagues about the upcoming election.
By Natalie Frazier
2020 (Photo: Linghua Qi)
2022 was a year of political upheaval for Chicago. About a fifth of alders are either resigning or no longer planning to run for another term, citizens are vying for 66 newly created Police District council positions, and the city has a new ward map for the first time in 10 years. In all of the hullabaloo, reliable and useful information about our local government can get lost.
That’s why City Bureau decided to task our Documenters (regular folks who sign up for free trainings and paid opportunities to do civic work such as documenting public meetings) with interviewing their families, friends, neighbors, acquaintances and coworkers about the upcoming municipal elections. We learned some super interesting stuff, too. For example, only 4 out of our initial out of 24 respondents knew that we’d be electing people on the city’s Police District Councils.
Who did the interviews and who did they interview?
City Bureau’s Documenters are fairly representative of Chicago. They live in almost all of Chicago’s 77 neighborhoods and vary in age, race and education. For this project we focused on communities where 90% or more residents are people of color, though all types of communities are represented in the overall interview pool. The 12 Documenters who conducted the interviews represent neighborhoods such as Beverly, Archer Heights and Logan Square, are between the ages of 24 and 52 and identify as Asian, white, Black and Latinx/Hispanic.
The 24 community members they interviewed represented neighborhoods such as Austin, Humboldt Park, Bedford Park, Little Village, Uptown, Mckinley Park and Lakeview and have lived 3 to 75 years in Chicago. Interview respondents were racially diverse, they ranged in age from 22 to 88, and their news consumption habits varied from reading local Chicago news daily to almost never.
What did we learn?
While 24 interviews with family and friends don’t constitute a scientific poll of the city, the responses and anecdotes they provided begin to paint a picture about the connection between Chicagoans and their understanding of local government. (Graphs below by Jim Daley of the Chicago Reader.)
Here are a few themes that emerged:
Accountability is key.
Interviewees want accountability from candidates, city officials and police.
“They’re [public officials] doing the usual politricks.”
“I want more accountability.”
Are there too many candidates?
An overwhelming majority of the interview respondents feel like there are too many people running for mayor and city council spots.
“They got too many people on the ballot.”
Interviewees described a need for less “fluff” and more thorough and honest reporting.
One respondent feared that news outlets were only reporting on news that adhered to their own agendas.
“I want a roundup. Where can we make a comparison of candidates that are running?”
Respondents were very passionate about public safety and policing.
“People don’t feel safe here.”
“They need to do away with AR15s. They need to go back to the military.”
“Why are we criminalizing children’s behavior as opposed to handling it in school?”
Affordable housing is a huge concern.
“Why do we have all of these schools that were shut down and homeless people with no place to go?”
People feel unequipped to vote.
“The problem is that they don’t teach people how to plan for voting.”
“I don’t really like voting. I just feel like it’s a way to make people feel like they’re a part of the government when I don’t think it really makes a difference.”
“They tell you to vote and all of these issues [unemployment, youth disinvestment, policing] is why I don’t.”
Interviewees were dissatisfied with Mayor Lightfoot.
The majority of respondents voiced dissatisfaction with the way Lightfoot has handled the pandemic and her response to legitimate concerns from citizens and other elected officials.
“People are kind of hitting a breaking point with her [Mayor Lightfoot].”
“Are you trying to help people or are you trying to get reelected?”
What’s next?
Register to vote and work your local polls.
Read local news & sign up for the Newswire.
City Bureau is using these survey results, in addition to other interviews, to inform our coverage in January & February.
Sign up to be Documenter.
Documenters are still interviewing and submitting submissions so stay tuned for updated results and new ways to get involved with the project!
We’d like to thank all of the Chicago Documenters who contributed to the initial leg of this project!
Javanna Plummer, Pachina Fletcher, Mare Ralph, Aryssa Burton, Janetta Pegues, Anna Mason, Chris Ridgeway, Gloria Valle, Ryland Pietras, Tattianna Howard, Kevin Pearson, Justin Agrelo, Wendy Wei
Documenters applied for a special assignment through our website documenters.org and attended a mandatory training on interviewing. Documenters then found 1-3 people to interview, recorded their interviews, and inputted the answers into an Airtable form. Special thanks to Jim Daley who co-hosted a Documenters workshop about data analysis, edited this blog and created the data visualizations pictured above using flourish.studio.
Chicago-based news organization is one of three awardees in $22 million grant competition
We’re thrilled to introduce our first cohort of Documenters Network sites, launching this Fall.
We’re excited to announce that our newest partners, Pillsbury United Communities, have officially launched the Minneapolis Documenters affiliate. Starting now, Minneapolis residents can get trained and paid to hold local government officials accountable at the fourth official Documenters Network site.
If spending $1.9 billion in city funds doesn’t get you excited, maybe a bingo prize will!
By Nalani Saito & India Daniels
Get your very own bingo board and play along! Instructions at the bottom of the page.
Chicago Documenters is thrilled to bring you our second annual round of Chicago City Council Budget Bingo. Tune in Wednesday at 10 a.m. on Twitter for #ChiBudgetBingo, where we’re taking our watchdog ways and enthusiasm for public meetings to bring you commentary throughout the official City Council vote to approve—or not approve—the fiscal year 2022 budget. We’ll tell you how to play at the end of this blog, but first, here’s what you need to know about where Chicago will spend its money next year, whether you’re playing bingo or not.
This year’s budget process, taking place a month earlier than previous years, kicked off on Sept. 24. Over the subsequent two weeks, Chicago City Council members have questioned government agency representatives (from the Chicago Police Department to the Department of Administrative Hearings) about their budget proposals during hearings covered by your very own Chicago Documenters. At each hearing, the departments review their past years’ successes and failures and set the stage for what they want to fund in the next year.
The Chicago Police Department wants more money
CPD’s proposed FY2022 budget is nearly $1.9 billion. To put that in context, as Alder Andre Vasquez (40th) pointed out, that’s nearly the same amount of federal pandemic relief American Rescue Plan funding and about one-fifth of the budget for 37 departments.
But also, citing negative public image and a need to fill vacancies, CPD proposed a $230,000 advertising budget for 2022, a nearly 100-fold increase over last year. Alder Byron Sigcho-Lopez (25th) proposed an amendment to keep it at $2,400. Despite the huge hiring push, Police Superintendent David Brown admitted that CPD will not be able to fill all sworn officer vacancies next year, and in response, Alder Maria Hadden (49th) proposed an amendment cutting 300 of those positions from the budget, shaving $44 million off CPD’s budget.
Some officers accused of misconduct are still receiving checks
Alder Vasquez asked Supt. Brown a question he’d previously presented to the Police Board: How many officers accused of wrongdoing are still receiving pay? Dana O’Malley, CPD’s lawyer, said that officers have due process rights, and some allegations are still being investigated and have not yet led to officers being taken off the job. “To take every officer and relieve them of power based on allegations ...would leave us with a manpower issue,” O’Malley said.
As Documenter Chloe Vitale pointed out, “If CPD’s general counsel admits that taking every officer who has allegations of misconduct filed against them off the streets would leave CPD with a manpower shortage, what does that say about the sheer volume of Chicago police officers with complaints lodged against them?”
Requests for more police accountability
Along those lines, COPA, the Civilian Office of Police Accountability, is requesting $14.7 million for 2022, up from $13.3 million the previous year. A substantial chunk of that funding is to hire personnel, including staff for their video unit and three Freedom of Information Act officers.
This year, City Council passed an ordinance approving an elected police accountability commission. Spearheaded by the Empowering Communities for Public Safety coalition, the ordinance creates a board that would wield power in hiring, firing and approving policy across the Police Board, CPD and COPA. The Community Commission for Public Safety and Accountability has a proposed budget of $3.4 million, though it doesn’t look like they were part of a budget hearing.
The end of ShotSpotter?
ShotSpotter, a gunshot detection software currently used by CPD whose $33 million contract was renewed in December 2020, came up quite a bit in the CPD hearing, including in many of the 150 written public comments. Alders questioned the decision to renew the contract despite evidence from several sources, including the Office of the Inspector General, that indicates the tool is not helping CPD gather evidence on gun-related crimes.
In fact, during the CPD budget hearing, a group of alders questioned Brown about the contract renewal and whether there were other technologies that could replace it. Brown insisted that the decision around the contract lay with the Office of Public Safety Administration, which Alder Vasquez called “CPD lite.” It looks like Alder Carlos Ramirez-Rosa took that redirect to heart because he introduced an ordinance that would cut a $8,967,998 line item for software maintenance and licensing (read: kill the ShotSpotter contract) from the budget of the Office of Public Safety Administration.
How to spend federal COVID relief funds
There are differing opinions on how to spend American Rescue Plan funding. What Lightfoot proposes is to use a chunk to pay off the city’s $733 million debt. But some alders have different ideas.
Alder Hadden has proposed putting $70 million of ARP funds toward preservation of single-room occupancy projects, a critical source of low-income housing. For context, the budget proposal currently dedicates $32 million of ARP funding for homelessness support services generally.
While Alder Hadden’s plan focuses on housing, Alder Rossana Rodriguez Sanchez (33rd) has proposed earmarking $10 million of the Department of Public Health’s ARP funds for reinvestment in city-run mental health clinics. Twenty-five other alders have signed on to co-sponsor this ordinance.
And some 🔥 music
Last, but certainly not least, we will say the Committee on Budget and Government Operations supplied a fire playlist while waiting to meet quorum. Hits included “You’re the Only One” by Eric Benet, “You Make Me Feel Brand New” by The Stylistics, “ABC 123” by Tune-Yards and “Who Let the Dogs Out?” by Baha Men. Alder Pat Dowell (3rd) gave a shout out to the elusive DJ: “I specifically want to thank my man Michael Smith up there and his great music,” and despite our preliminary digging, we have not found the Michael Smith to appropriately credit. Michael, if you’re out there, thank you and we hope to see you at the City Council meeting.
Will the alders’ proposed amendments make it through? Will the budget pass? Will sparks fly? Tune into Budget Bingo on Wednesday, Oct. 27th at 10 a.m. to see how it shakes out.
Here’s how to play:
Pull up your bingo board—this link will give you your very own randomized bingo board, with squares thought up by City Bureau’s staff.
Tune into the @ChiDocumenters live-tweet thread for updates and follow along with the City Council live-stream. Let us know you’re playing by tagging us on Twitter and using the hashtag, #ChiBudgetBingo.
Mark off boxes as they happen (click on a square to check it off or download your card). The ChiDocumenters Twitter account will have the official say on which boxes you get to check, so keep refreshing.
Win the #ChiBudgetBingo prize–a $30 gift card to Build Coffee–and bragging rights by being the first to email us your winning board at documenters@citybureau.org
Special thanks to The Daily Line for this helpful budget recap!
Read more on the budget from City Bureau here:
Chicago City Council - 2022 City Budget Hearing [Police Board, Chicago Police Department] 10/04/2021
Chicago City Council - Committee on Budget and Government Operations 09/30/2021
https://www.citybureau.org/newswire/2020/11/3/how-did-chicagos-aldermen-vote-on-the-2021-budget
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