A Brief Summary of Tonight's Public Safety Town Hall Meeting
Tonight's meeting was attended by about 175-200 ward constituents who had an array of concerns, from burglaries, traffic concerns around Taft HS, underage drinking and teen rowdiness at Wildwood Park, scrap trucks driving through the alleys, very long response times to 911 calls etc...
The recurring theme to almost every concern voiced:
NOT ENOUGH POLICE OFFICERS
The Commander states that he has requested more police officers from CPD administration. The alderman said she is frustrated and concerned. When asked what specifically has been done: not much of a response. All we were told is that there is going to be a new system as to how police officers will be dispatched to calls in the future and no one is aware of the details.
In the meantime, the alderman and the commander want everyone calling 911 for everything to boost our numbers of calls for service.
I specifically asked the alderman how she could have voted for the mayor's budget knowing we have so few police, and not enough new police officer positions were written into the budget (only 500 new positions were allocated, and it is estimated the city needs about 2000 new officers to replace officers retired in the last five years as well as for the next fiscal year).
No specifics...only some vague responses about sitting in council meetings listening to the needs of the entire city. The alderman said she lobbies for us. To that, I say to the alderman - one of the most effective ways to lobby for us is to not vote for budgets that do not meet our needs. A few officers/41st ward residents at the meeting said the new officers are all slated to go to the south and west sides. Where does that leave us?
Post your thoughts...
