The city’s request for information (RFI) and related evaluation process for an alternative to ShotSpotter suggest this process is anything but objective, unbiased and thorough.
During a news conference last month, Mayor Brandon Johnson stated that the city is going to explore all options for responding to crime, saying the city is “working through a process.” This RFI was represented as the result of “robust” work and efforts to finally “do it right.”
In light of these remarks, one would expect an RFI to provide details of the mayor’s vision for public safety across Chicago, one that invites vendors of different technologies to respond with proposals demonstrating how their innovative solutions could help the city achieve its vision, with all aspects of the process managed by a person who is open, unbiased and eager to assess all possibilities.
Instead, the mayor has published an RFI that lacks any substance and fails to define any plans or priorities.
This RFI was quickly thrown together and is nothing more than a repackaged version of a standard request for proposals for gunshot detection technology.
I am very concerned about the legitimacy of this process, the lack of adequate exploration and definition, and how open the mayor’s appointed working group leader is in objectively evaluating all options. This process seems doomed to fail from the very beginning.
We therefore ask Johnson to:
- Cancel the current RFI.
- Give this working group the time it needs and deserves to help create a robust vision for public safety throughout the city of Chicago.
- Then publish an RFI that is truly reflective of a new vision for public safety in the city and one that invites vendors to show how their technology can help us achieve that vision.
If we find a solution that addresses that vision, let’s get it under contract and deployed across the city as quickly as possible.
In the meantime, reactivate the ShotSpotter service to help the Chicago Police Department protect our citizens until we have identified and deployed a technology that is better.
— Ald. Gilbert Villegas, 36th Ward, and chairman, Chicago City Council Committee on Economics, Capital, and Technology Development
Housing ordinance’s effects
It was both remarkable and alarming to read the aldermen behind the Northwest Side Housing Preservation Ordinance outline their reasoning for the ordinance (“Here’s why we passed a Northwest Side ordinance to protect affordable housing,” Oct. 10). While we can all agree that the ultimate goal of increasing the availability of affordable housing is important, the ordinance’s mechanisms for attempting to achieve this goal exhibit a complete lack of understanding by its authors of how to efficiently maintain and improve our built environment.
I own a six-flat in the area affected by this ordinance; it is over 100 years old. While I have maintained and updated the building to maximize its service life, there will come a point in the next few years when the cost to maintain and operate this building will become unsustainable. Buildings, like all material things, have a finite useful service life that ends when:
- The structural and architectural layout of the building is no longer conducive to modern lifestyles and is unattractive to tenants. For example, my building has very small bedrooms, many without closet space. While this was appropriate in 1910 when the building was constructed, it does not work with tenants’ needs in 2024.
- The building becomes increasingly inefficient to heat and cool, resulting in high consumption of fossil fuel-based utilities and output of carbon emissions. This inefficient heating and cooling also has an adverse effect on the health of the occupants.
- The building exacerbates rat and pest problems in the neighborhoods within the ordinance’s boundaries, since old buildings are naturally more porous and their decaying materials attract these critters.
My goal was to demolish my six-unit building in a few years to replace it with an equal or greater number of affordable units in a new energy-efficient building that tenants find attractive and healthy. My goal would be to inject new investment in the neighborhood to beautify and improve the community. This ordinance, with its exorbitant demolition fees, makes these goals unaffordable.
By passing this ordinance, these aldermen indicate they would prefer to keep 100-plus-year-old buildings that have outlived their useful life, leaving tenants to remain in unhealthy and inefficient buildings, depressing property values and shunning private investment in their neighborhoods.
Do these aldermen not recognize the damage this ordinance will cause? Or are they choosing to ignore the damage in order to feed their political narratives?
— Andrew McMorrow, Chicago
Is this a virtue of Judaism?
Regarding the letter “Greatest threat is extinction” (Oct. 10): I share the frustration of Mary Ellen Bowers when there is what I believe to be insufficient outrage regarding the atrocities committed by Hamas terrorists against Israeli citizens on Oct. 7, 2023.
It is hypocritical to be outraged by what Israel is doing in Gaza, the West Bank and Lebanon without being equally outraged by the events of Oct. 7, the fact that there is still a hostage crisis in Gaza and that Hezbollah terrorists murdered 12 Druze children on a soccer field in the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights this past summer.
However, I find it disturbing and offensive that Bowers is so dismissive about the humanitarian catastrophe occurring in Gaza caused by the unhinged and cruel Israeli response to these barbarous acts. She writes: “Yes, all life has value, and Judaism values life above all.”
Are Israeli airstrikes on Palestinian women and children — because Israel’s corrupt and inept leader makes no effort to protect innocent civilians consistent with the value of pikuach nefesh, or “saving a life” — the most important virtue in Judaism? Does Bowers see these innocent bystanders being burned to death as “this generation’s Amalek”?
— David Hurwitz, Chicago
Ramp up humanitarian effort
I urge our government to immediately implement a major humanitarian initiative to relieve the suffering of people in Gaza and Lebanon. It will be too little, too late, for too many, but this may be the last chance we have to demonstrate some balanced concern for all the victims of this dreadful conflict.
Arab Americans and Muslim Americans are understandably disgusted by our lack of action in this regard, especially given the support our country has given Israeli policy during the latest crisis.
Make no mistake: I endorse our support for Israel. The horrors of Oct. 7 have been amply acknowledged and invoked, and we have provided unprecedented amounts of military aid to Israel in its aftermath.
But our inability to provide substantial relief to populations subjected to overwhelming attack is appalling. That’s why I’m calling for our government to undertake a Berlin Blockade-scale relief operation, carried out in defiance of any obstructions, if need be.
Readers should urge their senators, representatives and President Joe Biden’s administration to act immediately and forcefully to relieve the suffering and demonstrate the best of our nature.
— Joseph S. Harrington, Morton Grove
Metra fare system needs fix
Regarding the article “Metra proposes $1.1 billion budget” (Oct. 11): Not all train riders go downtown for work. To bring back riders and reduce car traffic and emissions for city events, Metra should restore round-trip daily tickets to one-stop purchases to use within two or more weeks.
How? Fix the new fare system. Before Feb. 1, I frequently bought daily round-trip paper tickets to use within about two weeks. Effective Feb. 1, I had to buy one a one-way ticket to use within three hours at my train station, then separately buy the return ticket downtown just before the train as it expired within three hours. Or I could have added the Ventra app to my phone, which I did not want to do. If I had bought either ticket on the train, a service fee would be added.
Metra needs to fix its fare system!
— Patricia Walter, Glenview
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