Alderman: Target police, fire contracts to reduce budget deficit
BY FRAN SPIELMAN City Hall Reporter fspielman@suntimes.com September 2, 2011 1:02AM
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Anthony Beale
Updated: September 2, 2011 2:14AM
Mayor Rahm Emanuel could wring $300 million from the combined $1.8 billion budgets of Chicago’s Police and Fire Departments, in part by dramatically altering union contracts that expire June 30, an influential alderman said Thursday.
“There’s no more sacred cows when the taxpayers are hurting like they are,” said Ald. Anthony Beale (9th), former chairman of the City Council’s Police and Fire Committee.
Beale has already infuriated the Fraternal Order of Police (FOP) by targeting the $1,800-a-year uniform allowance officers receive as well as duty-availability pay, a $2,800-a-year lump sum that essentially compensates officers for being on call at any time.
Now, he’s going even further.
Instead of having the same number of police officers assigned to every watch and district, Beale is talking about putting officers when and where the crime is. That would allow Emanuel to eliminate 1,400 police vacancies and shrink the police force through attrition.
“I know it’s an unpopular thing to say. ... But if you put the officers where they’re needed vs. where they’re wanted, you could see a reduction,” he said.
“It has to be a conscious effort to make the unpopular decision to say, ‘We’re gonna move officers around to where they’re most needed — not where they’re most wanted.’ If we’re gonna make the entire city safe, we can do it with less officers.”
Instead of doling out annual uniform checks, Beale wants to switch to a voucher system to save as much as $50 million a year. Officers who need shirts, pants and jackets would get reimbursed. Those who don’t would get nothing.
Arguing that overtime is normally tacked on to an officers shift, Beale is also talking about eliminating duty availability pay, reducing disability claims and about eliminating a virtually unheard of policy that allows officers to take as many as 365 sick days every two years.
In the Chicago Fire Department, Beale wants to permanently reduce the minimum staffing requirements for fire apparatus and switch firefighters to an eight-hour shift — and away from the cherished 24-hours-on, 48-hours-off schedule that allows them to work second and third jobs.
Many of the changes proposed by the aldermen would have to be negotiated when police and fire union contracts expire on June 30.
Former Mayor Richard M. Daley threatened repeatedly to switch firefighters to an eight-hour shift in response to a sharp decline in the number of fires, only to back off the demand.
Daley was similarly thwarted in his efforts to relax the requirement that there be five employees on every piece of fire apparatus — the issue that triggered the bitter 1980 firefighters strike. He only managed to increase to 35 the number of times each day when the city is allowed to dip below that requirement.
Tom Ryan, president of the Chicago Firefighters Union Local 2, could not be reached for comment on Beale’s suggestions.
But FOP president Mike Shields ripped the alderman’s proposal.
“The Chicago Police Department today is stretched to the limit. We have had seven police officers killed in the line of duty over the past two years. Now, Ald. Beale wants to give us a pay cut? That is a real insult,” Shields said.
“If the mayor and the city are really serious about saving money, they can save tens of millions per year by cutting the number of aldermen in half and ending all of their ridiculous perks. The mayor asked for suggestions from citizens. That is what the citizens want. They do not want a demoralized and underpaid police force.”
Shields further noted that Beale raised the same concerns about uniforms and duty pay during the last round of contract talks that dragged on for years.
“His positions were soundly rejected,” Shields said.
Emanuel’s communications director, Chris Mather, did not dismiss Beale’s suggestions.
“We have to be honest about the fiscal challenges our city faces and any ideas — be it from the City Council, the FOP or the public — that will help close the budget gap without impacting the safety on streets and in our neighborhoods should be considered,” Mather said.
Police Supt. Garry McCarthy told the Chicago Sun-Times earlier week that he’s been asked to cut $190 million from the Police Department’s $1.3 billion-a-year budget and would only get halfway there by eliminating 1,400 police vacancies.
Beyond the vacancies, there are 730 officers on medical rolls each day and 641 officers on limited desk duty. Emanuel campaigned on a promise to change the sick leave policy.
Then in a totally unrelated story....
6 killed in holiday weekend violence
SUN-TIMES MEDIA WIRE September 4, 2011 2:42AM
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Six men have been killed in acts of violence on the city’s streets this Labor Day weekend. Since Friday night five men have been fatally shot and one stabbed to death in Chicago.
A man walking on a Southwest Side street was killed in a Saturday afternoon drive-by shooting.
The man — identified by the Cook County Medical Examiner’s office as 38-year-old David Lucas — was shot about 2:50 p.m. in the 6500 block of South California Avenue, police News Affairs Officer Veejay Zala said.
Police said the man was walking when a light-colored four-door vehicle approached, a gunman exited and began shooting then fled in the vehicle.
Lucas, of the 6900 block of South Mozart St., was pronounced dead at 4:01 p.m. at Advocate Christ Medical Center in Oak Lawn, the medical examiner’s office said.
Police said he was shot in the chest.
Two men standing on a Garfield Park street were killed in a Saturday afternoon drive-by shooting on the West Side.
The men were standing in the 2900 block of West Adams Street when the driver of a passing car pulled a gun about 12:45 p.m. and shot the men, Zala, citing preliminary information, said.
The medical examiner’s office identified the men as 18-year-old Deandre Boatman and 34-year-old Devonne Polk.
Boatman, of an unidentified home address, was pronounced dead at 1:25 p.m. at John H. Stroger Jr. Hospital of Cook County. Polk, of the 5300 block of West Harrison St., was also taken to Stroger Hospital, where he was pronounced dead at 1:22 p.m.
Police described the vehicle as a light-colored two-door car of an unidentified make and model.
Police said both men suffered multiple gunshot wounds.
A gunman walked up to a 32-year-old man in a wheelchair on the West Side early Saturday and opened fire, killing him.
The victim, identified by the medical examiner’s office as Martez Benton, was in a wheelchair when he was shot, according to police News Affairs Officer Michael Sullivan.
About 1:45 a.m., Benton was on the sidewalk in the 5400 block of West Division Street when a male approached him on foot and fired at him, striking him in the neck, head and back, a report from police News Affairs said.
Benton, of in Maywood, was taken to Mount Sinai Hospital, where he was pronounced dead at 2:10 a.m., according to the medical examiner’s office.
One man died and another was injured after they were stabbed in the North Side Lincoln Park neighborhood early Saturday.
The two were stabbed during a fight about 12:50 a.m. in the 1100 block of West Wrightwood Avenue, police said. A 19-year-old man was stabbed in the chest and abdomen and was taken to Advocate Illinois Masonic Medical Center where he later died.
Rodney Kyles Jr. of the 5100 block of Roberta Lane in Richton Park was pronounced dead at 1:23 a.m. after being stabbed in the street at 1132 W. Wrightwood Ave., according to the medical examiner’s Office.
An 18-year-old man was stabbed in the buttocks and was taken in good condition to Illinois Masonic.
A man was shot and killed Friday night while he sat on a park bench on the South Side, police said.
Tyrone Robertson, 20, of the 10000 block of South Wentworth Ave., was pronounced dead at Saint Bernard Hospital at 9:36 p.m. after being shot at 449 W. 72nd St., according to the medical examiner’s Office.
He was sitting on a park bench at Hamilton Park about 8:50 p.m., when shots rang out from behind the fieldhouse and struck him, police News Affairs Officer Laura Kubiak said.
No one was in custody for any of these homicides as of early Sunday.
And yet another totally unrelated story... The Worst and Best Public Art in Chicago This Year (so far)
It’s already been quite the year for public art in Chicago, even if the year is little more than half over by now. Unfortunately, “quite the year” in this case means a year I would already rather forget.
Millennium Park is undoubtedly the single most important and visible site for public art in Chicago with both permanent and temporary pieces. Opened in 2004, four years behind its slated opening on the millennium, the park hosts two permanent public art works, Anish Kapoor’s Cloud Gate and Jaume Plensa’s Crown Fountain, as well as exhibitions of temporary sculpture.
There should be high expectations for the exhibitions in Millennium Park. It’s in the heart of downtown, attracts volumes of foot traffic, and has become quite popular, all of which are good things. This year saw an exhibition from sculptor Yvonne Domenge, following exhibitions from Mark di Suvero in Millennium Park and a group exhibition of contemporary sculpture from China, curated by University of Chicago Art History professor Wu Hung.
Installation view of Yvonne Domenge in Millennium Park, April 2011. Black metal barriers now ring each work.
Domenge’s exhibition presents swirling globes of color and a sinuous abstracted tree, all fabricated out of metal, all painted bright colors. All utterly boring. As I wrote for my review of the exhibition, the aesthetic is as interchangeable as the titles of the work. To top it off, the sculpture is now surrounded by eye-gougingly ugly black metal barriers. Wu Hung’s sculpture show had personality and di Suvero is pretty important, but what we received this year was art that’s boring and lacking ambition. Regrettably this misfire will remain on view through most of 2012 as well.
And then J. Seward Johnson returned with a monstrosity. Now it could rightly be pointed out that this isn't public art; it sits on private land, was privately funded and was privately selected. But that ignores the highly public location, at the beginning of Chicago's über-shopping stretch, the Magnificent Mile, and in the Pioneer Court, nestled next to the Neo-Gothic glory of the Tribune Tower, across from the beaux-arts beauty of the Wrigley Building. Needless to say, like Millennium Park, this location gets a lot of traffic.
Public art doesn’t necessarily have to be on city land or paid for by public money for it to be public, but it does need the public itself, and these locations get the public in droves.
The high-visibility location made the installation of J. Seward Johnson’s Forever Marilyn, a giant statue of Marilyn Monroe holding down her skirt lifted from the iconic pose from The Seven Year Itch (1955), impossible to ignore. Well that, and the fact that you can see her panties if you move around to the rear. This fact has not been lost on many male viewers, causing middle-aged men to act like prepubescent boys. Thanks to Johnson we now have an opportunity close to home for what was dubbed on Twitter as “group perving.” I like the Flickr guy who decided to rate the reactions.
Johnson is a master of kitsch. It’s like he read Clement Greenberg’s definition of it and mistook it for a good thing: “Kitsch is mechanical and it operates by formulas. Kitsch is vicarious experience and faked sensations...Kitsch is the epitome of all that is spurious in the life of our times.” Yes, Johnson’s sculpture is all of those. At least Jeff Koons attempts to rescue kitsch, or elevate it. Again I find myself deeply looking forward to the end date of this exhibition, no pun intended.
Chicago is really in debt -- next year's budget already predicts a shortfall of over $600 million. The Mayor is taking suggestions. Literally, that is -- there's a website. I suggest imposing a heavy tariff on all cross-state importing of J. Seward Johnson's work.
There was a bright spot in this year’s public art so far, and it wasn’t big or expensive, in fact, it was dirt-cheap. For the opening night of Chicago’s newest art fair, MDW Fair, artist duo Dutes Miller and Stan Shellabarger quietly made outlines of their bodies with dirt on the grounds around the fair building. Discovered by groups walking to the fair itself, the outlines were quiet moments of encounter, like the way we experience art in museums, the mere trace of a one-time human presence, now gone. The outlines also wore their impermanence on their sleeve, subject to not only the elements, but also vulnerable to an unsympathetic viewer who could destroy the figures with a mere kick of the foot. They were mortal.
It's unfortunate that two of the best locations in Chicago will be occupied by sculpture that's both bad and not indicative of artists and art in the city. Not everything has to be gigantic and in steel for it to have a big impact; I will remember Miller and Shellabarger’s pieces for far longer than Domenge’s or Johnson’s. It is ironic that in times of tight budgets and penny-pinching, curators and the powers-that-be are bringing in startlingly lackluster artists when they could easily find better ones in their own city if they only looked.
--Abraham Ritchie, Senior Editor ArtSlant living and working in Chicago.
Buddy, Buddy, Buddy....
P.C.
