Alderman Ed Smith's Chicago Smoking Ban Proposal...Not Altruistic?
There has been a lot of discussion about Chicago Alderman Ed Smith and his smoking ban proposal. I want to present him from a different perspective. Alderman Smith has been a city official since the early 1980's and represents one of the highest crime/illegal drug traffic wards in the city. He has been unsuccessful in eliminating these problems on his home turf, so I believe he has set his sights on bigger game......a smoking ban for all of Chicago. Below are some articles supporting my theory, although a few of the links seem to have been removed since I collected them. Please observe that his friendship with Jesse Jackson, another strong smoking ban proponent, goes back several years also.
Perhaps this is an unfair presentation of Alderman Smith, but I believe it can help us to understand that his motives are not purely altruistic. Instead, I believe he is using the Chicago smoking ban as a political platform for future advancement. Perhaps these observations can be helpful in our fight?
Garnet Dawn - 12/05
Chicago Alderman Ed Smith, whose ward includes several of the devices, said he has only heard one complaint about the cameras: There aren't enough of them.http://www.why-war.com/news/2004/04/29/chicagop.html
"You can call the area whatever you want; just don't call us late for those cameras," Smith said. "I need more."
Chicago Police's Crime-Fighting Cameras Divide Neighbors
Mike Colias | Associated Press | April 29, 2004
"'It seems prejudiced to me,' said Abdul Bucky, 40, who works within sight of a camera at Deal Beauty Supply and General Merchandise in East Garfield Park. 'Why didn't they put them in all the neighborhoods?'"
CHICAGO (AP) -- In the gang-ridden area where she works as a hairdresser, Renee Singletary has noticed a big change since police mounted a conspicuous video camera at a nearby intersection last summer.
"It's so much quieter now," said Singletary, 42, who has worked for 10 years at Gollies Barber Shop in the East Garfield Park neighborhood, about five miles west of downtown. "Before, there were kids hanging out doing whatever. It was unsafe to walk around."
The camera is one of 30 that Chicago police installed last summer as high-tech scarecrows to chase off gangs and street thugs. The remote-controlled cameras -- mounted on lamp posts high above intersections in rough neighborhoods -- can rotate 360 degrees and zoom tight enough to read a license plate, feeding video directly to squad-car laptops.
A batch of 50 upgraded cameras to be installed later this year will have sensors to detect bullets whizzing through the air, relaying the precise location of gunfire to dispatchers to alert nearby squad cars.
But as Chicago police expand their $3.5 million "Operation Disruption" -- one of the nation's most aggressive uses of surveillance cameras to curb violent crime -- residents and lawmakers are divided over whether the cameras are effective or an invasion of privacy that brands their neighborhoods as ghettos.
"It seems prejudiced to me," said Abdul Bucky, 40, who works within sight of a camera at Deal Beauty Supply and General Merchandise in East Garfield Park. "Why didn't they put them in all the neighborhoods?"
The cameras, which can film day or night, are protected in white bulletproof cases about the size of a small file cabinet and emblazoned with the Chicago Police Department seal.
State Sen. Rickey Hendon has sponsored legislation to limit the number of devices police install and to get rid of the small, constantly twinkling blue strobe lights on each camera. Hendon said the lights have led people to label the neighborhoods "blue light districts."
"I think they're a violation of people's civil liberties," said Hendon, who said he has received complaints from residents who fear the cameras can zoom into their windows. "People going about their everyday lives shouldn't be spied on by Big Brother."
City officials said the cameras are not used to peer into private homes and that they intend to protect people's privacy.
A spokesman for the American Civil Liberties Union in Illinois said the group considers the cameras constitutional as long as police use them solely to monitor street crime, although privacy questions likely will mount as more cameras go up.
"There really should be a societal public-policy debate, with an eye toward ensuring there are specific regulations in place that protect against an invasion of privacy," ACLU spokesman Ed Yohnka said.
Chicago, which led the nation in murders last year, is far more aggressive in using police cameras than many other major cities.
The New York Police Department for years has used cameras in housing projects but has not used any to target street crime. Detroit, Houston and Washington, D.C., have placed cameras in downtown areas during big events but have not used them in high-crime neighborhoods.
Los Angeles has been limited to a closed-circuit TV system installed last year in a large, gang-ridden park, which police said helped reduce shootings by 50 percent.
Chicago officials say crime has plummeted within a one-block radius of each camera. Narcotics calls dropped 76 percent over the first seven months, police said. Minor crimes such as property damage were down 46 percent.
But some residents said gang members simply moved their business to the side streets -- a phenomenon experts call "displacement."
"The displacement effects are real," said Dennis Rosenbaum, a criminology professor at University of Illinois at Chicago who has studied anti-violence programs in 10 cities for the National Institute of Justice. "But if the opportunities for crime aren't as easy to come by, you can successfully prevent crime in a certain area."
Chicago Police Assistant Deputy Superintendent Ron Huberman, who ran Operation Disruption until a recent promotion, said the cameras have resulted in a wholesale reduction in crime by moving drug dealers off their favorite street corners and into outlying areas, where police have beefed up their presence.
"We put officers in surrounding areas, so when dealers move out we can pick them off," Huberman said.
Chicago Alderman Ed Smith, whose ward includes several of the devices, said he has only heard one complaint about the cameras: There aren't enough of them.
"You can call the area whatever you want; just don't call us late for those cameras," Smith said. "I need more."
Chuck Benain, 54, who owns Ryerson Pharmacy on the city's West Side, said he can't wait for more to go up.
"I wouldn't be opposed to having one right there," said Benain, pointing to the intersection outside his storefront. "People aren't afraid to send their kid down the block to pick something up now."
http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/z?r104:S19JA5-1196
From the Chicago Sun-Times, Nov. 14, 1994
Drug `Stores' Never Close
(BY MARY A. JOHNSON)
It's early in the day and most Chicagoans are headed for work at their legitimate jobs.
In Lawndale and Garfield Park, hundreds of young black men and women are headed for work, too: to street corners where they'll sell drugs.
Here drugs are sold like candy, Ald. Ed H. Smith said at a recent City Council hearing, pleading with Police Supt. Matt Rodriguez to help in his 28th Ward.
And indeed, drug sales flourish at more than 25 locations this day as Smith drives around the West Side neighborhoods.
It's a `24/7 operation' (24 hours a day, seven days a week) that puts money in the pockets of hundreds of people in an area otherwise dry of economic opportunity. This activity is part of an area drug industry estimated to generate as much as $7 billion in annual revenue.
For Mayor Daley, it's one reason to lead a caravan of buses to Springfield Tuesday to fight for passage of a Safe Neighborhoods Bill during the legislative veto session.
The bill would impose stiffer penalties on youngsters who commit drug offenses using firearms.
It also would amend Illinois sentencing laws by extending prison terms for ringleaders of drug-related groups of at least five people. And it requires community service and periodic drug testing for anyone convicted of possession of controlled substances.
Daley and Smith believe the new law would help control what Smith saw coming a decade ago.
For 12 years, he has been alderman for the area bounded by Laramie on the west, Western on the east, Chicago on the north and 16th on the south. Unemployment is about 56 percent.
Nearly 10 years ago, he led a march to complain that police were denying that crack cocaine had hit city streets. These neighborhoods were about to become a `killing field,' Smith warned.
His cry today is similar.
`Our local police have come here when we call them, but still, there are too many drugs on the corner,' Smith said. `Too many guns loose on the street. The drugs are not leaving the streets fast enough, and it's too easy for drugs to come in. That is a police problem.'
As Smith drives through the neighborhoods, pointing out hot spots for drug activity, dealers flash money and pass bags at St. Louis and Carroll, within a block of Flower Vocational High School. It's a location identified as a drug hot spot two years ago by a Sun-Times investigation.
About 100 young men dispatched to 25 different locations are at work on neighborhood street corners, hustling dime bags of crack cocaine and heroin like newspaper vendors hawk morning papers at major thoroughfares.
In the 4400 block of West Washington Boulevard, three young men, hands buried deep in their pockets, walk briskly to their jobs selling narcotics. Another youngster is already there looking out for police.
In the 4500 block, a group of kids is gathered on the corner, soliciting customers by shouting `Blow,' `Rocks,' street names for crack and heroin.
On the steps of an abandoned building in the middle of the block, another group waits for roadside customers.
One block to the south, a man with a cane sits in the open doorway of a graffiti-scarred multi-unit apartment building, watching. According to residents, drug dealers kicked in the outer door of the building and drugs are sold in the entranceway.
Police are about to unveil a pilot program in the area that will target public drug dealing by interfering with the marketplace, Rodriguez said.
And he's hopeful that funds available under President Clinton's crime bill will go toward drug treatment and prevention.
`We have no treatment facilities whatsoever to speak of,' Rodriguez said. `I believe we are going to have 45,000 narcotics arrests in the city of Chicago this year--and no place for offenders. That's an astronomical number.'
Police officials, residents and elected officials agree that unless drug prevention and job opportunities are increased in the area, nothing is likely to change. `There are only about 1,000 inpatient beds avaiable in the city of Chicago for somebody who chose to get out,' said Harrison District police Cmdr. Douglas Bolling. `In a city of almost 3 million people, it's a joke.
`It's an incredible business. We have to provide job opportunities, perhaps then some of the people won't stand on the corner and warn drug dealers that police are coming.'
In April, the Harrison District began reverse sting operations, arresting drug buyers instead of sellers. Since then, 1,075 narcotics customers have been arrested. Seventy-five percent of the narcotics customers live outside the area.
Police say that every day they arrest as many suspected dealers as they are able to process, but the market is so lucrative, demand so great and workers so plentiful, the arrests haven't dented business.
It has been estimated that the local drug industry employs 10,000 to 20,000 workers, with a customer base of roughly 400,000.
`From about 11 a.m. to 1 a.m. at night, they are like flies on honey,' Smith said. `They get up early to go to work just like they are going to a legitimate job.'
http://www.illinoisleader.com/news/newsview.asp?c=23989
Peraica Set to Announce for Cook County Board President
Monday, March 28, 2005
By The Leader-Chicago Bureau
Cook County Commissioner Tony Peraica (R-Riverside) will announce his candidacy for Cook County Board President on Saturday morning in Chicago. ED. DISCLOSURE: Urquhart Media, LLC, the media firm in which Leader Media President Dan Proft is a principal, has been retained to consult on Tony Peraica's campaign for Cook County Board President and thus, Mr. Proft will recuse himself from all Leader coverage regarding this race.
CHICAGO - It's been more than a decade since a Republican was elected Cook County-wide and nearly 40 years since the GOP has held the Cook County Board President, but first-term County Commissioner Tony Peraica (R-Riverside) aims to change that.
Peraica will make his candidacy for Cook County Board President official on Saturday, April 2, at 10:30am at the Sheraton Hotel in downtown Chicago. He is expected to be joined by a host of local and state officials, Cook County GOP township and ward committeemen, rank-and-file precinct captains, and "a few Democrats too" according to Peraica.
It is unclear whether or not incumbent Democrat Board President John Stroger, 76, will run for a fourth term. His decision is expected later this Spring. However, Peraica is hopeful he will have the opportunity to face Stroger to provide "the greatest and clearest contrast for Cook County voters." Other Democrats eyeing the race include: Chicago Ald. Ed Smith (D-28), County Commissioners Mike Quigley, Larry Suffredin, and Forrest Claypool, County Sheriff Michael Sheahan, and County Assessor Jim Houlihan.
Peraica, a Croatian immigrant, may not be the only Republican running for a shot at Stroger or whichever Democrat may emerge. Fellow first-term County Commissioner Liz Gorman (R-Orland Park) has also been openly considering a run, though has set no timetable on a decision.
In his first term, Peraica quickly established himself as a hard-charging leader of the bi-partisan reform movement on the County Board, a movement that has forced previously unthinkable budgetary concessions from Stroger over the past two years.
Peraica says he knows beating the Democrats in Cook County is an uphill task but "it's those battles that people believe are unwinnable that are the ones worth fighting."
© 2005 IllinoisLeader.com -- all rights reserved
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http://www.jessejacksonjr.org/query/creadpr.cgi?id=%22004055%22
WHITE TRIES TO GAIN SEAT ON BLACK CAUCUS
By Mark J. Konkol, Daily Southtown
Thursday, June 28, 2001
A white alderman from Chicago's Southwest Side wants to become a full-fledged member of the city council's Black Caucus - not just while a new city ward map is drawn.
Ald. Thomas Murphy Wednesday said he deserves an open invitation to all Black Caucus meetings because he represents an 18th Ward that is 85 percent black.
Murphy's interest in membership in the caucus is a result of the ongoing remap process: Murphy has said he wants to make sure the concerns of his 45,000 black constituents are considered by the caucus during redistricting discussions.
The Black Caucus plans to draw up its own draft ward map to be considered by the city council. The group's goal is to make sure the number of wards with a majority of black residents does not decrease in a new map.
The city has 20 majority-black wards. Nineteen are represented by black aldermen, and the 20th is represented by Murphy.
In a letter to caucus leader Ald. Ed Smith (28th), Murphy said he wants to have a say in more than just the map-making process.
"I would like to have input at not only redistricting meetings but those which involve any other issue important to the black community," he said.
Smith said he plans to bring the matter up for discussion at the caucus's July 12 meeting, but he declined to say how he felt about Murphy's request.
"I'm sure there will be extreme extrapolation on that issue" at the caucus meeting, he said. "Once they've discussed it, we'll take a vote.
"I'm going to say what the caucus wants me to say ... I'll be happy to get (Murphy's request). I'll be happy to get this thing on the table, and I'll be happy to get rid of it."
It's unclear whether Murphy has a shot at becoming a permanent member of the group. Several caucus members said they are against the idea.
Ald. Carrie Austin (34th) said she thinks Murphy's dealings with the Black Caucus should be limited to remap issues.
"I think he should be part of our proceedings (on the remap) because he does represent an African-American ward. But as far as being part of our caucus, I don't think so," she said.
The trouble with letting Murphy have an equal seat at the caucus meetings is his track record, Ald. Arenda Troutman (20th) said.
"He hasn't really demonstrated that he (supports) issues that concern the Black Caucus," Troutman said.
"The Black Caucus has been in existence since Ald. Murphy entered the council chambers and he has never (supported) any issues with us," she said. "The Black Caucus doesn't represent just black folks, it represents positions and issues.
"So where was Ald. Murphy on issues that directly affected African-Americans in his communities? He should have tried to make some inroads into our caucus way before redistricting."
But Murphy said his voting record will show that he always supports African-American issues along with the Black Caucus, including affirmative action laws, reparations for descendants of slaves and hiring of minority contractors. On top of that, Murphy said he pays close attention to the needs of black residents in his ward.
Political experts have called Murphy's request a can't-lose play.
"If he gets in, he wins. If he doesn't, he shows he tried to represent his community," Roosevelt University political science professor Paul Green said.
Ald. William Beavers (7th), who Murphy first approached about joining the caucus, said the issue might simply die.
"(Murphy) got some good publicity. I got some good publicity. We might just leave it at that," he said.
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