Chicago News
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The former South Shore High School, 7627 S. Constance Ave.
MAXWELL EVANS/BLOCK CLUB CHICAGO
The vacant site of a former Chicago public high school is one vote away becoming a temporary police training facility.
The City Council Committee on Housing and Real Estate endorsed the plan (O2019-1535) that would allow the city to lease the closed South Shore High School building from Chicago Public Schools. The building is located at 7627 S. Constance Ave. in the 8th Ward.
Police would use the building to teach “use of force and de-escalation strategies,” Ald. Michelle Harris (8) wrote in a Facebook post on Saturday. The training program is aimed at fulfilling reforms required under the consent decree placed on the department by a federal judge last year.
Harris wrote that police would occupy the building “for the next two to three years,” but the lease agreement up for consideration on Friday would last until Sept. 30, 2028.
The unanimous vote came at a shortened meeting of the Housing Committee amid the growing spread of the coronavirus, also known as COVID-19. A final vote is set at the meeting of the full City Council meeting on Wednesday.
Concerns about the virus prompted the cancelation of the Health and Human Relations Committee that had been scheduled to meet at 10 a.m. Friday.
The building has been vacant since 2014, when its operations were moved to the newer South Shore International College Preparatory High School, 1955 E. 75th St. Neighbors told Block Club Chicago they were not consulted on the plan.
Officials first aired the proposal to sign the building over to police last spring, but the plan was put on ice amid opposition from neighbors and the Chicago Teachers Union.
Union President Jesse Sharkey called the idea “a slap in the face of the community.”
Union leaders and activists blasted Mayor Lori Lightfoot last spring when she suggested that city leaders repurpose closed schools as police training facilities.
Aldermen also endorsed Mayor Lori Lightfoot’s proposed shake-up of the board of directors that oversees the city’s Low-Income Housing Trust Fund, a publicly-administered non-profit organization that oversees subsidies for approximately 3,200 housing units around the city.
The committee also approved the remaining items in The Daily Line’s preview. -
MAR 13, 2020
The vacant site of a former Chicago public high school would become a police training facility under a proposal set to come before aldermen on Friday. The former South Shore High School, 7627 S. Constance Ave. [MAXWELL EVANS/BLOCK CLUB CHICAGO]
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Aldermen advanced the first round of funding on Thursday for Mayor Lori Lightfoot’s Invest South/West initiative, the centerpiece of her efforts to reverse decades of disinvestment on Chicago’s South and West sides.
Ald. Leslie Hairston (5) tells reporters she was "insulted" by a provision of the mayor's proposal. [Heather Cherone/The Daily Line]
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MAR 13, 2020
Former Cook County Comm. Richard Boykin turned heads in January when he promised during a candidate forum that, if he were elected as the next clerk of the county’s courts, he would forgive millions of dollars in debt owed to the county’s court system.
The candidates for Cook County Circuit Court Clerk debate. [Don Vincent/The Daily Line]
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MAR 13, 2020
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MAR 12, 2020
Voting by mail is a good way for voters to limit potential exposure to Coronavirus, or COVID-19. But voting early in person is better, election officials said Wednesday.
The Chicago Board of Election Commissioners has logged 90,020 applications for mail-in ballots, Chair Marisel Hernandez told reporters. [Alex Nitkin/The Daily Line]
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Legislation that would put an elected board of Chicago residents in charge of the Chicago Police Department stalled Tuesday amid a dispute between Mayor Lori Lightfoot and her hand-picked Public Safety Committee chair over how policy should be set for the police department.
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Animal rights activists will try again Wednesday to convince aldermen to ban horse-drawn carriages, 18 months after they fell short in their years-long push to outlaw the popular tourist attraction.
A carriage from the now-shuttered Noble Horse stables rumbles down Wells Street in 2011. [Flickr/David B. Gleason]
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Ald. George Cardenas (12) blasted People's Gas for hiking residents' bills. [Heather Cherone/The Daily Line]
Ald. Greg Mitchell (7).
Ald. Anthony Beale (9). [Heather Cherone/The Daily Line]
