State of the Calumet District #Ward09

5th District - Calumet

Happening later today at the 5th District HQ, welcoming the new district commander Joel M. Howard

Presenting the State of the District
Thursday, September 27, 2018
Welcome & refreshments at 6:00PM
State of the District at 7:00 PM

727 E. 111th Street

For more info please call 312.747.3100

RELATED - Sun-Times: CPD officer commits suicide; 3rd officer to take own life in 2 months

Sun-Times: CPD officer commits suicide; 3rd officer to take own life in 2 months

The Calumet district - HQ located in Pullman on 111th St - have suffered from sad losses. The Sun-Times talks about it:

The officer, a 54-year-old woman described by police as a “veteran” of the department, is the second member of the Chicago Police Department to take their own life in that parking lot since early July and the third Chicago police officer to commit suicide in the last two months.

She was found in her personal car and her name was not released as of Wednesday afternoon, according to police. The department said it was making counselors available to officers in the Calumet District, where the deceased officer was found.

“Crushing news for the department this morning as we grapple with the suicide of a veteran #ChicagoPolice officer who took her life inside her personal vehicle,” Guglielmi tweeted. “Please pray for this officer’s family and fellow officers of @ChicagoCAPS05.”
...
The Calumet District already suffered through two other officer deaths over the summer.

On July 9, Officer Brandon Krueger, a 36-year-old officer of five years, shot himself in the head in the Calumet District’s parking lot. Two days later, Officer Vinita Williams, 47, fell unconscious in the station and died a short time later.

As the police seeks more recruits this fall, let's recognize how difficult a job being a police officer really is. We have to treat them better than it seems we have been recently. 

Air ambulance crash on Chicago's south side!

[VIDEO] This happened sometime on Saturday night and actually occurred near the interchange between I-94 (Dan Ryan/Bishop Ford or Calumet Expressways) and I-57. Hence you might see quite a few shots of the CTA's 98th/State railyard.

As an added bonus here's a remote from ABC 7 Chicago which was shot the night of this crash.

An unusal crime report involving social media

Most of these incidents reported by Chicago Tribune happened in Chatham, be careful if you're meeting people on social media:

Police say a woman has been using a social media website to arrange meetings with men on the South Side, where five or six men then beat and rob them.

The woman has been using the website skout.com to make plans with the victims. But when they arrive, the woman is with several men, police said in a community alert.

The robberies have occurred three times in the evening hours: 5:30 p.m. July 30 on the 7900 block of South Calumet Avenue; from 4 to 7:30 p.m. Aug. 1 on the 7900 block of South Prairie Avenue; and about 9 p.m. Aug. 12 on the same Prairie Avenue block.

Police did not have detailed descriptions. They said the group consists of a black woman and five to six black men. The men are 18 to 30 years old, police said. Anyone with information about the attacks should call the Chicago Police Area South Detective Division at 312-747-8273

Chicago City Treasurer Kurt Summers visits Flecks Coffee

New Chicago City Treasurer Kurt Summers kicked off his 77 Chicago community area tour with a breakfast conference at Flecks coffee today (Thursday, November 13). There were several reporters at the event, with a total of approximately 30 people in attendance, filling the entire establishment.  I (JP Paulus) was there from  8:30am until the end.

 

Summers explained his role as treasurer, which includes investing the city of Chicago’s money.  He stated that “conventional wisdom” was that investing in minority communities was a bad investment.  Summer said that was not true and would in fact invest in minority communities.

Summers said he worked with a group of leaders to work on a plan for Chatham, including bankers, investment community, and others. Ald. Rod Sawyer, after the meeting, said that they will release a public statement on the alliance in the near future. He also noted that Summers was involved with this long before being tapped to be City Treasurer.

He stated that there was a plan by World Business Chicago that was created three years ago, and wanted the community to help him answer the question of  “How do we bring this to Chatham?”

Summers also mentioned phrases such as "ministry of presence" during his conversation.

Attendees included Alderman Rod Sawyer, his chief of staff Brian Sleet, 6^th Ward aldermanic candidate Brian Garner, Chatham blogger Worlee Glover, Flecks Coffee owners Olga & Zuli Turner, among others.

We plan to post links to other stories about this event in a future blog entry, as well as sharing them on our Facebook page.

Did you see last nights governor's debate?

Yesterday I noted GOP candidate for governor Bruce Rauner visited Flecks Coffee on Tuesday - watch this Early & Often [VIDEO]. This was before a debate with Gov. Pat Quinn that aired on CBS 2 last night. If you missed you will be able to see it at the end of this post.

The debate held at the DuSable Museum on Cottage Grove was geared towards Black voters.

I wanted to provide two posts from the Capitol Fax to analyze the recent debate.

• Post-debate spinning - Every candidate after a debate will attempt to paint themselves in the best light
• Some riveting TV -As for this one at the end of this post the discussion was regarding Gov. Quinn's body language

If you saw last night's debate or even if you're just now watching it today, let us know what you think. Who won this debate? Would this influence how you would vote next month on Election Day?

[VIDEO] of the debate is below

Water Main down just West of King Drive!

A couple of Tweets from the Alderman's office, at 3:30pm this afternoon:

A Water Main was hit in #Chatham, water service will be interrupted from 79th - 81st west of King Dr until Wed, call 311 for info

Reports are that the outage should not extend past Prairie but please let me know if your service is affected. service@6thwardchicago.com


More info when available.

You can also check the Alderman's Facebook page or Twitter feed.

Update (after talking with someone from the Dept. of Environment): The homes affected are on the 8000block of King Drive (possible 7900 & 8100 blocks). 200,000 gallons of water filled an excavation hole where 6 gas tanks had been removed.  The owner of the property wanted to make sure the extra possible contaminated dirt was removed, but miscommunication resulted in the water main being destroyed.

Residents can get emergency water today.  Call 311, or, if crews are still there, check in with them at the SW corner of 80th & King.  The plan is re-route the lines from other water mains, so that residents water will not be affected.  If you are able to run your water, then everything is fine (no worries about contaminated water). If it is not, then they are still working on it. Water won't be released into residents homes until safe.

For the actual repair, they have to drain the water from the pit, and only then can Department of Water crews fix the problem. The owner of the property will have to pay for that drainage (the crew at 5pm would take a week with their equipment).  That drainage will haul the water away, as it is unknown if it is contaminated. (Normal leaks would be drained into local sewage systems)

It's been a crazy 24 hours with this damage as well as yesterday's mishap with the dump truck, which took out power lines on the other side of King Drive.

Chatham's Newest Business: Flecks Coffee

Several years ago a long time business, Creative Florist, in Chatham closed its doors for good at 343 E 79th. Many felt it would be difficult to find a quality business to take the place of the florist. While the pessimist saw doom and gloom mother and daughter team Mrs. Olga Turner and daughter Zuli saw potential.

Last month the Turner's opened Fleck's Coffee in the location. The coffeehouse was born from both ladies love of coffee and the fact that they own another business in the community and when they wanted a great cup of coffee they had to travel a great distance.

So far the response from the Chatham community has been overwhelmingly supportive and feel that this is the type of business that will ignite an economic development boom along 79th street.  Alderman Roderick Sawyer states he is very happy they chose to open in Chatham and wants more businesses like this. The cafe is a spacious , bright and airy spot at the corner of 79th and Calumet and when you enter be prepared to be greeted by the Turner's or one of their friendly staff members.

There is something for everyone at Flecks. The owners have created a socially conscious business from hiring employees from the community to the coffee they use. Coffee is the central menu item. You can get your a great cup of coffee as well as coffee frappe, latte's, macchiatos, etc. The barista's can satisfy the most persnickety coffee drinker to those who want to learn more about coffee. The cafe purchases Counter Culture certified fair trade coffee produced from various regions of Africa. If all the coffee drinks sound foreign to you don't be put off, they carry great frappes, smoothies and ice tea drinks. If you are hungry they can get cook to order breakfast items, sandwiches and some tasty pastries. If you are having an event you can host it at the cafe or you can have them cater the event for you. For all you social media butterflies, they offer free WI-FI.

The grand opening is this weekend July 19-21, 2013 and the community is invited. You can find out more about Fleck's Coffee by "like' on Facebook(Flecks.Coffee or follow them at Twitter(@Fleckscoffee).

Tribune: Vehicle fired on, crashes into CTA bus, 1 killed

Photo from WGN-TV

Story courtesy of Chicago Breaking News:

A motorist was killed and his passenger injured in a shooting that ended with their vehicle slamming into a Chicago Transit Authority bus on the city's South Side, police said today.

The men, ages 22 and 19, were wounded near the 6800 block of South Calumet Avenue in the Park Manor neighborhood at about 11:40 p.m. Tuesday, police said, citing early reports.

Police said the gunman approached the vehicle and opened fire, hitting the 22-year-old man in the chest and grazing the younger man.

While attempting to flee, the vehicle sped off and crashed into the bus on South Calumet, police said.

The 22-year-old man, Darius Sarley, of the 1500 block of West 71st Street, was taken to Northwestern Memorial Hospital, where he was pronounced dead, according to the Cook County medical examiner's office. An autopsy is scheduled for later today.

The younger man was also taken to Northwestern for treatment.

The bus' driver was also taken to an area hospital, but for non-serious injuries, police said.

No arrests had been made.

Reminder: Greater Chatham Alliance meeting this Saturday

Saturday, October 15
11:00 a.m. - 1 p.m.
St. James Lutheran Church
8000 S. Michigan

Agenda items include (from the GCA e-mail):

Milburn Alternative School at St. Clotilde
Many of  you are aware about the Alternative school at St. Clotilde. Well, our guest speaker on Saturday is the Chicago Public School's Deputy-Chief of  Alternative Schools. We are sure you have lots of questions to ask her. See Alderman Sawyer's letter if you need more details on the school situation.


Proposed Mega Pawn Shop For 87th St.
Now we have another issue regarding a company called EZCORP Inc., a publicly traded company located in Austin,  Texas.

They want to redevelop the former Chatham Pancake  House, at 700 E. 87th St., into a mega-size pawnshop  called EZPAWN. And GCA wants to hear what you think about that?


The Black Caucus' (Chicago Aldermen) Proposed Ward Remapping for the 6th Ward
The Black Caucus' proposed ward remapping is currently in draft stage. But we do know this: the Caucus is recommending that 6th Ward communities--south of 87th street--like Chesterfield, West Chesterfield and Roseland Heights, plus Chicago State University, be placed in Alderman Beale's 9th Ward community.So we ask is this really about being more equitable in ward redistricting in Chicago? Or is this more about diluting the 6th Ward's strength as a group of communities.

For more information, email: gcahonor@sbcglobal.net  or call 773.635.6500 for more info

An additional note, just came in yesterday:

In addition to Jennifer D. Vidis, Deputy-Chief of Alternative Schools from the Chicago Public
Schools, attending our meeting, we have been notified today that Calista Winford, the principal of the Milburn Alternative School at St. Clotilde will also be in attendance.

As always, we want to conduct our meeting in a structured, serious manner. So we will ask the audience to submit written questions.
GCA knows that our audience won't hold punches and will ask the serious questions.

We encourage that!
However, if you would like to bring your question(s) for early submission, please print them out.

Please let us know what you hear at the meeting (if you attend), or what questions/solutions you have...

Creative Floral and Gifts is closing its Chatham Location.

Creative Floral and Gifts is closing their Chatham location. We've talked about them several times on the blog.

Carole and Louis Hobson, the owners of the floral shop at 343 E. 79th St., cited the poor economy as well as higher overhead costs as reasons to close the store this weekend.

Carole also mentioned that Balloons & Stuff (460 E 75th St, Chicago, IL 60619; 773-723-4126) will be closing by the end of the year. (Also owned by an older couple).


Creative Floral is a great community business.  They have hired people from the community (such as "Ms. J." who is now at Ruggles school), and given back to the community (hosting events for students at Ruggles, for example, and attending community meetings).

My 6 year old daughter has fallen in love with the place, and is actually mad when she doesn't get a chance to say "hi" to Ms. Hobson.

What wasn't said, but is obvious from Levois' recent posts as well as walking around is the deterioration of 79th, and the loiterers that are along the street that detract from real business.

How do we more effectively help community businesses like Creative Floral? Complaining about what we do NOT want isn't helping businesses we DO want thrive, let alone survive.  Let's spread the word about the businesses that still exist in our community.

Creative Floral will still be in business and serving our community.   Orders can be placed through the website at http://www.creatiefloralandgifts.com/ or you can also call Tollfree: (888)-368-8969

An Open Letter to the Community about St. Clotilde School

St. Clotilde Catholic Church at 8430 S. Calumet has recently caused a community stir by housing an altnertive school that started this year, without the community knowing about it.

Here is the link from Aldereman Sawyer's office: An Open Letter to the Community about St. Clotilde School

And the letter...

Dear Community,


In recent weeks there has been legitimate concern in the community about a new school that has moved into St. Clotilde on the 8400 Block of South Calumet. I have reached out to the church, school and community leaders to do an investigation into this project, and I am writing this letter to provide you with some information about how this school came to our community.


For those who are unfamiliar, it is the Richard Milbourn School, an “Alternative Safe” educational facility that accepts students from the 6-12th grades. An Alternative Safe school is a school for students who have been expelled from their primary school, but have not yet exhausted their options for returning to their home school. This facility keeps these students anywhere between 45 days and 2 years. The school had approximately 35 students when I met with the Administrator on September 12th, and can potentially house as many as 115 students. The middle school aged students are bused to and from the school and the high school age students must take public transportation to get to the school. Security officials are posted at the bus stops in the morning and afternoon, escorting students to and from school. The Administrator understands the concerns of the neighborhood, and the school administration seems well meaning in their attempts to mitigate issues in the community.


My concern, however, is in the process that was used to bring the school into the area. This school was placed in this building by the administration of St. Clotilde and the Chicago Public Schools without any consultation with the neighbors or with my office. This is disrespectful to the community and shows a complete lack of regard for the legitimate concerns of a neighborhood to opening this school in a residential neighborhood. This is not an attempt to demonize children who have made a mistake; however, there are legitimate questions about filling what was traditionally an elementary school with high school aged students. There are legitimate concerns about having teenagers take public transportation to a school that is multiple blocks from most sources of public transportation. The process that was used in installing this school ignored all of those legitimate concerns in the neighborhood.


I hope that this is not indicative of the level of cooperation we can expect from the Emanuel and Brizard administrations. I want to be partners in improving both our schools and our children, but that requires collaboration with teachers, parents, government and the community. I am asking my Chatham neighbors to keep an eye out on this school and let us know if they are being good neighbors. I would also encourage those who want to assist the school in their goal of placing these students on the right path to visit the school and offer your assistance. They have pledged to maintain an open door policy and work with the community, and I intend to hold them to that vow. The city had a poor process for placing the school in our neighborhood, but we will not allow the school to remain in our neighborhood if it actually results in problems in our community, and for that, you are my eyes and ears.


Sincerely,


The Honorable Roderick T. Sawyer
Alderman, 6th Ward

The school has been turned over at least twice (St. Clotilde had their own school. When i moved ito the neighborhood a couple of years ago, there was New Way Christian School, which since folded). As I have walked by the church several times, I have noted just how empty and inactive it is, though having a block to work with (including a huge parking lot). I can see how desperate the church may be to have some income to maintain the property. What was the church like in its "glory days", and what happened to the people who enlivened it then?

BLIZZARD 2011: Snowed In!

Another posting at the Ask for help, lend a hand: Blizzard 2011 website found via our Blotter:

The snow needs to be cleared out of the alley between 86th & Prairie and 86th and Calumet. The snow is piled high and there is mostly elderly people on these blocks, so they can't go out and clear the alley themselves.

Good to know there are others in our community who needs help clearing our alleys.

Also check out this ABC7 article which quotes not only Ald. Lyle but also a constituent:

Ald. Freddrenna Lyle said many people are calling her 6th Ward office concerned about the snow removal efforts.

She says the strong winds created waist high drifts in some streets, which means some her constituents can't get to work.

"My concern is really beyond the fact that people are losing money not being able to get to work," Lyle said. "I have so many seniors out here and there are so many seniors all over the city and people who have doctors appointments and they have dialysis treatments they've got to get to."

"It wasn't a problem. It's just something we have to deal with. The city can only do so much," said Thomas Taylor, a 6th Ward resident

Taylor said he and some other men cleared the snow from their block.

Finally back to the subject of the alleys, found this posting over at the Edgewater Community Buzz blog about the response of their Alderman and a potential solution:

Alderman Mary Ann Smith's office reminds us that the City of Chicago does not plow alleys as it would pile up snow against garages and dumpsters. Streets and Sanitation will run large trucks through the alleys to create ruts for vehicles to pass, but with this large of a snowfall it is unlikely to help. Residents are encouraged hold "snow removal parties" and shovel their alleys clear themselves. Has anyone hosted an alley party or removed the snow from their alley themselves??

Is there anyone out there who has joined with their neighbors to clear either their streets or their alleys? Let us know here!

BLIZZARD 2011: Please plow the side street on 70th place (Calumet Ave) and the alley

Found this report via our Blotter on the website Ask for help, lend a hand: Blizzard 2011 which is a service of the Chicago Tribune, WGN, and the Chicago Weather Center:

Please, we need assistance with the side street of 70th place and the alleys down the entire block of 7000 S. Calumet. All are still covered completely in snow. We have quite a few elderly and handicapped people who reside on this particular block, your prompt assistance would be greatly appreciated. Thank you.

Here's hoping they got a response for their troubles.

BTW, I have some photos in an album at the FB page which shows my own alley still largely unplowed a day after the snow storm ended. Here's an example near 98th & Michigan:

Looking at the alley south from 98th Street

The side streets at least look much better but I'm sure there are those of us who want to get our automobiles out of our garages. :P

BTW, if you have photographs that you would like to share of your neighborhood in the aftermath or even during the recent blizzard share them with us. Post them on our FB page or send them to an e-mail address JP had set up at blog+web@thesixthward.us.

I just heard this today, it was said that clearing the alleys of snow is the responsibility of the neighborhood. Is that true?

Chatham Food Market Cookout Today!

Chatham Food Market, 327 E. 79th (at Calumet & 79th) is having a Memorial Day Cookout this afternoon.

Stop by this afternoon (Sunday) and check it out!