Online Petition Aims to Halt Wood Street Police Station Closing

When Mayor Emanuel announced the closing of three police stations in his budget proposal last week, we knew at least one of them wouldn't be shuttered without some form of hand-wringing from residents. We thought of the three, however, closing the 19th District at Belmont and Western would be the one to generate the most complaints.

Instead, it's the 13th District at 937 N. Wood that's generating the most scrutiny and an online petition to get the mayor and Police Superintendent Garry McCarthy to change their minds.

"(R)emoving this station would diminish safety in our neighborhood by removing guaranteed police presence," the petition reads. "Also, by removing the station, the decision on where police officers should patrol in the 13th District will be left to the mercy of bureaucrats and administrators who know and care little of our neighborhood."

That last quote can be debated ad nauseam. The opponents of closing down the Wood Street police station say that point out the nearest police station is more than two miles away. The brand new Town Hall police station has placed the Belmont station, once a symbol of the Police Department's modernity, on the closure list and more than two miles separate that. Closing the Prairie Station, at 300 E. 29th St., could be felt from Bronzeville and IIT all the way to Hyde Park, even though Police Department headquarters is at 35th and Michigan.

It could be easy to dismiss the concerns of residents of District 13 as yet another case of NIMBY, but these are the tough decisions the Emanuel Administration is facing. The "Save the 13th" organizers are planning a protest of the Wood Street police station scheduled for 5:30 p.m. Oct. 25 at the Ukrainian Cultural Center (2247 W. Chicago Ave.). It'll be interesting to see if Roscoe Village and South side residents organize in kind to halt the closures of their respective stations.

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By Chuck Sudo in News on October 17, 2011 2:40 PM 0 Comments

Comments [rss]

Neal McKnight

The problem is less with the building than with the officers. The Department and the City have not revealed any plans on what police presence they intend to maintain after the station closes or how as they say, "safety will be improved". The fundamental problem is that there appears to have been little or no planning regarding this decision other than the savings in the budget. Don't underestimate the level of crime here and the potential for it to increase if patrols are decreased. Remember, if crime goes up property values drop, business slows and tax revenues fall. Insurance costs also spike. The city may save a little (and it is only a little) but in the long run the costs can be far greater.

ChicagoD before we close police stations and cut back on library hours, shouldn't we look at that $800 million dollar pile of TIF cash the mayor is sitting on? The Goose Island TIF District alone (in the 13th District) is sucking more than 3 million a year in tax dollars out of the general budget. TIFs result in tax and fee increases. Don't kid yourself nothing is free. Those general revenues that go to TIFs and the developers have to be made up somewhere.

1stWardMatt

OK ChicagoD, how do you define what stations need to be closed? Are you familiar with the Beats of the local stations, the crime statistics and gang infiltration to neighborhoods and how having neighborhood police stations has a positive impact impact on the community? As it stands now, each District is over 100 people (roughly the size of Springfield, IL). So stick with the Mayor as he decides to close more stations and takes Chicago down to 5 super stations, covering 10 or more square miles per district.

How is that good for the community? This plan to close stations saves practically zero dollars. Each station slated to be closed has an operating expense of well under $200K to run each year (and when the close the station, the buildings will still have to be maintained). It adds zero cops - there are no plans in the budget to hire any more cops. The few admin people that are on the force are not going to go out patrolling, and that is a fact.

So what does the plan really do? It changes the model from the distributed neighborhood police districts where there are distributed anchors (stations) around Chicago, to centralized super stations. Each station projects power and safety to the surrounding community. If the plan is to redistribute cops to other parts of town, there is nothing preventing the City from reassigning police from existing stations as needed.

Tafter

Where are you getting 200K a year in station operating expenses? Is that simply upkeep and utilities, or does it include potentially redundant personnel? Citations please, because I can't seem to find any information online regarding savings estimates from these closings. How are you so certain?

Additionally, McCarthy estimates 20 additional cops available for patrol for each closed station, which is at odds with your number of 0. Again, how are you certain of this?

Sounds to me like you might be guessing at or low balling the statistics because you simply don't like the plan. And you really haven't shown why a "centralized" plan for stations is inferior to the distributed model. It is mighty hard to argue with a person pulling figures out of their behinds and hand waving about potential issues with a plan.

ChicagoD

You know who has those figures in spades? The police department. You know what $200,000 times three is? $600,000 a year in operating expenses. Doesn't solve all of our problems, but it is money. Also, since crime here is so low, it is obvious that the way to go is to continue doing exactly what we are doing.

Closing three stations out of 25 does not create the "centralized super stations" you talk about. That may be where they want to get to, but this doesn't do it.

Jackie Wolk

Crime is low in this neighborhood? Tell that to the woman whose purse I saw get snatched last night at Hoyne and Walton. (The robber didn't actually get it from her but he damn sure tried.) I stayed until the police arrived from the Wood Street station, in under five minutes.

Pity we're losing such a rapid response time when the station closes...

ChicagoD

I hope Rahm et al. stay strong with this. If some stations need to be closed, some stations needs to be closed. The pain is spread around the city. Same number of cops, just start their tours at different places. To the extent cops get sent to districts outside of their assigned district it is the same as it ever was. We constantly hear that the drug and gang teams from 016 spend their entire tours in other districts.