Alderman Wants To Spend $100K On Private Security For Wicker Park
By Mae Rice in News on Jul 13, 2016 4:17PM
Update, 4:40 p.m. This measure was tabled, at least temporarily, at a budget meeting for Wicker Park and Bucktown's Special Service Area (SSA) on Tuesday, Ald. Brian Hopkins (2nd) told Chicagoist. He hasn't abandoned the measure, but it will now go into effect in 2017 at the earliest.
"I presented it really at the last minute," Hopkins said. "I did not give the SSA commissioners enough time to vet the idea. They really wanted some more time to consider." Picking the appropriate private security firm, he added, is "a very important decision... not a decision you want to rush through in a weekend."
Before any private security goes into effect in the Wicker Park area, Hopkins said, there will be community meetings on the subject, as well as a request for proposals from local private security firms.
Wicker Park's alderman wants to reallocate $100K in taxpayer dollars to hire private security firms to patrol Wicker Park and Bucktown's main thoroughfares, he announced Tuesday.
“This is a common sense measure with the goal of enhancing security for the Wicker Park and Bucktown communities," Hopkins said in a statement. His statement also cited the current "limited resources" of the Chicago Police Department.
Hopkins' proposal (which DNAinfo wrote about Tuesday) comes in the middle of an uptick in crime citywide, including in Wicker Park. A man was fatally shot near the Division Blue Line in March; in late March and early April, there was a rash of armed robberies along Milwaukee Avenue, including one right outside Umami Burger. In June, a man was stabbed in the head near the Damen Blue Line stop.
Ald. Hopkins proposes to tackle crime in his ward using funds from the Wicker Park and Bucktown SSA to contract with private security firms staffed by retired and off-duty Chicago police officers.
The private officers would be held to similar transparency and oversight standards as Chicago police officers, a representative for Ald. Hopkins office told Chicagoist. Their activity would be available through the same public crime portal used by CPD. Police misconduct, however, wouldn't go through the Independent Police Review Authority (IPRA); instead, any alleged misbehavior would be investigated by Ald. Hopkins, the local police, and the SSA commissioners.
Ald. Hopkins' proposal would allocate $100,000 of the SSA's $190,000 in untapped funds to private security measures. (The current Wicker Park Bucktown SSA's proposed budget for 2016 has only $1,000 allocated to safety program, and it's specifically for bicycle safety.) If unused, the untapped funds will expire at the end of 2016.
SSAs, in general, fund special programs in designated areas through property tax hikes. These special programs include safety measures.
The Wicker Park Bucktown SSA, specifically, covers the neighborhoods' main thoroughfares. It runs along Milwaukee Ave., North Ave. and Division Ave. from Ashland to Western; it also covers stretches of Western, Damen and Ashland, including Wicker Park's namesake park.