Dear Craig,
Thank you for keeping the community informed about SSA meetings. I would actually have liked to respond to the SSA budget but, as you observe, I missed the 1/9 meeting.
As you also know, DevCorp and the SSA manager don’t go out of their way to inform the public about these meetings.
In my strolls around the area, I didn’t see the postings and I didn’t see the meeting date posted on any of the sites where one might expect to see notices for important meetings such as this.
It wasn’t posted to the Alderman’s site. If it was posted on DevCorp’s site, I didn’t see it. Nor did it make the calendar or meeting notice section on rogersparkdotcom. It wasn't in the News Star community newspaper.
And that’s really just the beginning of the problem – timely community notice. I’ve addressed this issue during my campaign and in my position statements.
Apparently the only way most (non insider) people were made aware of the meeting was by the 1 p.m. posting to the Broken Heart on 1/8.
Unfortunately, I was offline Monday and Tuesday in meetings and doing campaign outreach. I have attended prior SSA meetings (and will be happy to share my notes and observations with anyone who would like to contact me to
discuss).
Attending these meetings to analyze budgets, outcomes, and to ask questions is very important for the community as a whole. But for all to attend, advance notice that is easy for everyone to access should be made so that people can slot these events in their schedules.
If the SSAs won’t do a proper job of notifying the public then it’s up to the Alderman’s office to spread the word.
Clearly the other candidates are reading your site daily. I wonder, though, if Joe Moore learned of the meeting through DevCorp or if he got the news from Broken Heart too?
Sincerely,
Chris Adams
Candidate for Alderman, 49th Ward
5 comments:
OPEN MEETINGS ON SSA’s ETC
DevCorp has been made aware of public notice....perhaps they need a little reminder.
Craig- that's a real compliment.
I actually knew about the meeting because I had talked to Renee about my litter campaign and he invited me to come on the phone. It was the luck of the timing of my call to him.
If people are working with these organizations in some way, they are sure to be notified, but otherwise it seems improvement is needed.
An irony in the letter from the Illinois Attorney General to DevCorp North reminding them about a little thingy we have here in Illinois called the Open Meetings Act, is that the person who complained to the AG was our own Anne Sullivan.
I guess with her new job situation her days of working for open processes in local government are over.
With her new job situation she is no doubt in full support of Moore's Closed Government Policies.
Janice- Please! He responded because it was an opportunity to slam Joe Moore and Dev Corp.
I cannot explain why he never responded to my direct question from months ago- albeit it was not the most tactfully phrased, but even a canned response would have sufficed as something.
I don't know about the rest of you, but I'm voting for whoever Birchwood Bill votes for (just kidding).
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