Below is the News Star editorial from the article in the Pioneer Press.
Aldermen who ignore repeated requests for information from their constituents generally leave them with only a couple of options.
Neighbors can either accept the situation angry as they are and wring their hands in frustration, or they can take the squeaky wheel route and call their neighborhood newspaper.
A group of Rogers Park residents chose the latter after repeated phone calls to 49th Ward Ald. Joe Moore's office about the unexplained removal of a speed bump on the 7200 block of North Wolcott went unanswered over the course of about a month.
It's too bad they had to take that route, because that means Ald. Moore and his staff are not responding to the needs of their constituents.
Even if the alderman did not know the city removed the speed bump from the block or why as he claims, he or someone from his staff could have called residents to let them know that.
Ald. Moore says he did e-mail one resident at the end of December, but the wrong address was used, and she says she never received it.
Nevertheless, one e-mail response to repeated and frequent calls from a handful of residents over the course of four weeks simply isn't good enough.
This leaves us wondering how Moore operates during a non-aldermanic election season.
Ald. Moore or a staff member could have cleared the matter up with one phone call to Streets and Sanitation and reported back to residents. We're pretty sure that department returns calls from Chicago aldermen.
Instead, Moore has unnecessarily alienated residents who had lobbied his office for 18 months to get the speed bump installed in 2005, and simply wanted to know what happened to it.
As it turns out, the city removed the speed bump after a resident called 311 to complain that the trucks flying over the hump were causing vibrations in his home, a move that seems unusually accommodating considering the neighborhood push to get it installed.
But if a Pioneer Press reporter had not looked into the matter, residents would still not have an answer.
With one phone call, Ald. Moore could have satisfied residents and entirely averted media coverage of the matter.
Ald. Moore - not the residents - made the issue much bigger than it ever had to be.
4 comments:
Yet another prime example of JoMo dropping the ball.
I've requested constituency services from JoMo minimally 4 times. Each time I've had to call JoMo's office 3 times
Now that many of us agree about getting JoMo out of office, what can we do about not splitting the opposition vote?
It doesn't matter about splitting the opposition vote. As long as Moorse doesn't get 50%+1 of the vote, there will be a run-off between the top two vote-getters.
I for one hated that speed bump. I am glad it's gone.
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