JUST SMILE AND WRITE A TICKET!

A Sun-Times front page story revealed an internal City Hall memo which warned police officials that, “the city will witness a dramatic decrease in annual revenues and not meet 2010 targets" if a decrease in writing parking and vehicle-compliance tickets persists. As my friend Sharon Rae Bender said, “What the heck are they supposed to do? Write a ticket while pursuing an armed gang-banger? The priorities are upside down. Don't we still have meter maids?

”Chicago is experiencing one of the most violent summers in its history, because while homicides are about the same as this time last year, three of the victims were police officers. Officer Thomas Wortham IV was killed in front of his parents' home; Officer Thor Soderberg was killed with his own gun in front of a police building, and Officer Michael Bailey was killed in front of his own house while washing his car. Bailey was one of the officers on detail to the Mayor; can gang members be more blatant in their choice of victims? A message is being sent and City Hall is responding by making revenue more important than safety?

As the Sun-Times story story pointed out,” Last month, officers in the Near North District, which covers the downtown area north of the Chicago River, issued 6,709 tickets, the most in the city. The Wentworth District east of Sox Park on the South Side issued 1,030 tickets, the fewest. The districts with the most tickets were among those with the least crime in the city. And the districts with the fewest tickets were among those with the most crime.” In these instances the math makes sense. The more crime that a district has, the less time an officer spends writing a parking ticket because he is busy pursuing criminals!

Top 5 districts that issued most/least tickets in July

Districts with most tickets issued Near North District, 1160 N. Larrabee-- 6,709 Rogers Park, 6464 N. Clark-- 4,990 Town Hall, 3600 N. Clark--4,673 Foster, 5400 N. Lincoln-- 4,100 Albany Park 4650 N. Pulaski--4,087

Districts with least tickets issued Wentworth, 5010 S. Wentworth --1,030 Austin, 5701 W. Madison--1,053 Gresham, 7808 S. Halsted --1,179 Calumet, 727 E. 111th--1,197 Englewood, 6120 S. Racine --1,720

Fraternal Order of Police President Mark Donahue called the memo a "troubling warning that smacks of ticketing quotas. It sends the wrong message to the public as to what the real responsibilities of police officers are."

Serco Inc., the firm hired by the city's parking-meter contractor, Chicago Parking Meters LLC, has employees that write parking tickets at meters and aides assigned to the Revenue Department write parking tickets at meters and anywhere else. Writing tickets should be supplemental work for police officers, not a first priority!

If the Revenue Department is complaining that not enough tickets are being written, they should look at the enforcement aides in their own departments, not the officers served to protect the citizens and streets of Chicago. There are more than enough murders, robberies, shootings and other violent activities the police must be responsible for; when did their job description include being a revenue generating center?

When Mayor Daley held a press conference on August 2nd to introduce a new crime fighting initiative called, Predictive Policing he choose to hold his press conference at the Austin District Station, a district that ranks the second-worst for writing parking tickets and one of the highest in crime. Maybe if the police officers there had ticketed all the illegally parked TV trucks, they could have helped their statistics for the month.

EDITOR’S NOTE: I wrote this blog before Mayor Daley became upset when he heard about the memo that was sent out by the Department of Revenue and suspended Director Bea Reyna-Hickey for one day for allowing it to be distributed. His reason for suspending her? “Stupidity. It was stupid. Just stupid.” The problem with using “being stupid” as a reason for suspending someone is that the Mayor has just put his own job in jeopardy—just think parking meters and the Olympics.