- Brian Jackson/Sun-Times Media
- Sixth Ward alderman Roderick Sawyer says violence would drop if he and other aldermen were put in charge of a city jobs program.
Last week Mayor Rahm Emanuel proposed tough new regulations for gun shops in Chicago, including a requirement that they videotape all sales. The mayor framed the plan as part of his ongoing attack on the violence that continues to shake the city and make international headlines.
The vast majority of the violence has happened in neighborhoods on the south and west sides that also happen to be overwhelmed with joblessness, poverty, crumbling infrastructure, and struggling schools.
She wasn’t being facetious.
Her neighbor Roderick Sawyer had a different idea for putting people to work: give money to aldermen to hire as many as 50 people each to clean up their wards. “I guarantee it would have an impact,” he said. “That’s what I hear over and over again: ‘Alderman, I just need a job. I just need a chance. I don’t want to be out here in the streets.’”
The police ranks have even shrunk under Emanuel—a point that doesn’t sit well with many aldermen, though they’ve been reluctant to bring it up publicly.
Sustaining that sort of police presence would require a major boost in personnel that isn’t likely to happen. Aldermen are already fretting aloud over Emanuel’s proposal to hike property taxes this fall to raise tens of millions of dollars for the city’s pension funds.
