Nina Cunningham with the NIU Center for Black Studies delivered a message unheard by the council but as clear as a bell by those frustrated with the procedure at City Hall. That procedure does not make sense.
Cunningham and others have garnered 1100 signatures in opposition of the new police station under development on West Lincoln Highway. It’s been a decade long procedure for Kris Povlsen, Dave Baker, Mark Biernacki and Bill Feithen. They’re done with it. None of the remaining aldermen want to be an obstruction to the tedious procedure. They’re done too. Taxpayers who pay attention to the procedures at City Hall are pretty much done with the location, too. The city has spent more than $3 million acquisition and site development funds towards an approved $12 million construction bond sale to construct the new police station at the West Lincoln Hwy location.
Video was supplied by Mark Charvat. (Hat Tip)
Cunningham said that she was told the location decision was made years ago. A valid argument could be made that the siting decision was made when the land was purchased in 2006. Just as valid an argument could be made that the decision was up for discussion during the March-April 2011 joint budget meetings with the city council and finance advisory committee. Included as part of back-up material for the meeting was a letter from NIU administration requesting an independent traffic study.
According to Cunningham she received a December 2011 traffic study from a newspaper reporter. She questions why a traffic study would be conducted after the siting decision was made. She was frustrated when Mayor Povlsen told her to talk to the city clerk with specific questions for specific answers. Police chief Bill Feithen was then called upon by the mayor to remove Cunningham and other members of the NIU community from the council chambers.
Perhaps the DeKalb Human Relations Committee could be of help.
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8 Comments
You just made my point very well.
Strikingly lame non-coverage HERE by the Dekalb non-Daily Chronicle under the Tapa La Luna reopens (yay) banner….
http://www.daily-chronicle.com/2012/02/14/tapa-la-luna-reopens-after-dekalb-council-ok/a8fbejf/
Thanks Mac for the space.
Lisa, you make valid point in that patrol officers will be all over in normal conditions. However, with the crime being what it has been around here for the past couple of years, the racial profiling comment doesn’t hold water in my opinion. We all know where most of the hard criminal activity is in our city. I for one am getting sick and tired of the “Gang Mentality” that’s moving its way into the town I moved to in 78 to get away from a similar migration of “talent” in the northwest burbs. If it quacks, looks, floats and walks like a duck…
I still have this knawing question in my mind since first hearing of this group’s objections to locating a station close to NIU. What do they have to hide? Call me suspicious but how are they any different then the residents in the neighborhood surrounding the current location in that regard?
Are you suggesting that students at the Center for Black Studies are harboring criminal activity and that’s why they don’t want a police station there?
Because nobody on the up-and-up could possibly be concerned about disruptions to classes and pedestrian safety?
Because nobody on the up-and-up could possibly have objections based on a long, bad history?
I’m not suggesting anything. I’m merely asking a question.
The mayor owes these citizens an apology. They conducted themselves with a great deal more dignity than a lot of us would have after being stonewalled for that long. I wouldn’t be shushed either.
I find it difficult to believe that the nice guy mayor has somehow survived Wogengate, and his basic “let them eat bricks” legacy. Personally, I don’t think it gets any worse than well meaning citizens being polite and asking their elected government to respond, and being treated rudely in response. How hard would it have been really for the nice guy mayor to have kept the happy face on for another minute or two and remained cordial to these citizens?
If I was still a Huskie, about the last thing I would want is having to look and listen to a police HQ right at my skools door. I AM biased here as the old dinosaur thinking of building a Big Box target like a LARGE police HQ is outdated. PLUS It doesn’t really fit the NIU campus style anyway imo, Satellite and Mobil units make much more sense and cut your risk of the Big Box being taken out in a terrorist strike.
I saw this video and I was outraged. If I didn’t know any better, I see the location of the new Police Station as a sort of drawing a line in the sand and opening the way the racial profiling. I have not seen proof where this location will increase response times when half the officers are spread out on patrol all over, and there’s still the possibility of crossing railroad tracks. How can this be a good location?
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Fine, I’ll be the provocateur who asks the tough questions here.
The city of DeKalb wants to build a new police station DIRECTLY across the street from Pizza Hut.
What does the the city of DeKalb have against Pizza Hut?
What is it that has driven the last ten years or so of public discourse about the police station needs and location planning that the city is hiding form us? Are city administrators secretly on the dole of Domino’s? How often have lobbyists from Pizza Villa contributed to an alderman’s campaign to get their anti-Pizza Hut agenda advanced? What’s the involvement of those shifty people at Topper’s? The answers are out there people.
A citizen’s task force should be assembled immediately to go through the last ten years of city records to see what pizza places city firefighters and cops are ordering from when they are working calls past their shifts. There is almost certainly a paper trail of pizza corruption just under the surface.
I’m just asking the questions, folks.
(Nothing in this tongue-in-cheek post should excuse the city’s abject failure to respond to these guys’ records request. The city has owned the property for more than six years now for crying out loud.)