Evanston police Cmdr. Ryan Glew discussed state and local policies on police body cameras at a Tuesday event hosted by Citizens’ Network of Protection. Evanston Police Department’s body-worn camera program was fully implemented in 2018 after a pilot period in 2017, Glew said. 120 Axon body cameras were deployed to the field units in patrol,.
The Latino Union of Chicago is a workers’ center that advocates for non-unionized workers, including day laborers.
Ramirez, who asked that only his last name be used, said he was contracted by Continental Construction to do work on a local baseball field and two houses, one in Evanston and another in Winnetka. He said the owner of the company, Thomas Andrews, agreed to pay him $4,000 for the work, which he completed in October 2020.
But after months of fighting, Ramirez said that Andrews has only paid him $1,500 and still owes him $2,500 for his work.
“(Andrews) is stealing from me,” Ramirez said. “He is taking advantage of (the pandemic). Like Latino Union says, ‘A day worked is a day paid.’ But he never honored that. He never paid me when I was supposed to be paid.”
Citizen Police Review Commission discusses allegation of racial bias dailynorthwestern.com - get the latest breaking news, showbiz & celebrity photos, sport news & rumours, viral videos and top stories from dailynorthwestern.com Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday newspapers.
In an effort to narrow the district’s budget deficit, the Finance Committee of the Evanston/Skokie School District 65 school board discussed changing school start times, laying off staff members and replacing an annual overnight trip with a less expensive day camp.
The district is facing a budget deficit of $1.9 million in FY22 due to revenue shortfalls and unexpected costs related to COVID-19, according to a district memorandum.
Board members discussed a set of proposals to reduce the budget, including laying off two food servers and eliminating library media assistant positions. The largest proposed cut, totalling around $415,000, could result from changing the start times of the district’s three middle schools from 8:30 a.m. to 8:00 a.m.
Lori Keenan said her public safety platform is based on ideas she’s been talking about since before she started her run for mayor.
“We could certainly be doing the type of policing that Evanston wants to be doing for much less money, and less aggressively, and less detrimentally to populations that have been over-policed for generations,” Keenan said.
As mayor, Keenan said she would conduct a forensic audit of the police department to determine the most appropriate areas for cuts. To her, shifting funding away from policing and toward other community programs would better support Evanston.
Evanston has a higher number of police officers than other similarly sized towns – Evanston has 26.9 police personnel per 10,000 residents compared to the average 19.7– but the city is still seeing an increase in violent crime. These statistics, Keenan said, are evidence that something needs to change.