How to Be Good

(page 4 of 4)

HOW TO BE A BETTER CITIZEN: Advice for the cloutless Chicagoan

by BEN JORAVSKY, who covers city politics for the Chicago Reader.
Most people are purely reactive. They think, “It’s Chicago—I need to know the guy who knows the guy.” But all people need to do is open their eyes. If you’re not clouted, here’s how to keep up with what’s going on in your neighborhood:

1. Subscribe to the local newspaper. And I’m not talking about the big daily newspapers. You need the most local paper you can get. Unless it’s a totally wired, inside deal, you’ll discover it in your local paper in the real-estate transaction section, land sales, foreclosures, help-wanted ads, and the crime blotter. Also, start reading the legal notices in the Sun-Times and Trib, especially the property transaction notices. They’ll tell you what zoning changes are up—who’s buying the property and whether or not a 200-story condo is going up next door.

2. Go to a local CAPS meeting. You’ve got a local community organization. You just don’t know it. Go to your neighborhood library, check out the bulletin board, and find out who they are and when they meet. While you’re there, find out when there’s a local CAPS [Chicago Alternative Policing Strategy] meeting, the main forum of the city’s community policing initiative. All the neighborhood busybodies are in the CAPS groups.

3. Focus on zoning requests. If I own a vacant lot next to you and want to put a 20-story high-rise in there, I have to go to the alderman and seek his approval. Any zoning change that occurs in the city has to be approved by the zoning committee of the city council and the full city council. As a matter of protocol, these bodies almost always follow the desires of the local alderman.

A lot of aldermen on the North Side go through the pretense of having a democratic zoning board; they put together an advisory group, and that group hears every zoning request. It’s not required by law—some have them, some don’t; some are even proud of them. Find out if your alderman has a zoning advisory group and, if he or she does, get on the mailing list to see what zoning requests are coming through.

By law, when someone is upgrading or changing zoning, there’s a notification letter that goes out to people within 250 feet of the property. If you get a letter like that, read it, so you know what’s coming. Otherwise, the whole process is shrouded in secrecy. If you throw that letter away, it will come back
to haunt you. I hear people scream and yell, and say, “I didn’t know.” To a large degree, they just didn’t pay attention.

4. Get to know your neighbors. Let’s say the deal is on the up-and-up, and you don’t have a sneaky alderman, and there’s a hearing at which the developer lays his plan on the table—and you hate it. You look for like-minded people and band together. Spread the word and, when you’re out there, going door to door, you’ll be surprised by how few people know what’s going on. Most people go through life with their eyes closed.

 
 

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