As one of his first acts in office, Mayor Daniel Biss created the Reimagining Public Safety Committee, he announced at Monday’s City Council meeting.
The committee, which comprises 17 city officials and community members, plans to analyze the city’s public safety efforts which encompasses the Evanston Police Department and provide recommendations for the 2022 city budget.
“We are prepared to take on what is perhaps the most difficult and controversial issue before us,” Biss said. “But it’s also, from both a quality of life and a budgetary standpoint issue, perhaps the most significant one and I cannot wait to get started.”
Daniel Biss, former math professor and Illinois legislator, became the 20th mayor of Evanston on May 10.The 43-year old was carried into office with progressive bona fides including his notable role in passing Illinois marriage equality in 2013.A failed candidate for governor in 2018, Bisssuccessful
Evanston Now
New mayor names panel to ‘reimagine’ public safety
Incoming Evanston Mayor Daniel Biss announced this afternoon that he’s appointing a 17-member Reimagining Public Safety Committee.
Daniel Biss.
Incoming Evanston Mayor Daniel Biss announced this afternoon that he’s appointing a 17-member Reimagining Public Safety Committee.
Biss says the committee “will conduct a holistic, data-driven analysis of everything we do to provide for public safety and make community-informed recommendations in time to be incorporated into the 2022 City budget.”
He says the committee members “bring a broad variety of perspectives and experiences, and while I have no illusions that it will be easy (or necessary!) to establish a consensus on all issues, I’m confident that we’ll have significant and constructive discussions that will move our City forward.”
Evanston Township High School senior Mika Parisien enrolled in an honors history class instead of Advanced Placement United States History to learn about Black history and other cultural narratives absent from the AP curriculum.
Her teacher, Corey Winchester, taught Black, Asian American and Chicano history units. She was pleasantly surprised when he also spent multiple months covering Haitian history. For Parisien, who is Haitian, this was her first experience learning about her own culture in school.
“He really challenged us to learn about equity and race, and how it tied into history, and how it tied to today,” Parisien said.
About 30 Evanston youth painted banners demanding police abolition at a Sunday “Reclaim The Block Party” hosted by Evanston Fight for Black Lives.
Attendees also painted “Abolish EPD” in white capital letters on Elmwood Avenue in front of Evanston Police Department.
“This building being the police department this is the symbol of their presence in our community, their power in our community,” EFBL organizer Mollie Hartenstein said. “It’s a symbol of not just policing but of how misaligned our community’s priorities are when we have an entire building dedicated to policing.”
Hartenstein said the group organized the event to make a political statement and build community. She also said EFBL wanted to bring the community together in the wake of the Chicago police killings of 13-year-old Adam Toledo and 22-year-old Anthony Alvarez.