Final budget hearing at Wright College ends with less melodrama... Citizens raise budget and policy concerns ranging from airport noise to rude bicyclists as Dyett situation fades following the 'settlement'...
Chicago Teachers Union executive board member and CORE co-chair Sarah Chambers presents a "Wanted" poster for Rahm Emanuel at the budget hearing at Wright College on September 3, 2015. DNA Info photo.The final budget hearing on the City of Chicago municipal budget was held on September 4, 2015 at Wright College on the Northwest Side. The sound system was awful and the room was too cold. However, unlike the other meetings, this meeting was put together very well, with some eye towards the comfort of the citizens who had been asked to participate. There were water fountains with paper cups for individuals to use.
Just the set up was so different than that on Monday at Malcolm X College or, as reported, Wednesday at the South Shore Cultural Center. The Wright College hearing wasn't dominated by the Dyett group, although there were many references to that ongoing struggle. But there were many many citizens who cared about taxes, the noise from airplanes, airplane runways, and local issues like the supposed need for a new high school on the Northwest Side.
One lady mentioned the crazy way the bike riders show no respect for people in their cars, challenging the mayor's apparent favoritism of bicyclists over automobilists.
When the meeting began, Alice Holt and Carol Brown, from the mayor's staff, were up front with the mayor. Their explaining was not very good, they didn't speak clearly, and they talked around the mics not into them so we could hear them them.
Many teaches and students spoke. Sarah Chambers, from Saucedo Elementary School, brought her students, and they each had one minute. Chambers held up a "Wanted" poster featuring Rahm Emanuel.
Sara Echervarria, who is chief of the Grievance Dept. at the Chicago Teachers Union, yielded her time to speak to someone else.
Although the Dyett situation was mentioned several times, people had heard the announcement that City Hall had reached a compromise putting a general high school in Dyett, but not giving control of it to any single group.
This meeting was very different than the Monday hearing at Malcolm X College. But again the sound system was horrible, so for most people what we heard was a lot of babbling and static.
