Read the BGA’s report on Chicago’s overblown anti-violence programs – Wirepoints Quickpoint

By: Mark Glennon*

A report last week by the Better Government Association hasn’t gotten the attention it deserves. Mayor Lori Lightfoot, as the BGA says, has entrusted much of the city’s $400 million violence-reduction strategy to a new city office created to coordinate a holistic approach to attacking “decades of disinvestment and systemic racism at the root of the problem.”

That strategy and its leader, the BGA basically says, are just hot air:

The BGA reviewed hundreds of pages of records from document requests and court cases, internal emails and financial records, and conducted dozens of interviews to profile an initiative based heavily on marketing and communications, whose leader — who has a history of hyperbole about her own accomplishments — is focused largely on public perception.

Walking trails, block club events, planting trees, cleaning up vacant lots and a more responsive 311 center don’t cut it, as the BGA says. “Researchers say all these are noble goals, but do little to address the underlying conditions contributing to bloodshed in the same neighborhoods year after year.”

Central to the problem is its leader, as the BGA reports: Tamara Mahal. Somehow, “she rose from an airport emergency manager to become the public face of Lightfoot’s effort to address one of Chicago’s largest threats — to safety, to the city’s reputation as a tourist mecca and to the mayor’s political future,” says the BGA. But “At each step along the way, Mahal has overstated her accomplishments, raising questions about Lightfoot’s reliance on her in such a key role.”

For Mahal, the problem is showbiz, as the BGA documents:

A key to Mahal’s rise to prominence is her focus on public perception, spelled out on a handwritten poster on the wall at the center saying, “Remember Tamara’s 5 P’s!”

• • People
  • Perception
  • Policy
  • Press
  • Politics

Next to “perception” was written, “How many ways might this be perceived? How do you communicate around perception?”

Chicago’s crime problem is not about perception. Until extremely serious people make extremely serious changes, destruction of one of the formerly greatest cities on the planet will continue before our eyes. Read the entire BGA report.

*Mark Glennon is found of Wirepoints.*