Southside Goes to Springfield II

More pictures from lobby day in Springfield, this time from Fabian. And in related news, on Chicago Public Radio's Eight Forty-Eight this morning, Amy Terpstra of the Heartland Alliance explains why more progressive taxation (one of our major lobbying goals) is essential for fighting rising poverty in and around Chicago: "It's a structural problem, so what we need are structural solutions."

Southside goes to Springfield!

Last Wednesday (April 22nd), seven members of SSN joined a busload of SOUL leaders and over a thousand representatives of unions and community groups from across the state of Illinois to lobby our elected officials in Springfield. A report on the day will be up soon - in the meantime, here are some pictures.

Art in Action T-Shirt Painting

To see photos from Saturday's t-shirt painting, click here.

The Gold Line campaign

The Southside Solidarity Network supports SOUL's campaign for the Gold Line, a proposal to improve public rail transit in the underserviced Southside. The plan was originally authored by James Withrow. Here is the outline from SOUL:

SOUL is organizing to push Chicago’s transit agencies to turn the Metra Electric South Chicago branch train line from Randolph/Michigan to 93rd St./Baltimore into a more effective train line that will serve tens of thousands of Southside residents. This line runs through one of the most densely populated areas of the South Side, but many Southside residents do not ride the line because service is infrequent (just once per hour during most of the day), transfers between CTA and Metra are limited, and there is a huge gap between 27th St. and 47th St. with no stops.

SOUL’s proposal - which the organization is calling the ‘Gold Line” - is to make the following improvements on the Metra Electric:

• Run trains to/from Randolph/Michigan and 93rd St./Baltimore every ten minutes from 6:00 a.m. until 12:00 midnight
• Accept CTA fares and allow transfers between CTA and Metra
• Upgrade stations at 59th Street and 63rd Street and build a new station at 35th Street

The state of the campaign
The Gold Line currently has the support of 4th Ward Alderman Toni Preckwinkle, 5th Ward Alderman Leslie Hairston, 7th Ward Alderman Sandi Jackson, 8th Ward Alderman Michelle Harris, 20th Ward Alderman Willie Cochran, State Representative Barbara Flynn Currie, State Representative Will Burns, State Senator Kwame Raoul, and Congressman Danny Davis (7th IL).

In Winter quarter, SSN members went downtown to join SOUL in a (polite) invasion of a meeting of the Metra Board of Directors. On April 22, SSN members joined SOUL at the state capital of Springfield in order to lobby for funding for a Gold Line feasibility study (among other issues). Our very own Jake Werner was on the front line facing off against the politicians.

As a result of this and other work, the RTA will receive a request from CDOT for $300K for the feasibility study; meanwhile Congressman Danny Davis is seeking federal authorization for the project. Great progress has been made, but much work remains to be done.

Additional info
For more information, contact SOUL transit organizer Will Tanzman at (312) 402‐0572.

See also the following links:

• Withrow's argument for the Gold Line
• Article on Southside transit, including the Gold Line (Chicago Weekly)
• Article on the Gold Line (Chicago Maroon)
• Article on a Gold Line teach-in run by SSN and SOUL (Maroon)
• I Support the Gold Line Facebook group

[last modified June 10]

A win on the mental health clinics

How's this for an auspicious inaugural post for this blog. From the Chicago Maroon:

Mental health clinics granted stay after students help stage City Hall sit-in

20 to 30 students have been involved with advocacy over the course of the campaign, attending pickets, protests, and town hall meetings on the fate of the clinics.

Mayor Richard M. Daley announced an 11th-hour halt to the closing of four South Side mental health clinics Tuesday, the day after a City Hall sit-in attended by U of C students.

The city announced it would close the clinics, which serve 2,000 patients across the South and West Sides, in January, spurring local organizers into actions.

Read the rest of the article for more, including rather a lot of attention paid to our very own Mark Hopwood.

As the article notes, the truth of the Mayor's announcement is currently in a state of flux: the clinics have in fact been shutting down. But we are assured they'll be reopening. And a number of people downtown have the job of preventing the mayor from being made a liar. And (crucially) the funds for the clinics have been identified. Still, there will probably be some work for us to do on the issue in the future.

Even so, this is a big win. STOP is planning a victory party, and we're on the invite list. SSN will be holding a celebration of its own, so stay-tuned and get ready to invite all your friends.