March 7, 2018

PUNCH

#92 IT'S TIME

Bill Lowry Democrat, for Cook County Commissioner 3rd District

VOTE TUESDAY, MARCH 20, 2018 Paid for by Friends of Bill Lowry. A copy of our report filed with the State Board of Elections is available on the Board's official website, www.elections.il.gov, or for purchase from the State Board of Elections, Springfield, IL. Contributions are not tax deductible.

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SOUTH SIDE WEEKLY The South Side Weekly is an independent nonprofit newsprint magazine and radio show produced for and about neighborhoods on the South Side of Chicago. We publish in-depth coverage of the arts and issues of public interest alongside oral histories, poetry, fiction, interviews, and artwork from local photographers and illustrators. The South Side Weekly is dedicated to supporting cultural and civic engagement on the South Side and to providing educational opportunities for developing journalists, writers, and artists.

Volume 5, Issue 20 Editor-in-Chief Hafsa Razi Managing Editors Julia Aizuss, Andrew Koski Directors of Staff Support Baci Weiler Community Outreach Jasmin Liang Senior Editors Christian Belanger, Mari Cohen, Sam Stecklow, Olivia Stovicek

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IN CHICAGO IN THIS A week’s worth of developing stories, odd events, and signs of the times, culled from the desks, inboxes, and wandering eyes of the editors

We Ask Once More: Will Willie Wilson Win? The rumor that has been circulating for months—Willie Wilson would throw his hat back into the mayoral ring—was confirmed late February. Wilson was around last election too, and came in third behind Jesús “Chuy” García. Wilson ended up endorsing García in García’s runoff with Rahm Emanuel. But just because he lost the last mayoral election, doesn’t mean he hasn’t been doing anything for Chicago, nor does it mean that he’s been absent from the news. He achieved both between his last attempt at the mayor’s office and this one: in 2016, he ran for the Democratic nomination for president; last year, he bailed out dozens of people in jail on misdemeanor charges who were unable to pay for their own bail, and has been a vocal advocate for criminal justice reform; he also helped launch a campaign to help people pay their property taxes when they were unable to. Wilson has denied that these are media stunts to lay the groundwork for a future mayoral campaign, saying instead, “This just seemed a good way to help.” Regardless of whether or not these were cobblestones in the road to electoral victory, the road looks promising—at least according to a poll paid for by his supporters that showed Wilson to be nine points ahead of Rahm Emanuel.

Daniel Biss On Stage with Pussy Riot If you are imagining the gubernatorial candidate singing the band’s viral hit “Make America Great Again” while wearing blue lipstick to indicate his party affiliation, you might be disappointed—Daniel Biss officially turned down a live performance.

Nevertheless, at 9:30pm on Tuesday, Daniel Biss will show up to talk about the negative influence of billionaires and big corporations on politics right before the famous antiPutin Russian feminist punk band starts their set at Subterranean. Although no official endorsement is coming from Pussy Riot, the all-female group complimentarily called Biss an “anti-corporate candidate and activist” and will encourage concertgoers to vote in the March 20 primary. This might be one of Biss’s strategies to rock the vote to recover from a recent poll suggesting he’s losing to J.B. Pritzker in the primaries by ten points. If Biss indeed succeeds in this endeavor, there might be more politician-involved music gigs for concert-going Chicagoans—could be a blessing, maybe.

ISSUE shifting fronts in bail reform

“[It] isn’t the next best thing. It’s progress, but it’s not a solution.” kiran misra........................................4 in the rough

Some say hole in one—others remain skeptical. jonathan ballew..............................9 woodlawn community summit

“It’s designed by residents, for residents.” christian belanger........................11

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Time to Switch Tracks on the Red Line Extension?

Is it goodwill or just reelection season? In January, Mayor Rahm Emanuel insisted that we’re getting an expansion to the Red Line––nearly five decades after Richard J. Daley first promised it––with four new stops on 103rd, 111th, 115th, and 130th streets. But, as usual, the state of things outside of Rahm’s press office doesn’t inspire much confidence: Illinois is strapped for cash, and Trump is gutting Department of Transit grant programs. Even if all goes according to plan, optimists put a good eight years between us and service south of 95th. So now what? For years, the Coalition for a Modern Metra Electric has pushed to cut Metra fare and integrate it with Ventra. Now, transit analyst (and Weekly contributor) Daniel Kay Hertz has estimated that retrofitting the Metra Electric line would cost a fraction of the Red Line expansion: $27 million per mile to the CTA’s $434 million. It’s not a silver bullet––renovation wouldn’t add construction jobs, and plenty of neighborhoods are equidistant between the CTA’s proposed stations and the preexisting Metra stops––but it’s a hell of a lot better than another decade of transit deserts on the South Side.

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Cover illustration by Ellen Hao

MARCH 7, 2018 ¬ SOUTH SIDE WEEKLY 3

Shifting Fronts in Bail Reform Despite reform efforts, the pretrial detention system still causes harm THE THIRD IN A SERIES ON PRETRIAL DETENTION

BY KIRAN MISRA From organizing work in the sixties and seventies to recent pushes to end monetary bail, significant gains have been made in creating a more just pretrial detention system in Cook County. Despite the immense progress, many problems linger in practices designed to make the pretrial experience more equitable, from poor implementation of an order by Cook County Circuit Court Chief Judge Timothy Evans, to issues of racial bias in the pretrial risk assessment tool, to restrictive conditions of electronic monitoring.

In previous installments of this series, the Weekly looked at how the history of bail reform informed the current system and delved into more recent activism that brought the County to the eve of cash bail’s abolition. We look now at the changes occurring today and the continued barriers to liberty.

LIZZIE SMITH

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JUSTICE

I

n 2017, West Town-based progressive group The People’s Lobby suggested to the Coalition to End Money Bond that they reach out to Cook County Circuit Court Chief Judge Timothy Evans, a crucial decision-maker in the local criminal justice system, in their quest to end monetary bail. For months, the Coalition tried to set up a meeting with Evans and his staff to no avail. The group then turned to direct action.

“I organized an action and we brought two hundred people to Evans’s office to ask him why he was refusing to meet with us,” said Alex Muhammed of The People’s Lobby. “The next day, we got a call from his office.”

On September 18, 2017, two months after it was initially issued, Evans put General Order 18.8A into effect, stating that County courts “shall conduct an inquiry into the defendant’s ability to pay monetary bail” and “ensure the defendant has the present ability to pay the amount necessary to secure his or her release on bail,” meaning that judges cannot set a bond a defendant can’t pay. The order requires a bond review within seven days for anyone incarcerated due to inability to pay, which should result either in a reduction of bond, release without bond, or a transparent decision to detain without bond that could be appealed.

According to Illinois law, judges were already supposed to take ability to pay into account.

“They’re not necessarily doing anything revolutionary in the courts by saying that they will actually follow the rules they have,” said University of Connecticut-Hartford history professor and Chicago criminal justice researcher Melanie Newport. “The Cook County Criminal Courts are getting too much credit.”

A few days before the order went into effect, Evans made another sweeping overhaul by replacing all bond judges and renaming the Central Bond Court the Pretrial Division. He appointed Judge

John Kirby as the presiding judge for the Division. Judges Sophia Atcherson, Michael R. Clancy, John Fitzgerald Lyke Jr., Mary C. Marubio, Stephanie K. Miller, and David R. Navarro comprise the rest of the new bond court roster.

When Order 18.8A went into effect, activists and advocates mobilized. The People’s Lobby and Reclaim Chicago led a Rally to End Money Bail in front of the Leighton Criminal Courthouse in Little Village on the first day of its

to Evans’ own office, the new Pretrial Division judges received just eight hours of training on Order 18.8A and the county’s pretrial assessment tool, which was fully implemented in March 2016. Injustice Watch also observed 453 weekday cases in felony bond court and reported findings similar to the Bond Fund’s, witnessing significant variability in compliance with the order.

“The Chief Judge’s order is being treated as a suggestion, some are following

“They’re not necessarily doing anything revolutionary in the courts by saying that they will actually follow the rules they have.”

—Melanie Newport, University of Connecticut-Hartford history professor & Chicago criminal justice researcher

implementation, “to show the bond court judges that we are watching and that we will hold them accountable.” The Coalition trained volunteers, who collected information on the treatment of their community members.

One month later, Max Suchan of the Chicago Community Bond Fund reported that 110 people were given bails higher than they could pay and “more than ninety percent of cases that we’ve been tracking are not given bond reviews within the seven-day review period or after.”

A September report from nonprofit criminal justice news organization Injustice Watch stated that according

it and some aren’t—it’s very variable,” said Sharlyn Grace, a policy analyst with the Chicago Appleseed Fund for Justice.

Since no Chief Judge has ever made an order like this before, Evans is heading into uncharted waters, with bond court judges and community members alike wondering whether he actually has the authority to implement and enforce Order 18.8A. “The Chicago Community Bond Fund had a conversation with a judge who pretty much flat-out said, ‘this order doesn’t apply to me,’” Muhammed said. In its report, Injustice Watch found that Judges Lyke, Marubio, and Miller had strong compliance with the order, but Clancy

issued bonds higher than defendants could pay in twenty-five percent of his reviewed cases.

According to Muhammed, this lack of compliance stems from judges’ fear that a too-lenient decison could result in someone let out pretrial committing another offense, which could affect a judge’s reelection.

Judges also often choose to not use other measures that Evans has advocated for to reduce unnecessary pretrial detention, like Cook County’s pretrial assessment tool. The tool, called the Public Safety Assessment (PSA), intends to provide judges with an objective measure of the danger someone would pose to their communities or the likelihood of their failure to appear in court based on around ten “risk factors.”

While many hoped it would be the end to the racially biased, arbitrary nature of bond hearings, in recent years, advocates have suggested the algorithm may exacerbate the problems it intends to combat. It relies largely on criminal history records, which are impacted by racially biased policing practices––meaning that people of color and poor people are far more likely to have high PSA scores.

However, the new rules are far from insignificant. Bond hearings now last four minutes instead of one hundred seconds before Order 18.8A went into effect. Injustice Watch reports that “fewer than one quarter of the defendants were required to post cash to be freed from jail; in contrast, last year most defendants were required to do so,” and fifty percent of those assigned cash bond now have bonds that they can pay. The effect on the size of the Cook County Jail population is evident, with the number of people detained in the jail dropping around twenty percent in the months since the order, reaching about 6,000 people this January.

At recent budget hearings, Evans reported that I-bonds, which do not require people to pay to be released pretrial, are now forty-nine percent of all bonds, up

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from twenty-five percent before the order.

D-bonds, which require people to post ten percent of their bond to be released, are now twenty-two percent of bonds given, down from forty-six percent before the rule.

Over 4,000 people are still incarcerated in Cook County Jail because they cannot post monetary bail and had their bonds set before Order 18.8A went into effect.

There has been no indication these will be reviewed, a fact that advocates cite as a major concern.

The temporary nature of Order 18.8A also worries activists. “As long as Judge Evans is in office, judges should be following this order,” said Muhammed.

“But as soon as he is unelected or leaves his seat, the order goes out the door with him.”

Between the potentially ephemeral nature of the order and Cook County judges still setting bonds too high, the attorneys in a major class-action lawsuit against the bond court judges are as committed as ever to seeing the lawsuit progress.

When the state lawyers representing the court system filed motions to dismiss the case, citing Order 18.8A, activists and attorneys doubled down on their efforts.

Representatives from the Coalition to End Money Bail and numerous community members packed the courtroom at the Daley Center on the day of the hearing on the motion to dismiss, showing their support for bringing the suit to trial. On September 11, 2017, “it was standing room only at the Daley Center courtroom,” said Chirag Badlani, another one of the attorneys for the plaintiffs.

Presiding Judge Celia Gamrath noted this––stating, “I can tell the community cares about this issue”––and took the case under advisement, saying she would rule later whether the lawsuit would be dismissed or brought to trial. When that ruling will come is unclear.

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S

ince Order 18.8A went into effect, the Coalition reported there has been a sharp increase in punitive pretrial conditions like drug tests, checkins, curfews, and electronic monitoring (EM), which can be as restrictive as being incarcerated.

“In the early nineties, when technology like electronic monitoring emerged, it was seen as an alternative to incarceration and to a certain degree, an alternative to bail,” said Newport.

“Now, in the way that those surveillance programs are being extended, the effects of that technology are more similar [to incarceration].”

After spending fourteen months in jail awaiting trial, Lavette Mayes, the mother from the Southeast Side introduced in previous installments of this series, wasn’t truly free when she was released.

“I went from being locked up inside Cook County to being locked in my house on house arrest,” she said.

Once someone is released on bond and put on electronic monitoring, they often aren’t allowed to return to their home and must stay with a family member who agrees to supervise them. Mayes called her sister, who had to agree to unannounced drop-ins by sheriffs and officers and other conditions like not having any narcotics or alcohol, other people with criminal records, or even pets that were considered “vicious” like Rottweilers and boxers in the house.

Several times, sheriffs came to Mayes’s sister’s house in the middle of the night to make sure Mayes wasn’t violating any release conditions.

“That’s hard on family if they’re just there and opening their door for you to stay,” said Mayes. “You have to deal with the fact that the house of whoever you’re staying with is open for the county to come and go as they please.”

“It was embarrassing, heart-wrenching, because when my kids see that, my sister sees that, my family sees that, they don’t know if they’re coming back to pick you up

[or] if they’re just coming to check on you.”

In addition to the restrictions placed on her family members, Mayes also had her own activities severely limited. “If you have a job going into jail, if you can keep it for fourteen months, which I doubt, you end up losing it when you’re on EM, because you often can’t leave your house,” she said.

“I couldn’t take my kids to and from school.

I missed my son’s first day of school.”

In many ways, the system of pretrial release sets people up to fail and accidentally pick up another charge for pretrial condition noncompliance—felony escape—leading to reincarceration. Often, defendants are only notified of these conditions on their bond slip, a piece of carbon paper with frequently unreadable writing that they are handed as they walk out of court. Further, these bond slips have no instructions regarding what the conditions mean.

To make matters worse, Pretrial Services is near-impossible to reach by phone for required check-ins or to request clarification or modification of a condition, as the Bond Fund discovered after repeated attempts by clients and their attorneys to contact the division.

Because the Sheriff ’s office often calls employers to confirm people’s compliance with their pretrial release conditions, many lose their jobs since employers believe they are too high a risk. “These restrictions on liberty, movement, privacy are a punishment of innocent people, legally innocent people before they’ve been convicted of anything,” said Grace, the Chicago Appleseed policy analyst.

Evans is well aware of these hazards.

Last October, he announce that, starting in December, people with pending criminal cases in Cook County Courts would have access to call and text reminders on upcoming court dates in an attempt to support instead of punish those awaiting their trials.

This was too late for Mayes, whose restrictive house arrest conditions

JUSTICE

prompted her to eventually take a plea.

“There were many things I had to take into consideration other than [whether I could win my case],” she said. “I had to pay this attorney, but I wasn’t able to work, I had no income coming in. I had to consider that [the sheriff was] just showing up and my family not having privacy...So I took a plea and sacrificed myself.”

Mayes remembers the exact moment she notified her family of the decision. “I sat down with my family and told them I couldn’t do it for another year,” she said.

“My family had given up so much when I was on house arrest. I didn’t take the plea because I didn’t think I could win the case, I took the plea because of how much hurt and devastation it was causing my family.”

The consequences of pretrial detention and electronic monitoring extend further than days of missed work and disruptions to family life. People detained pretrial are far more likely to be found guilty come trial and get far longer sentences than those out in their communities awaiting trial. The likelihood of recidivism and failure to appear also increase the longer someone is detained pretrial.

“House arrest is just like being incarcerated,” said Mayes. “You’re on the outside, but there are the same restrictions.

You’re not able to do anything, you still lose income, you still aren’t able to get housing or work...[It] isn’t the next best thing, it’s progress, but it’s not a solution.”

D

espite significant progress in reducing pretrial incarceration in the city, the forward trajectory of progressive reform is not guaranteed.

“Every time there is a movement towards reform, there tends to be a tension between that and reliance on tradition,” said history professor Newport. “The tradition in this country is reliance on money bail and incarceration.”

On February 26, a class-action lawsuit was filed against Sheriff Tom Dart in the U.S. District Court for the Northern

District of Illinois on the behalf of Taphia Williams, representing current detainees in Cook County Jail who contend that they have been held illegally by the Sheriff.

These people, who have been detained because Dart found their bond conditions unsatisfactory, have been held for several additional days after posting bail, directly contradicting much of Dart’s previous messaging.

Once one of the most vocal supporters of releasing people pretrial and ending the practice of money bond, Dart recently announced that “out of concern for the public safety [he is] sworn to safeguard,” he is concerned about the number of people charged with gun crimes who have now been released on bond. According to an analysis by the Tribune, the amount set for bonds fell from nearly $134,000 in 2016 to almost $22,000 in 2017, leading to many people returning to their communities instead of jail or pretrial.

Even though most of those released have been put on EM, Dart contends that he is unconvinced the monitoring is adequate, explaining that his office will “closely scrutinize all individuals who are assigned to EM by carefully reviewing their charges and criminal histories” in a letter to Cook County President Toni Preckwinkle.

Dart announced that he plans to make the EM program more rigorous and restrictive, with staff “making unannounced searches of the homes of those being monitored, conducting a more thorough vetting process and, if necessary, declaring detainees too risky for the bracelets altogether.” Dart has said he will potentially seek funding to hire up to thirty more staff.

In a post on Facebook, the Chicago Community Bond Fund called these statements “unsubstantiated claims about imaginary threats to public safety.”

This “review” policy for defendants already cleared for release by Cook County Bond Court Judges is not only unconstitutional, violating people’s right to release after the bond has been paid,

but arguably outside of the scope of Dart’s authority as Sheriff. In a letter to Dart, Cook County Public Defender Amy Campanelli explained: “it is your obligation to provide security at the jail, not pick and choose its residents.” Campanelli says she has sworn to do everything in her power to stop the Sheriff ’s violation of Chicagoans’ constitutional rights.

“Changing how the judges conduct business is one thing, but you have to make sure all the stakeholders [are] involved in the process,” said Alexa Van Brunt, an attorney with the MacArthur Justice Center. “Everyone needs to be on board.”

B

ond reformers acknowledge that letting more people await trial in their own communities is not without risk. “Somebody may get released and do something bad, and if you look at that in a vacuum, you might think, ‘oh we can’t do anything because you don’t want that one bad thing to happen,’ said Sharone Mitchell, deputy director of the Illinois Justice Project. “But then you’re not looking at the other side of the equation.

When you overincarcerate, think about the damage you’re doing to so many more people.”

Given that under the current system, people lose housing, their ability to take care of family members, and their livelihoods, Mitchell added, “I’m just not sure those things balance out...People are innocent until they’re proven guilty and we shouldn’t go about locking people up just on allegations.”

Ted Miin, an organizer with the Coalition, agrees. “People who are not affected by the prison system are like...‘but what about violent offenders,’ and ‘how could someone be in jail if they aren’t a criminal,’ because people think jail is for bad people,” he said. “But that’s not quite true, not everyone in jail is guilty. A lot of those details are intentionally kept from public awareness. It’s out of sight, out of mind.”

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JUSTICE

The fights for criminal justice reform and bond reform in Cook County are far from over, a reality that public officials, funders, and advocates are well aware of.

“Bail reform is an issue that has drawn efforts from all fronts,” said Mitchell, citing legislative, legal, and administrative efforts.

“We need to throw as much up against the wall as we can until we get the system that takes money out of the decision.”

In early November 2017, a coalition of more than seventy local and national organizations coordinated by Chicago Appleseed voiced support for an Illinois Supreme Court Rule that would code some of the language of Order 18.8A into state law. Submitted on October 13, 2017

by Campanelli, Evans, Dart, Cook County Board President Toni Preckwinkle, Jesús “Chuy” García, and Cook County State’s Attorney Kim Foxx, it states, “there shall be a presumption that any condition of release shall be non-monetary in nature.” It would mirror changes in states like New Mexico, Arizona, Indiana, and Maryland.

In January, U.S. Representative Danny Davis, who represents parts of the South and West Sides and suburbs, moved to bring the momentum around bail reform to the national stage, introducing the Bail Fairness Act of 2018. The legislation, House Bill 4833, would require states to release individuals charged with a nonviolent misdemeanor on non-monetary conditions prior to their court date. The bill would also require the U.S. Attorney General to review research on how reduce pretrial incarceration. If passed, the bill would further reduce the use of cash bail around the country, bringing the U.S. one step to ending monetary bond for once and for all.

Criminal justice reform advocates also see the upcoming 2018 elections as an opportunity to push bond reform further at the state level, coordinating a questionnaire on bond reform for candidates running for governor. The results were released a few weeks ago. Democratic candidates Daniel Biss, Chris Kennedy, and J.B. Pritzker responded, all three stating a commitment

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to ending the use of cash bail in Illinois.

The People’s Lobby has made plans to endorse several judicial candidates who have made it a priority to work against cash bond. “We have never been in any judicial races before, but because money bail is a really crucial part of the conversation around ending mass incarceration right now, it made sense for us to have people on the inside to help us move change on ending cash bail,” said Muhammed.

While monitoring the successful

up half the people on no bails,” Mitchell said. “The question is how does our reform forward the goal of creating a more fair system. All bail reform isn’t created equal.

All bail reform isn’t good for the people.”

This means maintaining a focus on widespread cultural change while working towards political victories, challenging entrenched cultural norms and redefining what constitutes protecting public safety.

“Moving and shaping people’s worldview around punishment and safety is a huge

“Bail reform is an issue that has drawn efforts from all fronts. We need to throw as much up against the wall as we can until we get the system that takes money out of the decision.”

—Sharone Mitchell, deputy director of the Illinois Justice Project

implementation of Judge Evans’s Order 18.8A, bond reform advocates also plan to push the lawsuits against the Cook County Circuit Judges and Tom Dart forward. They also intend to improve and build upon the Bail Reform Act of 2017 by reintroducing State Rep. Christian Mitchell’s original, more expansive bill.

However, even when Cook County ends the use of cash bail, there is still a long way to go in ensuring the pretrial process is just for all Chicagoans. “We still need to end the overreliance on pretrial detention because you can be at a point where you’re not using cash bail, but you’re still locking

challenge,” said Muhammed. “The use of fear is really strong to move public opinion and keep this system in place.”

She added that that criminal justice decision makers should think critically about the lack of logic in the bail system.

“The language of the constitution around money bail is to get people to come back to court for their date,” Muhammed said. “But if you can’t afford a one hundred dollar or $200 bond, these are not the types of folks who can skip town. Cash bail is a poor people’s tax.”

Organizers continue to work against fines, fees, and the exorbitant costs of

incarceration for people in jail, which, along with offers to shorten a sentence due to time served, create an incentive to plead guilty even if innocent. Pretrial services like mandatory drug monitoring can cost and fifteen to twenty-five dollars every visit and EM can cost seven to twelve dollars a day, more expensive than probation in many jurisdictions. “We prosecute forty times more people than we did thirty years ago and prosecutors have a ninety-nine percent conviction rate because of pleas,” said Grace. “Trial is a disappearing thing in the US.” Muhammed, Grace, and other advocates understand that solving the problem of cash bail isn’t the finish line, but the starting line of the next race. Their work continues by addressing issues like disinvestment in education, drug treatment, and mental health and the lack of living wages in communities.

Change won’t come without work, day in and day out, on the part of Chicagoans who both have and have not been directly been impacted by unfair criminal justice practices in the county. Coalition organizer Miin explains, “I want to ask people, ‘This is happening in your city, down the road from you, so why are you not out there? Why are you not outraged? If that was your family member, wouldn’t you want all of Cook County be outside those doors demanding they be released? You have a personal stake in this too.”

Mayes is clear on the importance of the bail reform movement. “I think you can better fight your case on the outside than when you’re in. I think in my case it would have been a completely different outcome if I had been free. Policymakers need to see if judging people’s life in thirty seconds is fair. Our legislators are not doing their jobs, they’re tearing families apart.” And until preventable harms like those in Mayes’ case are no longer found anywhere in the Cook County criminal justice system, activists will keep fighting. ¬

POLITICS

In the Rough

Residents remain dissatisfied with plans for expanded Tiger Woods golf course

BY JONATHAN BALLEW

R

eady or not, a $60 million PGAcaliber golf course designed by Tiger Woods will likely be replacing the current Jackson Park and South Shore golf courses.

Activists have been mobilizing around the proposal for the golf courses for over a year now. The proposed golf course is part of the Chicago Park District’s update to the 1999 South Lakefront Framework Plan, which encompasses both the golf course project and the development of the Obama Presidential Center, and road improvements related to both.

After a year of unknowns and reports on the financial difficulties facing the project, in late January the Park District held its first meaningful community outreach meeting concerning the golf course, at the South Shore Cultural Center. During the meeting, Chicago Park District CEO Mike Kelly informed the audience of the source of funding for this development. The golf course project would require $30 million in infrastructure costs coming from taxpayers, with another $30 million coming from private funding raised by the Chicago Parks Golf Alliance (CPGA)—a private organization cofounded by a former top aide to Mayor Rahm Emanuel in 2016 in order to secure funds for the project, for which it holds a tenyear contract with the Park District.

This meeting will be followed by two final community meetings, to be held on March 13 and 14 at the South Shore Cultural Center, before the Park District finalizes the new version of the South Lakefront Framework Plan.

For some, there are obvious community benefits to be gained from this development.

Louise McCurry has been one of the biggest supporters of the project. As the president of the Jackson Park Advisory Council, the volunteer body that serves as the official conduit between park patrons and the Park

District, McCurry was also in attendance at the meeting. For her, when it comes to the golf course, the biggest winners will be the children.

The golf course “provides for our children a place where they can play golf in a safe environment,” she told the Weekly at the meeting. For McCurry, those that are still opposed “don’t understand the process,” and she said that she would love to give them a tour of the proposed plans and help people to understand how the course can benefit the community.

Yet, when new designs were revealed during the meeting, not everyone was satisfied. The project would expand the acreage of the current golf courses from 5.5 acres to almost twelve acres, while creating three new underpasses. In Jackson Park, it would also include the closing of South Cornell Drive near the west end of Marquette Drive in favor of creating a walking path and the construction of a new lake near its east end.

At the South Shore Cultural Center, the plan would invade the South Shore Nature Sanctuary and transform the heart of it into Hole 15, while, as if to compensate, creating a new nature reserve using part of the public beach next to the proposed hole site. Some recreational facilities in Jackson Park, including a dog park and baseball fields, would also be eliminated.

A. Anne Holcomb, the chair of Environment Transportation, Health and Open Space (ETHOS) Block Club, a community group comprised of families living near the lakefront, said that her group “outright opposes” the plans for the new golf course. “We are not anti-golf,” she said. “But we want to save the nature preserve, the dog park, and ballparks for the kids. We want to save what we already have.”

This sentiment was shared by Brenda Nelms, a cofounder of watchdog group

Jackson Park Watch ( JPW) who has serious concerns that the new golf courses could end up muscling out South Siders from parks they use regularly. “Our real focus is, will there be a park left after they finish slicing and dicing?” said Nelms.

In addition to their concerns about the preservation of surrounding nature, community opponents feel the level of community engagement from the Park District has been lacking. “Nobody ever asked us,” Holcomb said. “They cooked up this deal in some backroom of City Hall somewhere and they just threw it at us.” She acknowledged that the city and Park District may now be soliciting community input, but criticized the fact that there were never any community meetings about whether there should be a golf course professionalization in the first place.

JPW also remains adamant that the process for a new golf course has been anything but transparent. Nelms took issue with an email released by the city in response to a lawsuit brought by the Better Government Association seeking emails in which Mayor Emanuel conducted public business using his personal email address that show conversations between Kelly and Emanuel in 2016 about the proposal, well before the plans for a new golf course were public.

“It is critical for YOU that this project has the support of the Obama Foundation and the surrounding community,” wrote Kelly to Emanuel in an August 3, 2016 memo, marked as confidential. “We must be very cautious as this community typically weighs in loudly on any capital project that makes change,” Kelly continued.

It is JPW’s belief that this project has been strategically made to look as though it has the full support of the community, when in fact there is wide and varied opposition.

In response to the release of the emails

between Kelly and Emanuel, JPW wrote a letter to Kelly and the CPGA, with Emanuel carbon copied. In the letter, JPW called for the Alliance to release the financial details of the golf course, along with a new design that would not expand the acreage of the current golf courses. Despite multiple requests, Nelms says that they never received a response.

JPW is not the only group actively fighting the city. The Coalition To Save Jackson Park (CTSJP) is suing the Chicago Park District for what they say is an improper response to a public records request. Lionel Nixon, of CTSJP and the Coalition to Save the South Shore Club, told the Weekly that his group has “concerns about a PGA-scale golf course because of its encroachment on the rest of the park.”

Brian Hogan, a Chicago media attorney and cofounder the CPGA who serves as its director, talked with great enthusiasm about the project. “The most important thing is that this is a Park District course and will always remain that way for the people of the South Side,” he told the Weekly.

But the virtue of it being a Park District course doesn’t mean that there won’t be rate hikes for residents. Kelly has continued to pledge that rates won’t go any higher than fifty dollars a round—an increase of over fifty-six percent from the current rate of thirty-two dollars.

For some South Siders, that type of rate increase could greatly hinder their financial ability to golf regularly. Marcus Hersh, a nearby resident, said that he uses the park often and doesn’t see the golf course project as a benefit. “I’m against the idea of a PGAcaliber golf course because it makes no sense to me at any level,” he said. “I don’t believe that it is going to bring economic growth to my community.”

Hersh expressed additional confusion regarding the Obama Presidential Center (OPC) and how it relates to the golf course.

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COURTESY OF CHICAGO PARK DISTRICT

“The dynamic has everything to do with the presidential center,” he said. “At some point the two projects became conjoined.”

Indeed, the golf course proposal is just part of the South Lakefront Framework Plan. Residents have felt as though they are receiving mixed messages from the city with all three interconnected projects—the golf courses, the OPC, and road work— especially when some residents observed that the process has been unusually expedited.

“The project has absolutely been rushed. They have slowed down, but that is because of the community backlash,” said Naomi Davis, president of the Blacks In Green Initiative, a west Woodlawn-based nonprofit that focuses on sustainability and economic development in Black

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communities. Indeed, machinations to allow the massive proposed changes to go through have already begun, with the Park District’s Board of Commissioners voting late last month to swap six acres of parkland for eight acres of road with the Chicago Department of Transportation and the Chicago Plan Commission and City Council’s Committee on Zoning considering the zoning change for the OPC shortly.

At the crux of this massive endeavor are celebrity figures like Barack Obama and Tiger Woods. Their fame has left some feeling suspicious as to whether or not the projects are truly about benefiting the South Side communities, and this suspicion is only worsened by the lack of frankness from the developers about the interplay between

different projects—in this case, the OPC and the golf course.

“When we go to the meetings about the Obama Presidential Center they say, ‘You can’t talk about the golf course.’ Then, when you go to golf course meetings they say, ‘We can’t talk about the [golf course] plans’,” Davis said. “Of course, it’s all connected. No urban planner in their right mind would say the same pieces of land being cultivated at the same time are unrelated. The Obama Foundation is denying that they are the generator behind this idea. If it’s true that President Obama really wants this golf course, he oughta just say it. I don’t think that type of candor has happened.”

Davis said that the meetings that have been held have mostly been for show, a

sentiment also echoed by JPW. After the most recent meeting, JPW is still unhappy with the proposal.

They continue to call for more public accountability and detailed plans, arguing that the public “lacks essential financial information about construction, operation, and maintenance” about the projects.

The stakes for the parks could hardly be higher. Just last week, Preservation Chicago, a nonprofit that seeks to protect Chicago’s most important historical landmarks, released its annual list of the most threatened treasures in Chicago. For the second year in a row, Jackson Park and the South Shore Cultural Center made the list. Their entry lists the golf courses revamp as one of the main threats to the parks. ¬

POLITICS

Woodlawn Community Summit confronts visions of the neighborhood’s uncertain future

BY CHRISTIAN BELANGER

“I

m so proud to be here. You’re all an inspiration to me.”

Though these words were uttered toward the end of a panel on economic development at the Woodlawn Community Summit, they came not from a Woodlawn resident, or even a “neighbor,” (as the Hyde Parkers in the room coyly referred to themselves). They came from a Jewel-Osco driver who had stopped into the Summit before 8am that morning to drop off some food, and found himself so charmed that he decided to stick around for the duration. He came from a suburb, he explained, “where we can’t even agree to take away matches from the guy who’s threatening to commit arson,” so discovering a building full of civically committed neighbors was, to say the least, refreshing.

Despite the driver’s focus on the grassroots enthusiasm evident at the summit, it was paired with a slick corporate and political presence, as the driver was also sitting right next to a Jewel-Osco community relations manager who was there to represent the new grocery store opening at 61st and Cottage Grove in 2019.

A variety of guests and speakers—a doctor at the University of Chicago’s new trauma center, a representative from the Obama Foundation, a wealth of local officeholders and candidates—joined together with longstanding activists in Woodlawn to discuss what the neighborhood’s trajectory over the next few years might look like.

The summit is now in its ninth year and has grown from occupying a single room provided by the the UofC’s Office of Civic Engagement to the entire Social Service Administration building on UofC’s

campus. In addition to being a venue where large institutions like the UofC and the Obama Foundation can be held accountable to Woodlawn residents, the summit aims to be a locus of information and dialogue, with features such as a resource fair, tabled by neighborhood organizations dispensing news and contact information, and workshops on topics like urban gardens and tips for homeowners.

“It’s designed by residents for residents, and it’s very, very organic. It’s a new model in community engagement,” said Elizabeth Gardner, one of the summit’s founders. “We encourage everyone to volunteer...volunteer with your block club, volunteer with your church, volunteer at your school. Anything you can do to uplift your community is wonderful.”

This ethos of self-empowerment fueled much of the conversation across the event.

“We have to move past this sideline griping to do some real work,” said Carol Adams, the former president of the DuSable Museum who now runs a consulting firm called Urban Prescriptives. “If a pothole gets filled, they say, ‘They filling that pothole for somebody else.’ If you do that, you’re ceding your power to somebody else.”

In that spirit, the summit emphasized the importance of fostering and supporting small businesses,particularly given a lingering suspicion toward bigger corporations— such as ones like Jewel-Osco that are purchasing land in the neighborhood—that community members have no stake in. “A lot of the businesses that you bringing in, we don’t own the property, we don’t own the business...We have to keep our ownership in the community, so that these businesses can

rent from us,” said Sandra Bivens, one of the organizers of the summit.

Laine’s Bake Shop, a socially conscious baked-goods store owned by Rachael Bernier-Green and her husband Jaryd, is a good example of the kinds of small businesses that organizers want to support.

The shop, which started as an online business and now sells to Whole Foods, will open a storefront at 6437 S. Cottage Grove this summer. “Because our mission at its core is to revitalize the South Side, we were specifically looking for neighborhoods where there were a lot of vacant spaces,” Bernier-Green said. “We worked with our landlord to fill other vacancies in the building that we’re in.”

Still, it wasn’t always clear who in the community will benefit from economic development unfolding in Woodlawn. At the Q&A portion of the event, one resident asked Michael Strautmanis, vice president of civic engagement at the Obama Foundation, about displacement, which the resident said would inevitably take place with the arrival of the presidential center in Jackson Park.

In his response, Strautmanis rejected that idea, precisely by invoking the idea that Woodlawn residents should take responsibility for themselves and their neighborhood: “If you think displacement is inevitable, you will create a mindset where we give up,” he said. “What will prevent displacement is empowerment.

We are bringing the resources, and this community has to set a standard for what has to happen.” Strautmanis also noted that developers should be encouraged to maintain their stock of affordable housing, and that the Chicago Housing Authority

(CHA) is looking to build more affordable housing in the area.

Later, at a workshop specifically on the topic of economic development, a similar tension surfaced. Andrea Zopp, CEO of World Business Chicago (WBC)—the city’s public-private economic development corporation—told the room that WBC had been reorienting itself around local neighborhood development, and cited several intersections on the South Side that she thinks are examples of the right kind of growth. One location Zopp praised was the stretch of Cottage Grove from 61st to 63rd, where a plethora of developments have taken place over the last few years. Afterschool program MetroSquash relocated to 61st and Cottage Grove in 2015, and the organization Preservation of Affordable Housing (POAH) has built or renovated 800 units of housing over the past several years, much of it affordable, and has brought Jewel-Osco to the area that will open in 2019. POAH is also working on Woodlawn Station, a mixed-use building that will provide another seventy units on the corner of 63rd and Cottage Grove. Meanwhile, the Cook County Land Bank Authority is spearheading the redevelopment of the abandoned Washington Park National Bank Building, and the city is renovating the Cottage Grove Green Line stop.

During the question and answer session, Alex Goldenberg, one of the activists behind the successful trauma center campaign, pressed Zopp to acknowledge the role that renters themselves had played in bringing the new Grove Parc development to Woodlawn: low-income tenants in the old building had forced POAH to sign a

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POLITICS

Community Benefits Agreement in which the developer promised to replace all the units and to hire locally. “We’re talking about a community where the median income is $25,000. I think that is a beautiful model, where actually developers are being held accountable for legally binding agreements that aren’t going to push people out,” he said. Goldenberg cited a study from the DePaul Institute for Housing Studies that showed more than 14,000 people in the cluster of mid-South Side neighborhoods that includes Woodlawn are rent-burdened.

“I’m very curious what the housing strategy is, and if it actually accounts for the need, and not just a few apartments for some people on fixed-incomes.”

“The answer is that a housing strategy needs to be developed. Are we going to be able to build enough for fourteen thousand?

Probably not,” said Zopp. “If you don’t have a housing strategy along with an economic development strategy, you do have displacement.”

Zopp’s and Strautmanis’s answers, despite gesturing toward a concern for residents in danger of being priced out of the neighborhood, nevertheless suggest that neither the city nor the Obama Foundation have crafted particularly concrete plans to ensure that Woodlawn’s supply of affordable housing—the creation of which is often a painful, protracted process—will be enough to protect the neighborhood’s most vulnerable.

In the summit’s keynote speech, Melody Spann Cooper, chairman of the Midway Broadcasting Corporation, recounted the story of how she bought a house on Oakenwald Avenue in North Kenwood when it looked, in her words, like “Little Beirut.” As she described it, “Back then, it was an abandoned dead-end street that wrapped around the eastern portion of Lake Park. And at the end of the deadend, was public housing, and that’s the politically correct word for it. It was the projects, right?...Me and my husband were riding our bikes one day and stumbled upon Oakenwald, and we see these new houses, so we stop, and we look, and while most people would go there and say what the hell? We said, ching ching.”

A decade after buying a house for two

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KENDRA FREEMAN

hundred thousand dollars, Spann Cooper said she and her husband more than doubled their initial investment when they sold it again, and that residents who came before them had quadrupled theirs. “That’s what real estate is all about—it’s your wealth, and in most instances, it’s the biggest investment you’ll ever make,” she said. “The number one reason a person moves is to take advantage of the opportunity to make money on their property. It’s the American way.”

The point of Spann Cooper’s story was that a similarly lucrative change is about to occur in Woodlawn. “As Woodlawn prepares to hit the world stage, with the coming of the Obama library center, what does this mean for you? What does it mean for you,

the residents of Woodlawn, many of you who have lived here for years, invested when no one else would, stayed when all others fled?” she said. “You are at ground zero, with options. And trust me, there’s nothing like having options.” (Spann Cooper’s not alone in her opinion; real estate company Redfin predicted last year that Woodlawn would be one of the city’s “hottest neighborhoods.”)

But an alternate history of Oakenwald suggests that those options aren’t always available to everybody living in a swiftly developing area. In a 1996 article published in Residents’ Journal, a newspaper by and for public housing tenants, Izora Davis wrote a “partial history” of Lakefront Properties, the public housing development

that included the buildings on Oakenwald Avenue Spann Cooper referenced in her speech. Davis recounts how the CHA twice attempted—once in 1985, and then again in 1991—to force residents to move out of the buildings so that they would be demolished and replaced by mixed-income housing. “The heat was turned off. Elevators wouldn’t work. Electricity was also turned off after a point. Water froze the stairwells.

Pipes were busted and electrical meters were stolen,” she wrote. Two of the towers were renovated and turned into Lake Parc Place, while the others were demolished and replaced by Sullivan Station; both are mixed-income developments. For reference, Sullivan Station contains forty-seven public

EVENTS

housing units; the four highrises it replaced contained 604 units. And as an investigation by the Weekly last year showed, the CHA has failed to replace most of the public housing units demolished as part of its nearly-two-decade-long Plan for Transformation.

It seems as if few, if any, of the benefits of a revitalized North Kenwood-Oakland (or, for that matter, a swiftly developing Hyde Park) have accrued to the public housing residents Spann Cooper mentioned at the beginning of her speech. In the conclusion to her article, Izora Davis writes, “As I reflect on this partial history, I realize that the hope poor people once had will never be again. It will always be a praying moment, wondering how we will have to adapt or adjust just to survive.”

North Kenwood-Oakland’s past begs a question about Woodlawn’s future: How will the benefits and costs of its newfound popularity be distributed among the people currently living there? The answer is waiting to be worked out, but if there is any reason for optimism, it’s the sense of determined community engagement among the Woodlawn residents at the Community Summit.

“I am in favor of making sure that the people who live here can stay here, and have an opportunity to help with the reconstruction, or renewal, of Woodlawn,” said Gardner. “That could be if you’re in the professional services, or if you’re in construction, or if you just have a son or daughter and they want to get a job at the Jewel.

I think it’s very, very important that we all come together to say, ‘This is what this corridor should look like.’” ¬

BULLETIN Global Strategists Association’s International Women’s Day Luncheon DuSable Museum of African American History, 740 E. 56th Pl. Thursday, March 8, 10am–1pm. $25–$100. gsachicago.org This year, the Global Strategists Association’s fifth annual International Women’s Day Luncheon takes up the theme “Press For Progress: Creating New Opportunities For Women of Color.”

Chicago Community Trust president and CEO Helene D. Gayle will deliver the luncheon’s keynote. ( Julia Aizuss)

25th District State Representative Candidate Forum Pilgrim Missionary Baptist Church, 3235 E. 91st St. Thursday, March 8, 6pm. (708)7907760. bit.ly/IL25thForum Candidates for the Illinois House’s 25th District, which encompasses the south lakefront from Kenwood to the border with Indiana, will discuss labor, immigration, violence, education, and more ahead of the March 20 primary. Candidates expected to attend are Adrienne Irmer, Anne Marie Miles, Flynn Rush, William Calloway, and Grace Chan McKibben. (Adia Robinson)

The Big Idea Show BOP Biz Chatham Suites, 644 E. 79th St. March 9–30. Fridays, 9am–11am. Free.

(773) 891-5939. bit.ly/thebigideashow Every Friday, the Big Idea Show provides a platform for business owners, activists, and entrepreneurs alike to discuss their big ideas. Hosts Linda Perez and Toure Muhammad—business owners themselves—will discuss with their guests the secret to succeeding in Chicago with their guests. Find out that secret for yourself by attending this Friday. (Michael Wasney)

Lillian Armstrong Park Advisory Council Meeting Kennicott Park Fieldhouse, 4434 S. Lake Park Ave. Saturday, March 10, 1pm–3pm. bit.ly/ArmstrongPACmeeting Anyone who lives near Armstrong Park, at 44th and Saint Lawrence, and has an interest in putting the park’s still relatively new playground equipment, sports fields, and lights to good use, should head to the PAC meeting this weekend. Extra points if you figure out a special spring/summer/ fall activity for the one hundred new trees. ( Julia Aizuss)

The TRiiBE Anniversary Function Private South Loop location; receive address after ticket purchase. Saturday, March 10, 8pm–1am. $40–$55. bit.ly/TRiiBEFunction Celebrate and fundraise for The TRiiBE, a new Chicago media outlet for Black millennials. The function will be at a “swanky” loft in the South Loop and will feature a smoke room, live performances, complimentary food and drinks, and juking.

(Sam Stecklow)

Freedom Circle: Dinner & Dialogue The #BreathingRoom Space, 1434 W. 51st St. Monday, March 12, 6pm–8:30pm.

Free. letusbreathe2015@gmail.com letusbreathecollective.com The #LetUsBreathe artist-activist collective is partnering with R3 Coalition and the Illinois Humanities Council to hold a dinner and dialogue series called Freedom Circle. The first installation will be held at the #LetUsBreathe collective’s The #BreathingRoom space. (Michael Wasney).

Urban Think & Drink—Exposure is Key: My Block, My Hood, My City Metropolitan Planning Council, 140 S. Dearborn St. Thursday, March 15, 5pm–7pm. $15. (312) 922-5616. metroplanning.org

Come see Jahmal Cole—founder of My Hood, My Block, My City (MHMBMC)—speak about the subject matter of his new book, Exposure is Key: Solving Violence by Exposing Teens to Opportunities. Not only will you get to hear from Cole, some of the students that have participated in the MHMBMC program and Darryl Holliday from City Bureau will attend as well. (Michael Wasney)

VISUAL ARTS Exposure Vol. II AMFM Gallery, 2151 W. 21st Street. Friday, March 9, 8pm-midnight. $8. bit.ly/amfm-exposure Check out graphic art, illustrations, and paintings by artists like Brooke Lord, Iles Grey, Davey Friday, Bri Beckham, and Lyntaun Jones in an exhibit presented

by Mo Management and Dizz Co. There also will be drinks for purchase and live performances by Solo Sam, Vice Versa, and more. ( Joseph S. Pete)

Visiting Artist Series: Cam Be Homan Square, 906 S. Homan Avenue.

Saturday, March 10, 2pm-4pm. Free. sites.saic.edu/cs/homansquare Invisible Podcast Radio and the SAIC host workshops by local artists and entrepreneurs on Saturday afternoons.

Cam Be, an Emmy Award winner who’s interviewed the likes of Theaster Gates, Hebru Brantley, Maya Angelou, Common, and Questlove, will discuss what he’s learned as an interdisciplinary artist and independent film director who’s interested in progressive hip hop culture. ( Joseph S. Pete)

Arte Diseño Xicágo: Opening Reception National Museum of Mexican Art, 1852 W. 19th St. Friday, March 23, 6pm-8pm. Free.

(312) 738-1503. bit.ly/opening-reception

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EVENTS

The National Museum of Mexican Art’s new exhibition “Arte Diseño Xicágo” examines the artistic influence of Mexican immigrants from the end of the nineteenth century through the late twentieth. This exhibition curates artworks, photographs, and objects. (Michael Wasney)

Invisible Podcast Radio x School of the Art Institute Artist Series: Samantha Jo Homan Square, 906 S. Homan Ave. Saturday, March 24, 2pm-4pm. Sign up online. (773) 638-2712. sites.saic.edu/cs/homansquare Invisible Podcast Radio and the SAIC have teamed up to host a twice monthly workshop that gives a platform to local artists at SAIC’s Nichols Tower satellite location. Come by March 24 to participate in a workshop by Samantha Jo, a Chicago native and graduate from Columbia College Chicago. (Michael Wasney)

MUSIC Soul-Frica Sundays Renaissance Bronzeville, 4641 S. King Dr. Sundays, 7pm. No cover. (773) 690-5416. renaissancebronzeville.com End your week right and dance the night away in Bronzeville. Resident DJs Terry Hunter and Greg Winfeld––each with a formidable history in Chicago’s house scene––will spin soul, R&B, and whatever else gets the people moving. (Christopher Good)

Mohsen Namjoo and Faraualla Logan Center for the Arts, 915 E. 60th St. Friday, March 9, 8pm–10:30pm. $30–$50, student tickets $24–$32. (773) 702-2787. ticketsweb.uchicago.edu With On the String of the Tear’s Bow, his newest album, Iranian singer-songwriter Mohsen Namjooo captures the “journey of a corpse from Mongolia to East Europe” through plaintive setar and electric guitar.

On Friday, he’ll perform On the String and a second set of fan favorites with Faraulla, an a cappella quartet from the south of Italy. (Christopher Good)

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Tribute to Twista Harold Washington Cultural Center, 4701 S. Martin Luther King Dr. Saturday, March 10, 7pm–midnight. $25–$50. (773) 3731900. broadwayinbronzeville.com Kanye once said: “I can’t do it that fast, but I know somebody who can.” “It” is rapping, and that “somebody” is Twista, South Side lyricist par excellence. On Saturday, he’ll take a victory lap with a dozen other rappers, including Krayzie Bone of Bone Thugs-n-Harmony.

(Christopher Good)

Not For You with Blood Licker, La Cosa, headache Archer Ballroom, 3012 S. Archer Ave. #3.

Saturday, March 10, doors 8pm–midnight. $7–$10, pay what you can. bit.ly/NotForYouRelease Self-proclaimed “popnoisegrungeslugedoom” band Not For You will celebrate their new LP, Drown, with a tinnitus-inducing evening in Bridgeport. The lineup of opening acts––a perfect cross-section of Chicago’s noise rock scene––is just as big a draw.

(Christopher Good)

DJ Activation: Ayana Contreras and Bill Walker Hyde Park Art Center, 5020 S. Cornell Ave. Sunday, March 11, 2pm–4pm. (773) 3245520. hydeparkart.org Ayana Contreras, DJ and host of Vocalo’s “Reclaimed Soul” show, will spin funk and R&B in homage to Bill Walker, the Chicago artist best known for Grand Boulevard’s “Wall of Respect” mural. This program coincides with “Bill Walker: Urban Griot,” a retrospective of Walker’s paintings. (Christopher Good)

Otro Ritmo South Side Punk Night One City Tap, 3115 S. Archer. Tuesday, March 13, 8pm–2am. (773) 565-4777. onecitytap.com The PBR and Hamms flow freely on the second Tuesday of every month at South Side Punk Night in this McKinley Park bar. “All mutants welcome. Respect each other,” organizers say. Hear sets from DJ

Malice, DJ Orno and DJ Sufrida Kahlo, as well as “two current and relevant live bands.” ( Joseph S. Pete)

STAGE & SCREEN Collected Stories Private Hyde Park residence, location emailed with ticket confirmation. March 9–11. Friday–Saturday, 7pm; Sunday, 3pm. $15, seniors and students $12. hydeparkcommunityplayers.org The Hyde Park Community Players takes full advantage of small production size to stage this play in a real residential living room, mirroring the intimate story. It examines two women, one an established short story writer and the other her younger protégé, and their complicated relationship. The family donating their living room has a dog. (Tammy Xu)

One Earth Film Festival Various South Side and other locations.

Through March 11. Check website for ticket and location details. oneearthfilmfest.org The annual One Earth Film Festival returns for its seventh year to present films and discussion about climate change, sustainability, and what we can do. With over thirty dynamic films to view, three honorable mentions are: What Lies Upstream at the Beverly Arts Center this Wednesday, an investigative film uncovering the truth behind a massive chemical spill that poisoned West Virginia drinking water; Dolores, an award-winning documentary about Dolores Huerta, at Trinity United Church of Christ this Saturday; and the Chicago premiere of Fly

by Light, the story of how a group of D.C. youth used nature to transcend a cycle of violence and poverty. Catch that screening and discussion this Sunday at St. Benedict the African Parish. (Nicole Bond)

Eye of the Storm: The Bayard Rustin Story eta Creative Arts Foundation, 7558 S. South Chicago Ave. Through Sunday, March 11.

Fridays and Saturdays 8pm, Sundays 3pm. $40, discounts available for seniors, students,

and groups. (773) 752-3955. etacreativearts.org Playwright McKinley Johnson tells the story of the behind-the-scenes Civil Rights Movement organizer Bayard Rustin, whose work garnered him the moniker The Architect of the March on Washington. Despite Rustin’s efforts and achievements, he was persecuted for being gay. (Nicole Bond)

Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner?

Court Theatre, 5535 S. Ellis Ave. March 15–April 15. $38-$71. (773) 753-4472. courttheatre.org The classic 1967 film about the latent racism that surfaces when an upperclass San Francisco couple hosts their daughter and her Black doctor fiancé has been adapted for the stage by playwright Todd Kreidler. The acclaimed Marti Lyons, who’s directed for several theaters in Chicago, makes her Court directorial debut with this still-topical adaptation. ( Joseph S. Pete)

BCH Mixtape Vol. 3 Dorchester Art + Housing Cooperative, 1456 E. 70th St. Friday, March 23, 7pm–10pm.

(312) 857-5561. rebuild-foundation.org Black Cinema House showcases independent short films, including Rhonda Nunn’s “I Remember” and Angela Dugan’s “Jermaine,” for its Mixtape series in an effort to uplift and reflect the full breadth of Black perspective in cinema.

The screenings will be followed by a discussion of themes like memory, family, and the dichotomy between past and present. ( Joseph S. Pete)

The Chills - Teen Night DuSable Museum, 740 E. 56th Pl. Friday, March 16, 6pm–9pm. Free. (773) 9470600. dusablemuseum.org Yollocalli Arts Reach has teamed up with the DuSable to celebrate the year of creative youth in Chicago and present the first of three teen-focused evenings, featuring art activities, an open mic, opportunities to explore the museum, music, food, and more. (Nicole Bond)

FOOD & LAND Little Village Seed Exchange Amor de Dios United Methodist Church, 2356 S. Sawyer Ave. Saturday, March 10, 2pm–4pm. (773) 542-9233.

The Little Village Gardeners Coalition will be hosting its second annual Little Village Seed Swap. Meet other gardeners, swap some seeds, and share some gardening wisdom. Bring a dish or nonalcoholic drink to share. (Sam Joyce)

Vegetable Gardening Basics Orozco Community Academy, 1940 W. 18th St. Saturday, March 10, 3pm–6pm. Free.

This three-hour gardening workshop, offered both in Spanish and English, will get you up to speed on the 101s of outdoor gardening: what crops grow well in limited space, what vegetables are best transplanted, and which best seeded directly. Materials and refreshments will be provided. (Emeline Posner)

Midwest Urban Farmers Summit The Plant, 1400 W. 46th St. Saturday, March 10 and Sunday, March 11, 7am– 7pm. Sliding scale for tickets. (779) 7724142. midwesturbanfarmers.org At the Midwest Urban Farmers Summit, urban farmers will gather to discuss best practices, ask questions, and learn about financial viability at The Plant, a closedloop food production space housed in a former pork processing plant in Back of the Yards. There will be presentations on the state of urban agriculture, a talent show, roundtable talks, and networking.

No one will be turned away for lack of funds. ( Joseph S. Pete)

South Lakefront Framework Plan South Shore Cultural Center, 7059 S. South Shore Dr. Tuesday, March 13 and Wednesday March 14, 5:30pm–8pm. bit.ly/SouthLakefrontFrameworkPlan

These two meetings, the last in a series of public meetings about the impending changes to Jackson Park and the greater south lakefront area, will “be focused on the options for recreational, ecological, and cultural park uses” going forward.

No new information about the Obama Presidential Center will be made available, but park planners will display the draft framework plan, including both the presidential center and golf course plans, for residents to look at and comment on.

(Emeline Posner)

South Branch Parks Framework Plan Park 571, 2828 S. Eleanor St. Wednesday, March 14, 5:30pm–7:30pm. Free. (312) 922-5616. metroplanning.org On Wednesday evening, the South Branch Park Advisory Council will host a “visioning meeting” for the South Branch of the Chicago River. For those who live along or spend time in any of the South Branch Parks (Canalport, Canal Origins, or Park 571), this meeting may be the place to learn about what changes are coming to these parks, and to offer input.

(Emeline Posner)

Greenhouse Production Workshop South Chicago Farm, 8900 S. Green Bay Ave. Saturday, March 17, 8:30am–5pm. $100, scholarships available. (773) 3768882. urbangrowerscollective.org The Urban Growers Collective’s workshop “Greenhouse Production: Seeding, Transplanting & Marketing Crops” offers hands-on training for planting, harvesting, and packaging crops. Growers can also pick up valuable tips about marketing to sell at restaurants, farmers markets, and Community Supported Agriculture programs. In addition, the collective will host group discussions and Q&A sessions. ( Joseph S. Pete)

Presented by the Gilbert & Sullivan Opera Company and the University of Chicago Chamber Orchestra W.S. Gilbert and Sir Arthur Sullivan’s

PATIENCE March 9-11 Mandel Hall, 1131 E. 57th Street

Poets Gone Wilde

Purchase Tickets Now! $25 General | $5 Student Online: tickets.uchicago.edu | Call: 773.702.ARTS (2787)

MARCH 7, 2018 ¬ SOUTH SIDE WEEKLY 15

SCREENINGS

All over the South Side Now thru March 11 oneearthfilmfest.org #OEFF2018

ONE EARTH FILM FESTIVAL

Fly by Light Dolores Chasing Ice Sea of Life Happening Making Waves Evolution of Organic What Lies Upstream

Blackstone Bicycle Works

Weekly Bike Sale Every Saturday at 12pm Wide selection of refurbished bikes! (most bikes are between $120 & $250)

follow us at @blackstonebikes blackstonebikes.org

Blackstone Bicycle Works is a bustling community bike shop that each year empowers over 200 boys and girls from Chicago’s south side—teaching them mechanical skills, job skills, business literacy and how to become responsible community members. In our year-round ‘earn and learn’ youth program, participants earn bicycles and accessories for their work in the shop. In addition, our youths receive after-school tutoring, mentoring, internships and externships, college and career advising, and scholarships.

Hours Tuesday - Friday 1pm - 6pm 12pm - 5pm Saturday

773 241 5458 6100 S. Blackstone Ave. Chicago, IL 60637

A PROGRAM OF