PO-PO, stealth community crime meeting [FP]

Forest Park is having another community crime meeting. See Forest Park Review (Seth Stern) for details on the last meeting.

The meeting will be Tuesday, August 29, at 6:30 PM at Village Hall, 517 Des Plaines, Lower Level Conference Room.

The village didn’t publicize the meeting through the newspaper or the online media outlets. And it didn’t contact Citizens United in Forest Park. (Gloria Backman claims she approached Police Chief Jim Ryan and suggested meetings like the ones the village is holding. Ryan supposedly rebuffed her.)

I’m trying to think why the village wouldn’t use diverse methods to publicize these crime meetings. And one possibility is that Calderone doesn’t want political opponents or people who know enough to ask tough questions there. He’d rather field a bunch of questions that are code for “there are too many Blacks and Latinos in Forest Park” and be sympathetic rather than actually address substantive questions about policing strategies. For example, someone who has been following the police department might ask, “Why does it seem like Chief Ryan and the police department put the more energy into firing cops who oppose Mayor Calderone politically than into preventing crime?”