Hoping to free up more police officers to respond to shootings, carjackings and other serious crimes, a key City Council committee greenlit the development of a “no brainer” pilot program to assign parking-related 911 calls to the Finance Department rather than the Chicago Police Department.
The proposal came after an analysis in two police districts that found 10% of calls answered by police are related to parking violations, said lead sponsor Ald. Matt Martin (47th).
“At a time when we know we’re struggling to fill vacant positions, at a time when people, despite public safety stats moving in the right direction, still aren’t satisfied with the end results, I think that this is a common sense, meaningful next step that we can take,” Martin said.
The “alternative response model” would first be tested in the city’s 8th and 19th Police Districts on the Southwest and Northwest Sides, respectively.
Wednesday’s vote in the city’s Public Safety Committee was a preliminary first step to a pilot program that appeared to have broad support by the council and police department. The measure passed creates a working group to finalize the details of the pilot.
The estimated $2.6 million pilot would tap Finance Department aides, who already enforce some parking violations, to respond to 911 calls about abandoned vehicles or blocked bike lanes.
That’s as the police department has struggled to fill vacant positions and has maintained roughly 11,700 sworn officers over the past three years, the resolution said.
Parking enforcement by the Finance Department would be active from 6 a.m. to 10 p.m., with two separate shifts, Monday through Sunday. Up to four enforcers would be on the clock in each district.
Police would respond to parking violations after hours when Finance employees are no longer working.
The cost of testing the program in two districts would be $2.6 million, covering everything from ticket printers to additional staff.
But with parking enforcers issuing 5 to 6 tickets an hour, the pilot could rake in $4.4 million in net revenue, said members of the city’s community policing council, who worked with CPD, and the Office of Emergency Management and Communications to draft the legislation.
“It’s a no brainer,” said Ald. Derrick Curtis (18th). “It pays for itself.”
Ald. Andre Vasquez (40th) said “the pilot can’t start soon enough.”
“If you’re asking any of the alders in any of the 50 wards, ‘Would you rather have an officer alert and attentive in case there’s a potential shooting, or shots fired, or putting a ticket on a car?’ It’s not a hard question for any of us,” he said.
One of the only sticking points on the proposal was that it doesn’t specify when and how Finance Department aides can tap tow trucks in “immediate hazardous conditions,” rather than issuing tickets.
“We need to somehow bring that into this conversation,” said Ald. Brian Hopkins (2nd), whose committee the proposal falls under. “I’m talking about people parked in a way that creates an immediate hazardous condition or blocks other people from being able to access their vehicle.”
Public Safety Committee chair Ald. Desmon Yancy (5th) also insisted that the pilot avoid repeating a history of disproportionate ticketing in majority-Black and Latino communities. Sponsors vowed to consider equity in their final proposal.
The police department is on board with the idea as long as calls are still dispatched on the radio so that officers can track whether the Finance Department needs support, and that license plates are still run through a police system that flags stolen vehicles, according to Chicago police Deputy Chief Jill Stevens.