Waukegan Talk

What are the odds. :lol: WOW = War Of Worldcraft

All anyone has to do is take a drive DOWN to our gem of a lakefront to see the folly in all these meaningless and costly steps our city is taking to promote this town. It's all a bad joke, and it is on we, the property taxpayers. I have never seen a more unkempt, litter-strewn lakefront than ours. Do any of our alderman drive to the beach and look around? Perhaps they are too afraid of the citizens who hang out down there. Where is Frank Rizzo when you need him? Our politicians, apparently, don't want our police harassing the good citizens that make this community unliveable.

ClassicalLib17 Wrote:All anyone has to do is take a drive DOWN to our gem of a lakefront to see the folly in all these meaningless and costly steps our city is taking to promote this town. It's all a bad joke, and it is on we, the property taxpayers. I have never seen a more unkempt, litter-strewn lakefront than ours. Do any of our alderman drive to the beach and look around? Perhaps they are too afraid of the citizens who hang out down there. Where is Frank Rizzo when you need him? Our politicians, apparently, don't want our police harassing the good citizens that make this community unliveable.

You could pick up a stick, and a wastebag and start collecting trash. Maybe set a good example?

You could organize a "Clean Up Waukegan Beach Day" with a BBQ, and everyone attending cleans up a part of the lakefront beach or sidewalk!

I would assist if it is in June or July!!

When the average city employee costs Waukegan $93,000 per year (salary and benefits), when this level of compensation is locked in by union contracts, when employee expenditures are by far the lion's share of the city's budget, and when the only alternative to preserve Waukegan's solvency in this economic downturn is the painful one of laying off workers, there must be an upsurge in volunteerism to do on a voluntary basis what the city can no longer afford to do on its own. We either pull together, pitch in, and get our hands dirty, or sit back and watch the inevitable slide into the abyss. Bitching, at this point, gets us absolutely nowhere.

Dear Dennis, We could do alot of things, however, the problem we face in this community has more to do with bad people rather than uninformed people. We have a rather large criminal gang presence here, fed by our high school, which has a 40% drop-out rate, and 73% failure rate for our state high school exam. Warm and fuzzy is no longer an option for us. What we need is a strong police presence and a voting public to back them up. Thank you for your question and concern.

Dear believeinwaukegan, I agree, what we need is for the taxpayers to become active and demand city action on quality of life issues. Our police have been ham-strung by lawyers and their social justice counterparts that look for miscreants to represent in lawsuits, against the good taxpayers of this community, all for the economic benefit of themselves and their human garbage clients. I wonder,sometimes, who our state senator and state representative really represent in our state capitol. Waukegan is going down hill fast, and I think our city government's main concern should be civil obedience. Our fragile neighborhoods are on the brink of total breakdown.

Hey CL17, let's invite forum readers to post their ideas on where citizen volunteers could step in and "hold the fort." How about neighborhood patrolling to discourage everything from burglaries to loud music, driving streets and alleys to ID slums and blight needing code enforcement, clean up crews and events for public areas, etc. etc. etc. Believe me, all practical ideas would be given consideration by a city administration eager to find ways to improve our community without going further in debt.

Dear believeinwaukegan, I would be happy to serve my community on an unpaid volunteer basis, however, my state government won't provide me with the necessary state statute to protect myself. You surely don't expect local citizens to take an active part in watching and reporting miscreant behavior in their neighborhood without the necessary state statutes to protect themselves from retribution, prosecution and lawsuits. If the state of Illinois would adopt the same laws as Texas and Florida, I would be happy to help. P.S. I call the police all the time and talk to the police brass about these very issues and I don't get the feeling that they are interested in my input. I wonder if the city council is to blame. Note that I didn't mention the mayor, yet.

Many times when the police come out to deal with a noise complaint they just shrug their shoulders and basically say we've got nothing to complain about because it's not 'that bad' on our block. Can't even get a complaint written up when multiple people are standing outside at 1:00AM in their pajamas begging the officer to let them sign a complaint.

When something like this happens, when you feel that the police have not properly responded to a complaint about a neighborhood nuisance, please let me know. That's the only way that I can follow up, get to the bottom of it, and try to make sure that it does not happen again.