<html>
<head>
<meta http-equiv="content-type" content="text/html; charset=ISO-8859-1">
</head>
<body text="#000000" bgcolor="#FFFFFF">
<b>Three meetings</b> all happening Tuesday night, Nov. 12th -<br>
<br>
<b>6pm Tue County Board committee-of-the-whole meeting, Brookens
Center</b><br>
Relevant to the No New Jails effort:<br>
<br>
This meeting includes a report on one of the actions recommended
by ILPP: pre-trial services. County officials say they've been
doing this for five weeks and are calling it a failure, and oh yes
they'd like to use the money elsewhere, as written up in the N-G
yesterday:<br>
<span
style="font-family:'.HelveticaNeueUI';line-height:19px;white-space:nowrap"><a
href="http://www.news-gazette.com/news/local/2013-11-10/group-pretrial-services-program-dud.html">http://www.news-gazette.com/news/local/2013-11-10/group-pretrial-services-program-dud.html</a><br>
<br>
Also to be considered: a request-for-proposals for groups to
provide post-jail re-entry services</span>.<br>
See the agenda ( <a
href="http://www.co.champaign.il.us/countybd/COW_PPA_JSS_F/2013/131112agenda.pdf">http://www.co.champaign.il.us/countybd/COW_PPA_JSS_F/2013/131112agenda.pdf</a>
)<br>
or the full Board packet ( <a
href="http://www.co.champaign.il.us/countybd/COW_PPA_JSS_F/2013/131112agendafull.pdf">h</a><a
href="http://www.co.champaign.il.us/countybd/COW_PPA_JSS_F/2013/131112agendafull.pdf">ttp://www.co.champaign.il.us/countybd/COW_PPA_JSS_F/2013/131112agendafull.pdf</a>
)<br>
<br>
<b>7pm Tue Urbana City Council</b><br>
They're to consider the IL Dept of Transportation statistics on
traffic stops in Urbana, which show - for whatever reason - that
people of color are far more likely to be stopped than whites are.
(The disparity is even greater in Urbana than in Champaign, or in
Chicago.) Durl writes:<br>
<br>
<blockquote type="cite">The Urbana City Council will be discussing
the implications of the racial disparities revealed in local IDOT
traffic stop data to determine if it merits approving our request
to form an Ad-Hoc Community/City Committee to study in more depth
and detail the ongoing racial disparities involving primarily
African-American drivers.
<div><br>
</div>
<div>Todd Rent, Urbana Human Relations Director, will likely make
a presentation to the city council addressing the traffic stop
data, the city's recent actions in response to those racial
disparities, and possibly some recommendations for further
action. Whether these will coincide with our request for the
creation of an ad-hoc committee is unknown.</div>
<div><br>
</div>
<div>Therefore it is critically important that all who can attend
and/or speak to this issue do so. [...]</div>
<div><br>
</div>
<div>In short, our goal on November 12 is NOT to try to explain
why these disparities exist or to place blame. But rather to
apply pressure to the City Council to open this process beyond
the walls of city hall to involve the community in a joint
dialogue with the UPD and city staff to study why these
disparities exist and to determine how they can be minimized.<br>
<br>
Specifically we want the city council to create an ad-hoc
committee composed at least 30% minority representation, at
least one representatives from each of our signatory
organizations, members of the UPD, and city staff/elected
officials. The committee's charge would be to take the time and
access the necessary resources to truly attempt to understand
the dynamic of what is causing these racial disparities and to
then make recommendations to address them.</div>
</blockquote>
If interested, please contact Durl Kruse (jandurl {at} comcast.net).<br>
<br>
<br>
And, ...<br>
<b>7pm Tuesday Urbana Free Library Trustees</b>, in the UFL Lewis
Auditorium<br>
<br>
<a href="http://urbanafreelibrary.org/12-nov-2013">http://urbanafreelibrary.org/12-nov-2013</a><br>
<br>
Among the new business: the Search Committee has a proposed job
announcement for the new director position.<br>
<br>
</body>
</html>