Zoning change along Broadway will help neighborhood thrive

As an Edgewater resident living west of Broadway, north of Foster Avenue, I am thrilled that the Chicago Plan Commission, with the support of the 46th, 47th, and 48th Ward alders, has approved the Broadway Land Use Framework. But this is just the first step. Both sides of Broadway need to be upzoned per the Department of Planning and Development plan to allow more housing.

The public has invested $2.1 billion into modernizing the Red Line — including four new stations opening this year. But without zoning policies that allow more people to live near this world-class infrastructure, we will fail to fully realize that investment.

While naysayers will always find fault, the planning department has run an excellent, transparent process, holding three public meetings, including two in-person sessions, and receiving 1,500 public comments. The overwhelming majority — including many from residents west of Broadway and north of Foster — support this plan. The 48th Ward office has also been highly engaged in the process. Ald. Leni Manaa-Hoppenworth and her office have spent countless hours meeting with block clubs, businesses and residents, ensuring that all perspectives are heard.

My family recently relocated back to Chicago from San Francisco. We saw how restrictive zoning, endless community meetings and redundant traffic studies fueled an affordability crisis. Skyrocketing rents forced working- and middle-class residents out of their neighborhoods. If Chicago does not act now — not just with this plan, but with broader reforms like eliminating parking minimums, re-legalizing accessory dwelling units and permitting four-flats — we risk becoming the next San Francisco.

For decades, caps on how much housing can be built have held Broadway back, turning it into a car-centric corridor instead of the walkable, transit-friendly street it should be. According to the planning department, not a single apartment or condo building has been built on the west side of Broadway north of Foster since it was downzoned a generation ago in a move supported by a minority of Edgewater residents. That’s why this side of the street is still lined with suburban-style strip malls, which are completely out of place in a dense, transit-rich neighborhood.

I encourage Chicagoans to walk north of Foster on Broadway, take a look around, and ask: Do we want to preserve parking lots and strip malls or build a thriving neighborhood for everyone?

Neville Hemming, Edgewater

From a garage concert to an international music movement

Growing up in Chicago’s northwest suburbs, I was surrounded by music from a young age. My dad’s band, Out of Storage, rehearsed in a Hawthorn Woods storage unit, and every weekend, I tagged along, absorbing Fleetwood Mac, Neil Young and other legends. That love for music led me to a job at WXRT, where I found myself at the intersection of the music industry and my own unspoken dreams.

At WXRT, I wasn’t an artist — I was in sales, grinding to hit my numbers so I wouldn’t lose the opportunity to be around music. But moments kept happening that reminded me where I truly wanted to be. I’ll never forget walking into the coffee room and seeing Sheryl Crow, rehearsing in the next room, only to have her catch my eye and wink. Or Lin Brehmer, my Secret Santa one year, gifting me a blue and green guitar strap — the perfect, almost painfully perfect, reminder that I wanted to be on the other side of the mic.

For years, I kept my love for music separate, afraid that if I pursued it, I’d lose credibility in my professional career. I never wanted to ask for favors or seem like I was just waiting to jump ship. But in time, I realized that hiding your passion only holds you back. Now, I am a singer-songwriter, and I let my creative work coexist with my other projects, never compartmentalizing who I am again.

That realization led me to found Beats for Relief, a nonprofit dedicated to using live music events to support charitable causes. What started as a garage concert in Lake Zurich has since grown into an international movement, with events in Chicago, Los Angeles, Milan and beyond, raising over $100,000 for nonprofits. And yet, Chicago remains home, the city that shaped me and continues to inspire me.

For anyone out there hesitating to follow their dreams out of fear, I hope my story reminds you: the moment you stop holding yourself back, everything changes.

Tia Einarsen, founder, Beats for Relief

Shame on City Council members who greenlit bond plan

To the 26 alderpersons and our mayor, what were you thinking when you passed the bond issue? That it was business-as-usual to saddle taxpayers with a huge debt? That you were passing hard decisions along to future generations and making them have to deal with the financial repercussions of your decision?

It is time to stop kicking the can down the street. It is time to do your job and deal with the financial issues now, not later. If that requires taxes or cuts then that is what needs to be done. Passing the issue along does not solve the problem, it only postpones it. You have taken the coward’s way out. Hopefully for each of you it is your last years in the City Council. You don’t deserve to represent Chicago citizens.

Peter Felitti, Ravenswood

Block cellphone classroom mandates

While the headline of the Sun-Times article asked if classrooms should be “no-phone” zones?, an alternative question should have been, “What’s worth legislating?” In the case of cellphones, sure, they can be disruptive, distracting and even obnoxious. Yet many teachers have found ways to avoid frustration and surveillance by creating agreements with students about when and how to use phones.

Teachers have used the issue of cellphones and technology to teach fact and fiction (What do we know for sure? Why do we believe this?), research (What do we want to understand? How can we find out?) and history (Was passing notes and daydreaming the same as texting and playing games to avoid boredom?).

Personally I’d like to know why this has become a political issue. When we legislate policy, we must also ensure its implementation. Especially at this time in history, I’d be cautious about one more thing that can get schools, educators and learners in trouble.

Margery Ginsberg, retired professor of education, Lincoln Park

Federal job cuts hurt in many ways

Thanks for the recent Sun-Times editorial calling out the disastrous firings of workers across the country and around the world. (‘Federal worker firings by Trump, Musk are chaos, not cost-cutting”).

At the U.S. Agency for International Development alone, 13,124 confirmed lost American jobs and over 55,000 confirmed global jobs lost, not to mention farmers unable to sell their crops for food aid. It is estimated that during this 90-day freeze, nearly 60,000 newborn babies will die without resuscitation. And of course U.S. global aid goes far beyond just the saving of newborns, but without the staff, the structure to deliver aid is crumbling. We can help by asking our members of Congress to speak up and turn this catastrophe around. Send them the editorial and ask for action!

Willie Dickerson, Snohomish, Washington

Musk deserves praise for cleaning house

Thank you, Elon Musk

Musk and his entire team deserve a huge thank you for exposing all of the corrupt spending that has been happening for decades in our government. And they are just scratching the surface.

And anyone who is in hysterics over the Department of Government Efficiency’s team must be in on the scam. Otherwise, why would anyone oppose saving tax dollars, and cutting wasteful and/or fraudulent spending?

We the taxpayers are being extorted and robbed by our own government. It needs to end now.

Mike Daly, Grayslake

Raise our voices louder against Trump’s desecration of the rule of law

I have been a member of the Illinois Bar for 52 years, all the while respecting and defending the importance of the rule of law that is a foundation that holds together our democracy.  While there are many issues relating to Donald Trump’s autocratic, if not dictatorial, ways in his little over a month in office to which I could take aim, there is now another that becomes further symbolism of Trump’s continued assault on rule of law.  No, I do not speak of his Jan. 6 pardons or wanting to broaden them. Nor do I speak of his violating a lower court’s order to unfreeze funds. 

This item is an executive order Trump just signed, taking aim at the private, prominent Washington D.C. law firm, Covington & Burling, whose lawyers provided pro bono service to special counsel Jack Smith, unrelated to his investigation of Trump that led to indictments in D.C. and in Florida — both since dismissed upon Trump’s arrival to the White House. Because the firm agreed to now represent Smith in any government investigation of him, Trump has ordered the suspension of security clearances for any of those lawyers. It will be unable to review classified documentation essential to its representation; thus, the government is purposefully denying Smith the right to effective assistance of legal counsel. Law firms not like the powerhouse Covington firm could also become targets in Trump’s crosshairs if they are ever approached by anyone from whom Trump wants to exact such revenge for properly using the rule of law against him before his becoming president.  

We the people, certainly members of any organized state bar like Illinois’, need to raise our voices a decibel or more than normal to combat Trump’s whittling away of the rule of law here, which is, to reiterate, sacred to our democracy’s continued existence.     

Miles J. Zaremski, Highland Park

Free press needs to call out Trump’s obvious lies

I realize that the Sun-Times doesn’t have the resources of The New York Times or the editorially compromised Washington Post, but when Donald Trump or his sycophants, tell an obvious lie — and there are many and constant — it is your duty and obligation to scream out the truth about the big ones. Otherwise they become normalized and accepted as fact. Remember that it only took Hitler a little over 50 days to destroy Germany’s government. If we don’t want the same thing happening here, the free press (at least for now) needs to do everything possible to prevent it. Otherwise the press becomes complicit. Trump is not a normal president and should not be treated as such.

Ken Weiss, Palatine

Elon and Trump, partners in crime?

If I wanted to rob a bank?

I would quietly speak to the right people and take time to plan it. I would put people loyal to me on the board of directors. I would replace the bank’s president and the vice president with people loyal to me. I would remove the cameras from the bank. I would fire the bank guards. I would shut off the alarms. I would severely reduce the teller staff.

And then I would rob the bank.

If I wanted to rob our country? I would follow the plan above, but on a much larger scale.

Michael Cronin, Riverside

‘Gold card’ citizenship visa

Will the applicants for the $5 million “gold card” visa with a potential pathway to U.S. citizenship be vetted as well as Donald Trump vets his cabinet selections, you know, honest, ethical individuals? Who will be tasked with following this money?

Lauretta Hart, West Ridge