City council checks Johnson on ShotSpotter
For someone who repeatedly bills himself as a collaborator the mayor says I a lot
Given he was just a toddler in 1980 Mayor Brandon Johnson could not have known or been aware that the Detroit Lions that year adopted Queen’s “Another One Bites the Dust” as the team’s theme song. Folks soon may be attaching that song to the Johnson Administration-especially when it comes to the gunfire detection technology ShotSpotter.
This week two alderpersons, David Moore (17th) and Tony Beale (9th) convinced a council committee to look into wresting control of ShotSpotter from Johnson and let each alderperson decide whether he or she wants the technology in their respective ward. Twenty-fourth Alderperson, Monique Scott, sided with Moore and Beale over taking the reins from Johnson.
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Because Johnson was a puppet of the Chicago Teachers Union, an outfit with limited to no experience involving government, his campaign was replete with promises and pledges about how he essentially, was going to turn local government on its head-including dumping ShotSpotter-over the objections of the top brass at the Chicago Police Department.
However, within his first two months in office, word got out that a $10 million contract for ShotSpotter had been “accidentally” signed by the automatic signature device used for many of the official documents that mayor needs to sign, none of his minions explained how a document for a service that was to no longer be in play got in a position to go through that machine.
Two months ago, just before the contract was set to expire Johnson, and instead of letting it run out, the mayor, as he is prone to do, flip flopped and said he wanted an extension until after the Democratic National Convention leaves Chicago after week-long stint here in August. ShotSpotter’s parent company agreed to extension-but at a price tag of more than the cost of an entire year. Johnson, not known for his frugality agreed, which meant there is still and expiration date in September.
Because Johnson is prone to forget or overlook city government is an autocracy; he never conferred with the city council about the expenditures or the process.
At some point, hopefully very soon, the mayor will understand that he is part of local government, and not government itself.