SOUTH CHICAGO — City officials are backing Ald. Peter Chico’s (10th) choice to replace the business group that manages South Chicago’s main commercial district, overriding opposition from neighbors and the district’s board.
The Department of Planning and Development will support the Calumet Area Industrial Commission’s bid to oversee Special Service Area No. 5, assistant commissioner Mark Roschen said at a meeting Thursday. A City Council vote on the matter is expected next month.
The special service area is a taxing district which funds beautification, security and other programs along Commercial Avenue between 87th Street and South Chicago Avenue, and along 92nd Street between South Chicago and Harbor avenues.
The city contracts with nonprofits to manage special service areas, and they are overseen by commissioners appointed by the mayor. The planning department supervises the agreements. The South Chicago contract went up for bid this year.
South Chicago Parents and Friends, which has managed the district since 2017, resigned effective July 1 and did not seek to renew its contract, executive director Thomas Schell said.
“We feel we’ve done our work, and it was our hope that the next service provider coming through would be as excellent as we have been, so we’ll see,” Schell said.
Chico has maneuvered for months to install the Calumet Area Industrial Commission. When neighbors pushed back, Chico agreed to table the issue until the spring bidding process.
Commissioners voted for the South Shore Chamber to take over management duties in a separate meeting this month. The group also operates Special Service Area No. 42 along 71st Street and Stony Island Avenue. The Southeast Chicago Chamber of Commerce also bid on the position.
But it was the Calumet group that secured the city’s backing for the role.
“I am a firm believer that the commissioners, who are appointed by the mayor, should have the say-so on who they want their next service provider to be,” Schell said at the meeting. “At the end of it, it’s the commissioners who have to work with that service provider. I just think that not taking their recommendation is not a good thing.”
The Calumet Area Industrial Commission’s bid is set to be introduced to the council’s Economic, Capital and Technology Development committee June 4 and the full City Council on June 12.
If it’s approved, the Calumet group would take over by July 1 “so there is no lapse in services” for the taxing district, Roschen said.
Residents have credited the district — under South Chicago Parents and Friends’ watch — for helping spark development, streetscape improvements and relationships among locals after decades of disinvestment in the community.
They’ve also praised Parents and Friends for navigating the district through upheaval, after the previous service provider was banned for life from doing business with the city.
Some attendees of Thursday’s meeting said they intend to pressure development committee members and other alderpeople to vote against the Calumet group’s bid once it’s introduced.
“The [district] should be independent of the local politics that will change in four years, and it is disappointing that the voice of the community [and] the voice of commissioners was overridden by one person,” said Crystal Vance Guerra, the district’s program manager under South Chicago Parents and Friends.
Chico did not attend the meeting and did not immediately respond to a request for comment. He has not elaborated on why he supports the Calumet group.
Chico told the planning department the Calumet Area Industrial Commission “had the most diverse staff” and was best suited to bring “resources and assistance” to businesses in the district, Roschen said.
Roschen repeatedly claimed the planning department needs the support of local alderpeople to introduce an ordinance to contract with a service provider. When neighbors asked what policy includes such a requirement, he referred the matter to the department’s legislative team.
Schell asked Roschen during the meeting why, given the city’s stated need for aldermanic support, the industrial commission was able to move forward without support from Ald. Greg Mitchell (7th), as district boundaries cross into Mitchell’s ward.
Mitchell was “nonresponsive” to the department’s requests for his input, and only 4 percent of the district is in the 7th Ward, Roschen said.
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