News-Sun, November 9, 2010

Shields Township crowd calls to spare services

By Dan Moran

LAKE BLUFF — Shields Township board members were met with emotion and appeals for compassion Tuesday afternoon during a special meeting called “to discuss the functions and services (and) the personnel and costs required to provide them.”

After board members reviewed the costs and hours of such services as the North Chicago taxi subsidy program and the township food pantry, several people in the standing-room-only crowd in the township community room looked to underscore the necessity of social-aid programs in the current economy.

“Never in my 23 years of ministry have I seen conditions as desperate as they are,” said the Rev. Christine Chokoian of First Presbyterian Church in Lake Forest. “Now would be the last time, the last time, to cut services. It would be devastating … We need you to do the job of a township.”

Jimmy Baldwin, owner of JB Limousine and Taxicab Service in North Chicago, said he often transports senior citizens to dialysis treatments whether or not they have a travel voucher from the township.

“I still take them to dialysis because we all have to help out,” Baldwin said to the board. “If you all have anything in mind about taking away from that program, pray on it … Everybody sitting in this room, please, do not look down. If you’re going to look down, please be praying, because people need it.”

While no specific cuts were discussed during the 90-minute session, trustees did conduct a general review of such things as the emergency assistance program, which provides such things as money toward rent, mortgage payments and utility bills.

Supervisor Gale Strenger Wayne, reading from a prepared statement, acknowledged to the crowd that she ran for office in 2008 on a platform of fiscal accountability and transparency. But she added that she was “stunned” to find out the reality of the services provided, mentioning that two fellow graduates of Lake Forest High School came to her and applied for aid.

“Who are these people in need? You’d be surprised … They are our neighbors,” Strenger Wayne said. “Are all of our services worth keeping? I say yes, without a doubt.”

One discussion of a possible change in service came when trustees Lynn Baehr of Lake Forest, Laura Carney of Lake Bluff and Mary Woodson of North Chicago spoke in favor of opening a food pantry in North Chicago, saying they feel most users of the pantry come from that community.

“We should evaluate whether we’re providing the services where they’re needed,” Carney said. “I feel like we should be working with the churches to get a viable food pantry in North Chicago.”

“The closer you can get the pantries to the people, the better off you are,” Baehr said. “We need to serve the most people in the best way.”

While Strenger Wayne said, “I don’t disagree with that,” she added that she feels the main pantry, which is open Wednesday and Thursdays at the township center, should remain in operation. She also suggested setting up a mobile pantry service.

Carney at one point explained her own rationale for a review of the specific costs associated with township services, including things like passport and Metra discount pass issuance, saying she feels the scope of the township might have grown too large.

“We do need to figure out how much staff time is spent on all of these things,” Carney said. “Township government has grown tremendously … People say, ‘Take this on, take that on,’ and they think there aren’t any costs, but there are costs associated with it, and we’ve got to figure out what they are.”

Former township highway commissioner Dan Rogers, recalling that “I just didn’t get it” when it came to social services during his years as a trustee, told the board that he found the subject matter of Tuesday’s special meeting “unfathomable.”

“If you guys came here to destroy services, you ran for the wrong office,” Rogers said. “I’m mortified that you’re up here thinking about gutting these services.”