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PRESS ROOM: Morgan Park Beverly Hills Business Association gets development aid

CHICAGO CRUSADER — The National Main Street Center announced it has selected the Morgan Park Beverly Hills Business Association (MPBHBA) to participate in its Chicago UrbanMain program. The MPBHBA will receive technical assistance and capacity building to foster community-driven economic development in the Beverly/Morgan Park neighborhood on the far South Side of Chicago. This work is made possible by generous support from Groupon.

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By The Chicago Crusader

The National Main Street Center announced it has selected the Morgan Park Beverly Hills Business Association (MPBHBA) to participate in its Chicago UrbanMain program. The MPBHBA will receive technical assistance and capacity building to foster community-driven economic development in the Beverly/Morgan Park neighborhood on the far South Side of Chicago. This work is made possible by generous support from Groupon.

UrbanMain, a program of the National Main Street Center, is designed to help restore economic vitality and promote quality of life for residents in under-resourced older and historic neighborhood commercial districts. The program utilizes community-driven economic development tools and services to bring sustainable growth back to these traditional neighborhood centers. UrbanMain offers specialized services, professional development, networking, and advocacy for the field of urban commercial district practitioners. The UrbanMain Chicago team will work with the MPBHBA over an 18-month timeframe to provide comprehensive planning, extensive community engagement, trainings, and targeted market analysis to support corridor leaders, city officials, property owners, and residents in developing and implementing community revitalization strategies.

“The Morgan Park Beverly Hills Business Association is honored and thrilled to work with the National Main Street Center and Groupon as part of its UrbanMain program,” said Caroline Connors, Executive Director of the Morgan Park Beverly Hills Business Association. “With the technical services offered by UrbanMain, we hope to build the capacity of the MPBHBA and create innovative strategies for increased economic growth and development in the community.”

For nearly 40 years, the MPBHBA has worked to support small businesses and strengthen the economic vitality of their commercial corridors. In collaboration with other businesses, community groups, and elected officials, MPBHBA has worked to create a more active local commerce destination for their neighbors in the city and suburbs. However, the decline of brick-and-mortar retail businesses and increased competition from neighboring suburban municipalities have posed challenges for the community’s Western Avenue corridor. The Beverly/Morgan Park UrbanMain program will focus on strengthening the Western Avenue corridor’s role as an economic engine for the community.

“This area is known for the South Side Irish St. Patrick’s Day Parade once a year, but they also have a range of activities, diverse architecture, and some great destinations,” said Dionne Baux, Director of Urban Programs at the National Main Street Center. “I want residents to feel like they don’t need to leave the neighborhood to access amenities. I was really impressed by the MPBHBA’s dedicated staff, business owners, residents, community organizations, and political leaders who are willing to work collaboratively to make Beverly/Morgan Park a destination in Chicago, and I’m looking forward to working with them.”

About the National Main Street Center:

The National Main Street Center has been helping revitalize older and historic commercial districts for close to 40 years. Today, its network of more than 1,600 neighborhoods and communities, rural and urban, share both a commitment to place and to building stronger communities through preservation-based economic development. The organization is a non-profit subsidiary of the National Trust for Historic Preservation. For more information, visit www.urbanmain.org.

About the Morgan Park Beverly Hills Business Association:

The Morgan Park Beverly Hills Business Association (MPBHBA) represents the interests of more than 400 Beverly/Morgan Park businesses. They are a nonprofit organization that advocates for, promotes, connects, and educates member businesses. One of 75 Neighborhood Business Development Centers in Chicago, the MPBHBA has a solid track record of supporting local businesses for close to 40 years. The MPBHBA serves a square area between 89th and 119th streets, from Vincennes and Sacramento avenues. The district includes two Special Service Areas (SSAs): the Western Avenue SSA 20 and the Walden Parkway SSA 64. These SSA programs fund expanded services and programs through localized property tax levies. Learn more at www.mpbhba.org.

This article originally appeared in the Chicago Crusader

Activism

‘Jim Crow Was and Remains Real in Alameda County (and) It Is What We Are Challenging and Trying to Fix Every Day,’ Says D.A. Pamela Price

“The legacy of Jim Crow is not just a legacy in Alameda County. It’s real. It is what is happening and how (the system is) operating, and that is what we are challenging and trying to fix every day,” said D.A. Price, speaking to the Oakland Post by telephone for over an hour last Saturday. “Racial disparities in this county have never been effectively eliminated, and we are applying and training our lawyers on the (state’s) Racial Justice Act, and we’re implementing it in Alameda County every day,” she said.

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Exclusive interview with County D.A. Price days before recall election. Photo by Ken Epstein.
Exclusive interview with County D.A. Price days before recall election. Photo by Ken Epstein.

By Ken Epstein

Part One

Alameda County District Attorney Pamela Price gave an exclusive in-depth interview, speaking with the Oakland Post about the continuing legacy of Jim Crow injustice that she is working to overturn and her major achievements, including:

  • restoring and expanding services for victims of crime,
  • finding funding for an alternative to incarceration and/or prosecution for substance use and mental health-related misdemeanors and
  • aggressively prosecuting corporations for toxic pollution and consumer violations.

“The legacy of Jim Crow is not just a legacy in Alameda County. It’s real. It is what is happening and how (the system is) operating, and that is what we are challenging and trying to fix every day,” said D.A. Price, speaking to the Oakland Post by telephone for over an hour last Saturday.

“Racial disparities in this county have never been effectively eliminated, and we are applying and training our lawyers on the (state’s) Racial Justice Act, and we’re implementing it in Alameda County every day,” she said.

Passed by the State Legislature, this law “is an extremely helpful tool for us to address the racial disparities that continue to exist in our system,” she said.

(The law addresses) “the racial disparities that we find in our juvenile justice system, where 86% of all felony juvenile arrests in the county are Black or Brown children.

“We trained the entire workforce on the Racial Justice Act. We are creating a data system that will allow us to look at the trends and to clearly identify where racism has infected the process. We know that where law enforcement is still engaging in racial profiling and unfair targeting and arresting, we’re trying to make sure we’re catching that.”

Many people do not know much about the magnitude of Alameda County District Attorney’s job. Her office is a sprawling organization with 10 offices serving 1.6 million people living in 14 cities and six unincorporated areas, with a budget this year of about $104 million.

Asked about her major achievements since she took office last year, she is especially proud of the expanded and renewed victims’ services division in the DA’s Office, she said.

“We have expanded and reorganized the entire claims division so that we are now expediting as much as possible the benefits that victims are entitled to. Under my predecessor, they were having to wait anywhere, sometimes as long as a year, to 400 days to get benefits.

“Claims had been denied that should not have been denied. So, we’re helping people file appeals on claims that were denied under her tenure,” D.A. Price said.

“Under my predecessor, (the victims’ service office) was staffed by people who were not trained to provide trauma-informed services to victims, and yet they were the only people that the victims were in contact with. We immediately stopped that practice,” she continued.

“We had to expand the advocate workforce to include people who speak Hmong, the indigenous language of so many people in this county who are victims of crime.”

More African Americans advocates were hired because they represent the largest percentage of crime victims and we hired a transgender advocate and advocates who speak Cantonese and Mandarin. “The predominantly Chinese American community in Oakland was not being served by advocates who speak the language,” said D Price

“We reduced the lag time from the delivery of benefits to victims from 300 to 400 days down to less than 60 days.”

She increased victim advocacy by 38%, providing critical support to over 22,500 victims, a key component of community safety.

Other major achievements:

  • She recently filed 12 felony charges against a man accused of multiple armed robberies, demonstrating her seriousness about prosecuting violent crimes
  • In October, a jury delivered a guilty verdict in the double murder trial of former Alameda County Sheriff’s Deputy Devin Williams, showing DA Price’s commitment to holding law enforcement accountable.
  • She recently charged a man and woman in unincorporated San Leandro with murder, felony unlawful firearm activity, and felony carrying a loaded firearm in public.
  • A. Price’s office was awarded a $6 million grant by the state for its CARES Navigation Center diversion program. In partnership with the UnCuffed Project at a Seventh Day Adventist Church in Oakland, the program provides resources and referrals for services to residents as an alternative to incarceration and/or prosecution for substance use and mental health-related misdemeanors.

“This is the largest grant investment in the history of the Alameda County District Attorney’s Office,” said D.A. Price.

She explained that the program now has a mobile unit. “We have washers and dryers. We have a living room. We have a television. It’s a place where people can decompress, get themselves stabilized,” she said.

The project has “the ability to refer people to housing, to more long-term mental health services, to social services, and to assist them in other ways.”

  • Her office joined in a $49 million statewide settlement with Kaiser Health Plan and Hospitals, resolving allegations that the healthcare provider unlawfully disposed of hazardous waste, medical waste, and protected health information. The settlement, which involved the state and a half dozen counties, resulted in Alameda County receiving $7 million for its residents.
  • DA Price charged a former trucking company employee for embezzling over $4.3 million, showing her commitment to tackling white-collar crime.
  • For the first time, Alameda County won a criminal grand jury indictment of a major corporation with two corporate officers that have been sources of pollution. “They had a record of settlements and pollution in this community, and they had a fire that constituted a grave danger,” she said.

 

Attorney Walter Riley contributed to this article.

See Part Two

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Activism

Oakland Post: Week of October 30 – November 5, 2024

The printed Weekly Edition of the Oakland Post: Week of October 30 – November 5, 2024

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Business

Chevron Reports Progress in Flaring, Emissions at Community Town Hall

At the first in a series of community town halls on Oct. 16, Chevron Richmond reported a reduction in year-over-year flaring incidents, both in number and duration, and detailed new technologies and processes that will further drive down emissions and heighten community awareness about operations. Chevron employees also answered questions from the community and listened to concerns at the town hall, which was hosted by Ceres Policy Research and held at CoBiz in downtown Richmond.

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Community member Kathleen Sullivan speaks at the Chevron town hall. Photo courtesy Richmond Standard.
Community member Kathleen Sullivan speaks at the Chevron town hall. Photo courtesy Richmond Standard.

By Mike Aldax

The Richmond Standard

At the first in a series of community town halls on Oct. 16, Chevron Richmond reported a reduction in year-over-year flaring incidents, both in number and duration, and detailed new technologies and processes that will further drive down emissions and heighten community awareness about operations.

Chevron employees also answered questions from the community and listened to concerns at the town hall, which was hosted by Ceres Policy Research and held at CoBiz in downtown Richmond.

Similar town halls will be held twice per year over the next five years as part of a settlement agreement with the Bay Area Air Quality Management District (BAAQMD).

The goal is to increase transparency about flaring and increase opportunities for the community to get answers to their questions about potential impacts to the community.

A key output is the creation of a Community Action Plan, or CAP. The CAP aims to create a two-way dialogue between Chevron and neighbors around flaring and environmental compliance.

“Chevron’s focus in this process is one of learning and engagement,” said Brian Hubinger, public affairs manager at Chevron Richmond. “We felt the most efficient way was to bring together a broad selection of community members rather than just think about what it would take to comply with the settlement agreement.”

The first town hall drew a few dozen members of the community, including Chevron employees, representatives of fence-line neighborhoods and members of local environmental organizations.

During the event, Chevron employees reported that 19 BAAQMD-reportable flaring incidents occurred at the refinery from October 2022 to September 2023 with a total duration of 270 hours. During the same period this year, 18 flaring incidents occurred with a total duration of 159 hours, marking a 41% decrease in duration.

Further gains are expected with the implementation of Flare IQ, set to be installed this year and next on all of the refinery’s flaring systems. Flare IQ is described as a supercomputer with an algorithm that gathers data from operations and enables employees to address potential issues before they occur.

Chevron also reported a 40% decrease in particulate matter emissions since the completion of the refinery modernization project in 2018.

In addition, flare gas volume related to Chevron’s new hydrogen plant project, built as part of the modernization project, decreased by 85% since 2019. The hydrogen plant has also reportedly made the refinery 20% more efficient.

“We’re really proud about that,” said Kris Battleson, manager of health, safety and environment at Chevon Richmond.

Neighborhood council leaders joined the president of the local NAACP in lauding the effort toward transparency and accountability. Among them was Vernon Whitmore, president of the Sante Fe Neighborhood Council and member of the 15-person CAP committee.

“The way we were able to talk openly and freely with Chevron – honestly, bluntly and frankly – while developing this program was very good,” Whitmore said. “And it was something that was well-needed at this time.”

Still, residents are skeptical, including Kathleen Sullivan, a longtime community advocate who also serves on the CAP committee. But she added, “you can’t complain about something and not be involved in the solution.”

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