The news last week that Forest Park police inadvertently opened the backdoor of its license plate reader technology to ICE is disturbing confirmation that, in this moment of vicious overreach by the Trump administration, when it comes to our immigrant neighbors, strong questioning of this technology is warranted.
ICE had access to local data for over a year before the Secretary of State discovered the situation and contacted the village’s technology provider and Forest Park officials to shut the door. The Illinois Secretary of State Alex Giannoulias’office issued a press release on the situation.
We trust the village’s explanation that a police detective investigating a case errored in allowing perhaps 200 outside entities access to the local data.
We’re less convinced of the efficacy of this intense surveillance technology as essential to local crime fighting. We would ask the mayor to ask the police chief for a thoroughgoing presentation which makes plain why this is an essential tool.
As Mayor Rory Hoskins said candidly in an interview last week, Forest Park is surrounded by villages with large Hispanic populations, like Berwyn, Cicero and much of Proviso Township. Those residents inevitably pass through Forest Park regularly and have their license plate data captured.
As we see each day, and now with ICE intensifying its assault on immigrants in Chicago, this out-of-control agency needs no provocation for grabbing people off our streets. Forest Park, as a rightly progressive community, should take clear steps to make sure it is not inadvertently providing any basis of support for the immoral actions of the Trump administration.
How many dispensaries?
The Review reports today that Forest Park’s third dispensary, Mint Cannabis, will open by late fall at Harlem and Roosevelt.
We are in favor of legal cannabis, and we see this new commercial use as an upgrade from the obsolete currency exchange which has served as a gateway to Forest Park for decades. That said, the story by our Jessica Mordacq raises some concerns as she quotes both a Mint Cannabis spokesperson and Steve Glinke of village hall acknowledging that it is not possible to predict how much revenue the third dispensary will generate in local pot taxes for the village.
It was only a few years back, when Illinois legalized the regulated sale of cannabis, that towns clamored for licensed dispensaries amid speculation of the sales tax bonanza they would fuel. As the number of outlets has proliferated and the overall cannabis industry has hit the doldrums, those rosy predictions may be unreachable.
Certainly, it is time for Forest Park to figure out a way to cap the number of local dispensaries at three.