Community Corner
Remove Shorewood From Pritzker's Restore Illinois Plan: Mayor
Shorewood Mayor Rick Chapman urged Gov. J.B. Pritzker to let his village reopen its businesses sooner than Cook County is allowed.
SHOREWOOD, IL — Shorewood Mayor Rick Chapman has added his name to a list of Will County mayors who are urging Illinois Gov. J.B. Pritzker to remove their communities from the governor's Restore Illinois Plan that includes Cook County, one of the nation's hardest hit areas in terms of new coronavirus cases and deaths.
The May 15 letter was submitted to Pritzker on letterhead from the Will County Governmental League, which is located in Plainfield. Chapman was one of 24 mayors who signed the document requesting that Pritzker change his Illinois map model that governs how fast particular regions of the state can reopen during the pandemic.
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"For some perspective, two-thirds of WCGL communities have under 25,000 residents, and all but five are smaller than a single ward within the City of Chicago," the letter signed by Shorewood's mayor reads. "To equate these communities to others in the Northeast Region is unfair to our residents, devastating to our economy, and harmful to the overall well-being of our residents."
The letter explains that, "Many of the businesses in our communities see less patrons in a day than some 'essential' big box retailers see in an hour. Subsequently, these businesses can implement proper social distancing precautions and move to phase 3 or 4 of the Restore Illinois Plan sooner."
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Chapman and other area mayors noted in the letter that Will County Governmental League communities should be evaluated in the governor's Restore Illinois Plan "as a county, or, at a minimum, as a part of one of the other regions of the State that more closely aligns with our population and density. It’s also worth noting that the EMS zones used in the Restore Illinois Plan were established in the early 1970s, and do not reflect today’s distribution of health care resources across the region."
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