Kudos to Gov. J.B. Pritzker for shutting down the city’s bid to build a migrant tent camp on a former industrial site in Brighton Park.
Armed with findings from the Illinois Environmental Protection Agency, the governor rightfully stepped up and halted construction Tuesday, citing “serious environmental concerns” about the location — despite the city’s claims that heavy metals and other potential toxins on the property could be removed or remediated as part of the camp’s construction.
The governor’s move ends what was shaping up to be one of the biggest blunders in Mayor Brandon Johnson’s attempts to provide housing for the busloads of asylum seekers being sent to Chicago by Republican governors of states along the southern border, mostly Texas.
The Johnson administration picked the known industrial site at 38th Street and California Avenue without any thought to its environmental ramifications. Then it rushed through soil testing and started construction last week — while test findings were still pending, and telling the public as little as possible.
“My administration is committed to keeping asylum seekers safe as we work to help them achieve independence,” Pritzker said Tuesday in a statement. “We will not proceed with housing families on a site where serious environmental concerns are still present.”
Slapdash and slipshod from the start, the tent camp plan had all the warning signs of developing into a hot mess of the first order.
And yet Johnson and his administration pressed on. Pritzker was right to stop it.
City clean-up plan insufficient
Pritzker’s decision came just days after the city released an awaited environmental report that said the camp site required cleanup of heavy metals and other toxic chemicals. Mayoral advisors then claimed the hazards could be fully remediated as part of the camp’s construction.
But the Illinois EPA reviewed the city’s 800-page report and differed with its findings. The agency said there was “insufficient sampling and remediation at the Brighton Park site [that] does not meet state cleanup standards for residential use.”
This editorial board has opposed the idea of tent camps for migrants from the start, particularly as winter months — normally followed by a damp, cool spring — set in. Surely among the many vacant or lightly-used buildings in Chicago, space can be found to house migrants and get them out of police stations and O’Hare Airport.
But if the city just had to build a tent camp, shame on the Johnson administration for selecting an industrial site for it — a move that is just asking for trouble, while potentially and needlessly endangering the health of the migrants, especially children, who have to live there.
“It makes sense to find the safest way possible because we don’t want situations where, years from now, we find out people are ill — especially when you’re talking about kids that are on that site,” said Ald. Andre Vasquez (40th), chair of the Chicago City Council’s Committee on Immigrant and Refugee Rights.
“It makes sense to do all our due diligence to treat people the way we would all want to be treated in that situation,” he said.
Questions still outstanding
The city must now look to other places to house migrants. We’d prefer using, constructing and rehabbing actual buildings.
Showing the sure-footed leadership that City Hall’s Fifth Floor should be providing, the Pritzker administration said it will speed up plans to turn a Little Village building into a 200-bed shelter for families and people with disabilities.
And the governor’s office said the state requested alternate housing sites from the city and is working with the Archdiocese of Chicago to find more options.
“My administration remains committed to a data-driven plan to improve the asylum seeker response and we will continue to coordinate with the city of Chicago as we work to expand available shelter through winter,” Pritzker said.
As for Johnson, the public now needs to know if it’s still on the hook for the full $29 million contract for GardaWorld to build and operate the Brighton Park camp and another proposed for 115th and Halsted streets.
And does the city still have to pay $91,400 a month in rent to the owners of the Brighton Park site? Taxpayers would like to know.
Brighton Park was an especially wrong move for a mayor who ran for office promising a progressive, competent and transparent government. What happened at 38th and Cal is just the opposite.
And for a mayor given to quoting lyrics from Beyoncé in news conferences, we’ll offer up something in return from her song “Hold Up.”
The words embody what every Chicagoan knows when City Hall starts talking too fast and playing fast and loose with information: “Something don’t feel right. Because it ain’t right.”
The Sun-Times welcomes letters to the editor and op-eds. See our guidelines.
