Dennis McGuire, Jr. found an article about various consolidation of the Chicago Police and Fire Departments as well as the closing of three District Police Stations.
The Chicago Tribune reports that:
The Chicago Police Department will close three district police stations in 2012 — Wood, Belmont and Prairie — consolidate police and detective areas from five to three and merge Police and Fire Department headquarters and specialized units, Mayor Rahm Emanuel said Tuesday.
Instead of having “overlapping functions” in the Police and Fire Departments overseeing anti-terrorism, marine activities, helicopter and bomb and arson, those units will join forces under “single leadership” for “better coordination at key moments,” the mayor said.
The merger of special units and the combined Police and Fire headquarters at 35th and Michigan will create a “more agile bureaucratic structure” that Emanuel called unprecedented.
“No other city to date has looked at both the headquarters and integrating certain areas into kind of a single public safety mission,” the mayor said, joking that the Police and Fire Departments would maintain “separate football and softball teams”
Read the complete article HERE.
