Saturday, February 06, 2010

Chicago Department of Public Health destroys Homegrown Food

What happened?
Monica Eng covers the story of a small business whose Valentine's Day business was been destroyed by the Department of Public Health.

The story's horrible from all angles:
1. The food was locally grown.
2. It was destroyed despite the owner begging it to be donated.
3. The city is demanding that each business in the space pay $600 to apply for a separate permit, but then destroying all of the businesses' supplies whether they are compliant or not.
4. The city is setting a separate standard for large businesses over small.
5. The city is destroying food in the middle of a depression and claims of insufficient resources for public health.

Who was hurt?
Beyond the general damage to our community, you can learn more about Flora Lazar here. She sounds like someone who is living out of love--quitting big time positions to follow a passion. Passion, not money should make the world go 'round. On the one hand, she is the little guy being tromped by the bureaucracy--we must support her. On the other hand, if she didn't have some background of privilege, would we even have heard about this story? How many people is the city abusing in this fashion?

What can you do?

1. The new health commissioner is Dr. Bechara Choucair. The city website hasn't even changed to have the proper contact information.

No disrespect to Dr. Choucair--he's only been in office for a little over a month, but this looks like another department that does not run efficiently to serve the needs of the people of Chicago. That's no surprise--Daley's corruption hits every area of governance.
Here's the listed general contact info if you want to act on this issue:

General Information,
Address: 333 S. State St.
Rm. 200
Chicago, IL 60604
E-mail: publichealth@cdph.org
Telephone: (312) 747-9884
Facsimile: (312) 747-9765
TTY: (312) 747-2374

2. Demand reform in the City of Chicago's governance. This city is current run by a priority list that puts the people of the city last behind every single patronage interest in the city. Let's change that.
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