He’s backing Jeff Boarini in the mayoral election
By Bob Seidenberg
Kevin Brown, the city’s popular Community Services Division manager whose firing touched off community protests in 2019, still doesn’t have an answer to the city’s action.
His lawsuit against the city, alleging that his termination wasn’t about his use of a city credit card to pay off $414 in staff parking tickets but about his advocacy for racial equity, hasn’t been acted upon yet.
But he’s continuing his work at the state level, serving as the senior policy advisor for the Illinois Department of Human Services Office of Firearm Prevention, overseeing youth intervention and community violence programs.
Once mentioned as a mayoral candidate himself, Brown, who holds a law degree from Washington University in St. Louis and an undergraduate degree in political science from Northwestern University, is still keeping a watch on the local political scene.
He recently announced plans to back Jeff Boarini in the mayoral election.
The availability of guns remains a major public health issue, he stressed in this interview. Here are some excerpts of our conversation with Kevin, edited for print:
Q. Aren’t you worried that with programs being dismantled at the federal level, the services provided locally could be affected too?
A. The Office of Firearm Violence Prevention was created in Illinois by statute. So the Reimagined Public Safety Act, the RPSA, created the office with American Rescue PLAN (Act) monies, so we got a lot of those Covid monies to start the operation. We are not, so-called, a federally-funded program, and now with ARPA, the ARPA money running out, the state of Illinois has picked up on the funding to fund the office. So fortunately, with all of the executive orders from President Trump around DEI, our office is an office committed to racial equity as well as inclusion, and so we don’t have to abide by the executive orders of Trump. And I would have to say (about) the governor here, Governor Pritzker, this is one of his signature priorities.
Q. On the surface at least, so many of the shootings seems random, as well as senseless…
A. I would say many of the shootings or the homicides that occur — lot of them are interpersonal; there are some connections. Obviously there’s a number of shootings where there aren’t connections, but what we are trying to do through our programming, is really help to build interpersonal connections between people to try to stem the violence. And so we fund programs, (such as) the violence interrupters (and) different community-based agencies that have violence interruption programming and make relationships with high risk individuals to deter them from using guns and committing harm with those weapons, and that has been quite an effective intervention.
Q. Expungement, a process that removes a criminal record from public view, has been a long time concern of yours…as a deterrent to a productive life.
A. The whole re-entry … that is something that really resonates with me – trying to help people who leave incarceration. Right now we have a recidivism rate in Illinois that’s about 38% OR 39%. It’s very high. People are recidivists at that level within a three year period.And so the Safer Foundation (where Brown worked previously) we worked to try to reduce that rate. (We had) what we call adult transition centers, where someone is coming from prison into a transitional situation — where they can work but be back to incarceration at the end of the day, or at least custody. Those individuals, their recidivism rate goes from 38% all the way down to 16%. So that type of intervention — (providing) supportive services, helping people with their health care as well as their employment needs, their housing needs, all of that works together to help people (not return to incarceration.)
A ‘very, very’ painful process
Q. Your termination in Evanston took place in a very public way…
A. Yes it was very, very painful. It’s been well documented in the RoundTable that my staff was targeted for parking their staff cars and city vehicles in the city parking lot in the two-hour parking spaces and I used my credit card at the direction of my director for (them, for) maybe a six year period. There were six or seven tickets and I was terminated because they said it was unauthorized use of that credit card even though I was directed to do it.
Q. And the status of the lawsuit?
It’s still in play. It hasn’t been fully adjudicated yet. And you know, it was just an unfortunate situation. But I’ve moved on emotionally. I had a former mayor (Elizabeth Tisdahl) who advocated on my behalf because of the work we had done. And you know we helped really thousands of people. When you look at the programming we developed, we were able to really reinvest in the most disenfranchised families in the city of Evanston, and so there was a lot of good that came out of the programming. And you know, for it to end the way it ended, it’s just unfortunate.”
Mayor Brown?
Q. At the time there was serious talk about your running for mayor?
A. You know, I still believe in everything. I still believe in local government, municipalities (everything) that we have here. I still believe that there are good things that government does that helps advance the life of people. I met with Daniel Biss prior to his running for mayor, and he did tell me, ‘If you run, I will not run.’ I told him that I would support him at the time. I felt like he was the best person, but I can say he’s been a disappointment.”
Q. You’re supporting Jeff Boarini, his opponent.
A. I just think that right now, as you can see nationally, the way things are happening in our country, there are very, very wealthy people who are who are disconnected from the majority, and so their interests don’t align with the interests of the people. And I think that’s kind of what we’re seeing at a local level as well. When I looked at Illinois Sunshine (a website tool for browsing political contributions in the state of Illinois) to see who supports Daniel Biss, and a lot of the interests who are supporting him are very, very, very wealthy people. And I think the vote that they took around the Northwestern stadium, that was a very controversial vote that did not get concessions from the University that the city could have gotten. And I think a lot of that had to do with the divide that we’re seeing with those who have great wealth and those who do not have great wealth.
Brown’s entire interview can be heard on Spotify. A link can be found opposite this page.
