We relocated our city services office from 429 S. Dearborn St. to 1319 S. State St., Suite A, on April 1, 2011. Please visit us there during regular office hours.

Please note the following:

1. Emergencies: Call 911.

2. Urgent issues: Call (312) 263-9273 and leave voicemail with your name, phone number and a brief message about your issue or request.

3. If your issue or question is not time sensitive, then email us at: ward02@cityofchicago.org

Thank you for your patience and understanding as we make our move to State Street and get settled in. We look forward to serving you even better from our new office location.

At a recent City Council meeting, I introduced a resolution with 19 of my colleagues as co-sponsors that calls for hearings with the Police Superintendent and City Budget Director to determine how the vacancies within the Chicago Police Department must be filled. Currently, there are more than 700 openings for officers in the department and we need many more police on the street. Academy graduations have been slowed and, as a result of the recent completion of the contract arbitrations, more officers will be retiring; more than 100 are already pending. These facts not only mean that our communities are in greater danger but our sworn officers are as well. The openings place an undue burden on the men and women that serve our police department, forcing them to work more hours and spread themselves thinner. We have asked the administration what its plan is to fix this situation so that we may ensure the safety of our neighborhoods.

We are proud to announce that Friends of the Parks, a non-profit organization focused solely on improving parks in the city of Chicago for more than 30 years, recently honored Alderman Fioretti with its Legislative Award for his work on our parks.

Since being elected, the alderman has made improving and expanding our parks one of his top priorities. To accomplish this, he has budgeted City resources for our parks and has worked to secure both TIF and state dollars. In 2009, Alderman Fioretti dedicated two improved parks, Printing House Row and Battle of Fort Dearborn.

In 2010, he broke ground for improvements to Dunbar Park and opened a new park at Adams and Sangamon.

We want to thank Friends of the Parks for this recognition. Alderman Fioretti shares this honor with everyone who has donated their time toward this common goal. A key leader in the alderman’s parks efforts is volunteer liaison Leslie Recht.

For more information on Friends of the Parks, including information on this event please view the web site: www.fotp.org.

I was recently interviewed by WTTW’s Jay Shefski of the Chicago Tonight program and we discussed the city’s method of garbage collection. Currently the city picks up trash by Ward: a task anyone familiar with the Ward boundaries would recognize as unnecessarily complex. This method is inefficient and expensive. Too many man hours and too much gas money is wasted as drivers are forced to traverse the gerrymandered Ward limits and drive from one end of the Ward to the other. During this interview I propose a new grid-based system of garbage collection which will save the city millions of dollars and ensure more efficient services.

On the 1st and 3rd Tuesday of every month I host a free legal night at my Committeeman office, 721 S Western, between 4 and 6 p.m. Come out for free legal referrals from the law firm of Conway, Chiaviello and Klein appropriate government agencies or pro bono programs sponsored by bar associations.  This service is provided to 2nd Ward residents on my behalf. Please call Ruby Wilkerson, 312-263-9273, to register.

On Thursday, August 20th I hosted a community meeting to announce the long-awaited grocery store development on the Southeast corner of Madison and Western.

For those of you who were unable to attend the meeting, I am happy to announce that Pete’s Fresh Market will be coming to the neighborhood. Construction is slated to begin in June 2010, and the store is set to open a year after in June 2011.

I personally visited many locations of all the chains that were in consideration, and Pete’s is the best choice for the community. It was with great pride that I made this announcement, fulfilling a promise I made during my campaign.

If you were unable to attend the meeting and would like a copy of Pete’s power point presentation, please e-mail Pasquale at my office at Pasquale.Neri@cityofchicago.org.