Dear Mr. Kleine:
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First of all, please verify the battered-women’s shelter somebody was going to bulldoze. I have lived in Ms. Shiller’s area for nearly five years. I volunteer in a shelter, the likes of which you have described, but never to my knowledge has a bulldozer ever been near it and, I might say, neither has Helen Shiller. For general information, I also serve as a community representative in the Local School Council at Stewart School and a volunteer at the Uptown Neighborhood Health Center. I do not own a home in the 46th Ward; I pay the escalating rent, which, I might also point out, has escalated in all areas of the city. To this end, Ms. Shiller has been seen only once in any of these facilities, and that was when she came to plead for members to come to City Hall and pander to the TV cameras to make a case for replacements for clinic personnel who were being retired. She was turned down flat even though she gave detailed instructions on how to behave in front of TV cameras. According to official sources (the recording secretary), Ms. Shiller had never attended a board meeting although she is a nonvoting member. We’ve never seen her at an LSC meeting even though 53 percent of the students tested below normal on their IGAPs and 56 percent do not remain in the school for a full year, creating the highest student mobility rate in the city. A survey taken recently indicated that in the Stewart School district there are 68 students whose parents have selected to send them outside the district for elementary school. These are not parents of means but low-income families who think the area is so horrible they would never permit their children to attend “that” school.
AON has donated many thousands of dollars to schools and community programs, but how does she get by with making everyone think she is the only person who has persuaded AON to donate? Many entities in this ward have donated numerous resources that benefit our children and citizens without even knowing Helen Shiller. Every block club and neighborhood organization has donated many thousands of dollars and much time and energy into trying to make Uptown a better place for the children. She has earned the Queen of Poverty title because she refuses to admit she is not the powerful entity she claims to be. All she takes credit for has been performed by a lot of other kind and caring neighbors.
