Lake County Gun Violence Prevention Initiative to host two more town halls
The Lake County Gun Violence Prevention Initiative, sponsored by the Lake County State's Attorney Office, will host town hall meetings in Highland Park and Vernon Hills this week and next to round out a series of community discussions on combatting gun violence.
Residents will gather from 6:30-8:30 p.m. Wednesday in the Highland Park Public Library, 494 Laurel Drive, Highland Park, and from 6-8 p.m. Thursday, Jan. 18, at the Aspen Drive Library, 701 Aspen Drive, Vernon Hills.
GVPI Director Tierra Lemon and Gun Violence Prevention Specialist Rachel Jacoby, who both have worked in their roles for less than a year, decided to host the town hall series in order to familiarize themselves with the needs of the towns they represent and develop a community-oriented plan to prevent gun violence. Previous meetings were held in Waukegan, Zion and North Chicago.
“I think the town hall serves two main purposes,” Jacoby said. “The first is to share information about the gun violence prevention initiative and what our team has been working on in the past and we'll be prioritizing in the future. The second purpose is to gain community input into what the community would like to see us focus on in the future.”
Wednesday’s town hall may have a particular relevance for the Highland Park community as it still recovers from the July 4, 2022, mass shooting that killed seven people attending the Independence Day parade. However, Jacoby noted that the gun violence prevention team must also focus resources and attention on Waukegan, Zion and North Chicago, the communities with the highest rates of gun violence in Lake County.
According to Lemon, the town hall format, which started as a panel-style where the attendees could ask the experts questions, switched to directly asking questions to attendees because the hosts wanted to foster more community engagement.
The GVPI team refers to the new format as “listening sessions,” in which small groups of five to 10 participants talk in-depth with a team member about what they would like the office to prioritize, such as response tactics and types of gun violence, in order to make sure they are addressing the community’s needs.
“One thing that we're hoping that people gain from this is knowing that there are some people in place that are taking (the public’s) concerns seriously and that are not only gathering people to say we did it, but gathering people to use their experiences and use their voices to really influence how we go forward with the efforts that will come from this office,” Lemon said.
Jacoby said there will be a therapist available at the town hall meetings to provide support for survivors and community members who might need to step away from the conversation.
She emphasized the office’s desire to see a high turnout at these remaining town halls, citing active participation as the best way to be heard by local government on this issue.
She said these town halls will shape the GVPI’s future work on what gun violence prevention will look like in Lake County.
“One of the hopes I have is that people leave this town hall recognizing that our office is committed to the prevention of gun violence, and we aren’t only going to respond after an incident occurs,” Jacoby said. “Because as State's Attorney Reinhardt often says, after the crime has occurred, it's too late, right? We're here to try to prevent gun violence from actually happening and investing in the root causes in the prevention and early intervention to make sure that those incidences of gun violence don't happen and more people in our county aren't traumatized by gun violence.”