About 100 people, many of them registered to attend, turned out for a town hall meeting on Nov. 2 in Glenview, presented by the Glenview/Northbrook Moms Demand Action with community partners.
According to https://momsdemandaction.org, Moms Demand Action (For Gun Sense in America) is a grassroots movement of Americans promoting public safety measures to protect people from gun violence.
The town hall took place at Glenview United Methodist Church (727 Harlem Ave.) and offered a platform for residents, law enforcement, village officials, elected and school officials, business owners plus experts to discuss gun safety awareness.
“We are doing a firearm safety town hall to basically give information to our communities about the resources we have in our communities,” said Dr. Halleh Akbarnia of Glenview, an emergency medicine physician at Advocate Lutheran General Hospital in Park Ridge and also co-lead of the Glenview/Northbrook Moms Demand Action group.
“We’re talking about law enforcement, our villages, health care, our legislators are here to give information, and so it’s basically a way to give information about firearm safety … safe storage, so if people have firearms in their home, how to keep them secure,” Akbarnia said.
As an urgent care physician, “I treat gun violence victims, I’ve also been a victim of gun violence,” Akbarnia said.
Audience members took up most of the chairs in the room.
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“I’m very happy about that,” Akbarnia said about the large turnout. “That means that people are interested in learning and also interested in getting educated, and also concerned.
“With everything that’s going on in the world, having something like this is always timely,” Akbarnia said.
Wearing a red Moms Demand Action shirt, Jin Valaperta of Glenview moderated a panel on stage.
Featured were State Sen. Laura Fine, State Sen. Julie Morrison, State Rep. Jennifer Gong-Gershowitz, Cook County Commissioner Scott Britton, Committeeperson Tracy Katz Muhl of Northbrook, Joel Detloff, community relations sergeant for Glenview Police, Renee Dominguez, clinical psychologist and executive director of Family Service Center of Wilmette, Glenview, Northbrook and Kenilworth, and also Akbarnia.
Akbarnia recalled speaking at a rally in Highland Park on gun violence prevention two weeks before the Highland Park mass shooting at the July 4, 2022 parade.
“And people were wondering, ‘Why are we doing this in Highland Park?’ and two weeks later, something happens there, and, you know, I have friends who live in Maine and they weren’t expecting what happened to them,” Akbarnia said to Pioneer Press.
On Oct. 25, two mass shootings in Lewiston, Maine resulted in the deaths of 18 people with many injured.
“Every single day, we have shootings in our cities,” Akbarnia said.
School district superintendents spoke to the audience, including Dane Delli, Superintendent of Glenview School District 34, Erin K. Murphy, Superintendent of schools of West Northfield School District 31 and Charles Johns, Superintendent of Glenbrook High School District 225.
Delli said, “We have protocols that we follow in the event that someone within the building has said or done something that in our estimation represents a threat to themselves or to someone else in the building.
“And those matters are reported to the Illinois State Police,” Delli said. “We have a wonderful, responsive relationship with the Glenview Police Department.”
Murphy described how things have changed since starting an education career more than two decades ago.
And now, “We’re looking at safety assessments, and drills, and training, and preparing our kids, even our little ones in ways that I wouldn’t have imagined 26 years ago,” Murphy said. “As our world has changed, so has education.”
District 225 includes Glenbrook North High School in Northbrook and Glenbrook South High School in Glenview.
Johns told the audience, “Thank you for coming out tonight, I didn’t think the crowd would be so big.
“Student safety is front of mind every day.”
Johns complimented the Northbrook Police Department, indicating that District 225 has, “a phenomenal relationship with Northbrook.
“We take a broad spectrum approach to keeping our children and our staff safe,” Johns said. “Mental health is a major priority, and because it is a day to day impediment to learning.”
A sense of belonging is instilled among students so learners feel that adults, “know them and care,” Johns said.
“It’s a long journey, it’s a lot of work.”
Johns indicated there is, “a desperate need,” for more mental health clinicians in the state education system and nationally for mental health school services.
“Mental health, again,” Johns said, ” … is at the front of mind for all of us.”
Karie Angell Luc is a freelancer for Pioneer Press.