Page 5 - May 2020

CHICAGO LODGE 7
Official Magazine
President’s Report
FRATERNAL ORDER OF POLICE CHICAGO LODGE #7
EXECUTIVE BOARD
KEVIN GRAHAM
President
Michael Mette
First Vice President
Daniel D. Gorman
Second Vice President
Fernando Flores
Third Vice President
Greg Bella
Recording Secretary
Jim Jakstavich
Financial Secretary
Dennis McGuire
Treasurer
Dean C. Angelo, Sr.
Immediate Past President
Sergeants-at-Arms
Nenad Markovich Frank Quinn III Daniel Sheehan
Trustees
Harold Brown John Capparelli Frank J. DiMaria David DiSanti Mark P. Donahue Nick Duckhorn Patrick Duckhorn Tom Fitzpatrick David Goetz
Ken Hauser Tom Lonergan Brock Merck Steve Olsen Monica Ortiz Dan Quaid Ron Shogren Daniel G. Trevino
Remembering and honoring President Nolan
Bill Nolan made an impact on every police officer, every Lodge 7 member, every Na- tional FOP member, every elected official and every person he ever met. Especially me. My Bill Nolan story begins at a union meeting I attended when he was in the midst of his nine years serving as Lodge 7 president. I stood up to speak. Bill ruled me out of order and told me to sit down. The point of this story is after that, I became determined to get things accomplished. The more I got involved in the union, the more I wanted to
accomplish. Bill motivated me to do so.
There’s no way to fully measure the impact William J. Nolan made on the Chicago
FOP, the Chicago Police Department, the city of Chicago and beyond. The voluminous accomplishments detailed in his obituary so many of us read after Bill passed away on April 21 do not begin to cover it.
As I think about Bill’s impact, I am sitting in the building that houses the Lodge 7 offices. This is a building Bill decided to buy despite much criticism. With regard to our fraternalism, our presence in the city, our ability to serve members and the FOP’s financial stability, it probably was the best deci- sion ever made for the union.
Bill had that leadership style that let members know we were going to fight the City when we need- ed to, but we were always going to do it with dignity and class. He made his feelings known and he made comments in the press, but he was definitely a gentleman. Always a gentleman.
Some of you may know about Bill’s work with Easterseals Chicago. He was a renowned member of the board of directors for nearly 30 years. He was the person who prompted the FOP to make Easter- seals its charity of choice, locally and national. Bill felt it was terribly important not just to give back to society, but to give back to the most vulnerable people in our society – children with special needs. One of the greatest honors in my life is being able to succeed Bill as an Easterseals Chicago board member.
Bill motivated so many of us to make an impact as police officers, union members, union leaders and individuals. That will be his legacy. If you are one of the thousands of people he touched in life, you are better for it, and you miss him as much as I do. We offer our sincerest condolences to one of the great first ladies of the Chicago FOP, his wife, Carol. And Bill’s children, grandchildren and great grandchildren.
As we offer tribute to Bill, we also offer tribute to three Lodge 7 members who have been lost to COVID-19. We send our thoughts and prayers out to the families and friends of Officer Marco DiFran- co, Sergeant Clifford Martin and Officer Ronald Newman.
While official word of whether officers who are lost to the virus will be declared line of duty deaths is still being confirmed, we have provided benefits to the families of all three officers, including Ser- geant Martin, who was a Lodge 7 member. We believe he is entitled to the benefits because he was a member, and giving them to his family is the right thing to do.
Lodge 7 also wants to thank two Costco stores in Chicago for supporting police officers in a man- ner they deserve. The Costco at 1430 S. Ashland and the store at Clybourn and Damen, just south of Diversey, have opened up early on several occasions just for first responders to come in and purchase supplies before the rest of the public.
With the way so many of you have been working long hours, it doesn’t allow you to get to the store. The fact that Costco opened up and allowed first responders to take of themselves and their families really shows a commitment and how valuable our members are to them. And Costco did it at the very time when our officers were looking for rubbing alcohol to clean their cars and other products to keep them safe.
We salute Costco for understanding what we are going through, that our members are not afraid to go out and do their jobs fighting a force they can’t even see. And without the sufficient equipment that we need to protect us from this virus.
If only the City responded with that kind of support. There are things the City should have done im- mediately to help officers in this fight, like supplying more masks and gowns. I have repeatedly said to the mayor that the Department needs to do away with swiping and roll calls. There is no reason to put any officers around groups of people. Telling our members to limit roll calls to 10 people might be in compliance with the law, but it is not right to subject them to such unneeded risk.
We continue to do everything we can think of to help our members fight the pandemic. We pur- chased another 300 gallons of hand sanitizer. We have given out more than 15,000 masks. We have partnered with Roseland Community Hospital to test more than 700 members.
And we’re still testing. The more we can get tested, the safer we’re going to be. If only the City had
KEVIN GRAHAM
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CHICAGO LODGE 7 ■ MAY 2020 5