Broken Buildings, Big Busts and Students Stabbed: Top Five

This article led to lots of conversation about the quality of the schools in Chicago Heights. Even though the stabbing was committed by a non-Bloom student and it took place away from the school, some readers connected the incident to poor security at Bloom and even encouraged others to send their kids elsewhere. There were also readers that defended Bloom and said it "always has been a safe place to send your students."

Residents got to see an example of community policing in action after an undercover investigation ended with Heights police recovering about 68 grams of cocaine, 11 pounds of cannabis and 24 ecstasy pills, amounting to an estimated $100,000 in illegal drugs.

As part of our Minutes with the Mayor series, Mayor David Gonzalez answered a pretty controversial question (see above). Gonzalez was honest and frank about his views on this issue and whether the city should play an active role in going after undocumented immigrants. Conversations about illegal immigration tend to get heated, and this was no different. After 139 comments, plenty of readers have explained their position on the topic.

It's not often that a story released by another publication makes it into our top five, but this one was big news, mainly because it involved controversial Illinois House Speaker Michael Madigan. Tribune reporters named David Gonzalez among the suburban mayors that gave Madigan's son's employer business after the Speaker helped them with their campaigns last year.

This story brought to light the casualties that can come along with major development projects. A building in the 1600 block of Center Avenue was torn down the week of Aug. 20 as part of the Neighborhood Stabilization Project, a multimillion dollar plan to residentially build up the east side of Chicago Heights. What brought contention to this story was the Heights Historic Preservation Committee feeling left out of discussions about the fate of the building, which they considered historically significant.

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