We appreciate Mr. Michael Pessman’s powerful reflections in his recent op-ed on the importance of services funded through the Older Americans Act and share the commitment to ensuring older adults can age with dignity, independence and support.

However, historically, the act’s funding has not ceased even when reauthorization has lapsed, as Mr. Pessman said. In past instances, Congress has continued to appropriate funds for the act’s programs during periods of delayed reauthorization, allowing essential services, such as nutrition, transportation and caregiver support, to continue without interruption.

At this time, the most urgent action advocates can take is to urge Congress to increase funding for Older Americans Act programs. Current funding levels have not kept pace with inflation, population growth or rising service costs. We appreciate Mr. Pessman’s advocacy and encourage readers to direct that concern toward contacting their legislators in support of robust appropriations that strengthen the aging network and the communities it serves.

Even in a challenging budget environment, recent bipartisan action in Congress demonstrates that advocacy makes a difference. On Jan. 21, Congress released a fiscal year 2026 funding package that maintains level funding for most Older Americans Act programs, and even modest increases to Title III B Supportive Services and Title VI Native American Aging programs. Please visit the AgeOptions Advocacy Alerts page online to express support to your members of Congress and encourage stronger funding for aging services in the year ahead.

AgeOptions is the Area Agency on Aging in suburban Cook County. We plan, fund and coordinate programs and services that support older adults, caregivers and communities, helping people age with independence and dignity. Our work includes connecting older adults to resources like home-delivered meals, benefits access, caregiver support and wellness programs. We also advocate for policies that strengthen aging services and collaborate with local partners to ensure that every older adult in our region can thrive as they age. Visit AgeOptions.org for more information.

Diane Slezak, CEO and president, AgeOptions

Lawsuit won’t stop Edgewater progress

Patricia Sharkey and Edgewater Residents for Responsible Development repeatedly invoke a 2006 downzoning referendum as proof that Broadway’s rezoning violates “community-driven planning.” They present that vote as a democratic ideal. It wasn’t.

In 2006, roughly 800 voters across four precincts approved a referendum during an off-cycle primary election. That narrow, low-turnout vote was then used to justify downzoning the entire west side of Broadway from Devon to Foster avenues — far beyond the precincts where ballots were cast. Tens of thousands of residents affected by the decision never voted on it, never consented to it and had no meaningful voice in it. Describing that outcome as “inclusive” takes some impressive mental gymnastics.

Edgewater Residents for Responsible Development now treats this deeply flawed process as sacred precedent. In reality, it was classic old-school Chicago machine politics: low participation, limited geography and sweeping consequences imposed on an entire corridor by political insiders. The result has been two decades of frozen development along the CTA’s Red Line — locking in strip malls and whole block surface car parking lots while demand for homes exploded and rents climbed.

That is the legacy the folks behind the group are fighting to preserve.

The contrast with today’s process could not be clearer: months of meetings, more than 1,600 written comments, hundreds of letters to the Chicago Plan Commission, public hearings, zoning committee proceedings, block club debates, rallies, letters to the editor,extensive media coverage and constant social media discussion. Edgewater Residents for Responsible Development even paid for anti-upzoning billboards, threatened litigation for months and spoke at the zoning committee hearing, with some members removed for repeated disruptions when they heckled our neighbors who supported the upzoning. Claims that there was “no community input” belong in the realm of fiction.

Edgewater voters also weighed in directly. They elected Ald. Leni Manaa-Hoppenworth (48th) after she ran openly onbuilding more housing near transit. Implementing that platform is not a betrayal of democracy; it is the point of it.

Edgewater Residents for Responsible Development’s lawsuit is not about process or fairness. It is about a tiny, well-organized group refusing to accept that the neighborhood — and the city — have moved on from a deeply flawed decision made 20 years ago. In democracy, when you lose, the answer is not to run to court — it’s to persuade more people next time.

Neville Hemming, Edgewater

ICE gets away with murder

U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents have shot three people in Minnesota this month; two died and neither was holding a weapon. (Alex Pretti had a firearm he was licensed to carry. Footage shows a federal agent took the gun off Pretti’s waistband as he was on the ground and then shot to death).

If Chicago police officers did the same thing in the same situation, they would be put on desk duty immediately with an independent investigation to ascertain if the shooting was justified. Both fatal ICE shootings in Minnesota were caught on video, and if those shootings happened here with police officers, I believe they would be charged with murder. Facts matter — just not to ICE officials and the White House.

Richard Barber, Mount Greenwood

Fascist fashion

Benito Mussolini had the Blackshirts. Adolf Hitler had the Brownshirts. Donald Trump has the Greenshirts.

Gerald Weisberg, Lake View

Bison basics

An article that appeared in the Sun-Times last week seemed to claim that the reintroduction of six bison to a Kane County forest preserve is the first reintroduction of bison into Kane County. However, the Batavia-based Fermilab, which has acreage in Kane and DuPage counties, has had a bison herd since it was introduced there in 1969 by Robert R. Wilson, the first director of Fermilab.

Robert Michaelson, Evanston