OP Trustee Marsey thinks OP is not a developer and does not belong in “complex and constricting” real estate transactions. He’s clearly a bomb-thrower. Everyone knows the village is a developer.
He also wants competitive bidding on projects and wants the village to pony up only small amounts and then only for public infrastructure. The village can’t afford any more than that and loses its way when it tries, he says.
He knows more about it than I do. So do others, who disagree with him. But philosophically, he has it right.
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To which opposition-party-candidate Jon Hale responds by email the next day that Marsey’s is a “naive view.” Suburban-downtown redevelopment won’t happen “without local government playing a key role” that might go beyond Marsey’s "small amounts for public infrastructure," he says. Bigger projects sometimes require “combining . . . parcels,” which is where the village comes in.
Without that, you have “parcel by parcel” development — “new buildings built . . . under existing zoning. In other words, let the free market reign” as the village stands by and watches construction of “$750,000 townhomes and fast-food joints on Madison St.”
Consistency with master plans is what his slate promises, ever “justified on an return on investment (ROI) basis.” Complex as it may be, the board cannot dodge its responsibility to direct economic redevelopment, he says.
More to come on this local-regional-national issue . . .
Sunday, February 18, 2007
Thursday, February 15, 2007
Who's on first?
"As somebody who has been chair, I will say, I think there is very little public accountability in this process," Kimberly Werner said of the high school board candidate endorsement operation.
She means they choose board members, not board candidates? Nobody else can run for the board? There's no election after endorsement?
Look. The endorsers have credibility or not. Their candidates win or not. They are known to the public or not. This time, not. Werner has a secret group known to a few. Whose fault is that?
Wednesday, February 07, 2007
No more rock refuge
“The latest provocative, ill-considered foray by the Oak Park Village Board of Trustees into downtown Oak Park has now crept into the bright sunlight,” says Anthony Shaker in a Wed. Jnl op-ed opposing historical-district status for Downtown OP.
Crept out from under a rock, Shaker might have said. It’s an assault on property rights, he says, touching on a very tender nerve.
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