Oak Park Items

Funny guy from OP

2007-02-20T09:19:00.000-06:00

Stop what you're doing right now and look at Sun-Times on Tom Lennon, OPRF alum and cable-comedy star. He and his partner in criminal intent are interviewed by Bill Zwecker about their new show set in Miami. They play two sense-deprived Reno cops, discussing with Z. how they blew up a beached whale, whose remains made a whale-remains shower on sunbathers.

Tags: Tom+Lennon, Oak+Park+&+River+Forest+High+School, Reno+911

Marsey lobs no-smoke grenade

2007-02-18T18:06:00.000-06:00

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.

=========

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 . . .

Who's on first?

2007-02-15T09:46:00.000-06:00

"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?

Tags: Kimberly+Werner, Jim+Bowman, Oak+Park+&+River+Forest+High+School

No more rock refuge

2007-02-07T12:45:00.000-06:00

“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.

Where's Marlene?

2007-01-16T09:33:00.000-06:00

Ran into Bruce Samuels, one of OP's leading Green Party members, discussed Greens' gains in recent general election. In course of chat, on OP Ave. outside ex-book store turned real estate office, he said he can't get in touch with the Republican chair for OP, one Marlene Lynch, a travel agent who beat out the (appointed) incumbent last spring. Bruce had been in conversation with her (elected) predecessor. We both mourned that good man's passing.

But where is Marlene L.? And when is the next Republican gathering and what happened to the regular emailing of alerts to party stalwarts? Hey, even if you meet in a phone booth, you still meet, don't you?

I'm not the only one wondering:

Has anyone heard from Marlene Lynch . . . ? Does she know there is an election coming up? No news. No email. No meetings. No Signs. No Nothing!

Her phone number isn't even listed on the Cook County Clerk website! She has no official email or website according to the Cook County Republican website. Maybe she doesn't want to talk to anyone?

asked Oak Park Conservatives some time back.

OP's Don Harmon a go-to man in senate

2007-01-02T09:07:00.000-06:00

Ill. state Sen. Don Harmon (D.-Oak Park) is co-sponsor of a new law making it a misdemeanor not to install carbon monoxide detectors. Enforcement is another matter, but people die from monoxide poisoning, so the lawmakers felt they had to do something.

"The last thing we want is to be known as the carbon monoxide police, meaning we're looking for detectors every time we go in someone's home,"

said Robert Buhs, executive director of the Illinois Fire Chiefs Association, adding,

"But it's the [homeowner's] responsibility, and for the safety of their family, to have these devices installed."

If it's the homeowner's responsibility, why is the state shouldering it, and ineffectually at that?

"It seems like an easy risk to protect ourselves against, by creating an expectation that you have one,"

said Harmon, offering a garbled but perhaps helpful answer: the state speaks, and homeowners listen. It's how they make (and score) points in Springfield, with new laws. But an ad campaign would do the job at least as well, and without giving us the opportunity to ignore yet another one or giving law enforcement something else to do by way of interfering with people's lives.

Walking, jumping, visioning [?]

2006-12-28T19:03:00.000-06:00

A WALK IN THE PARK: I think I was a hate-crime victim. Guy called me a white faggot as I walked through Scoville Park in the gloaming a few weeks ago. I didn't stop. He and his friends were irritated at my NOT stopping. They were desperate for my attention, and I refused it. This was my offense, and so I got victimized. Or was I?

All the guy did was toss out a "white faggot" to an unassuming white fellow trying hard to mind his own business. I had passed them earlier. One was jawing at another, three or four others stood chatting each other up. It's a free country, I thought, go ahead and jaw. I got a few steps past them and heard, "Hi, brother." Who, me? I'm not a brother, I thought -- except to an octogenarian in Gurnee and a septuagenarian in Arlington, VA -- and kept walking.

Again the call: "Brother." I'll bet it's me, I mused. But out of 40-year-old misty memory came a guy yelling, "Hey, you with the collar!" in an open field at 13th and Loomis on a midsummer night in 1966, as helmeted police gathered all down Roosevelt Road. The caller had me cold, I wore the clerical collar. I ignored his cry for attention. Twenty-something and intent on mischief, he had an audience of five or six teen-aged boys, to whom he would have given a lesson in how to deal with the likes of me. No, thanks, I muttered, continuing my way towards the Baptist church at the other end of the project, where do-gooders were gathering ineffectually.

Ignoring this Scoville Park greeting came easy, therefore. But my response rankled, and when I returned 15 minutes later heading the other way, I was accused incontinently of being "a snob" who "wouldn't talk" to them. I was "Sherlock Holmes" in my floppy hat (heh). I was told to commit an indecent if not impossible act. These were truly disgruntled youth. Later on Lake Street, I ran into them again. This time they tossed the N-word at a fellow African American, who was also told to commit an indecent if not impossible act. Now I ask you, were we all victims of hate crimes?.

JUMPING TO CONCLUSION: You hear a lot about the school achievement gap, but what about the basketball gap? White kids can't jump, but so what? So they don't suit up or if they do, they warm the bench. That's what happens to the American dream in a dog-eat-dog society. Look, white kids are grossly underrepresented on basketball teams not just in Oak Park and River Forest but nationally. I say enough. Let's train our sights on this gap too. And nuts to this can't-jump stuff, which is transparently racist. It's environment, folks. How many white fathers shoot hoops with their sons?

THROUGH A PRISM DARKLY: The Oak Park District 97 strategic plan draft calls schools "the educational prism through which students realize meaning and purpose in their lives." It says they are "to guarantee that each student achieves optimal intellectual growth while developing socially, emotionally and physically." That's all?

How about the prism through which students realize how to read, write, and do long division, not to mention shut up when teacher is talking and otherwise cooperate for the more or less common good? And who says schools are a prism in the first place? In what respect are they "a transparent optical element with flat, polished surfaces that refract light, the exact angles between whose surfaces depend on the application"? Beats me.

As for "realizing" -- learning? achieving? both, splitting the difference? -- the meaning and purpose in life, oh my. Are these schools or houses of worship? And there's a guarantee of optimal growth? Listen to that carnival barker. Maybe we would all pay more attention to a plan that made more sense. Or did not belabor the obvious, favoring "a culture of inclusion that respects and promotes diversity." This deftly undercuts the powerful exclusion and uniformity lobby, but it's also grand language impossible to disagree with, reeking of groupthink and lack of imagination, cobbled together in meetings. The good news is, it's a draft. So hello Baby, give us rewrite.

OP's industry, found at last!

2006-12-20T11:55:00.000-06:00

Nickel Real Estate is moving into the double or triple storefront space where once was Logos Books -- and long ago in the 30s a place called The Shop, where OPRF-ers hung out wearing saddle shoes. The father of a high-schooler in those days might warn against "Shop boys.” One did, anyhow. Seeing the Nickel sign in the window provided the shock of recognition for an OP-watcher: Of course! Retail out, real estate in! It's as simple as that.

We don't want no stinkin' stores that sell things. We want real estate offices to manage and sell our REAL PROPERTY. Some villages and cities make things, so do we. We make houses and landscapes — and schools and parks and library to go with them. It's one big conspiracy to elevate property value. The better the parks and schools and library (and cops and firemen and garbage collectors), the more incentive to make big houses and condos that sell for lots of money which in turn generate taxes. Why didn't I think of that?!

(By the way, Nickel can't be found via Web. Strange.)

Disputed condo development . . .

2006-12-15T15:48:00.000-06:00

. . . in 400 block of N. Maple has townhouses next door, on NW corner, Superior. Across the street is a house garishly festooned with anti-war messages, including a banner in German stretching its width. This is Oak Park’s best-known incipient development because it’s too big for neighbors’ taste and they have been complaining and the village board has been discussing.

If the developer were to trade it for the also much-discussed Colt Building on Lake Street a few blocks away, as he is reported in Wed Journal to have said he might, his fame would go off the charts for at least 15 minutes, probably 15 months until he had completed transformation of the Colt into lavish condos with shooting gallery on first floor — just kidding, all you literalists out there.

Do those anti-war signs and banner violate an ordinance somewhere, somehow, by the way? Remember the Greek restaurateur who was given a hard time because he ran Greek letters across his garish awning on OP Ave. across from the Green Line stop? Commercial establishment, yes, but do we want garish signs on residential blocks? Especially one where neighbors have made such a case against a new building with too many units? I don’t know the answer, as one or other trustee has said he doesn’t know the answer to other, less pertinent, conundrums.

As for Trustee M., one who has said he does not know answers, for him I have some characteristically good advice: Go easy on your trademark frontal attack at board meetings or you lose your shock appeal. Getting in the face of the mild-mannered board president, for instant, suffers from the same law of diminishing returns that devalues currency. From respect born of discomfort, other trustees’ response could degenerate to there-he-goes-again. It’s a problem.

As it is for bloggers, who on the formality scale of one to ten come to two or three. They have no time for vast ideas, only half-vast ones, it seems. I don’t know the answer.

Meddling?

2006-12-14T13:36:00.000-06:00

The developer having trouble with the OP village govt in developing an 11–unit condo building on the 400 N. Maple block has OP village govt. pretty well figured out:

"They're putting a lot of effort into controlling real-estate development," Allen said, adding that real-estate development goes with the market. "It takes care of its own." [Italics added]

This is it with markets, which government in general should leave alone.

Meanwhile, Wed. Jnl had the amazing information that Allen has said he was willing to swap his Maple Ave. property for the much-discussed and -debated Colt Building on Lake Street! It’s one of more than a dozen village-owned properties intended for development by someone, somehow.

“In general,” because the extraordinary does arise, and like the U.S. homeland since 9/11 (somehow not attacked), OP (somehow) has not gone ramshackle like Austin to the east. Many factors enter into both results, but to speak of OP alone, we may wonder if 1970s-style interference does NOT apply in 2006.

In any case, the board zoning allows Allen’s 11 units, and it’s too late now to stop him without spending too much money. The village manager and staff think so, and so do I, which with $1.75 will get any one of them downtown on the Green Line.

Young black men in park at 5 p.m.

2006-12-13T09:52:00.000-06:00

06-12-12 6:06 PM

Six or eight black kids of late high school age in Scoville Park when I walked by in the darkness about 5 p.m. on way to library, they on and around a bench opposite the monument, I on the winding path. One was going hot and heavy at another, venting. Others stood listening and chatting. the loud one was not threatening the other. As a group they were not threatening anyone.

I walked on by, glancing at them as I walked. One called out after I had passed them, "Hi, Brother." I didn't turn, partly because I wasn't sure he meant me, partly because I usually keep going in such situations. It's an instinct, as when I kept going in the open field at ABLA Homes on Roosevelt Road on the summer night in 1965 (ck) when rioting was under way over fire hydrants turned off and other matters. An adult called to me as I passed a knot of teen-aged boys: "Hey! You with the collar!" referring to me in my clerics. "Come 'ere."

I didn't but kept going toward the church at the project's southwest corner where various do-gooders were gathering. It was seven or so, and light out. But I was not about to make the young men's acquaintance at that point, even if I was a worker with youth and a teacher.

So this time I kept going even after the young man yelled again, "Brother." By now I was pretty sure he meant me but figured I did not want to turn around. He was being cheeky, I felt. But he was also being friendly in a rough way. I kept going.

Returning 15 minutes or so later on the same path, I passed the group again. They had me pegged now for a snob, no doubt about it. "White fagot," I heard as I walked guy. "Wouldn't talk to us." I wore a floppy hat: "Sherlock Holmes." The gorge was rising now: "Fuck you."

None of it was threatening. They spoke in surly, hurt fashion. I kept going again.

Ten minutes later I was returning down Lake Street heading for the park, in the block east of the Oak Park Avenue intersection. Some of the young men came along. There were others on the sidewalk. One of them had stopped another black guy, older than they by a few years and alone, two or three doors from Oak Park. One of them who had just passed me turned and yelled to the other: "Let the nigger go," he yelled. "Fuck the nigger."

A black couple also passing them looked fearful. But we not in the group, and certainly we whites, were the target of no attention at this point. We were part of the scenery, period. There wasn't even so much a threat of violence in what they said as simple cheekiness. Oddly, the group members were not unattractive, and this isn't any Stockholm syndrome I experienced or am describing. Instead, there was something going on among them that deserved attention. Can't prove it and from what I describe you wouldn't think so. Still, something was going on.

Einstein Bagels, To Be or Not To Be?

2006-12-11T10:05:00.000-06:00

Reader G. asks my position on Einstein Bagels' remaining in OP. Well he might. I was the Northeast River Forest correspondent from Einstein's, at Harlem & North, the OP corner, for several years in the late 90s, sharply and keenly observing cops on break and other fauna -- always sympathetically, to be sure, as when they were gearing up for an uproarious Fourth in North Austin.

Alas, I have not developed my position on Einstein's, which is preparing to evacuate. For that I must consult my Filthy Capitalist Mindset, neatly balancing my deep love for community values with my Filthy Capitalist desire for maximized profits or at least enough to allow one even to stay in business (and lots of bad guys, including Great American Bagels, to name one, would like to see E. Bagels get out of their darn way), in OP or anywhere else. It's a bagel jungle out there, you better believe it.

Talking

2006-12-07T11:22:00.000-06:00

At Bread Kitchen, couldn't help noticing woman gesticulating to another. Giving gang signals? Describing dance moves with hands? Daydreaming with finger tic? Lunacy?

None of these, but SIGN LANGUAGE, it finally dawned on observer who couldn't help noticing. Theirs was animated, soundless conversation.

Using sign language has its pros and cons. But if you want to learn how, you can start here.

There is also lip-reading. The most famous lip-reader I know is Henry Kisor, recently retired Sun-Times book editor. He had an editor once who barely moved his when speaking. Didn't stop Henry. Nothing did. He also wrote a book about being deaf.

Shocked in OP

2006-12-05T19:12:00.000-06:00

UK Guardian-Observer's Dan Pearson, who writes about gardens and gardening,

was shocked to see these vast, low-slung Arts & Crafts family homes littering crisp expanses of lawn in the wealthy Oak Park area on the edge of [Chicago]. Not a prairie in sight, but impressive nonetheless.

Shocked meaning delighted? I think so. He is writing about prairies as having a comeback:

A way with the prairies [subtitled:]
When intensive farming muscled in on the American midwest, vast wildernesses were trampled in the rush. Now, says Dan Pearson, they're rising again

So he is glad to see OP’s big lawns — contrasted, we know, by Hemingway with its narrow minds — as a good sign, in fact “impressive.”

Pearson refers to FL Wright and prairie style architecture as “developed in [Chicago] suburbs.” But he “had only known [Wright’s] wonderful, iconic Fallingwater [in Western Pennsylvania], cantilevered over a cascade in woodland,” before seeing what any of us can see any day on Forest Avenue and elsewhere in OP & RF. So he was “shocked.” Meaning delighted.

Busing

2006-12-05T08:06:00.000-06:00

Among “anomalies” cited by Chi Trib in an article about school busing is OPRF High School, which “won an exemption from [state] busing requirements by demonstrating that adequate public transportation was available.” It’s busing by Pace in the two villages or (healthily) hiking. And since nonexistent school buses do not get stuck in snow and ice, the high school never calls classes off for weather reasons.

Meanwhile, the eastbound Metra train drops a busload of Fenwick students every morning. That school draws them from far & wide. And those who keep going downtown on their way to St. Ignatius find a bus waiting for them at the Ogilvie Center. Or did a while back.

Go polar Saturday

2006-12-04T16:17:00.000-06:00

Hey, kids of all ages, Tom Hanks's "Polar Express" is showing for free at the Lake Dec. 9, 10 in the morning. It's a grrrreat Christmas movie, part of Downtown OP's (ahem) "holiday celebration." Which holiday is just between us, OK?

But militant-Christian crack aside, the movie is marvelous. I know. I saw it Friday night on Channel 7. Kids even of an advanced age can use it to remember the realities, or ghosts, of Christmases past. Don't remember a better cartoon -- it's semi-cartoon, product of our digital wonderland -- and even the scary parts (parental presence required) thrill without chilling (I don't think, but can't be sure). Shades of "Snow White," seen when just out as a young lad.

What makes the 46% tick?

2006-12-04T08:09:00.000-06:00

Is tribalism the issue in the matter of mainstream Dems supporting Todd Stroger, son of stricken Cook County board president John Stroger, in the recent election that gave him 46% of the Oak Park vote? This was a vote cast in the face of uncontested overwhelming evidence of budget-busting favoritism in hiring of friends and supporters with minimal regard to competence and other standard criteria, not to mention honesty in handling other people’s money.

Our ranking Oak Park Dem, state Sen. Don Harmon, was named in an 11/22 Chi Trib editorial with many other ranking Dems who endorsed Stroger. We may assume family matters for him, though Oak Park has traditonally shown a civic sense that counts for more than one’s tribe. It often does, anyhow, but not for the 46%.

That many do not care about hiring people with minimal regard for competence, etc. Tribalism may count among us also, but more likely livelihood or career — or those ol’ social values. Chief among these is the right to abort a fetus, with gay-rights issues not far behind followed from a longer distance by gun-banning and other such matters.

This is an interesting conflict, between social liberalism and political reform. It leads to asking if it is progressive — a cherished liberal description — to support the hiring of the incompetent or less competent because they will plant signs on street corners and knock on every door.

He's the man

2006-11-10T11:16:00.000-06:00

I’m voting a long-term contract for Comcast repairman Ernest, who came to our house the other day and solved a months-old problem that had mystified two repairmen before him. They didn’t know they were mystified, thinking they had solved the problem. In fact, if Comcast does not go along with my vote, I am calling for a senatorial investigation. Our own Sen. Harmon would be a good one to lead this. Long contract for Ernest!

Nicer this time

2006-11-09T10:54:00.000-06:00

Newly seated trustee Galen Gockel did not always get along with V. Mgr. Swenson and V. Pres. Trappani. Taking on the assignment, he

"was intrigued by the prospect of having a cordial relationship with the village president and the village manager, a phenomenon which was not always available to me when I served my full four-year term previously."

The seating of a trustee

2006-11-07T17:52:00.000-06:00

The seating of Galen Gockel as interim village board member last night was a dramatic event in its way. One trustee had no idea he would be sworn in right away and even checked with the clerk to see if she was ready to do so. She was, meaning she had the papers ready for him to swear to and sign, but she added that she was ready for anything, meaning apparently that she could save the papers for later, which no one in his right mind would deny her since she had nothing to say about it.

As soon as the uninformed trustee, Marsey, announced his being uninformed, two things happened rapidly: the president, Pope, who had called trustees up about his idea a few days earlier, said it was his fault, which seems accurate, since Marsey seems usually to know what's going on; and another trustee, Milstein, shot back that he knew it, leaving it for us to maybe guess that it was not Pope's fault at all. Who knows?

Milstein followed immediately with his announcement that since the president was acting firmly and with dispatch, they had no business questioning his decision (paraphrase here), to which the president responded saying he was grateful for Milstein's support -- reaching out to touch him fraternally in the next chair -- but that Marsey was within his rights to question the decision. Marsey had done so without prejudice to Gockel, whom they all know from his past time on the board, but noted that the criteria for picking him applied to two other past board members, whom he named.

He also had questioned filling the slot at all, the one left vacant by resignation of trustee Baker, who pleaded need for time with family, having earlier complained in a newspaper about length and frequency of meetings. The new trustee, not a veteran of their previous discussions, would be "a drag on the dynamic" they had achieved by these discussions, said Marsey, specifically about the budget, which will be soon calling for their approval. (Gockel said later he'd been following them on TV in the budget discussion, for which he deserves a medal in addition to his newly allocated board seat.) Marsey also questioned the "manner" of filling the interim slot.

Trustee Brock said adding the seventh trustee -- let the odd man, she said -- in was a good thing, in case of a tie vote on the budget, which is to consider a bad if not worst-case scenario, when they could not agree. Trustee Johnson presented himself as a convert to President Pope's proposal, having at first wanted a more "collaborative" process; it had taken him a few days.

This is when Marsey asked Clerk Sokol if she was ready, stating his preference for waiting two weeks. A time for public comment had looked preferable to Johnson too, he said. But he decided there was no need for it, because "we all know Galen," which if they don't now, they never will, he being probably the most prolific overall living vote-getter in Oak Park, with careers behind him on school, township, and village boards covering maybe 20 years. He was on the elementary school board in 1976, when our oldest was being prepared for kindergarten. I think I have that year right.

Marsey's concerns carried no water, however. Milstein perhaps least of all would object, recalling as he said that he and Gockel had stood on the same side of a budget vote a few years back when both were on the board. This is when Milstein made his blanket avowal of support for Pope in the matter.

In a matter of minutes, the deed was done: Gockel was sworn in and pointed to his seat, with the understanding that he would not stand for election in April. He delivered a eulogy of sorts for the resigned Baker, sympathizing with him on the need to be with family. When Pope implied Gockel wouldn't be saying much right away, Gockel told him not to be sure of that.

In any case, it was a coup for Pope, who apparently was clearer on the matter with Milstein than with Marsey when informing the trustees of the proposed Gockel seating, when lining up votes for him, that is. Pope has a tentative way about him that can be deceptive and could become a Frank Paris in the office, Frank being the longtime unthwartable River Forest board president. But that's a big leap beyond last night's scenario, dramatic or not. Who knows?

Hard copy

2006-11-02T19:18:00.000-06:00

This month’s Wed. Journal column has:

* PICKING A WINNER: I voted early this year but only twice — early at Village Hall two weeks ago, twice when the touch-feel machine wouldn't save my paper. . . . .

* SIGNS OF TIME: Meanwhile, the Peraica signs seem to be growing on front lawns. It can't be easy, I have said, for the true-blue Dem to go red-blooded Republican, even if he's a supposed reformer. . . . .

* SIGNS MISPLACED: The Stroger signs, on the other hand, came and went like thieves in the night, for instance on the narrow grassy strip on South Boulevard across from the Oak Park Avenue el platform. . . . .

* RAISING MY HAND: Was happy to contribute my two cents to the OP elementary schools recommendation fund the other day. Did it online, but don't you even think about that, because the deadline has passed. Had a few questions left over, however . . .

Read it. You’ll like it.

Money matters

2006-10-26T21:19:00.000-05:00

Talking budget, OP trustees considered options. Cutting costs being one of them:

Trustee Robert Milstein said the board should be careful not to raise false expectations that they can keep spending in line.

"I don't think anyone's going to be happy if we cut a service," Milstein said.

As a revenue producer, Milstein suggested increasing fines for developers who do more demolition than was village-approved on historical homes, and implementing a tax on vacant buildings.

Let us give credit to anyone trying to spend no more than $116.7 million next year, but may we not ask what’s this about making people happy? Since when did that happen at budget time? Question is, will you trustees be happy — satisfied, whatever? Not to mention, will voters be happy if spending goes over, bond rating is reduced, etc.? And which voters? The dumb ones?

As for those fines for developers et al., are not these people who have been in Trustee Milstein’s crosshairs for some time now? And might he be better occupied in finding sources with eye on prize of revenue totals rather than, as one suspects, on people to be taught a lesson? Forget killing two or more birds with one stone already.

Schools want to know

2006-10-19T14:45:00.000-05:00

Filling out D97 questionaire about what’s important in schools, I run into “providing adequate support” for kids moving to higher level. What is this adequate support? Anyhow, I rated it very important on general principles.

Why do I call it not important to teach cultural etc. differences? Because this multiculturalism is at best a distraction from teaching how to read, write, and express oneself, at worst a blurring of distinction between right and wrong and of universal standards. (Clitoridectomy ok some places because we can’t condemn anyone? Defended here in 1996, condemned here in 1867!)

Same for rating multicultural ed programs: big distractions, blurring of norms. It’s inculcation of highly suspect mentality, over-the-top substitute for old-fashioned mutual respect, color-blind, etc.

“School control” over staffing, etc.? Apparently vs. district and board? Maybe good idea, maybe prescription for chaos.

Open enrollment a good idea: parents, etc. choose. Schools get vote of confidence or not. I like the idea.

Fill it out yourself here.

Grow or decline

2006-10-18T11:19:00.000-05:00

OP is past the point of no return as to development. Even OP Ave. has vacancies, as its modestly position tenants leave for Forest Park or go out of business. Lake Street problems are old news. Question is, will OP upgrade its exclusivity — without which we are nothing — for the two thousands or not? It has moved past the village of old, like it or not, and faces decline or growth. The new Lane Bryant and gym-&-swim club on Lake Street — and this is no bicycling-in-the-window as at the long-gone Chi Health Club on Madison or the soon-to-be-gone OP Y on Marion, but pool, basketball arena, climbing wall and lots more, according to its brochure. Condos are atop it all.

But it’s the building that tolls the knell of parting village. It’s a Loop or Mich. Ave.-style building, looming big and imposing. Heritage-preservers can’t be happy about it, even Lane B. shoppers or gym rats. It’s like 70 years ago, when the elegant Austin house was moved to what’s now Austin Gardens — from Lake Street, where commercial purposes were winning out. History matters, as the historical society says, and it tells us this is no time to go wobbly with the OP future.

Motivated campaign workers

2006-10-18T10:34:00.000-05:00

Whether T. Stroger’s campaign is “descend[ing] into chaos,” with his declining to appear with Peraica on various shows, one thing is clear in OP: his signs are popping up all over — but not on private property! Few citizens want them, but someone is planting them on various parkways and stretches of publicly tended grass. Yes. Soon there will be a sea of them on the village green of Scoville Park, where frisbee is played, but not this year. The public-minded citizens who plant signs on public property may be county employees or they may not be. Readers are asked to decide.

More food for Dems' thought

2006-10-05T12:02:00.000-05:00

Getting wise to scandals (sent off by Peraica campaign)

... Federal prosecutors are no longer playing along with the perverse joke that illicit patronage hiring and contracting are "just politics." FBI agents are unraveling scandals that stretch from the Capitol in Springfield to the Cook County Building to the adjacent Chicago City Hall.

And those probes may be having effects:

A few weeks ago, Democratic insiders were sure that Todd Stroger, their candidate for the presidency of the Cook County Board, could ride out the serial deceits that had put him on the ballot. Now some of those insiders are worried. Their polling shows that many Democrats have stubbornly negative opinions of Stroger.

The surmise: Those Democrats, thousands of whom voted for board member Forrest Claypool in their party's primary [as in Oak Park], want a steely reformer--the only option left is Republican Tony Peraica--who'll work with the feds to clean up Cook County. What's more, those Democrats are still angry at party bosses who repeatedly told them lies about former Board President John Stroger's medical prognosis in order to steer the previously pliable Todd Stroger onto the ticket. ... [on mark!] [Italics and color added]

-– Editorial, Chicago Tribune, October 5, 2006

Meeting, anyone?

2006-09-21T19:52:00.000-05:00

Jon Hale’s “One View” in the Wed. Journal could hardly have been said better.

What's up with downtown?

2006-09-13T09:42:00.000-05:00

Everybody and his brother and sister seems to be on board to discuss and explain Downtown OP (Marion St.) development tonight, 9/13:

Desman Associates [planning consultant, leading the meeting]; Ross, Barney & Jankowski, the architects designing the parking garage; The Lakota Group, which is responsible for area planning and streetscape; and Metro Transportation Group, working on transportation and parking issues.

I could be wrong, but it seems that this was already discussed and on the way to being done when the village board changed hands two years ago. Are all bets off? Some?

Later, from a well-placed source:

Tonight's meeting is an extension of the Crandall-Arambula plan for downtown, which was not specific about downtown proper — Harlem-to-Forest, Lake-to-North Blvd. Trustees have picked up where they left off a year ago, planning now for the North Blvd. garage and the streeting of Westgate and Marion. The problem remains what to do with the Colt Building. Trustees will decide that issue in their 9/21 meeting.

Tangled Web woven

2006-09-13T09:34:00.000-05:00

"The business of knitting and crocheting seems headed into a downward cycle," says Tangled Web Fibers owner Elin Thorgren, who's closing up on OP Ave. across from St. Edmund Church, adding, "And you know, there are some things going on in Oak Park, development-wise, that make it untenable to try to ride out the storm." Of course. A biggie is coming across the street and down the block that will utterly transform the OP-South Blvd. corner.

I work, therefore I am

2006-09-13T09:25:00.000-05:00

This interview with Al Gini is excellent. Al makes sense, the writer, Tom Holmes, who covers religion etc., does an excellent job.

Davis tripped by inadequate info?

2006-09-13T09:15:00.000-05:00

Congr. Davis repeats to the Wed. Journal that he did not know Tamil (terrorist) Tigers funded his recent trip to Sri Lanka.

Davis . . . said neither he nor anyone on his staff were aware that any money from a terrorist organization was used to pay for his trip until the story broke in the Chicago Tribune. [He] said he first learned of the charges when a Tribune reporter called his West Side office before the paper's Aug. 24 story. The Tribune followed up with another story four days later on Aug. 28. On Aug. 25, the paper wrote a scathing editorial concerning the trip and politicians, such as Davis, who take "junkets," or trips taken by government officials and paid for with public funds.

Davis said the trip was public and that "there was nothing secretive about the trip."

He said some of his Sri Lankan constituents urged him to visit the country. As reported by the Chicago Tribune, the U.S. Census shows 44 people in the 7th Congressional District who identify themselves as Sri Lankan or part Sri Lankan.

D97 hurt by other taxers?

2006-09-13T09:07:00.000-05:00

Here's someone who may be viewing a TIF as hurting the schools. Compare with my most recent column in which I pick up briefly on Trustee Milstein's cooperation model as calling first of all for giving TIF $ back to schools. This 9/12 opinion piece, by Joel Ostrow, does not quite say that, however. In fact, it's mainly a (cogent) defense of Dist. 97 as responsible spender, except for teacher contracts, a big "except," and argument for its deserving an ok on its coming referendum -- which could not come at a worse time, with all the complaints about higher taxes.

Another view-giver, Rex Burdett, does not agree. He opposes a Dist. 97 referendum, accusing it of over-spending, nailing the League of Women Voters, whose

proposed solution (greater state funding of education) fails to quantify inevitable massive individual state income tax and, worse, ignores the root cause of the current dilemma-namely out-of-control local school expenditures due to salary increases far in excess of inflation and staffing increases disproportional to enrollment trends.

It's certainly true that schools-supporters have a mantra here, which he attacks, namely that it's the state's fault. Maybe so, but this alternative view is in order.

Library speaker 9/9/06 part of big Muslim doings

2006-09-11T10:45:00.000-05:00

OP’s Committee for Just Peace in Palestine speaker asked if Zionism is racism, compared Israel-Palestine today to apartheid-era South Africa — "It's much worse,” he said. He’s Farid Esack, a Muslim theologian and author of Qur'an, Liberation and Pluralism: An Islamic Perspective of Interreligious Solidarity Against Oppression; On Being a Muslim: Finding a Religious Path in the World Today; and An Introduction to the Qur'an.

He had spoken two days earlier at Dominican U. ($10 a head) in a “dialogue series.” DU says he’s been active in “the Call of Islam,” which as a message is said by the Muslim American Society to include this:

The Muslim regards himself as commanded by God to call all humans to a life of submission to Him, to Islam as a present participial act (42:15). His life goal is that of bringing the whole of humankind to a life in which Islam, the religion of God, with its theology and Shari'a, its ethics and institutions, is the religion of all humans.

He’s currently at Harvard Divinity, having just done a three–year stint at Xavier U., Cincinnati (where this blogger taught briefly in the late 60s). Coming up at Dominican is a lecture 9/21 on “theological challenges and opportunities of Muslim-Catholic dialogue,” a lecture 10/30 on “Transforming the Self [sic], Transforming Society” an open meeting 11/8 of Chicago-based “Catholic-Muslim Dialogue.”

To Esack’s credit, he does not turn up in search of the Anti-CAIR or Front Page web sites, each of which has sensitive antennae when it comes to Islamism. He does turn up in an Amazon-posted rave review of Progressive Muslims: On Justice, Gender, and Pluralism, by Omid Safi, to which he contributed “an essay that takes the document ‘Progressive Islam - A Definition and Declaration’ as its point of departure.” In the essay he

is very critical of the views expressed by many liberal Muslims, whom he accuses of suffering from the same myopia as their fundamentalist adversaries: presenting themselves as 'authentic' interpreters of Islam and canonizing certain statements in the sacred scriptures without regard for the context. He is equally dismayed by liberal Muslims' failure to challenge that other form of fundamentalism: that US interests represent the axis around which the earth rotates. [Italics added]

Uh-oh.

TIF defended

2006-09-03T23:07:00.000-05:00

No need for “timeout” on Tax Increment Financing (TIF) as Cook County Commissioner Quigley called for, says mayors’ group.

Oak Park's Kelo Problem, Part 2

2006-09-03T11:32:00.000-05:00

From Death and Taxes - Monday August 28, 2006

Last week I talked about Oak Park's Kelo problem. You may say to yourself, "I understand that Oak Park likes to restrict the ability of owners of real estate to use their property, but so what?" To my mind, ... (read more)

Whence taxes?

2006-08-30T10:06:00.000-05:00

In a town meeting about taxes,

[Township pseudo-assessor] ElSaffar explained taxes have increased steadily due in large part to a series of successful voter approved tax referendums and residential assessment increases.

There we have it, ladies and gentlemen. We or someone like us voted up those referendums, for good or bad reasons, depending whom you ask. This is plain talk from ElSaffar (who is pseudo because he doesn’t assess anything but voters’ ire — worst he’s seen this time around — but explains things).

“It's partly our own fault. We've never seen a referendum in Oak Park that we've said no to,” said one taxpayer, a UIC prof, adding ominously, “We need to look very carefully at what we're voting for."*

Won’t happen. Depends how many look carefully. Some always have, but teachers and parents have won the day every time, including this blogger working might and main for his six kids in public schools. As long as OP is home to a school population like this, the referendums will pass. Trust me.

This is not a retirement village, in other words. This also spells doom for the Perennial Outs in the April village board elections. Shockingly In last time, they have irritatingly gone against the Expansion Grain. This time they will lose. Trust me.
---------------------
* Or this, from another resident, who went to the Board of Review to appeal her taxes: "The man listened to me very politely then when I was done said 'You people in Oak Park come crying to us every year. Stop voting yes for every referendum'."

Concordia what?

2006-08-29T15:19:00.000-05:00

Concordia U.-River Forest is no more. Now it's Concordia U. Chicago. New web site too.

Icon slips

2006-08-29T14:10:00.000-05:00

This just in from the 300 South OP Ave. block: The U.S. Postal Service did not deliver yesterday. This I can confidently assume from the totally empty three boxes in our building, west side of OP Ave., a few doors north of Wash Boul. There's a # to call, but it does not give you the local p.o., or didn't a few years ago last time I called, when same thing happened on 600 Ontario block. S--t happens, I know, and maybe we should mainly be grateful it happens as infrequently as it does in respect to mail delivery. There, got that off my chest.

3:50, having broken down and called the # (1-800-ASK-USPS), was put on hold AFTER answering the machine four or five times. 3:53, got Eric, who said give them to 5 p.m., call back with info, they will go to supervisor, etc. Thanked him, that was it for then.

4:30, going outside, there she was, Ms. Mail Carrier. I said Hi, added there had been no mail yesterday, she said she knew. Whole tone was, she knew quite well about it, which was all I had to hear. End of story and complaining.

Voting for Stroger

2006-08-29T13:17:00.000-05:00

* At least one voter has decided to punt in November. She will not vote either way, Stroger or Peraica, for county board presidency, she volunteered to this blogger/writer. She can't stand voting for Stroger and so will NOT VOTE.

Enter Edmund Burke: "All that is necessary for evil to succeed is that good men do nothing." Good men and women, let the bad times roll!

* In a more analytic mode, here's one man's view a while back of the overall situation: "One thing Peraica needs to win is strong suburban turnout compared to the city. That's a tall order since city turnout has been greater than suburban turnout in every major primary and general election for many years."

-- Rob Olmstead in Daily Herald 06-07-31

MERCANTILISM LIVES!

2006-08-29T12:09:00.000-05:00

"In reality . . . from Adam Smith on (and before that), monopoly was always understood as being created by government. Indeed, The Wealth of Nations was a critique of mercantilism, the system of state-sponsored monopolies, protectionism, and monetary superstition that plagued European economies at the time (1776)." [Italics added]

This is a definition I've been looking for, supplied by Thomas di Lorenzo, author of How Capitalism Saved America: The Untold History of Our Country, from the Pilgrims to the Present -- 330.122 DIL on the Dewey decimal chart at OP library.

It's important for OP, which has been practicing mercantilism for some time now, picking and choosing commercial operators, generating arguments about which to pick and choose and inhibiting growth and prosperity even when picking winners, as anyone is bound to do now and then. Consider the hundred monkeys at a hundred typewriters and their (maybe superior, who knows?) version of "Hamlet."

Danny and the Tigers

2006-08-25T07:32:00.000-05:00

Rep. Danny Davis (D-IL, i.e. Chi & points west, including OP) made Chi Trib editorials today, lede item, “Davis' marvelous adventure”, which follows on AP and Trib (also here) and other stories about his taking moola for a seven-day trip to Sri Lanka, once Ceylon, from the terroristic Tamil Tigers, who use suicide bombers and child soldiers, according to our govt. He says he has seen no evidence that says they put up the money — for him and an “aide.”

Given . . . incriminating disclosures [involving Tom DeLay, R.-Texas] about congressional junketeering, you'd think experienced hands such as Davis, a Chicago Democrat, wouldn't take tickets from strangers

says Trib today. But junkets are important to Davis, who “has accepted 47 trips paid by private groups since 2000 [and] ranks 15th among the 535 members of Congress in accepting” them. 15th out of 535, wow! He likes to travel.

Trib wants a rules change, requiring Congressmen to hit up taxpayers for such trips if such are needed.

Another question has to do with Davis’ knowing what the heck is going on, period, if he isn’t up to speed on Tigers’ doings in and out of Sri Lanka, including paying off U.S. officials, as 11 of their supporters have been recently arrested for doing. And he was the good-govt. non-Stroger candidate for county board presidency slating! Wow again!

(On the other hand, give Davis a hand for his work on alleviating the plight of nonviolent drug offenders, as explained here. He’s making a push this fall for the so-called Second Chance Act, of which he is lead sponsor. It’s considered a wedge into this matter, though it does not specify the nonviolent part. In any case, he got favorable mention from the Drug War Chronicle, published by StoptheDrugWar.org.)

Later: Danny Davis update was supplied by Chi Trib 8/28 by John Biemer, whose account is very straightforward, and appreciated for that. It’s a summary of what’s been done, with a nice pulling of it together. Davis

said he went to [Sri Lanka] to see how reconstruction and aid money was being distributed after the 2004 tsunami at the behest of his constituents. But the community that prompted that weeklong trip appears to be a small one.

Forty-four people in his district, in fact, per the 2000 census. But not they but the Tamil Tigers paid $13,150 in laundered funds, say law enforcers. Davis said he didn’t know that, saving his thanks for a Tamil cultural organization, the Federation of Tamil Sangams of North America, based in south suburban Hickory Hills.

In yet another district, the 6th, in Glendale, FBI found information that led to 11 arrests for helping to aid the Tigers illegally. A Davis aide claimed many Tamils in his district but named none for Chi Trib. Most of the Chicago-area Tamils are from India anyhow, according to various sources whom Biemer names. When Davis got back from Sri Lanka, he got a $500 donation from his Hickory Hills Tamil contact.

Looks fishy. Davis was roaming outside his district even before he roamed all the way to Sri Lanka. Why?

Populists v. Progressives in Oak Park Politics

2006-08-24T17:01:00.000-05:00

Jon Hale of Forum Oak Park takes issue with Dan Haley’s lumping of OP political philosophies into “a narrow range. Liberal, good government, tolerant.” Rather, there are populists and progressives:

The NLC/VCA side [winners in last village board election] is populist, catering to what it thinks “the people” want, often to the point of demagoguery, and distrusting the ability of professional experts to help guide policymaking. “Good government” and “tolerance” of opposing views have not exactly been hallmarks of this group’s leadership over the past year. It puts too much faith in the use of public meetings, which it expands ad infinitum until the only folks left standing on a given issue are the extremely committeds, who then are given disproportionate say over the outcome.

This is very familiar. I can still hear the neighbor and fellow Beye School parent announcing at a PTO meeting in the 80s that he had plenty of time and would remain as long as it took to decide a certain issue. You hang in there, asking, “Which side are you on?” until the people with lives beyond politics go home.

This side sees Oak Park not as one community, but as a collection of groups to be catered to – especially those that supported it at the polls. In general, this group finds decision-making difficult, especially on complex issues where it’s hard to discern exactly what it is “the people” want and professional expertise is considered untrustworthy.

Ah yes, we need “closure” here. Majority rules? How brutal. Rather than “the people,” what you hear is “the community.” Yeah, yeah! Rumble, rumble.

Hale’s Forum, on the other hand, thinks

there is more to policymaking than . . . catering to what we think “the people” want. . . . there are multiple viewpoints on every issue. A trustee is called upon to consider these public viewpoints then to . . . “revise and enlarge” the public view taking into account the whole variety of community interests, so that policy decisions are based on what’s best for the entire community, current and future.

Not quite philosopher kings, but elected representatives who do not feel need for a referendum on every decision.

This is . . . why we call our Village Board members “trustees” -- we, the people, “entrust” them to make the kinds of decisions on behalf of the entire community that any well-informed and knowledgeable citizen would make if he or she were serving as a trustee and had access to not only the public’s opinions but also professional expertise.

Sounds reasonable.

Comings, goings, hanging around

2006-08-23T17:46:00.000-05:00

* Board meetings proliferate, trustee(s) object: Two of the OP Seven, Brady and Baker, have missed 10 and 19 study sessions respectively of 27 sessions this year. Brady is unrepentant. He was told by President Pope and Trustee Milstein, both holdovers, that being a trustee would take 20 hours a week max, but

“Anyone who reads the [local] newspapers or watches [VOP] Channel 6 knows that the trustees have essentially taken on another full-time job."

he told WJ. "Do I help my son go to sleep and read him a bedtime story, or do I rush out to the village study sessions two to three times a week?" he asked. He wants more discussion at the regular meetings, which Trustee Johnson said go longer because — it’s “the irony” of it, he said — some who missed the study session have to be brought up to speed — “we have extended the debate.”

Brady pleaded work obligations as her reason for missing meetings but noted:

"We're sometimes a little loose in study sessions. If we were more disciplined overall it would probably make study sessions more effective."

Anyone who watches Channel 6 can attest to that. Only the dedicated need attempt it. Cherchez le Milstein here, who recently had to be reminded by another trustee that a matter was "not in our purview" in discussion of which he wanted to linger — something about how to get villagers to own fewer autos! “I don’t know the answer to that,” said M., as if in a college common room or even a student dorm. He’s not supposed to know the answer to that!

Not only could Milstein try putting a sock in it, but President Pope might take half the time to say twice as much now and then. His starts and stops are enough to make a grown man fidget if not weep. He seems also at times to take Milstein’s side lest M. get on his high horse at being contradicted. He won the presidency in part thanks to revulsion at alleged high-handedness in running meetings by his predecessor. Now he has one of those who profited from the backlash refusing to attend meetings that go on and on, calling it

tedious to have read all the [information provided on an issue] and be ready to make a decision, and then spend five hours rehashing people's positions that have already been made public,

and another whom he picked pointedly criticizing how he runs things. Maybe there’s a good reason why Joanne Trappani ran a tight ship.

* Affordable housing again: Working from a 2003 report, “our bible,” says the relevant committee chairman, a village committee wants to put “more teeth” in OP’s program. One of these presumably would be hitting up developers who tear down buildings with affordable units to build more costly ones, as suggested by the woman who heads W. Suburban PADS.

Not a good approach, said Rick Kuner, who chairs the Oak Park Regional Housing Center board, He cited a recent study that showed OP as the fifth most affordable community in the Chicago area because of its access to mass transportation. Don’t build anew, he said, indirectly countering the PADS woman’s idea, but look to what’s here already.

One out of every four condos becomes a rental unit, he said, and units in two- to four-flat buildings are often big enough for families with children to rent.

* Run, do not walk to read two columns in 8/23 WJ, Jack Crowe on who authorized the expenses that beef up whose tax bills -- We did it! -- and John Hubbuch on what other kind of games we can host beside gay ones, how many ways to lose how much $ on the Colt building, and perfectly matching us with our new manager.

* "I've always been suspect of the state's tax cap legislation," says Dan Haley in his 8/8/2006 column, who surely wanted to say suspicious. It's the legislation that's suspect.

It's in this column that he says:

Would be a good moment then for this village board to swear off the insanity of the Colt Building. The proof is in-this building is a white elephant. And while the village may, or may not, have funds to pour into it from its discretionary Tax Increment Finance stash, it is still real money, still comes from local taxpayers.

And it's a week later that Milstein chimes in with his column about taxes, where he talks about courage again — this is Father Courage speaking —

Legislators typically find their courage only when they're scared to death of voter outrage.

And in which he emphasizes coordination by taxing bodies -- village trustees prompting school board members, for instance -- a utopian concept, assuming it's a good idea, and in his criticism of the village board exempts his own role in overspending by saying the board

“dithered on new development (Colt building, whether restored or razed), which prevents the village's tax base from growing to keep pace.”

Haley took strong exception. Milstein, he wrote,

seeks cover on the Colt building boondoggle. . . . Colt proponents are claiming the cost of filling this black hole would be borne out of the TIF fund, as if that isn't really tax money. Milstein actually misstates that the TIF fund is sales tax driven which is plain wrong. Property taxes diverted from the schools and parks create the TIF fund. [Ask any school board member.]

Also note that Milstein is paving the way to fill the unleaseable Colt building by suggesting it would be a good place for a children's museum. This way lies ruin.

Another Oak Parker took exception more pithily to Milstein as problem-solver. Jack Strand in an 8/23 letter tags him tellingly as a barnyard fowl. “He often reminds me of the rooster that thinks it is his crowing that makes the sun rise each morning.”

In another letter (same link), Dan Finnegan tries to help President Pope in his "reverse buy-out" plan to help people pay their taxes, from trustees repaying the village $21,000,000 “from their personal wealth” when they “spend $7,000,000 on a project and later learn that the project makes no economic sense,” to rebating “$100 per bite” to every taxpayer dinged by a mosquito “within [village] boundaries, despite mosquito abatement efforts.”

Keys to teardown

2006-08-21T17:36:00.000-05:00

Wed Jnl:

Atty. Heise: If the moratorium were to lapse before zoning changes were made law, "we’d be back where we started." [However, a] moratorium can be extended or shortened any time before its end date.
. . . .
Trustee Ray Johnson did not support the moratorium idea in part because of the process to enact it that was cut short in observance of the board’s month off in August.
"This is normally a process that should take several weeks, not several days," Johnson said, asking Heise to confirm. Heise said it was "not that unusual" for the board to respond quickly to an issue.

Is there more turning to Atty. Heise these days than usual? Is he being asked to do more than give legal opinion?

Johnson said the move could create an environment of uncertainty for developers, and that, taken together, this and other moves Oak Park has made might [together make] the village seem anti-development.
"There is also a lot of uncertainty when it comes to residents," responded Trustee Robert Milstein.

Gotcha.

Oak L:

"Sometimes it does take courage to say no," Johnson said, adding that he understands concerns of neighbors on the 400 block of North Maple Avenue, but thinks the moratorium goes too far.
……………
At a study session Thursday [four days before the vote], Johnson [had] said he was concerned about approving the moratorium without giving residents an opportunity to comment on it. The board heard a first reading of the ordinance Thursday and passed it Monday.
"In circumstances where we don’t have some pressing issue, it’s always preferable to allow time, as much as you can, but it’s not necessary," Heise said of public comment Thursday. "We’re perfectly within the law as a home-rule community."

Here is Heise as lawyer, essentially telling trustees what they can get away with. It’s what a lawyer does.

Those bricks were not fine

2006-08-21T17:35:00.000-05:00

Regarding the Schiess fine mentioned below - actually the Troyanovsky fine, he being the developer - village staff has no record of approving height changes, this blog hears.

(The building is neither the seven stories high that Schiess wanted nor the five that neighbors wanted, but six, by the way.)

As for the bricks, Schiess got two approvals, one in the ordinance giving him the go-ahead, the other of his permit application, which should be enough for any man, except they were each for a different kind of brick! Not to be outdone, he used yet a third kind, which makes him a clever fellow indeed.

Scheiss structure: How high thou art

2006-08-04T22:44:00.000-05:00

The village board drew a line in the air above which architect John Scheiss was forbidden to rise. But he did it, and now he pays:

Learning that the Opera Club mixed-use building at the southeast corner of South Boulevard and Marion Street was built 5½ feet higher than it was supposed to be drove the Oak Park Village Board last night to levy a hefty fine--$188,223 . . .

The Opera Club developer also has to make a parking lot on land a block away that is to be cleared.

Scheiss has apparently been making changes that depart from a 2004 agreement with the village. The board just found out about them, such as using bricks that displease the eye on one wall. But news of the 5 1/2–foot overbuild is what tore it for the trustees.

Trustee Ray Johnson, the most developer-friendly of the seven, called it "a serious issue," even though he had earlier said the discrepancies might have been the village's fault.

"This takes us to another level," Johnson said. "That's a major problem for me."

A key village staffer, head of its Building & Property Standards Department, admitted that village procedure, even in measuring height, "leaves something to be desired.” But it’s up to the developer to stay within guidelines, said village president David Pope.

The height issue had top priority at the start. Schiess wanted seven stories, neighbors wanted five at most. But he went with five to reap good will for the developer, he said, who has other Oak Park projects planned.

But the five-foot discrepancy was clear from the start, Scheiss said at the 8/3 meeting at which the fine was imposed, not only to him but also to village staff — who apparently did not inform the trustees — because an extra foot per floor of “unusable” space had been prescribed by the structural engineer.

[Scheiss] said he met with [Village Planner Craig] Failor and another staff member to review the plans and they talked about the height difference. Staff had the opportunity to not approve the plans, but they approved them, Schiess said.

Meanwhile, Scheiss got the OK from someone else — the above-mentioned Building & Property Standards people — for the sensible-shoes no-style brick but didn’t tell the planner. These bricks were what had trustees’ shorts in a bunch until they heard about the five or five and a half feet — measurements differ, alas — and that’s what made the roof fall in on Scheiss and the Opera Club.

The board taketh, the board giveth away

2006-08-03T10:52:00.000-05:00

During discussion about ending the night-time on-street parking ban, OP trustee Martha Brock “repeatedly said the village needs to find a way to reduce the number of cars residents own,” Oak Leaves reports.

"I think it's a good idea to seek to reduce the overall demand for parking," Brock said, adding that if the village creates more parking spaces, residents will continue to purchase more cars.

Of course! People have been thinking the problem is not enough parking, when it’s too much!

Meanwhile, the board went ahead on its teardown moratorium, rushing the vote to honor its own moratorium on meetings during August. It halts demolition of single-family houses on multi-family and commercial streets. It’s a saving of the 200 such structures, for now, until new ordinances can be crafted, according to trustee Robert Milstein, who likes the idea very much. He threw out the 200 figure in discussion, identifying it as his “opinion.”

The vote was held on Monday after study-session discussion on Thursday. That’s legal, said the village lawyer, because OP is a “home rule” community. The moratorium was opposed only by trustee Ray Johnson, who said he had got calls from worried realtors, to which Milstein and Brock responded that they had got them from not worried ones.

Milstein had said (several times) that it’s a matter of “courage” to vote for this (and do some other things). Johnson said on Monday that it took courage to oppose it.

Village President David Pope said he’s usually not for moratoria but would make an exception this time, calling it “a reasonable step" because of its limitations — which if it covers 200 houses can’t be so limited as all that. Nor is it limited to 120 days: the trustees can shorten or extend that at will, Wednesday Journal reports.

The uncertainty of it all plus other recent board actions might make OP look anti-development, warned Johnson. "There is also a lot of uncertainty when it comes to residents," countered Milstein. In other words, you got your uncertainty, I’ve got mine. Very high level of debate here.

Careful: mind at work

2006-08-02T17:20:00.000-05:00

Couple incidents in the past week or so cling to the memory. Of neither can I be sure, but both are rife with possiblity:

1. I got wolf-whistled during the recently complete gay games in OP. Was walking around the HS stadium as athletes and others milled. Soccer was in progress across the street, where from the sidewalk outside the big playing fields I spotted Wed Jnl editor Ken Trainor chatting with a woman whom I took to be a sort of spokesperson but might have been someone Ken was chatting up in the course of doing his story. Back across Lake St. near the stadium, where I was looking around, I headed back and away down Lake Street away from it all. Had just passed some soccer players as they sauntered toward the field house, where I assume they used locker rooms and showers. Which is when I heard it and thought it was aimed at me but can’t be sure, of course. Didn’t turn around. A fella doesn’t, you know.

2. Week later, crossing Lake at OP Ave. 7:30 or so a.m., I waited for the light to change from green arrow, allowing five or six vehicles to go their way. The last of them, a dark-khaki or olive-drab SUV of weathered appearance, slowed at the intersection, however, but kept turning, so as to make a U-turn and head back down OP Ave., heading south. I glared through his windshield, barely making him out, and kept looking as he completed the turn. Then I got across, turning to see what he was doing: he was pulling over. I assumed he was stopping for a Caribou coffee across OP Ave. and briefly considered continuing my glare. But I was enjoying my walking too much and so turned to go my way. A few more steps, now curious, I turned again, and the SUV was gone. He had stopped to give me what-for, I decided, but when I was no longer looking, he sped off. Maybe not. Could be wrong again. Anyhow, it was a great walk, taking me through the park with its small hill to Grove, and thence to Chi Ave. Returned by way of Euclid with its big houses and headed on home.

Not knowing everything

2006-08-01T11:45:00.000-05:00

Coming out of very good conversation at George’s with old friend and liberal Dick, I think of something I might have said, namely that I don’t have positions on everything and the positions I have range from certain to perplexed. Dick peppered me with qq about what I think about various issues. I think I did make the point that on this or that I have no more than leanings. Haven’t studied this one, nor that one, I said, and I think he got my point. But it’s an important one, that we ought to look before we leap and not be too facile in adopting and defending this or that.

I did mention what I’m reading (when he asked), namely Friederich Hayek on individualism, the good and the bad kind, British and Euro. More later on this.

He mentioned days long ago when we agreed on everything. But those were days when I did more leaping than looking, as a young priest teacher at St. Ignatius, for instance. But even then we probably had disagreements, and he was wrong to assume otherwise. This is it with people: if they agree wholly, there’s something wrong. It means they are buying too much and should put the brakes on conviction-forming. Anyhow, too much agreement makes for boring conversation, which mine with Dick wasn’t.

Teardown timeout

2006-07-28T22:14:00.000-05:00

OP’s village board reaches out:

Oak Park trustees are looking to stop teardowns that are threatening predominantly single-family blocks in multifamily zones.

At a study session Thursday, trustees directed Village Attorney Ray Heise to draft an ordinance that would prohibit demolition permits to be issued for single-family homes and small flats in multifamily districts for 90 days.

Trustees expect to have a first reading of the ordinance at a special meeting tomorrow, and vote to adopt it Monday.

That’s fast work, but

"We have the power as a home-rule community to do it," said Trustee Robert Milstein, who led the charge for a moratorium. "We need to have some courage as a board."

We can’t let that power go to waste, can we?

Switching to Peraica

2006-07-24T10:39:00.000-05:00

Brian Lantz, 305 Home Ave, is one of three Oak Parkers, of 10 letter-writers in all, in Sunday 7/23 Chi Trib decrying the Toddler Stroger coronation as county board president nominee. Lantz suggests secession: "We have" services we need. It’s a "duplication of county government."

Two others, Carmen Vitello and Jane Jeffries, explicitly say they will vote Republican in November. "I have always voted Democratic, but I hope there is a groundswell among Democrats to support Tony Peraica to show the party that we really want change and reform," wrote Vitello, who is not listed. "I've been a proud Democrat until last week. Now I’m ashamed," wrote Jane Jeffries, also not listed. "I voted for Forrest Claypool in the primary, and for the first time in my life, I’ll be voting Republican this fall."

Now. Is OP village board President Pope in for a dollar, having been in for a dime for the April primary, when he made calls for defeated Dem candidate Forrest Claypool? Will he be making calls for Peraica?

A taxing matter

2006-07-10T20:16:00.000-05:00

From Nancy in Lake Bluff about OP tax-cutting: Lower taxes encourage development, thereby increasing the tax base. OP trustees fail to recognize this. One only had to listen today to remarks by the new treasury secretary, as he was sworn into office, to understand the logic behind lower taxes. He unapologetically proclaimed that lowering taxes worked for the federal government. Tax revenues are way up and the budget deficit has gone way down.

Me: In some way or other, this would work for Oak Park.

Column up

2006-07-05T09:00:00.000-05:00

This month’s Wednesday Journal column is up and running. It’s about local-govt intervention in the business lives of all of us — see the recently posted Lane Bryant episode — and all-around leftist leanings in OP.

Trustees know shopping!

2006-07-04T06:55:00.000-05:00

Oak Park

is the target of a recent lawsuit, filed after officials decided Lane Bryant doesn't fit the "kind and quality" of shops desired for the building.

Sun-Times reports.

In a downtown known for its trendy shops and clothing stores, Village President David Pope said officials want "a more broad-based retailer" to fill the building rather than one with "a niche market."

Lane Bryant specializes in clothing for women sizes 14 to 28.

Since when does local government make marketing decisions for developers?

What's the deal on Stroger? Hard to know what to believe

2006-07-02T12:57:00.000-05:00

. . . says Mark Brown, who at the end of his description and attempt to figure out the Stroger in Wonderland happenings says something that must be occurring to lots of people beside Tony Peraica:

All I can say for an absolute certainty, though, is that this situation has been nothing but good for the Republican nominee, Commissioner Tony Peraica, who is looking more and more like a contender.

In Oak Park, for instance, lawns were loaded with signs for Forrest Claypool, Stroger’s opponent in the recent primary. Will those become Peraica signs this fall, even in Democrat Oak Park?

OP spending money

2006-07-01T14:23:00.000-05:00

OP business owner Paul Hamer — has Frame Warehouse on Harrison St. — on retrieving freebies to developers through added sales tax:

People do not realize how small the sales tax pie is that goes to our village. It’s only one percent of the total 8.76 percent collected [that is, one% of purchase amount]. That means a business with a million dollars in sales only generates $10,000 for our community. The total sales tax deposited in village coffers for the entire downtown business district in 2003 was only $350,000. In our $100 million village budget, that’s nothing.

As for the Shops of OP, whose developer got lots of freebie help:

2003 Actual real estate taxes from The Shops: $ 353,238
2003 Projected real estate taxes with no public investment: $284.534
Gross yearly Shops tax increase: $68,704

But there’s also the debt servicing by the village, which has led to a net yearly loss of $263,060

Would the developer have paid $6.5 million of his own money to make $20 million? [counting his recent sale of The Shops for $20 mill] I think so. There was no need to ever get us involved financially.

Which leads to the question why the village trustees felt themselves competent in this matter in the first place.

The Shops didn’t increase our sales tax base, didn’t increase our real estate tax base enough to cover our costs, and has not led to a downtown revival—all the things that were promised to us.
………………
The TIF district tax hole that previous village boards have dug for us is deep, and it is not totally clear to me how we will be able to dig our way out without severe sacrifices to local public education or dramatic local tax increases.

Sex on the grass

2006-06-12T19:32:00.000-05:00

Nice June evening, man meets wife for light supper at Winberie's, at Oak Park's premiere corner, Oak Park & Lake. Quiet, tasty, reasonable. Man and wife exit Winberie's, cross Lake to Oak Park's premiere park, Scoville Park. White kids playing frisbie. "Look out, people," he hears as one player warns the others about pedestrians. Man and wife take the pleasant walk up the small hill past the monument and various people lounging on the grass, including interracial couple with little kid. Pleasant.

They enter the library, where he picks up How Capitalism Saved America: the Untold History of Our Country, from the Pilgrims to the Present, by Thomas J. DiLorenzo, waiting for him on the reserve shelf. He doesn't even have to go to the circ desk steps away, but checks it out electronically. Upstairs she is chatting with the part-time librarian, #2 Daughter's first-grade teacher long ago, just retired from the elementary district. He joins for chatting. They conclude, look at videos. He picks one, waits for her at the huge windows overlooking the park. What he sees horrifies him.

A black boy is humping a black girl on the grass. Both are clothed. He is holding her down, as if in a wrestling move, bouncing up and down on her crotch. She wraps her legs around him. A second black boy lifts a light-skinned, perhaps white girl up from behind, puts her down on her feet. She wants to get at the boy on the ground. He prevents her. She leaves the three, heading to a corner of the park 100 feet or so away where others are congregated. The humping boy gets up after several minutes. The humped girl gets up laughing, smoothes her hair, stands there. He gets her now from behind, standing, and humps some more.

"Disgusting," says the wife, approaching the same window.

"Let's go," they say.

Outside, at the corner of the park mentioned before, a dozen to 15 black teens congregate at the benches, milling about with each other, talking and laughing. The humping couple is part of this group. This is the group’s corner. Elsewhere in the park are kids and adults using the park for their quite different purposes.

Not Boring

2006-06-08T12:05:00.000-05:00

No one will ever be bored by this board, By JIM BOWMAN in Wednesday Journal of OP&RF, June 07, 2006
DIFFICULT MEETING: Oak Park Trustee Martha Brock saved the day, or night, at the village board meeting a month ago when she and Trustee Elizabeth Brady changed their minds about who should lead the Colt building redo. Brady had explained herself reasonably enough: matters of substance had combined with matters of politics. There was nothing substantive to add when Brock’s turn came.
But speaking after Trustees Bob Milstein and Geoff Brady, she saved the situation. The other two had called out an editor, a political opponent who had addressed the board, and fellow trustees in a remarkable display of pique, disappointment, and veiled or unveiled animosity, chilling the room, or at the least the one where I sat watching on TV.
Brock rambled a bit but did not hesitate. She got personal but not maudlin and not angrily defensive. Like an earlier speaker, she spoke of resigning. But she accused no one. It was not a masterpiece of argument but a candid, apparently guileless display that cooled things down. She finished, the meeting proceeded, business was completed, everybody went home.
HISTORICAL PRECEDENT: The affair was all about backing into a meat grinder. The butcher’s wife did that. The result was predictable: Disaster. So did our bold if misguided Board Majority back into a public opinion meat grinder. The result? Temporary setback apparently viewed as disaster. Two defected, leaving two others disturbing the ether with ineffectual haymakers.
But all four may take grim consolation from Oak Park political history. Officeholders and staff have had to swallow some bitter medicine over the years. At a hot District 97 board meeting a long time ago, a disgruntled parent asked a board member to step outside. (He didn’t.)
When the library board tried to close a branch, people demanded otherwise. The Village Manager Association, still chewing dust from the last election, lost a much earlier one over the firing of a garbage man. A lawsuit did the same for a hard-charging school board. Former officeholders have left town. You need insulation from the slings and arrows.
LANDMARK ALERT: Meanwhile, Oak Park’s Historic Preservation Commission convenes with statutory authority to declare your building a landmark with all the benefits and liabilities that includes—whether you like it or not.
That’s what Trustee Greg Marsey learned at the May 15 board meeting, where the 400 North Maple block condo development was discussed. Marsey asked and got it verified by Village Attorney Ray Heise, who admitted the coercion written into village ordinance—no, the owner cannot decline landmark status—only after noting that the owner is invited to participate in landmark discussions.
Marsey appeared stunned. President David Pope, trying to wrap up discussion, said he did not want to get into "nuance" at that point. But one man’s nuance is another’s heart of the matter. Someone can start the process for you the owner? And in the end you have to go along with commission and board decision, with drastic implications as to what you can do with your own property? You have in mind neither whorehouse nor shooting gallery nor saloon, but a spanking new building with toilets that work, but it doesn’t matter, or might not matter.
There was more. So clearly was the board moving to stop the Maple Avenue development that Trustee Baker volunteered on the spot to mediate in the matter of developer vs. NIMBY neighbors. He would recuse himself from voting when its landmark status came before the board, he offered, presenting himself as a neutral third party who would bring developers and neighbor to agreement.
But elected officials normally recuse themselves only when past activity indicates conflict, and they do it regretfully. They don’t do it ahead of time so as to adopt a new role that an official considers more important than the one he was elected to fill. Milstein dissuaded Baker from his bad idea, though without saying how bad it was.

Look out, here comes the village board

2006-06-07T13:49:00.000-05:00

Something going on here we should know about?

The [OP village] board tabled the discussion on the zoning change until the end of the meeting, when it entered into a closed-door discussion citing "attorney-client privilege," which is not one of the 23 "strictly construed" exceptions that allow public bodies to meet in private.
When the board returned to open session at 12:30 a.m. Tuesday, [President David] Pope explained the board’s position before a unanimous 6-0 vote to direct the village attorney to prepare a "findings of fact" on down-zoning the block. Trustee Greg Marsey left the meeting before the vote was taken.
The findings of fact would replace those prepared by the [village] Plan Commission in its recommendation to deny the zoning change from R-7 to R-6, which is a more restrictive and less dense residential zoning designation. The change, if it were to affect the planned condo building, would lower the four-story building by one floor and reduce its 11 units to nine.

Plan Commission, butt out. Meanwhile, historic preservation took a hit when the relevant village commission denied landmark status to two buildings on the 400 N. Maple block

Commissioners expressed sympathy with preserving examples of more pedestrian architectural styles and with the neighbors’ plight in trying to prevent the character of their neighborhood from changing. However, most of the commissioners at the meeting found that the buildings are too badly dilapidated to retain historic architectural characteristics.

Falling-down buildings need not apply. But landmarking the third would stop or slow down the condo development. Neighbors are looking for “cultural”-historical reasons to save it — as if their interest was piqued in the first place by issues of crowding and making their block less livable or at least less cozy.

Meanwhile, the developer has made his plans under the wild assumption that zoning on books matters.

[Bob] Allen said he’s already spent a lot of money getting the project ready to be built, having not held back because he intended to build within allowable zoning.

But he faces a zoning change after the fact:

For weeks, Village Attorney Ray Heise has told the board that any zoning changes made now would not apply to a project for which a building permit application was received prior to the change.
Monday night, Pope would only say that the applicability of the zoning change, if approved, would be "subject to internal operating procedures of the village, village codes and state laws."

Which with $1.50 or so will get you a Green Line ride downtown or even to the South Side. You can trust this village board as far as you can throw it.

Trustees Geoff Baker and Robert Milstein were the most vocal in pushing the board to consider setting aside the Plan Commission to deny the zoning change request.
"I’m not going to sit by and let inappropriate zoning affect anybody," Baker said.
Milstein said the board needed "to send a new message in Oak Park that historic homes and peoples’ neighborhoods will be protected."

In other words, we can change that law if we want. Or, to paraphrase the Red Queen, words mean what I want them to mean, period.

Crime and punishment

2006-06-06T11:14:00.000-05:00

Tough, bold, smart Oak Park police catch a bad guy. Breaking news from Wed. Journal:

A suspect in the rape and armed robbery of several woman in River Forest accidentally shot himself in the head during a police chase Monday night in Oak Park. The suspect died several hours later

Cops had him in the dark in Mills Park, but he

might have slipped through were it not for the instincts of off duty Oak Park detective Sgt. Juan Paladines. Paladines, who was driving in the area in his personal car, turned on his police radio when he heard the commotion. He then parked near Home Avenue at Washington Boulevard and waited. Within a minute Paladines spotted Patillo crouching behind a garbage can. When Patillo started moving south bound on Home, Paladines exited his car and followed him, radioing his position and asking for assistance.

Rookie Oak Park officer Stephen Struska was the first to arrive on the scene, and joined Paladines in the foot pursuit in the 400 block of Home.

Struska passed Paladines, and was about to reach out and grab Patillo, Scianna said, when Patillo pulled a hand gun. He attempted to point it over his shoulder and shoot Struska. Unfortunately for Patillo, he fired too soon, and shot himself in the side of the head.

Wow.

Secret proposals, payoffs, divisiveness, scorched earth? OP is hot: Today's Wed Journal column

2006-05-03T07:26:00.000-05:00

NONE OF YOUR BUSINESS: Is it kosher for the village not to reveal development proposals (RFPs), as it did when Wednesday Journal asked for them in the matter of Colt building renovation? These are secret proposals? What about the soon-to-be-approved protocols of participation? Would the proposals be revealed to participants? One good thing: this refusal spares our village board any second-guessing by citizens with their own ideas. This is only right. Who are these citizens anyway? What trees do they plant?

PAYOFF: What about Whiteco paying off the village for honoring its agreement? Its coughing up $400G for unnamed and so far nonexistent village housing programs, to say nothing of another $200G in environment-friendly additions to the already agreed-on building. That would be your cost of doing business in Oak Park, insofar as this village board is a very sensitive creature, and kid gloves are in order. Its not under the table, anyhow.

TAKING OFFENSE: And hey, since when is it not kosher to ask about conflict of interest, as board President Pope asked a few weeks ago about who would plan the Baltimore Colt redo? You cant even ask? Trustee Milstein was "offended ... deeply offended ... angered," as if hed been told his mother wore army boots. Trustee Baker found it "repugnant." But what have board members got better to do than ask about conflict of interest? Its what legislators do.

NAME GAME: These two are of the board majority, but thats too tame a phrase for the poets among us. "Milstein majority," in honor of its stormy-petrel spokesman, does have a ring to it, though editor-columnist Trainor has the fetching "fearsome foursome of Bob [Milstein], Baker, Brock and Brady (the killer Bs)." The poets love it. But Milsteins the man, poetic or not, so we should go with the other one, MM.

Indeed, board meetings and local papers offer us no small array of Milstein moments. For instance, the opposition Village Manager Association (VMA) was part of Oak Parks "growth machine," until "swept out of power," he said some months back. Yes!

When this papers doughty editor criticized the MM, Milstein said the editor had been "smoking something," making a thinly veiled reference to hashish. Worse, this editor is a writer of "divisive columns," he said.

This has to stop, any fair-minded person will agree. And while were on the subject, isnt it grand that we have no divisive trustees?

Two months ago Milstein burst forth with 1,145 words in defense of his majority, taxing developer Taxman with putting out an "unprofessional, scorched-earth press release that debases the integrity of the board." His sole VMA opposition on the board, Ray Johnson, he said "will milk every ounce of this [Colt controversy] for his re-election campaign." Johnson, moreover, wants to be "the knight in shining armor."

The tax appeal processa county process?favors businesses and apartment building owners; its "an onerous old-boys network."

These are the words of a man with a mission. We need people like that in village government.

Wait. Thats not right. It should read, "We need people like that in village government?"

HOUSECLEANING: Meanwhile, on the school scene, District 97 Supt. Constance C. apparently was not born yesterday. When she hit the ground running last fall, fresh from Zion, she called for an audit of business and personnel operations and found dirt under the rug. Better to find it now than later, when she herself would have some explaining to do. Is this standard for a new super? I dont think so. But what a good idea in this case, when she succeeded a super of many years tenure, under whom matters got sloppy.

FP CALLS: And then theres the YMCA getting ready for its big move to Forest Park, where there will be room to roam and then some. The market had to be part of that decision. Sitting on expensive land with no room to roam is a nice incentive to sell and move.

Its not expensive? So why is Time & Money restaurantsorry, Thyme and Honeyalso moving to FP? Because a big building is coming to take its place, something in line with that lands market value. Oak Park is hot, youd better believe it.

St. Edmund rising

2006-04-12T09:54:00.000-05:00

St. Edmund RC Church -- Oak Park's oldest, it says on a sign out front (apparently antedating St. Catherine of Siena's move from Pine & Washington many years ago) -- has reduced its debt from $1.1 million to $375,000 in a year, says the pastor Fr. John McGivern in the bulletin. He's been there 18 months. Weekly collections etc. mean no debt is being incurred. Fr. McG cites "some very generous donors, the reallocation of some underutilized funds . . . two bequests, and the fine fiscal management of the [parish] Finance Council."

Donors can set up automatic direct debit and automatic credit card contributions, so "you'll never have to worry about your weekly envelopes again!".

A recent "Elegant Evening at the [Brookfield] Zoo netted $66,000. Weekly collections have to average $13,500. Apparently they have been at that level, in view of ongoing lack of indebtedness.

All Oak Park should be glad about this.

A word to the wise in village government: Stay out of politics

2006-04-05T09:05:00.000-05:00

Today’s Wednesday Journal column

What the heck was Oak Park village board President David Pope doing boosting a Democratic candidate by telephone, as reported in this newspaper? What the heck was he doing at the Dem candidates’ beauty contest at the library Feb. 11, where he was sighted from the podium and given a big hand? Doesn’t he know about the rise of the VMA (Village Manager Association) in the ‘50s as antidote to political-party shenanigans (hiring), in that case Republican?

The VMA floated and won adoption of village-manager government, taking government employment out of the hands of elected officials. These latter turn politicians when running for election. Otherwise, they are citizens with better things to do who decide to do this anyway, namely set policy for the village with nothing in it for themselves. Elected, they hire one person, the manager, who hires everyone else. Political-party candidates, on the other hand, get to hire lots of people if they win. It’s the nature of the beast.

A friend of mine some years back moved here from Northlake, where he’d been mayor. Came election time, he rang doorbells for Democrats, his chosen party. Chatting with the Oak Park Dem chairman at a post-election party, he was asked where he worked and named the major ad agency where he was office manager. End of conversation. The Dem chairman expected to hear a government agency, not an ad agency, as the man’s place of employment. Implication clear to my friend? As a campaign worker not dependent on victory for his job or promotion therein, he didn’t matter. Or he could show up on amateur night.

No skullduggery is suspected of Pope here. Rather, naivete. Oak Park is full of true-believing Democrats and (less full of) Republicans, who give their all as volunteers. That’s the kind of Democrat Pope is, I trust, but what of the appearance? Yes, his candidate, the presumed reformer Forrest Claypool, seemed untainted. But behind every reformer who wins is an army of people who depend on him for their jobs. Not in Oak Park. Here it’s the manager who hires and fires. Trustees should butt out of such matters, and that includes the feisty, provocative, uncivil Robert Milstein, recent subject of a barrage of commentary about him and unionized village hall employees and his offensive references to the manager and others.

As for Milstein and the unions, his critics hasten to say he has the right to join their protest, meaning legal right, I assume. What other kind I cannot imagine. Put it this way: If after joining the protest, he wants membership in the League of Wise Men in Village Government, he has no right to claim it. To call him imprudent and wrong-headed for doing it is to say nothing about his right to do it, which is a very red herring. Same for Pope and his phone calls for Claypool: He had the right to do it, but that’s beside the point. Not every right is to be claimed all the time. I mean, when husband or wife doesn’t feel like it now and then, it’s unwise, even unfair, to insist. Right?

MEANWHILE, IN CHURCH ... Did you hear about the worshiper who came late to Mass and got trampled at Kiss of Peace time? He was tackled by the deacon in full regalia and woke up some minutes later being sprinkled with holy water hoarded in anticipation of the upcoming Easter Vigil. He has learned since then to get with the program or else. A word to the wise is sufficient, he’s been told.

As for trampling and being trampled, astute observer Bob O. notes the differences of opinion about kissing (or shaking) for peace among Catholics and suggests a solution: Have the ushers greet people and ask, "Kissing or Non-kissing?" They could then direct people to one side or other of the aisle. Good idea!

Catholic unionism

2006-03-14T11:13:00.000-06:00

This from National Catholic Reporter on Chi area's Resurrection Health Care, which took over Oak Park's West Suburban Hospital a few years ago and has lots of other venues:

From the pope on down to local clergy and parishioners, the Catholic church has defended the rights of workers for decades, and in a 1999 document the U.S. bishops specified that hospital workers in Catholic facilities "have the right to organize themselves for collective bargaining and to be recognized by management for such purposes." Citing these teachings, many in the Catholic community of Chicago have sided with the workers trying to unionize Resurrection Health Care.

It's a story on attempts to get Cardinal George to pressure Resurrection H.C. But as hospitals fall and users complain -- consider black West Siders protesting Advocate Health Care's partial closing of Bethany -- is C. George going to guarantee health care to users of West Sub, which turned in desperation to a buyer, and to other hospitals squeezed by costs? (His man says he's staying out of it.) And is there a connection between being non-unionized and surviving? Ask U.S. automakers, whose market share has eroded while they pay exorbitant amounts to the select few who belong to the UAW.

As for Catholic teaching, it was hijacked by the Jesuit ghost writer Nell-Breuning 80 years ago, with popes going along sans any more authority in the matter than a tenured radical on a U.S. or Euro campus. This is true Catholic leftism, and there's no better sample of it than NCR, which gives 1,479 words to this story, done by a writer from Toledo. From Toledo?
--
Posted by Blithe Spirit to Oak Park, Home of Edgar Rice Burroughs at 3/14/2006 11:13:15 AM

Oak Park village board speaks out

2006-03-01T07:52:00.000-06:00

What is the Board Majority really thinking?

JIM BOWMAN
Wednesday Journal of OP&RF, March 1, 2006
Watching the Oak Park village board on TV, you see people walking on eggs with each other, except when Martha Brock has to take a breather, and then there’s nothing to do but watch Robert Milstein’s hair grow. Isn’t it time to translate for them and help them tell it straight?
Take the Board Majority (please) in the matter of buying the Baltimore Colt building for us at the low, low price of $5 million, plus maybe another building for $2.5 mill. Wouldn’t it be a relief for all concerned to let it all hang out, as they say in therapy? Let’s do it, citing nay-sayers and then reporting what the Board Majority-Milstein, Elizabeth Brady, Brock, and Geoff Baker-can’t say.
The Baltimore Colt decision-the building really was named after the Colts a long time ago-gives a "blank check" for historic preservation, says down-with-Colt Trustee Ray Johnson. "When I heard ‘History Matters,’ I didn’t realize they meant ‘at all costs.’"
Board Majority: You weren’t listening!
"I don’t know where this is going," said Johnson. "I’ve asked the question, and you don’t get an answer; you get blank stares."
BM: We’re tired!
Pro-Colt trustees listened only to "the few extremists" in their New Leadership Party, said Ed Baehrend, owner of a Wright-designed house.
BM: Hey. If it’s not moving, preserve it!
"Why anyone would bother to participate in another lengthy process," when consultant, steering committee, and developer have all struck out, escapes Jon Hale, of Forum Oak Park.
BM: Hey. We’re Oak Park and they’re not! Do they want our business or don’t they?
"Rebuilding the Colt building would represent ... a dogmatic, single-minded focus on historical preservation at any cost," said the Business and Civic Council.
BM: We don’t care!
A new 10-step process for issuing the Colt-rehab and other requests for proposal (RFP) "need not be burdensome or consume an inordinate amount of time," said President David Pope, pouring oil on troubled waters.
BM: You have a problem with burdensome and inordinate?
The BM kissed off the superblock citizen committee months ago, tipping their hand, says Jon Hale, of Forum Oak Park.
BM: You don’t get it. We don’t want no stinking committee advice! Let them put their stinking advice where the sun don’t shine!
The citizen committee’s plan was delivered after months of listening to citizens, developer Taxman’s architect, and village-hired experts on traffic, development and historic preservation, reported Wednesday Journal.
BM: How many times do we have to say we don’t want no stinking committee advice?!
Meanwhile, the BM has a trick or two up its sleeve in the contest being enacted before our very eyes on TV sets and at village hall. Consider recent public remarks and letter to the editor by BM member Milstein-and, if you don’t mind, piquant responses by my friend Jake (not his real name), who has been pestering for recognition.
Milstein urges us "to rescue [by use of eminent domain power] areas of Oak Park [held] hostage for multiple decades."
"I’ve got just the bozos for you," says Jake. "As soon as you’re ready, let me know. I want to help."
He would like "an architectural contest."
"No, no, no, no," says Jake. "Let’s have a musical. One of us can be Judy, I’ll be Mickey, the other kids can be lots of other people. Somewhere there’s an old barn and ..." (I shut him up.)
He wants a definitive idea of what’s best for Marion Street.
"This one I like," says Jake, who adds that he has spent his entire life looking for a definitive idea of something and is willing to pursue this goal "or at least watch others pursue it."
That’s it, then. Pretty good day for me. I liberated village trustees from cramped board-meeting style. I got Jake off my back. Where Jake goes next is anybody’s guess. Same goes for the trustees, I suppose.

Democrats on parade

2006-02-11T18:25:00.000-06:00

If all but one or two of the Democrat candidates who spoke at the library today were to look hard at their names for an "s" and immediately place a line through it top to bottom, that would be just fine. It would be better if they would write "public" or "your and my" in brackets before the "s" That way we would understand each other and be off to a rousing primary in March and an even more rousing general election in November. As it was, they were very interesting to a free-market Republican like me.

State Rep. Deborah Graham, unopposed in March, said she's for "affordable" housing and low-cost (cheap) health care. Chris Welch, state rep candidate opposing incumbent Karen Yarbrough, analyzed public-education problems as lack of "resources." (Wait. I want to draw two vertical lines in that word.) You say, "Money is not the answer"? Welch does not buy that. In addition, he's against high ATM fees and two kinds of loan, "predatory" and "payday." That is to say, he wants a ceiling on rates. (Bankers for Welch are meeting in the phone booth across the street.)

Rep. Karen Yarbrough, now in her third term, wants "housing" for the "homeless" by way of "subsidies." She is against smoking in public space but is for Gov. Blago's "AllKids" health care plan. (And be sure to add that vertical line to the "s" in Kids. Thank you.) She is also opposed to the high prices of things but is sadly realizing that her constituents don't know how to tap into "the state," which is why she tries and will keep trying to "bring Springfield to the people." (This calls for a mountain-to-Muhammad comment, but people are edgy lately about such references.)

Michael Nardello, who lives a few blocks north of North Avenue, where he is a precinct captain, opposes Sen. Don Harmon in March sans organizational endorsement. He's director of finance for the City of Chicago's Dept. on Aging, whose budget dropped from $35 million to $28 million in recent years (he said how many years, but I did not catch it), with neither reduction in services nor layoffs! Lacking support from "party leaders" to whom others must report, he will report only to those who elect him, he said. (This, though not original, is a good line. Harmon right after him simply stated the opposite: he reports to the people too.) Nardello took a shot at the state's "taxing system," said it imposes "unfair burdens," a position which should appeal to all taxpayers.

Harmon, who is OP's Dem committeeman, put in a word for national Dem chairman Howard Dean, saying he is "pleased with the results" of Dean's party chairmanship (putting himself at odds with those national Dems who are not pleased, especially with what Dean has done with their money). Harmon praised the $180 million he got for early childhood ed, a job-training center in Austin, his work to raise the minimum wage (the apple of most Dems' eyes), and four or five other achievements which he rattled off with aplomb, ending with something called "open-source council" which I will look up some day but not now. Harmon also favors "programs," a Dem staple, to solve housing problems and lower the price of "gas and gasoline," with attention to "gouging."

Rep. Calvin Giles said it would be hard to tell his 12 years' achievements in the two minutes given each candidate. (Not and still have time to recount his problems with the state election board, which had him off the ballot until he ponied up a batch of fines.) He too rejoiced in the $180 million for early childhood. (What would early childhood do without it?) And he emphasized his access to (once smoke-filled) "rooms" as a "senior legislator," where he performed as "a champion for education." He looked ahead to the jobs that would develop from expansion of O'Hare Airport and the Eisenhower Expressway -- $300 million in projects. He wants to "get people pre-qualified for these jobs."

LaShawn Ford, his opponent in the primary, is actually a businessman, whose real estate offices are in four locations, he said. As such, he "knows what it means to get things done." He noted the closing of Austin High school, wondering how "this person" Calvin Giles can claim to be a leader in education problems in view of this closing. He emphasized providing "all taxpayers" with "the services they need."

Sen. Kimberly Lightford has four years in office and chairs the senate education committee. She's for more "construction dollars" for public schools but opposes the No Child Left Behind act as "unfair and underfunded." She objects to putting schools on a watch list from which it takes two years to get removed and opposes giving "the same test" to students "less proficient" in language as is given to the more proficient. She's for raising the minimum wage and wants to "index" businesses that don't pay it.

Her opponent in March, James T. Smith, began by reciting the preamble to the state constitution, "We, the people," etc., to what purpose it was not clear. In any case, it set Calvin Giles and Kimberly Lightford trading sotto voce comments in plain view of all -- candidates sat in chairs facing the audience -- and chuckling during much of Smith's two minutes. To make matters worse, as Smith asked us to "believe in the power of one," the Democracy for Illinois sign taped to a free-standing chalk board behind him began to slip. The more he talked, the happier Lightford looked, in fact. Smith soldiered through, oblivious to the distractions, until at almost the very end of his time, he uttered the words no man or woman would be expected to utter in this gathering: "Don't throw money at the problem." (I was so shocked to hear this and was so distracted that I can't say what problem he was addressing. However, I did make a point of telling him later how brave he was to say it.)

With that the formal session was over. Candidates were expected to "plunge into" the crowd, which they did. I remained seated in the front row except for one foray in direction of Eric Davis, who had chaired the meeting superbly, to ask about him and his organization, Democracy for Illinois. It's part of Democracy for America, which Howard Dean founded. These, in short, were Deaniacs who held this very informative session. Davis is an architect, he told me when I asked. The local DFI people draw 20 or so per informal session on first Wednesdays at Buzz Cafe on Lombard Avenue, he further told me.

Him I wanted to talk to, in part to commend his performance, and so identified myself as a Wednesday Journal columnist. To someone I did not want to talk to, he identified me as from the Journal, which made me a target for publicity-seekers. I hate that and showed it to two women, consecutively, one of them Mila Tellez, a library trustee elected last time around with support from Davis's group, he said. Meanwhile, Calvin Giles had spotted me taking notes and come for me, still seated, to shake hands and inquire as to my affiliation. I said I take notes wherever I go -- I sure did not feel like explaining Blithe Spirit to him -- and finally revealed myself as a WJ columnist. That satisfied him, and he was gone.

It was not that easy getting rid of Tellez, who came at me wanting to know if I was a Democrat or (mere) citizen. From a newspaper? A citizen, I told her, smiling wanly and turning away to look at space. She invited me aggressively to the Democracy for Illinois sessions at the cafe. I remained looking at space until she retreated, muttering "You're welcome" when I hadn't said thanks for her invitation. Why did she say that?

Blackjacks, gaps, bears, rats

2006-02-11T13:15:00.000-06:00

DEFENSE ... Crime rate is down in Oak Park, except for assaults, thanks in part to increased locking of doors. Is there an equivalent for anti-head-knocking? Probably not, but wouldnt it be cool? There could be village-sponsored classes in use of the blackjack, for instance, widely publicized for deterrences sake.

Classes would teach how to pick the right size and heft, where to conceal it, how to wield it: A quick swipe here (think credit card at Dominicks), a roundhouse swing there (think Paul Konerko), or a mere brandishing, showing it to the head-knocker (think tank parade in Red Square).

Its legal if you can prove self-defenseyoud need witnessesbecause its not illegal. Look it up.

TWO GAPS THERE ARE ... The Gap I like is the one where I get dashing $8 pullover shirts that are warm and cozy, long-lasting, and in my view stylish. The one I dont like is the one between black and white kids in schools, which by the way is being approached the wrong way, as if whites all right and blacks are stepping back.

The black parent with a sixth-grader reading at first-grade level has a problemwhether whites have the same problem or notis my point. Better to concentrate on the thing to be done, whatever it takes. Its not a race but a quest, to be pursued even if its you by yourself on a desert island.

Comparisons are odious, as Sir John Fortescue said so well 600-plus years ago, and as did many after him, including Marlowe, Donne, Cervantes in translation, Goldsmith, Burke, and Shakespeare, who played with the expression, having Dogberry in "Much Ado about Nothing" observe that comparisons are "odorous."

The thing to do is go all Martin Luther Kingly color-blind and save race-discussion therapy sessions for village hall or the library. School is for solving learning problems, not social problems.

GO TEAM GO ... My lucrative Wednesday Journal contract forbids me to name the Other Paper in this column, much less to praise it. But it recently offered a gem which I cannot ignore, in an article about That Building on Lake Street. Said building got its name when it changed hands some time back and went to the owner of the Baltimore (now Indianapolis) Colts, who called it the Colt Building!

I am amazed that this hasnt come up in debate about restoring or destroying it. Preservationists should consider jettisoning that name in favor of Charger or Forty-Niner orthats it, Bear! Would developers be so cavalier about the matter if it were the Bear building they were condemning to the wrecking ball? I dont think so.

One family has to be glad of the name change, however. It was once the Goldberg Building, for leaseholder Sol H. Goldberg, whose descendants are spared the indignity of the present discussion, not least of them "The Goldbergs," of radio and television fame. And dont tell me they are fictional. I heard them on radio when I was home sick from school, with my own two ears.

PROFESSIONAL SECRETS ... All I did was say nice going about his recent column on gay games, and Oak Park writer Byron Lanning told me a lot about his working methods in an e-mail. In fact, he pretty much spilled the beans:

"I couldnt have done it without my research staff of learned pigs, my prose coach of several hundred chimpanzees randomly banging on Hermes 3000 typewriters in my basement, and my copy editor Edward, a white labratory rat with a genetically altered brain," he said.

Im getting me one of them rats.

-- Jim Bowman in Wednesday Journal of OP&RF, 2/1/06

===========

Update, from Inside Report, 2/7/06:

It’s the infamous ‘seniority memory gap’

Viewpoints columnist Jim Bowman alluded to the $8 shirts he buys at The Gap (as in the clothing store) last week in his column as an intro to comments on The Gap (as in the minority student achievement gap). Worked very nicely only [he remembered] (post-deadline) that he buys his $8 shirts next door at Old Navy, which may be more accurate, but doesn’t work nearly so well in a column. "I swear I didn’t fudge for the sake of phrasing," Bowman said in an e-mail last week, blowing the whistle on himself. He even signed off "Abashed on Ontario." Well, we believe him, mostly because we’ve been victimized by a Gap (as in the "senior moment" variety) or two ourselves lately.

The upshot is, don’t go to The Gap looking for cheap shirts.

How much for that bottle in the window?

2006-02-09T19:26:00.000-06:00

A wild story comes out of Franklin Park, where lives Oak Parker Democrat, State Sen. Don Harmon's Republican opponent in the fall election, Jim Rowe. Rowe called police the other night after a window in his house caught a bottle or decanter with threatening note at 1:30 a.m. and gave way to the bottle.

If you go here, you can view ABC-7's report of two days ago which has Rowe, an asst. state's attorney who appeared at the Republican candidates' forum at the Oak Park library Saturday 2/28, saying he had no trouble on his block until he ran for Harmon's senate seat.

Earlier, his SUV's tires were slashed and Harmon campaign literature left on the windshield. Harmon denies everything and says his people would never do it but wants police to investigate, which they are apparently doing, having taken with them the message-carrying, window-breaking decanter to check for prints.

The anti-Stroger

2006-02-04T14:37:00.000-06:00

We've had quite the circus . . . in Cook County over the past few days.

. . . another indictment was handed down from US Attorney Patrick Fitzgerald's office, charging a subsidiary of technology giant Siemens AG with defrauding Cook County. The company and two of its executives are accused of entered into a phony partnership with a minority owned business to win a $49 million contract with Stroger Hospital.

Only a few days later, the Chicago Sun-Times revealed the county's corruption watchdogs, the inspector general, auditor and ethics director and members of those offices, had made numerous contributions to President Stroger's campaign fund. It's little wonder that scams that defraud the taxpayers of Cook County like the Siemens scam at Stroger Hospital seem to slip through the cracks.

President Stroger . . . promised not to accept [any more] campaign contributions from these . . . officials, whose primary task is to investigate claims of corruption in Cook County government or other "sensitive officials".

. . . finally, there's the strange story of Vincent Jones, a relative of President Stroger and a member of Cook County Recorder of Deeds Eugene Moore's political organization. Mr. Jones is accused of roughing up a Forest Park man who declined to have political campaign signs placed his yard. Police report that Mr. Jones became belligerent and threatened to have the arresting officers "politically taken care of".

That’s from the web site of Tony Peraica, the star of last Saturday’s Republican beauty show at Oak Park library, where he made the top of the (ballot) program, gave a crisp, intelligent, easy-listening talk, answered qq, and then had to run. (He had an easy act to follow, it’s true: acting OP GOP chairman Richard Willis, who, apparently conscious of Oak Parkers’ reading problems, was kind enough not only to flash sentences on the overhead but also to read them to us, word for word.)

Peraica is an immigrant (from Croatia), having arrived here 34 years ago at 13 after losing both parents, speaking no English. He’s a Cook County commissioner, since 2002, when he took 53% of the vote over a 14–year incumbent. He’s going after John Stroger’s county board chairmanship and playing anti-corruption melodies to a fare-thee-well. His www.votetony06.com web site is a winner. It includes “Tony’s blog” http://www.votetony06.com/blogs/, which makes good reading.

So? Then where's Oak Park?

2006-01-25T14:23:00.000-06:00

You were wondering where Greek Town is, you thought on Halsted south of Eisenhower or thereabouts? You should have asked Chi Trib’s Pamela Sherrod, who locates “Chicago's predominantly Greek neighborhood near Oak Park.” Kidding you not, am I. It’s in an article, “Living lean in a 'stuffaholic' world” as it ran in the Contra Costa (Calif.) Times 1/21/06.

Later, from Len:

Well, it's only 10 minutes on the Ike..

and then there's papaspiros... a neighborhood in itself.
(Not to mention George's, Thyme and Honey, Maple Leaf...)

OR maybe she is thinking about the neighborhood around Assumption Greek Orthodox
Church on [Central] next to Loretto Hospital.., must have been a Greek
neighborhood onceuponatime.

True.

Just kids

2006-01-21T19:32:00.000-06:00

Is it possible OP police chief Tanksley would prefer not to have told Chi Trib — “Crime Drops in Oak Park” — that the 61% of OP’s 58 assault victims in 2005 who are juveniles were a case of "kids having a problem with other kids”? A few years back, one of those kids, son of the elementary schools superintendent, needed eye surgery after being attacked in Whittier playground by kids from Austin. If reported assaults, as Tanksley said, do not appear to be gang-related, they are something else bad that should not be dismissed cavalierly.

Kids at play

2006-01-18T15:43:00.000-06:00

Veronica Micklin, of 1001 Wenonah, has great things to say about neighborhood life in Oak Park. For a look at “children, independence and play,” she says in a letter to NYTimes, come to

the south section of Oak Park, where we live. My son, who is now 18, still walked over to his friends' homes to play when he was home over holiday break, rather than call them on his cell phone. Here the kids draw with chalk on the sidewalk, ride their bikes and walk to the playgrounds and parks. They play whiffle ball in backyards and throw footballs on quiet Sunday streets. Kids walk to school--grade school, middle school and high school! The sound of a ball hitting the pavement under a garage-mounted hoop is stronger than any ring that can be downloaded!

Readers Respond: Taking the Child Out of Childhood - New York Times

Not everybody loves learning

2006-01-17T21:07:00.000-06:00

For a lot of smart kids, they provide confidence and validation that are hard to come by in the day-to-day environment of middle school and high school, where academic skills are seldom on top of the heap in terms of recognition.

That’s Glenn Reynolds, aka Instapundit, in Slate Mag two years ago, talking about spelling bees and other contests and making top-drawer sense. He reflects problems that were front and center in Oak Park’s elementary & junior high District 97 back when our kids were in school, in the 80s and 90s. How to validate academic skills, yes.

He said it while reviewing the documentary “Spellbound,” about the National Spelling Bee, but linked it while discussing actress-producer Patricia Heaton’s new documentary, “The Bituminous Coal Queens of Pennsylvania,” about a 50–year-old talent and beauty contest in SW Pa. — Patricia Heaton, of course, having been Raymond’s wife on TV in “Everybody Loves . . .”

The coal-queen film is also about people and coal mining, which “has shaped this area of the country, instilling a strength and pride in its citizens.”

Unhappy in Oak Park

2006-01-05T23:11:00.000-06:00

This lady didn’t like it in OP,

the only place [she] ever lived where she didn't feel welcome.

"They were so suspicious of the Eastern establishment," she said. "'Harvard' [her alma mater by way of its women’s college, Radcliffe] was a dirty word. I always voted Democrat, but there was only one other person in Oak Park that I know of who did. I was scared to death to mention it to anyone."

Still years before the Civil Rights movement, [she and her husband, Rev.] Martin [Sargent] — fed up with the racial intolerance they saw around them — began to organize ways to document the racism, mostly by bringing black people in from Chicago and having them try to shop at segregated local malls.

It was a difficult time for the Sargents in many ways, and a time of change. They had their first two children before Martin was reassigned to a church in Foxborough, Mass. — a place where they felt more at home.

This would have been in the mid– to late 40s. She is Barbara Sargent, 84, interviewed in the Bath, Maine, Times-Record News, “in her stately living room with her dog sleeping on her lap.” She had grown up in NY City, daughter of a Lutheran pastor in mid-town Manhattan across from Central Park, where a flock of real sheep was tended by a real shepherd.

In Massachusetts “they felt more at home.” Then there was Maine and Paris, France, where she thrived. They got to know Martin Luther King. She got over her Oak Park experience, apparently, which is nice.

Pro-choice is best

2006-01-04T21:40:00.000-06:00

... when it comes to education
By JIM BOWMAN
January 4, 2006, Wednesday Journal of OP&RF
Columnist Jack Crowe says let’s talk about school [Viewpoints, Dec. 14]. OK, don’t blame me. It was his idea. He has middle schools in mind-public, or government, schools. The latter is preferred by ex-UIC Prof. Herbert J. Walberg in his and Joseph L. Bast’s Education and Capitalism: How Overcoming Our Fear of Markets and Economics Can Improve America’s Schools because they are funded and run by government agencies. That’s a cruel and heartless way to refer to our beloved school staffs and leadership, but let’s do it this once.
Let’s also put an interesting question: Can government schools be competitive? They must be, you say. Most kids go there, don’t they? But they are a monopoly as to funding, and we have found that monopolies do nothing for competition. Remember Ma Bell?
Competition happens, however. Ask any real estate broker selling a neighborhood. This is school-to-school competition, aided and abetted by published test scores. It happens within schools, too, in the choice parents have about middle-school subjects-typing? chorus? art? French? Spanish?-and even about teachers. There could be more of this: you could have homework classes and non-homework classes. Parents could choose. This would be a pro-choice program that even conservatives would approve.
Or teachers could declare for phonics or not, and parents could choose. Or for drilling in fundamentals vs. enrichment. For memorizing poetry or not. As freshmen at Fenwick in 1945, we memorized poetry-"The stag at eve had drunk its fill, where danced the moon on Monan’s rill," "I wandered lonely as a cloud," "‘Shoot, if you must, this old gray head,
But spare your country’s flag,’ she said." And much, much more. Our lives were never the same. Mine wasn’t, anyhow. We gave speeches, too; every freshman took speech, like it or not.
In this pro-choice environment, teachers would still run classrooms, out of which parents could butt. But parents would choose this or that in general terms. They’re the ones who have to live with the kids anyhow. Let them decide.
Some do it already, big time. They say no to government schools, paying their money and taking their choice at schools called Grace or Ascension or Calvary [No: Oak Park Christian Academy is the day school at Calvary church: better here wld be Alcuin or Waldorf, to name two]. Others skip school buildings completely, like Cindy Miller, on Wesley Avenue. She and her husband Jay and other couples do it themselves. Jay, an engineering consultant, teaches physics. Cindy’s friend Pat Larson teaches Latin and history. Cindy teaches literature. As many as 15 kids might be in a session, from five families. These are mini-schools, or as one observer put it, "private schools on the cheap."
The kids get out, as to see "Nutcracker Suite" at Morton East High School. The Millers’ oldest is an Eagle Scout. Their oldest daughter has taken acting classes at Village Players; she’s in her second season as a Lyric Opera supernumerary. Another son is pitcher and shortstop with a local traveling team. Another daughter takes violin, another guitar.
Home-schoolers’ reasons run a gamut. For the Millers, members of Calvary Memorial Church, where home-schooler parents meet regularly, "the Christian element" is the big thing. Cindy Miller has found it’s "good to cater to" each child’s progress. The experience has also been good for "family dynamics," which in their case are super-dynamics-the Millers have nine children, from two to age 19.

The nine have been home-schooled since birth. She and her husband, unsure at first, were willing to try it. If it didn’t work, they were willing to pack their first-born off to kindergarten. So it went with the other eight: schooling began when they were born. It progressed seamlessly. As for truancy issues and the long arm of the state, which in some places can be quite intrusive, Illinois law is liberal in the matter. Home-schooled kids are to be taught core subjects in English for a required number of days, but no reporting is required. It’s a fairly pro-choice environment.

Perils of home schooling in Joliet

2006-01-03T16:13:00.000-06:00

Egad! The ink hardly dry on my Wed. Journal column due out tomorrow (if my tardiness deadline-wise does not delay it), which I close with reference to Illinois’ liberalism in the matter, not prosecuting home-schoolers for truancy, I hear from the Home School Legal Defense Assn. (HSLDA) about a Joliet family hauled into court:

In Illinois, homeschoolers only need to teach the same branches of instruction in the English language that are being taught in public schools . . . ever since an important state Supreme Court case [in] 1950 [that gave them private-school status].

Nonetheless, certain school districts tend to demand more of homeschoolers than is actually required by law. . . . The Will County Regional Superintendent's Office sent a truant officer to contact the [Walters] family.

He said the kids — all four but one “chronic” — were truant. HSLDA complained immediately, but the truant officer went to the local prosecutor, who charged the family with truancy. He said the chronic required "supervision." HSLDA found the truant officer in violation of a statute requiring written notice of truancy before charges were filed. The father asked for a continuance, the judge refused, not allowing the father even to ask. The kid had to be in school the next day.

The mother went to the district the next day. Once the regional superintendent saw she had a teaching certificate, lesson plans and plenty of books and was told of the truant officer’s failure to file proper notice, he called the state's attorney and got the case dropped.

Nuts to you

2005-12-20T20:21:00.000-06:00

Coldstone Creamery ice cream shop on Marion south of Lake is "not a nut-free environment," it warns in its window, speaking allergy-wise. Otherwise, however, need this be said, since we expect in the normal course of things to meet at least one nut per environment in OP?

Save the Colt!

2005-12-07T15:10:00.000-06:00

Wednesday, December 7, 2005, Wednesday Journal of OP

JIM BOWMAN

Remembering Colt ... Talk of the Colt building these days brings back a cherished boyhood memory, when Dear Old Dad would take us on the Lake Street car to go and see it. We’d get off at Marion and walk the half block west and stop to gaze and gasp.

Dad would put his arm on my shoulder and say, "There it is, Jim, the building time forgot." I never forgot.

"It’s art deco," he said many times. I didn’t have the gumption to ask what that was but knew it was special.

The whole family would go. We’d take our lunch and munch it while watching from across the street. Sometimes the peanut butter would not go down easily, as a certain constriction took over the throat—constriction at construction, of a truly wonderful building.

How different today, when to stand on that spot is to witness another construction in progress, of luxury condominiums for big spenders who one day might walk the New Street to Metra—will they call it "New," making every other street sound old?—and while they’re at it will help fund police, fire and trash-collection services beyond our dreams, not to mention schools, parks, and library.

But there are days when I could care less about that, when I look at such an ugly construction site and think that one day such would occur on the ruins of our beloved Colt.

Even today I meet or hear of visitors from abroad who have heard about our Colt and want to see it. "We came to see the Colt," they say, and are aghast at the news that the village quibbles at spending five-plus million to buy and restore it. They return to their native lands shaking their heads.

One can only ask, plaintively, is there a Cicero in our midst who can stand up and ask, "How long, how long, Oh Taxman, will you abuse our patience with your regressive views on Colt, insisting on the letter of a contract imprudently signed by village fathers and mothers a few short months ago?"

Is there a Balzac who can sprinkle our walls with a reproachful "J’accuse!"—thus to finger the perpetrators of sacrilege in our midst? And for what? To enlarge our tax base!

Finally, is there a Patrick Henry who can tell our burgesses, as he told those of Virginia about something else in 1775, "I know not what course others may take, but as for me, give me Colt or give me nothing!"? I ask you.

Weaponry ... Meanwhile, on another front entirely, a soft but persistent voice suggests to some citizens that even with excellent emergency response by police, there may be something walkers and riders can do to fend off harm. With that in mind, they consider gaps in Oak Park’s weapons ordinances.

There’s no mention of Mace, pepper spray, stun gun, or Taser. Knife and blackjack are mentioned only in connection with pawnbrokers, who must not keep either around. Air gun or bow-and-arrow or any other projectile-firing mechanism are ruled out for use, except arrows on a range supervised by the board of ed or park district—Ridgeland Commons on a slow day?—and blanks fired on stage, presumably for scary or other effect.

That leaves Mace, pepper spray, stun gun, Taser, knife, blackjack. The pepper sprays are good for eight feet, says TBO Tech-dot-com, the Taser for 15, the stun gun for no feet: you have to touch someone to stun him. It comes disguised as umbrella or flashlight or something else if the citizen wishes. Years ago on the West Side, a friend of mine in the projects said she had a friend who had to wait at night for a bus at Halsted and Lake. In her muff she hid a small pistol. The man who asked her for a match was a dead man. Maybe a spray or Taser shot would do it now, even in Oak Park.

Right here in River City

2005-11-07T12:10:00.000-06:00

You never know what you’ll find in the newspapers. This in USA Today is not all about me, which is a shame, but I’m in it. Carla K. Johnson of AP-Chicago did a good job here, as did fotog Jeff Roberson, whom I gave a brief tour of OP’s Lake-OP Ave. intersection on a beautiful day. In fact, as you can see, OP is featured as much as I, which is not a shame.

The story was also picked up by The Southern.com, “Southern Illinois’ home page,” without pic.

Milstein talks

2005-09-20T17:55:00.000-05:00

“He does that a lot,” OP village president Pope told a person addressing the village board, meaning “Don’t mind him.” This was trustee Robert Milstein, who was taking forever, with multiple asides, to ask his question.

Death of a barber shop

2005-09-15T15:40:00.000-05:00

Dino Dini’s barber shop is in its last days. He’s retiring after 40 years at 66. So are his barbers Frank, 89 (!), and Tony, 69. It’s here and here. That didn’t keep recruiters away. Two were there this afternoon, checking on their plans: retirement, retirement, retirement. So the recruiters were going away empty-handed. What then of the shop? Dino has had four or five inquiries, none of which have led to a lease with Kehoe & Co., the building managers. The building, a big one, on the SW corner of Marion & Chicago, was bought a few years ago by a group of investors. There apparently is no replacement barber shop in its future.

Meanwhile, a half mile south, also on Marion — on the pedestrian mall, from Lake to the tracks — rents are going up, says one merchant, and the smaller shops will probably be moving. A very big condo development is going up just beyond the viaduct, on the SE corner of Marion & South Blvd. Its units will not be going for peanuts. Its residents will be flocking to nearby shops which will reflect their ability to pay more.

Times are a-changing in OP. Weep and wail if you must, but there’s nothing anyone can do about it, not while there’s a tax base to keep in mind for our schools and parks and library, to name three OP-required amenities of the first water. Goodbye, Dino. Enjoy your retirement. And haircut-seekers, take note: Saturday the 17th is the last day. Dino will take his chair. The other two are pretty well spoken for by loyal customers, a number of whom shook hands with Dino and the other two on their way out this afternoon.

OP&RF today

2005-09-14T10:10:00.000-05:00

Dominican U.’s easement-seeking enters a new phase, as here, where we read in Wed. Journal of OP&RF:

With the belief that any legal uncertainty over the ownership of a small swatch of wooded land along Thatcher Avenue has been resolved in its favor, Dominican University will move ahead with zoning applications to build a parking garage and classroom building on the west side of its River Forest campus.
. . .
At the heart of the matter is village approval for a driveway curb cut along Thatcher Avenue between Division Street and Greenfield Avenue. If that driveway is OKd, it would allow new access to the west side of the campus and lead to construction of a 550-car parking garage and a new Academic Building.

Legal advice and Forest Preserve District support in favor of DU is bolstered by heavyweight political support from county commissioner and Elmwood Park mayor Peter Sylvestri. River Forest village administrator Chuck Biondo says RF is aboard. It’s all in the wake of extensive protesting by OP resident Victor Guarino and others who argued last March that the land belongs to the Forest Preserve: “There hasn’t been a thorough enough study of this.” Characterizing the current turn of events as “very complicated,” Guarino insisted that the Cook County Board of Commissioners, which administers the Forest Preserve district, has never told the university that it owns the property.

“[Board president John] Stroger said [last] Wednesday that he never told Dominican University that they owned that land,” said Guarino. “We’re calling for an independent legal counsel to review this.”

Stroger doesn’t turn up in the latest story, being perhaps busy with other things such as allegations of corruption on the board he heads.

==============================

Elsewhere we read that “Planning is socialism,” a point of view that runs against the Oak Park and maybe River Forest grain these days. It’s at http://www.mises.org/story/1910, which Calif. Assemblyman Ray Haynes [raysahay@aol.com], representing parts of Western Riverside County and Northern San Diego County, says in part:

Anyone who thinks that planning for "growth" is anything other than a exercise in futility is still experiencing the mind-altering visions that their college chemicals visited upon him or her so many years ago. Today's planners meet in little rooms, draw pretty pictures on paper maps, use the prettiest crayons they can find, and — whamo — the city has a plan. Wonder and utopia are supposed to follow, and never again will the city experience traffic congestion or cosmic disharmony.

Ouch and double ouch from OP, where plans proliferate. Haynes gives chapter and verse on how plans don’t work in California, concluding:

We know that socialism is a failed experiment, as demonstrated by the failure of the Soviet Union, socialism's most devoted practitioner. My socialist colleagues in the Legislature, however, think that they are smarter than the Russians and that socialism will work here in California if we just have the right plan. The most recent polls tell us that the public is not satisfied with how we are doing our job. Maybe we should try something different, like freedom and free enterprise, the principles that made this country great.

As they said in the (mostly imagined) 60s barricades, right on!

Peace fair, Sept. 6 Wed. Jnl column

2005-09-07T16:28:00.000-05:00

"What does peace look like?" ask Peace Fair promoters.

Try a nation run by German Nazis or Russian Communists or Sadaam the Sadistic and his Wretched Sons.

================================

Tuesday, September 06, 2005
Trapani wastes no time getting out of town, on board
JIM BOWMAN
Tuesday, September 06, 2005

TRAPANI TRANSPLANTED Elmwood Park must be pleased as punch to have former Oak Park village president and trustee Joanne Trapani, a new resident, on its Plan, Zoning and Development Commission (PZD). She was introduced at the Aug. 1 meeting of the Elmwood Park trustees, its minutes say. She bought a house in Elmwood Park 10 days after the April 5 Oak Park election. Her first PZD meeting was to be Aug. 8. The next is set for Sept. 9.

END OF OP AS WE KNOW IT? Ex-Oak Park trustee Barbara Ebner wrote both newspapers saying the village-manager concept is jeopardized by New Leadership trustees’ suggesting a hiring commission and regionalization of trustee accountability. She says the first takes from the manager what belongs to him, the second makes aldermen out of at-large trustees responsible to the whole village, not just part of it. This is sniping of a high order. It gets to mindset, even philosophy.

HOMER NODS (SAID HORACE), BUT CONCORDIA? The Concordia U. motto "Empowering the mind, Enriching the spirit" should be the other way around, "Enriching the mind, Empowering the spirit." The mind is well stocked or isn’t, the spirit is willing or isn’t, or so Matthew (26:41) and Mark (14:38) tell us.

WHATEVER DID IT WANT? The Village of Oak Park called Aug. 18 at 9:43 a.m. asking how I was doing that day. It had a young female voice: "This is the Village of Oak Park." When I suggested in slightly raised volume—nothing like when I tell the dog across the street to shut up—that it not ask me that and get on with its business, it hung up.

DIG THAT NUTTY EMERSON Here in Oak Park, there was once a Hawthorne School and once an Emerson. We know that, but do we know that Hawthorne considered Emerson and his friends "queer, strangely dressed, oddly behaved [seeing themselves as] important agents of the world’s destiny, yet [were] simply bores of a very intense water?" We didn’t, but now we do, thanks to an essay by Christopher Benfey in the Times Literary Supplement last December.

WHO’S IN CHARGE? Lines formed to the right and the left (not sure who’s right, who’s left) at a District 97 board meeting last June in the matter of teacher and principal evaluations. Peter Barber (yay Beye!) and Julie Blankemeier, both newly elected, stood for getting in on the process early and often. Marcia Frank, not newly elected, demurred: "We at the board are not conducting the evaluation. ... [W]e’re micromanaging if we decide what needs to be evaluated."

That’s about as old a school conundrum as there is: Do parents trust the professionals or would they rather count the cards? Do parents think only of their own kids, not of all kids, and don’t know how to take care of all, as only the pros do? Or are teachers their surrogates, responsible to them whatever their training? When Dist. 97 solves this conundrum, it should issue an all-points bulletin to school districts coast to coast.

JAVA JIVE Caribou on Lake Street, late fall, 7 a.m. Handsome couple behind counter. Very personable guy. Customer says a cup of regular for here, man asks if he wants award-winning Colombian, brandishing announcement of Caribou’s award. Customer says yes, man gives him a cup, says he gets three refills. He says he would never drink that much, but it’s nice to know.

ROMANTIC SPOKEN HERE In his novel Waverley, Walter Scott, creator of the historical novel as we know it, depicts his hero as romantic by upbringing, thanks to his seat-of-pants, highly literate but unsupervised and largely unstructured schooling. The lad’s tutor, with other fish to fry, let him have his head. It’s like most Oak Park kids these days. One of the best of Oak Park elementary-school teachers some years back encouraged students to "create" (not discover) knowledge, she told me.

YOUR SOURCE FOR EVERYTHING Bowman’s blogs—Chicago Newspapers; Blithely, Blithely; and Oak Park, Home of Edgar Rice Burroughs—are linked at www.jimbowman.com.

Parish notes: St. Giles

2005-09-01T14:53:00.000-05:00

Northwest Oak Park’s Catholics flock to and generously support St. Giles, which is a monument not only to Catholic faith and culture but to the rise (mostly) of the Irish from proles to bourgeois, and I don’t mean petit. It’s a grand structure, a “plant” to warm cockles of pastors’ hearts for these 70 or so years. But what of St. Giles the man?

It’s his day today. Those in the know and on the go read Saint of the Day for their information, which is “shrouded in mystery,” but so what? I love a mystery, and so do lots of people.

Giles died in or around 710 (we think). One thing is for sure. He was “one of the most popular saints in the Middle Ages.” He hosted pilgrims on their way to Compostella in Spain and the Holy Land in a monastery he built. After he died, he was listed among the 14 Holy Helpers, who were good to pray to when sick or dying — when a fellow needs a friend, to be sure. St. Christopher, who came a-cropper due to historians’ shooting down his existence, was one of the 14.

In any case, Giles was very big in Sweden, Hungary, and parts of Germany and eventually got a reputation for helping the poor and disabled. He couldn’t save his monastery hostel, however. It fell apart some centuries after he died. It was a sort of sic transit experience (there goes glory), which shows saints have them too. St. Giles, pray for us.

Church paper exhausted

2005-08-28T11:53:00.000-05:00

While Fr. Dan preached today at St. Catherine of Siena-St. Lucy about faith-based decision-making -- a no-brainer in most church circles -- the toilet paper was running out in the bathroom. I know. I was there. It didn't shake my faith, but it gave me undeniable pause.

I repaired to the vestibule, where a veteran parishioner was manning a cookie table. At her I waved the empty spool, removed from its spindle for the purpose. She knew all about it, having apprised an usher, who had apprised Fr. Dan before he ascended to the altar for mass. Nothing had been done about it, however: there was faith-based decision-making to be considered.

It's in there, said the parishioner -- the t.p., that is -- where no man can reach without a key. But who had the key was a mystery to be compared with that of the Trinity. The janitor (the principal's brother) was absent, though probably not without leave. One who had reached young manhood in the parish could only yearn for the days of Carl, who lived above the boiler next to the girls' playground. He would never have permitted such a crisis, if only because the Monsignor would not have let him.

Ah the Monsignor, who liked a good cigar even as did my father, whom he spotted entering church one Sunday through this very same vestibule, cigar in mouth, and in kindly, one might say pastoral, fashion, urged him to get rid of it. (I wasn't there; my father, much amused, told us.)

But the Monsignor and Fr. Dan have this in common: neither published or publishes financial statements. Four years have passed since the last one at the parish of my boyhood. Neither is there a finance committee -- not good in an age of disclosure such as the Monsignor never dreamed of.

The parish is on the bubble if any is. A grenade tossed into the middle of church at Sunday mass would send remarkably few worshipers to heaven. These happy few enjoy great solidarity, however, and volunteer right and left for projects such as cleaning the convent turned religious-ed center. And the school thrives on tuition and fund-raising under the long-time astute leadership of its Mercy-nun principal (sister of the janitor).

In addition, the plant makes a wonderful gateway installation from Austin (Chi) at Washington Boulevard. It's The Church of the Generous Kneeler Space, in fact, in stark contrast to St. Edmund a mile to the west and others. And it's twice the size overall, with very high ceiling and splendid Gothic exterior.

But nearby Maguire Hall, named after the Monsignor, has its front doors chained shut because of broken handles for which money may be available for repair but no one knows: finances have not been reported. Not to mention the lack of t.p. in the sole bathroom during Sunday mass. If the yellow press seeks a church scandal, this t.p. is it.

Indeed, the situation was taken so seriously by the parishioner who walked out with empty cardboard spool (me), that on entering the church proper he posted the spool on the big candle that one sees all the way down the aisle as one proceeds from altar to rear of church. It was balanced there on one end on the candlestick ledge, pointing upward with its brother vertical, so that Fr. Dan and various servers, lectors, and leaders of song would see it as they made the long walk at mass end.

I make this public confession lest others be blamed for it. Confession is good for the soul, as we know. But it's not half as good in this case as putting the damn thing there in the first place.

Rethinking Crandall-Arambula?

2005-08-25T15:09:00.000-05:00

NE Side robberies have residents more than alarmed: they are sick of it and won’t take any more of it. More than 230 showed at Hatch school for a meeting with police. The ubiquitous Deputy Chief Scianna led discussion. Janice Sanchez is resident in charge. She was delighted at the turnout and residents’ response. NE Side is adjacent to the high-crime thickly populated N. Austin neighborhood (of the city, Chicago), some of whose residents apparently look on Oak Parkers as easy pickings, coming at them in alleys when they put cars in garages at night. They show guns and get money. One woman spotted them as she backed into her garage — never back in: you can back out in the morning when the coast is clear — and changed course, heading back into alley, which she exited with horn blaring. OP’s top cop has told residents to skip overnight parking ban and put the damn vehicle in front, which is common sense. Neighborhood watch is in high gear. Stay posted.

Elsewhere, recently elected Peter Barber has questions and objections at OP elem school Dist. 97 board meetings. Board is attacking something called “accountability,” which seems to be willingness of professional educators to bring citizens into the act, as through board’s writing questions for teacher– and principal-evaluation questionaires. This board is setting goals — it’s a school district, for gosh sakes: it doesn’t know its goals? Another new boarder, Julie Blankemeier, is “skeptical” about said goals, which seems reasonable.

On the village board side, (also) new trustee (all from last spring’s elections) Greg Marsey alluded to a goal of village government, “to make business districts more attractive.” This is our local mercantilism, which is clearly the path that OP has chosen. Streets are torn up and remade, buildings are bought and managed, cul-de-sacs are installed, downtowns are sometimes redone (but not The Avenue, OP & Lake St., the true heart of the village). What if the village let the market decide such things?

Meanwhile, Ken Trainor chronicles an episode in mercantilism in his very readable, very informative story about the bus trip to Lake Forest and points west and south to LaGrange and Elmhurst, in which a non-profit planner seeks business for his organization — oops, does the civic-responsible thing — by showing trustees and village staffers how quaintness survives business expansion. The story has only one damning feature: Trainor uses a neologism, “kibbutzing,” when he means discussion. Neologism because a kibbutz is a settlement in Israel, noun not verb, and anyhow he means “kibbitzing,” which means looking over the shoulder of a card player or eavesdropping but commonly, erroneously is used for discussing. Tsk, tsk.

2005-08-14T13:29:00.001-05:00

St. Edmund is the Church of the Comparatively Cramped Pew. It's a situation I have recognized at the local Presbyterian church turned Latin-mass Catholic, where pews have been shoehorned in. Not cramped, however, is St. Catherine of Siena, a mile to the east of St. Edmund. It's also about twice the overall size of St. Edmund and has wider aisles. God fits in anywhere, of course, but what about us worshippers?

How govern OP?

2005-08-03T17:22:00.000-05:00

This by former OP trustee Barbara S. Ebner appeared recently in both local papers. It is a good response to new leadership ideas in the Village board:

Please allow me to affirm that I am a true believer in the Council Manager form of government. It has stood us in good stead for 50 years and has moved Oak Park far ahead of its neighbors who retain the use of the aldermanic form. It has allowed us to become the diverse, welcoming, prize-winning village we are, while our neighbors to the south suffer from scandals, intrigue and party politics.

In that regard, several disturbing recommendations were made at the village board’s study session last Monday night. They were made by new trustees, and I would like to believe they were made from innocence, not as an attempt to change the government form. To my knowledge, we have had no referendum on changing our form of government. You were elected to serve under this form.

I will only address two of the issues that I see as challenging governance under our current Village Manager form. There are others, and I hope they will also be addressed.

First, a recommendation was made to discuss the forming of a Personnel Commission, although no specifics were given. Since commissions are formed to make recommendations to the board, such a commission has no function. One of the basic tenets of the Council Manager form of government specifically places all hiring and firing of staff in the hands of the professional manager. The single employee of the board, the Village Manager, is the only person such a commission would be responsible for. Unless, the board was to require a search for a new Village Manager, such a commission would have no tasks.

Second, a recommendation to give responsibility for a specific geographic area to each member of the board was made. Although the Council Manager form of government allows for such divisions, there is no place for such a system in Oak Park. We are a tiny, land-locked community. We have made diversity our single most important goal. Our geography is probably our least diverse aspect.

Trustees are elected to serve all of Oak Park. Their major function is to set policy, and approve a budget which reflects these policy decisions. Directing individual activities to a specific geographic area of the village can only mean making these individuals spokespersons for individual areas. In other places they call them aldermen.

It immediately puts trustees at odds with one another. Arguments over how many pot holes were tilled, streets repaved, etc. in a given area would only be the beginning. This is not the goal of our form of government. It can only make meetings longer, make it necessary to have more meetings and provide more acrimony, not less. This is exactly the situation that takes away time and energy from your ability to govern under the Council Manager form of government.

Allow me to quote from a document from the international Council Manager’s Association (ICMA org for those interested). "The council is the legislative body; its members are the community’s decision makers. Power is centralized in the elected council, which approves the budget and determines the tax rate, for example. The council also focuses on the community’s goals, major projects, and such long-term considerations as community growth, land use development, capital improvement plans, capital financing and strategic planning. The council hires a professional manager to carry out the administrative responsibilities and supervises the manager’s performance."

First, do your job! Then allow the Village Manager to do his.

Wed Jnl column up

2005-08-03T12:30:00.000-05:00

See Wednesday Journal for my column on New leadership village board commentary.

Historically accurate for most part & Margaret!

2005-07-26T11:51:00.000-05:00

It should be noted that Sun-Times is no better than Chi Trib when it comes to giving email addresses with bylines. As in today’s stories here and here about Chicago Historical Society getting a new president, a lawyer — in neither story, by the way, the new man is so designated only at the end, leaving some of us to wonder if new “leader” is president or chairman. Trib gives William Mullen address, wmullen@tribune.com — at end of story, vs. Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel standard, putting it right under byline, thus to encourage reader response. No address is given for S-T’s Andrew Hermann.

Both call Jones Day a Chicago law firm, but it’s a Cleveland firm — “The Cleveland megafirm,” Startribune.com called it just yesterday — with a Chicago office since 1987, which is a case of getting something on the fly, I’d say, and not checking it — copy desk anywhere?

Both stories, on the other hand, were of keen interest to this reader, who caught the immediate past president, Lonnie Bunch, in an Oak Park appearance in 2002 and was impressed with his ambivalence about living in Oak Park, apparently for reasons of race, even though he had picked it over Wilmette rather than put his child in an all-white school. We don’t have all-white schools in Oak Park. Bunch by his own admission had been well received in Oak Park and was a featured speaker in a centennial program. He spoke off the cuff and got caught in that ambivalence by a question after his talk from a fellow black.

In any case, Bunch announced in March that he was returning to Washington and the Smithsonian to head up a new Afro-Am museum, this after presiding over severe blows to the midsection of the Chicago society, which during his tenure came up with big deficit, low attendance, and heavy staff cuts. His parting shot, one might say, was an exhibit all about lynching and other white-on-black atrocities of the last several centuries.

Might there be a connection here with declining attendance? Give me the parent eager to take his kiddies to see gruesome pictures of lynchings, and I give you one in a distinct numerical minority. Bunch is praised in absentia by the society’s chairman as a tough act to follow, for his “ability to reach out” to blacks and hispanics; but that seems to have been a case of treating them monolithically and assuming they aren’t like us white folks. Blacks and hispanics may not be all so eager to put their kids through the blood-and-thunder aggrieved-minority process as some think.

The new man, Gary T. Johnson, will be handing over day-to-day duties to CHS veteran Russell Lewis, which seems wise. Johnson has to go out there and raise money.

===================

On another front, see Margaret Ramirez’ page one Chi Trib virtual takeout on Mormons. Having roundly criticized her recently, I must say this is a good one, done not on deadline but with time to spare and lots of room — it’s a whopping 2,220 words! The peg is newly arriving blacks and hispanics among Mormon membership. That is handled with nice combination of stats and quotes, while a neat summary of Mormonism is also provided. I love you, Margaret! All is forgiven!

Column posted

2005-07-14T11:29:00.000-05:00

This month’s Wed. Journal column is about VMA, $2 given to beggar, and other important things.

D'Agostino murder

2005-06-27T16:54:00.000-05:00

Wed. Journal online has OP cops looking for person of interest — a black guy pictured in a mockup — who was seen walking on the block at the time, having apparently just parked his car, then hopping back in the car and driving away. Which is consistent with the beaten-elsewhere-dumped-on-Harvey theory floated by a man named Michael Sellers, who lives in the Harvey Ave. house, on Channel 5 in that the homeowner, Blake Hayner (?), heard “No! Son of a bitch!” out front, then the slamming of a car door followed by car pulling away. If the black guy found the body laid out on the lawn, he might well have gotten the hell out of there immediately.

Later: for a very good telling of the story, see AP.

Later, in Sun-Times:

Police also disclosed they think D'Agostino was killed near where he was found. Witnesses who found D'Agostino had said he was lying on the lawn, his arms at his side, as if he had been dumped there. His briefcase was nearby.

Later, on Linden Avenue near Erie, Tuesday 6/28, early afternoon: Two police recruits handing out pix of the person of interest say look out for sledgehammer he would be carrying.

We know neither day nor hour

2005-06-18T12:39:00.000-05:00

“I’m sure I would have missed it — God knows when,” said the man in Bread Kitchen, thanking the counter woman for pointing out his umbrella, which he had left on a table.

2005-05-30T09:16:00.000-05:00

WJ column June 2005

RACIST SCUM: Breathes there an Oak Parker with soul so dead, who never to himself has said, "I love diversity"? Of course not. Nonetheless, there are racists among us who joined white flight out of Austin, making that neighborhood slide into rack and ruin.

Take the white newlyweds who set up connubial housekeeping in 1969 in an apartment at 334 1/2 North Lotus, in an 18-unit building. The building was all white because Baird & Warner as management company was keeping it that way by not advertising vacancies, because the largely Catholic-funded and St. Catherine of Siena rectory-based Alinsky-style Organization for a Better Austin (OBA) had told it to.

A young ex-Jesuit seminarian was OBA point man for the building. The building’s manager, also young, had his orders: OBA was trying to keep the neighborhood from being overrun, and this building was to be a sort of rampart. This hard-nosed Alinsky approach was being applied on neighborhood issues in Woodlawn, where Nick von Hoffman, later a newsman and national columnist, was helping to start The Woodlawn Organization (TWO), and on Chicago’s Southwest Side, where the Organization for the Soutwest Community tried to stem the tide of white flight and black inundation. If politics ain’t beanbag, as we hear from its practitioners, neither was trying to keep Austin from going all black.

The newlyweds established their household in July. In October the woman drove past Austin High on time to be pelted with rocks by students getting out of class. The windshield of her Chevy Nova was shattered. She got back to Lotus Street in a hurry, ran up to their third-floor apartment, and knocked on neighbors Gretchen and Richard’s door across the hall. Gretchen called the man at work. He rushed home on the "L." She was O.K., though shaken.

In January a first-floor apartment was burglarized and set afire; the racist couple told the property manager they were leaving, lease or no lease. O.K., he said, we’ll advertise the apartment. The heck with the OBA. The building would no longer be all white. The rampart was breached.

Among people who came looking was a man who asked why the couple was leaving. Burglary with arson, the white man said. Oh, we’re used to that, the other said. In due time, a woman with a child took the apartment. Unfamiliar with Oak Park and being told the rental office was on North Boulevard, she misunderstood and took a bus all the way to North Avenue. She became the first black tenant. The couple moved to Oak Park.

There they met other white liberals who had flown. One hosted a meeting at her very nice house where guests were asked to volunteer as bail-money-suppliers for arrested members of the Black Panthers at any time of day. The couple declined but in conversation learned that the hostess and her husband had left a South Side neighborhood when their black professional neighbors had told them it was time to go. She said nothing of any urge to tell the neighbors where to put their advice or to say, "Wait, this is my neighborhood, we ain’t leaving." Actually, it wasn’t their neighborhood any more. It had become someone else’s.

WOMAN AT WINDOW: A little past 8:30 on a recent week day morning at Bank One, a somewhat bent-over woman standing in line dropped her cane. A man behind her picked it up for her, they chatted. As they waited, she opened and shut several small purses, checking on the money in each. She volunteered that she was 90. No, he said, surprised. Where was she born? Down south, Mississippi. She had come to Chicago when she was 23. On the IC? he asked, meaning Illinois Central Railroad. She smiled. Yes.

On this day she hoped she would not have to pay another fare, referring to the two-hour free-transfer time on a CTA card. She had come on the "L" and would return that way, getting off at Cicero, where she would catch a bus, her little purses emptied, their contents deposited – if she could just find it all.

Each little purse, a sort of miniature carpet bag, snapped at the top. Each had bills folded inside. But she couldn’t find all the money and rummaged for it, muttering as she did so, blaming herself for misplacing things as she grew older. Maybe she had left it on the L, she wondered. She stepped aside from the teller’s window, letting the next customer get it.

Finally, "I’ve got it," she said. The missing money, in one of the little purses. She moved back to the window, only a step away, to resume her business.

Bread Kitchen rules

2005-04-23T10:24:00.000-05:00

Coffee at $1.60 with complimentary slice of brioche makes Bread Kitchen the premiere stop du jour, especially since the coffee is far superior to Einstein’s and Panera.

Panera retreat

2005-04-22T12:47:00.000-05:00

Found back of Panera today. No one here. Had spotted ex-Longfellow-principal Mardi B. with friends in usual place, next to fire place, and Lance T., lawyer, actor, and supporter of youth theatrics on my way to rear of restaurant. Raining. April showering today. Have secreted home-toasted half jelly sandwich, intend to dip it into my paid-for Panera coffee. This is partly why I ensconce myself back here: I don’t want to be ejected for bringing my own food into the eatery ball park.

The other reason is the remoteness of it: I am far from the mad crowd, which is not bad by Friday rush-hour standards but still would be distracting as I think and scribble. As it is, I sit at a small round table for one, with no one in sight or even earshot. All I hear is delicate mood music, slightly classical, and distant patches of comment. Outside the traffic in the rain: Lake Street, River Forest, a few blocks west of Harlem

Making Money

2005-04-21T10:44:00.000-05:00

"Easiest dollar I made all day," I told a fellow customer at Einstein's after telling the young counter woman I was a dollar short on my change and receiving from her the dollar. Then I sat down and realized I'd been charged for a large coffee when I had ordered small with the comment that I'd be refilling it here, so why get large? Back I went to the counter for the easiest 30 cents I had made -- or it turned out, would make -- all day. The 30 cents was retrieved, as had the dollar, from the transparent plastic tip collector on the counter. Reflection: One may ask why if one is to sit drinking his endless-refill cup he would order a large, unless he was to supply the office when he got there.

=====================

The folks here at Einstein's are people for whom the sheer rationality of doing things in organized fashion is a heavy burden. We know the feeling, do we not? It explains why some do well in business (or almost anything else), why some spend their days doing what others tell them to do (or else), why some fly high and others fly low. Not entirely. We also have life's sharpies, corner-cutters who excape tedium, penury, and even the limitations of a modest life style. Chicago and Cook County politically connected chiselers come to mind, proficients of the wink and nod who appear regularly in the paper and less regularly in the courts and jails -- wholly federal, we should note, since these matters are never grist for state and county mills of justice. Never. It's enough to make a big-government advocate out of you.