Meddling?

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.

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?

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

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

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

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

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?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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?

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

What's up with downtown?

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

"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.