Landmark | 2021
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All democracy is local
RIVERSIDE-BROOKFIELD Also serving North Riverside
Who won school board races?
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Vol. 36, No. 15
April 14, 2021
STORIES ON PAGES 6-7
Mengoni elected mayor in North Riverside landslide North Riverside United Party sweeps clerk, trustee elections By BOB UPHUES Editor
Two years ago, Marybelle Mandel humiliated the VIP Party topping a six-person field for three village trustee seats, while her running mate H. Bob Demopoulos came in second. The village’s ruling party crumbled in the wake of that defeat and the one that replaced it, North Riverside United, was no sure thing to rebound in two years with a slate of former VIP regulars among its ranks. But just an hour after polls closed on April 6, Joseph Mengoni declared victory as North Riverside’s next mayor in comfortable fashion in front of a throng of well-wishers at Tipster’s Village Pub. All of his running mates, including Clerk Kathy Ranieri, incumbent trustees Fernando Flores and Terri Sarro and former trustee See NR ELECTION on page 11
Walking in a wooded wonderland Once an impenetrable thicket, South Kiwanis Park undergoing a transformation
ALEX ROGALS/Staff Photographer
A CUT ABOVE: Larry Pulice, a volunteer with the Brookfield Conservation Commission, has spent the past two years removing buckthorn that had made South Kiwanis Park largely impenetrable. His efforts have made a dramatic difference in making that public parkland accessible. By BOB UPHUES
E
Editor
veryone in Brookfield knows about and most likely has spent many hours enjoying Kiwanis Park, the home of Brookfield Little League and the village’s annual (well, when there’s no pandemic to
stop them) Fourth of July picnic, the Fine Arts Festival and summer concerts. But, many longtime Brookfield residents might not know there’s another part of Kiwanis Park and even fewer probably have set foot in it. South Kiwanis Park, which runs along the east bank of Salt Creek south of the Burlington Northern-Santa Fe Railroad
right-of-way could be mistaken for a stray section of Cook County Forest Preserves. And until a couple of years ago, it was so overgrown with buckthorn it was not easy to enjoy as a natural haven. “It was an impenetrable thicket,” said Bridget Jakubiak, the chairwoman of See SOUTH KIWANIS on page 8
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