PETER SAGAL is next
NPR host joins Wednesday Journal Conversations
Details on page 2
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Vol. 32, No. 40
October 4, 2017
Hail tto the queen
RBHS nnames first black homeco homecoming queen PAGE 4
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Architect of ‘space age’ bank dies PAGE 3 Brookfield Ave. bridge replacement in 2019 PAGE 5
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Legion frowns on moving memorial to war dead
Relocating Gold Star Memorial is landscape commission’s preferred option By BOB UPHUES Editor
Riverside’s American Legion Post 488 got some wonderful news last week. The United States World War I Centennial Commission, created by Congress and signed into law by President Barack Obama in 2013, named the village’s Gold Star Memorial in Guthrie Park as one of the nation’s 100 official World War I Centennial memorials. For years, the local American
Legion post has tried to build momentum for a plan to refurbish the nearly century-old memorial, which consists of bronze plaques affixed to boulders and set around a flagpole that flies the Stars and Stripes. Recognition by the federal commission also came with a grant of up to $2,000, which will go toward improvements to the memorial. With the $5,000 the American Legion Post 488 has See MEMORIAL on page 17
ALEXA ROGALS/Staff Photographer
MEMORIAL MAKEOVER: Tom Sisulak (above) and the members of the Riverside American Legion Post 488 want the Gold Star Memorial in Guthrie Park rehabilitated but kept in its century-old home. The village is mulling whether to move the memorial to the front of the Riverside Township Hall, which the Legion opposes.
North Riverside waves white flag on fire privatization Impasse on firefighters’ contract will go to arbitration
By BOB UPHUES Editor
North Riverside Mayor Hubert Hermanek Jr. said the village will drop its pursuit of
privatizing firefighting services through the courts after the Illinois Court of Appeals on Sept. 29 upheld a ruling by the Illinois Labor Relations Board that the village engaged in an unfair labor practice
by seeking to unilaterally terminate its contract with union firefighters while that contract was subject to arbitration. The appeal was effectively North Riverside’s last resort in the courts, which for
the past three-plus years have systematically ruled against the village’s contention that it could terminate the union contract See LAWSUIT on page 11
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