Vol. VI No. 24 Check out Injustice Watch’s judicial guide, INSERT INSIDE
Primary Ballot on page 15
vfpress.news
How Oak Park’s reparations discussions include Maywood A group of Oak Park stakeholders trying to pass a local reparations measure can’t forget Maywood, where many Black Oak Parkers moved By MICHAEL ROMAIN Editor
Most of Oak Park’s early Black villagers lived in a small neighborhood adjacent to the village’s Marion Street business district. Those early Black residents worked in a range of what were called “colored jobs,” as railroad porters, cooks, laundresses and coachmen, among others. In 1904, a group of Black Baptists who would meet in an Oak Park school for prayer meetings decided to purchase a lot to build their own church on Chicago Avenue. It was a long struggle to build, but they finally dedicated the cornerstone of the church at 1138 Westgate, which was called Mt. Carmel Colored Baptist Church, in 1905. “In the late 1920’s boom period, as Oak Park’s downtown business district was being established, Mt. Carmel and the adjacent ‘colored neighborhood’ were clearly in the path of economic development,” local historian See REPARATIONS on page 9
JUNE 15, 2022 Hillside police get new cameras, PAGE 6
‘We do a lot’
Mayw ywoood Park rkk Dis isttr tricct Co tric Comm mm mis ission ner e Daw aw wn Williaamss and Mayywood Park District Executive Directo tor Lo L ne nett tte Ha tte Hallll during ing in thhe pa p rk distric ict’s Infl flataf fl afest on Ju un ne 4. 4. The district is i exp xper erie ieenciing something of a renaisssancee in n pr p og ogra ramm mmin mm in ng an andd caapi pita t l improv im prrovvem men entt acctivi tiivi v ty. Re Read a the sto tory on page 3. tor
Michae Mi Mic hael RRoma ha o in oma in
Westchester board enters cleanup phase
After former village manager abruptly resigned, village board hires outside counsel, parts ways with construction consultant and eyes forensic audit By MICHAEL ROMAIN Editor
Two months after former Westchester village manager Paul Nosek abruptly resigned, the village board has set its sights
on a full-blown course correction that was on full display at the board’s regular meeting on May 24. During the meeting, board members parted ways with a consultant that had been working with Nosek to relocate Village Hall and public works, hired an outside law firm, and attempted to jumpstart the process of hiring a temporary finance director in order to correct major operating deficiencies during Nosek’s tenure. In the meantime, the board is expected to vote on June 14 on a motion to bring in an outside accounting firm to conduct a forensic audit. During the May 24 meeting, the board voted unanimously to part ways with
Compagno LLC, a Lisle firm that the board hired at Nosek’s direction in September 2021 to provide owner’s representative services. Those services were supposed to include ensuring that the village’s “goals are achieved by providing services for the design, development, construction and completion of a village hall, police station, and public works facility,” according to the agreement. The board voted to terminate the agreement with Compagno after they discovered in April that the buildings that would house the new Village Hall and public See WESTCHESTER on page 6