W E D N E S D A Y
JOURNAL of Oak Park and River Forest
January 11, 2017 Vol. 35, No. 21 ONE DOLLAR
@O @OakPark
A street paved with gold $26.5 million in red-light camera tickets issued along Harlem Avenue since 2014 By BOB UPHUES and BRETT McNEIL Senior Editor and Contributing Reporter
Harlem Avenue is a busy road. Everyone knows that. But thanks to all that traffic, it’s recently become something else: A gold mine. Between January 2014 and October 2016, more than $26.5 million in red-light camera citations were issued to motorists on Harlem between North Avenue and Cermak
Road. Based on those numbers, compiled as part of a Wednesday Journal analysis, that stretch of Harlem may be the most lucrative four-mile length of road in the entire state. The two red-light cameras on Harlem Avenue in River Forest -- at North Avenue and Lake Street -- have issued more than $5.2 million in citations since the start of 2014. And at the intersection of Harlem Avenue and Cermak Road, North Riverside and Berwyn have combined to issue more than $20.7 million in red-light camera tickets. A pair of cameras operated by Forest Park at Roosevelt and Harlem has contributed another $550,000 to the Harlem Avenue citation totals. See RED-LIGHT CAMERA on page 10
The trouble with leaves
Warm fall results in piles of leaves in Oak Park in January By TIMOTHY INKLEBARGER Staff Reporter
WILLIAM CAMARGO/Staff Photographer
FINE TIME: Motorists making illegal right turns on red accounted for more than 90 percent of all red-light camera tickets issued along Harlem Avenue between North Avenue and Cermak Road from Jan. 1, 2014 to Oct. 31, 2016.
An unusually warm fall has some Oak Parkers scratching their heads over piles of leaves that still line the streets of their neighborhoods. Many have been left wondering what to do with the rotting piles, weeks after they are usually scooped up by the village’s public works department and its garbage hauler Waste Management. The large maple tree in front of the home of Belinda Lutz-Hamel and her husband, William Hamel, in the 1000 block of South Scoville Avenue, dropped its leaves later this year than in the past. Lutz-Hamel, who has lived in the home for the last 22 years, said the leaves usually
fall just after Thanksgiving, but this year they stubbornly clung on. She said in an interview in the first week of 2017, “I’m looking out the back window and seeing some trees that still haven’t lost their leaves.” The couple dutifully raked the leaves out into the street to be picked up by garbage collectors in December, but the pile was covered by the first snow of the season and shoved back onto the parkway by snow plows, leaving a brown pile of icy muck. Undaunted, Belinda and William again raked the leaves out onto the street, once the piles had thawed, but by then it was too late – leaf removal season had ended. Lutz-Hamel said she’s seen leftover piles in other parts of the village. “I welcome you to drive around the village; the streets look unkempt,” she said. Predicting the perfect leaf removal schedSee LATE LEAVES on page 14
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