Wednesday Journal 030624

Grace Episcopa Church to close migrant shelter March 15

The church does not have the necessar y funds to continue operations

By LUZANE DRAUGHON Staff Reporter

The Grace Episcopal Church is ending its migrant shelter program March 15, but no one knows where the men staying there will go.

At the Feb. 13 village board meeting, Linda Francis member of Grace’s asylum task force, gave a public comment in which she expressed concerns about the village support provided for Black and brown men at Grace.

“This responsibility at Grace has fallen largely on our pastor and has stretched our limit as a congregation,” Francis said at the meeting. “We at Grace initially felt abandoned.”

Women and families had been prioritized in the migr response ef forts, she said, over the men. But many of those men have families who just may not be with them at this time, Francis said.

Trustee Cory Wesley said he was sensitive to the points Francis made about families being separated, particularly Black men.

“It’s the inequity of the response that always gets me in this situation,” he said. “There is always someone being left out.”

In an email, Wesley said the government should not “create programs that create inequity.” Other board members, including trustee Brian Straw and village president Vicki Scaman, echoed their desire for the men at Grace to be supported in resettlement.

T he men at Grace have b een pa rt of the village ’s progr am since the beginning, a ccording to Lisa S helley, de p uty village manage r, but each site operates diffe rently. At the Fe b. 13 b oard meeting, S helley suggested the village allocate a specific po rt i on of f unding for migr ants at Grac e.

Rev. John Rumple at Grace said the village originally asked the church to be an emergency shelter for migrants at the end of October. But that emergency aid was extended into a “full blown shelter,” Rumple said, with less resources than the other temporary shelters.

“These men have been at bottom of totem pole in terms of services,” he said.

Grace only has village funding for food and resources available until March 15, Rumple said, prompting the end

of their shelter. Shelley said the village does not have a specific cost estimate for each site, but Grace received food delivery, security, case management from Housing Forward and legal services.

There’s no concrete plan for where the men will go, but Rumple said he hopes the village will help.

“They’ve been in shelters, both here, in Chicago, and elsewhere where they’ve been abused and some of them are like ‘I’d rather go back to the street than go into another shelter,’” he said. “This was the first time that they felt safe.”

The Oak Park Resettlement Task Force, sponsored by the Community of Cong re gations, has been working to help resettle many migrants in the village. They reached out to Grace, too, Rumple said.

The church is housing 25 men as of Feb. 29, Rumple said, about 13 of which are from the village’s original group. Many of the men have been split from their families, he said, echoing Francis’ public comment.

“They were sent here by their families, commissioned, really, to try to create a better future,” Rumple said. “I’ve seen them g etting jobs, and they just send that money immediately back to their wives and children. T hey’re burdened by what is going on back home.”

If the village were to provide additional shelter for those men from the original group, the rest would still

need to find a place to go, whether that be moving to another city or finding a friend or f amily member to stay with, Rumple said.

He said he hopes the task force could help the men find local housing because some of them have local jobs that would be hard to maintain if they were to move

“If we do have men here who haven’t found a place to stay, then they’re going to have to be taken downtown to a landing platform and just basically start again,” he said.

The men have jobs in factories, cleaning houses, doing outside work and construction, Rumple said. Some were previously chefs, fisherman and even a criminologist but it’s hard for them to step back into their work without work permits.

The church has also been working to provide access to health clinics and case workers, to provide meals and showers, and to help the migrants establish temporary protected status or asylum, Rumple said.

“I feel really proud of the cong re gation’s compassion, and their display of wanting to help these men,” he said. “We’ve been grateful for response of this community.”

But the men staying at Grace are stressed about not having a concrete plan, Rumple said in a follow-up email, and he does not want to see them end up on the streets. He’s encouraged members of the parish to consider housing them, he said.

JAVIER GOVEA

Grace Episcopal Church, 924 Lake St., Oak Park.

Live Jazz & Dinner Network

Sunday, March 10, 3 – 6 p.m., Tre Sorelle Ristorante by Mancini

You’ll enjoy dinner while listening to the GREAT Tre Sorelle house band featuring John Scoville on drums, Doug Lalli on keys, Tony Morrison on bass and Dave Gulyas on guitar. Since the restaurant is small, you’ll be able to see and hear everything and feel like you’re part of the band no matter where you sit. 1111 Lake St., Oak Park.

Bellissima’s International

BIG WEEK

March 6-13

Five Lesbians Eating a Quiche

Sunday, March 10, 4 – 6 p.m., Pilgrim Congregational Church of Oak Park

Come join Pilgrim Pride LGBTQ+ Family & Friends for this absurdly adorable and unapologetic declaration of lesbi-independence. 460 Lake St., Oak Park.

Flavors of Sicily

Monday, March 11, 7 – 10 p.m., Cooper’s Hawk Winery & Restaurant - Oak Park Embark on a culinary odyssey, beginning with an invigorating Italian Spritz, a prelude to a meticulously crafted Sicilian-inspired menu. From the crisp allure of Fennel Sausage Arancini to the symphony of avors in our Chicken Palermo, each dish paints a vivid portrait of Sicily’s rich culinary heritage. Purchase tickets at chwinery.com/wine-club/special-events/ avors-ofsicily. 950 Lake St., Oak Park

&Rise Suppor t Group for High School Girls

Tuesday, March 12, 6:30 p.m., Oak Park Public Library - Dole Branch

Candlelight: he Best of Amy inehouse

Sunday, March 10, 6:30 p.m., Arts Center of Oak Park

Our Mission at &Rise is to empower women to be the ultimate versions of themselves no matter what adversities they’ve faced. &Rise o ers educational resources, counseling, support groups, and coaching to help women rise above their trauma. This is a support group for high school girls to get support, nd community, gain empowerment, and learn healthy relationship and coping skills. (www.womenrisechicago.org) 255 Augusta St., Oak Park.

Experience the enchantment of live music in breathtaking locations throughout Chicago with Candlelight concerts. Don’t miss your chance to witness the soulful sounds of Amy Winehouse at the Oak Park Arts Center, surrounded by the soft glow of candlelight. Purchase tickets at https://tinyurl.com/bxxkyshz. 200 N. Oak Park Ave., Oak Park.

Wednesday

are facing pressures to restrict book collections and events. 178 Forest Ave., Oak Park.

Empower Her Mentorship

Wednesday, March 13, 4 – 5 p.m., Oak Park Public Library - Main Library

A mentoring program that develops life and leadership skills, provides professional development opportunities, and creates a sense of community among female-identifying high school students. 834 Lake St., Oak Park.

rnoon Book Club

Wednesday, March 13, 1:30 – 2:30 p.m., er Forest Public Library

The afternoon book club meets the second Wednesday of each month. Books will be available for checkout one month in advance.

This month’s selection: One Day by Gene Weingarten. 735 ve., River Forest.

OPRF teacher shows Black Histor y is not for February alone

‘We want to look at the other side of how there is resistance and the excellence that was born out of that resistance and how that impacts us today,’ Mike Stephens says

By AMARIS E. RODRIGUEZ Staff Reporter

History might re peat itself, but students at Oak Park and River Forest High School are learning how dif ferentiating responses to racial injustices in the country’s history can continue to be relevant in their present day.

Mike Stephens, history teacher at OPRF, said that the history of resistance to the racial prejudices is not only a story for Black History Month, it is a story that should be continued to be told.

“Instead of just telling a one sided, taught down, oppressor-oppressed, we want to look at the other side of how there is resistance and the excellence that was born out of that resistance and how that impacts us today,” Stephens said.

But during Black History Month, Stephens emphasized the importance of learning about the Jim Crow Laws and that specific dark moment in history.

Students learned about the Reconstruction Era, 1866 through 1877 according to the Library of Cong ress, which was the historic period in U.S. history aimed to reorg anize the Southern states following the Civil War. Students also studied Jim Crow laws, state and local statutes that leg alized racial se greg ation, and the ef fects it had on society.

“It is almost like people didn’t need to look at the laws anymore,” Stephen said. “They grew up in a culture and society that

was se gregated they knew ‘oh you don’t go to this restaurant,’ ‘you don’t go to this side of town.’’”

To be able to give students the proper context to understand the time period, Stephen said it was also important to not shy away from the violence and the lynching that was occurring at the time.

Prominent civil rights activists and lead ers were studied, including Booker T. Washington, Ida B. Wells, and W.E.B Du Bois, and students discussed the various methods and differentiating opinions in how they ad dressed the injustices of the time

“These approaches it’s not that one was right and one was wrong, it was kinda just where everyone was at that moment in time,” Stephen said.

T he perspect ives of the activists varied from boyc otting wh i te businesses to a dvo cating fo r a broad l iberal arts education to fighting back .

The collaborative discussions between the students help bring into the conversation the varying experiences of Black Americans during that time as well as fresh perspectives from each other.

“In these classes, it is very important that we learn to listen and respect one another. Even though we may not agree with what one another said … I think a lot of students in my class are able to carr y that out into the world.”

ELIANNA

BRUC ATO Sophmore at OPRF

“They tend to gravitate immediately towards Ida B. Wells, because what we read from her she was advocating…for immediate action in terms of boycotting white owned businesses, so I think that for a teenager, it is almost exciting, like ‘yes, these are the good guys’,” Stephen said.

But there is not always a simple answer, wh ich St ep hen makes sure stud ents understand The context of the times matter.

“Some of the media action could be met with physical violence,” Stephen said. “There were already lynchings. What if

you have a family? What if you had a business that could be targeted because of your activism? Would you maybe think about what you are doing twice?”

While Stephen said that the popular saying “history re peats itself” might not always be true, he does say that “history doesn’t re peat itself, but it rhymes.”

Throughout the course, Stephen tries to relate U.S History to where we are in 2024.

“It is not always clean and it is not always a perfect re petition of what we see in history,” Stephen said. “We try to find those historical rhythms in what we do.”

Students have discussed certain issues such as Black Lives Matter and the struggle for racial equality in the 21st century.

“We start to see that it is really tempting to say ‘I am going to get out there and make some noise,’ but then I say to them ‘g reat, you should do that,’ but then what happens next,” Stephen said.

Elianna Brucato, sophmore at OPRF, said breaking down the varying responses to Jim Crow Laws through the three primary activities studied helped students dive deep into their methods of creating

change during that time, which they did a project on.

“It’s been really great learning about these specifica three characters,” Brucato said. “The whole class has really been empowered by these three leaders because I feel like a lot of kids in my class didn’t know [about them] and most of us didn’t know their varying responses.”

For Brucato, she sees the progression of the varying responses during the Reconstruction Era today in the halls of OPRF as students of all different backgrounds and nationalities work together.

While the students learned about these prominent figures, Brucato said one lesson came from the class itself.

“We talked about these heavy topics; they are not easy topics to talk about because we obviously have a heavy American history,” Brucato said. “In these classes, it is very important that we learn to listen and respect one another. Even though we may not ag ree with what one another said … I think a lot of students in my class are able to carry that out into the world.”

By studying these different approaches to racial injustices in history, students will be better equipped to decipher current issues and find a way to contribute that works for them.

“That could change in six months, that could change in six years but we have a story to look at to see what has come before us to inform where we are headed,” Stephen said.

JAVIER GOVEA

Melissa Conyears-Ervin hosts local meet-and-greet

‘Being the only working mother in this race, I’m used to challenges, but it won’t stop me because I know who it is I’m ghting for’

By HOPE BAKER Contributing Reporter

Candidate for the 7th Congressional District and Chicago City Treasurer Melissa Conyears-Ervin spoke with local residents during a meet-and-greet Sunday at YogaSix in Oak Park.

Conyears-Ervin is running to unseat longtime U.S. Re p Danny K. Davis in the upcoming primary election March 19. The

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Democratic ballot also includes activist and community organizer Kina Collins, principal Nikhil Bhatia and for mer Obama campaign staffer Kouri Marshall.

During the informal gathering, community members had a chance to speak with the candidate while enjoying snacks and refreshments. Conyears-Ervin said she was happy that residents from all walks of life stopped by to participate in the event.

“I believe people are hung ry for change,” she said.

“I believe people are hungry for change.”

Conyears-Ervin served as a state re presentative for the 10th District before resigning in 2019 to run for city treasurer. She won a three-way race then ran unopposed in 2022. She officially announced her Congressional run in October 2023.

MELISSA CONYEARS-ERVIN Chicago city treasurer

from two of Conyears-Ervin’s for mer staf f members. Tif fany Harper, who was Conyears-Ervin’s for mer chief of staf f, and Ashley Evans, a city treasurer employee, said they were fired after questioning what they call Conyears-Ervin’s abuse of power. Among those alle gations were that the treasurer used staf f to run her personal errands and to plan her daughter’s birthday party. The letter also accused Conyears-Ervin of hiring an assistant who lacked the required financial training and of approaching BMO Harris Bank to give a mortgage to the building where her husband, Ald. Jason Ervin, previously worked. The city settled with the ex-employees and Conyears-Ervin denied the alle gations.

Despite past alle gations of ethical misconduct while serving as city treasurer, Conyears-Ervin has endorsements from the Chicago Teachers Union, the Chicago Firefighters Local 2 and the Illinois Nurses Association in her bid for congress. She is also backed by Ald. Jeanette Taylor of the 20th Ward on the South Side and West Side Al. Chris Taliafer ro of the 29th Ward.

When asked during Sunday’s meet-andgreet about how she has remained competitive in the race and bounced ba ck from the ethics alle gations, Conyears-Ervin said she’s accustomed to challenges.

“Being the only working mother in this race, I’m used to challenges, but it won’t stop me because I know who it is I’m fighting for,” she said. “When I speak with

TODD BANNOR

Melissa Cony ears-Erv in speaks with a voter at a meet-and-g reet at Yo gaSix in Oak Park March 3.

2024 block party requests open

Block par ty season is March 29 through Oct. 31

By LUZANE DRAUGHON Staff Reporter

Trying to have a blast with your neighbors and enjoy Oak Park’s community spirit? Block party season allows for residents to do both and are requests now.

The Oak Park block party season lasts from March 29 to Oct. 31. Requests have to have a petition signed by at least 10 addresses on the block, or at least 75% if the block has fewer than 10 houses.

There’s no charge, but every block is limited to two events, including a block party or block sale. The block cannot hold the events on consecutive days. Only 30 events per weekend are allowed, according to a news release, on a first-come, first-served basis.

Guidelines state the event may start at 9 a.m. but cannot continue past 11 p.m.

The village provides removable barriers to block the street. Cars are not allowed to

crease in costs, but their wages are staying the same. They talk about women not being protected in DC, the increasing prices of prescription drugs in healthcare, and about our failing schools — so I know the task at hand and I’m focused.”

The predominantly female crowd at the meet-and-greet included Oak Park resident Jessica Corchin and her 11-year-old daughter, Grae.

“We met one of the candidates on the street in the fall and we figured this would be a good opportunity to meet somebody else and learn a little bit more about her,” Corchin said.

Susan Bohanon of Forest Park said she attended the event to meet Conyears-Ervin and to voice her concerns about ageism in the job market.

“I’m raising my 5-year-old granddaughter so I like that she’s a mom and can understand where I’m coming from,” Bohanon said. “I feel that we need somebody who re presents more women in congress.”

Another Forest Park resident, Stephen Chertok, said he participated in the event to speak with Conyears-Ervin about af fordable housing.

“I want to hear what some of her ideas are and try to get support for some of my ideas,” Chertok said.

be used as a barricade. Alcohol can only be consumed on private property and cannot be sold during a block party, according to the guidelines.

If a block party is disrupted by weather, the Public Works Department can help reschedule the event, but a date preference is not guaranteed. Blocks have five days from the original date to reschedule.

According to a news release, the village is encouraging blocks to have green events. A zero-waste event would mean residents produce less than 10% landfill waste, according to the release, so the other 90% would be recyclable or compostable.

Petition for ms are due to the village at least two weeks prior to the requested date for the event, according to the news release.

Once approved, all block residents must be notified of the date and time of the event, according to the guidelines. More infor mation can be found online.

During the event, Conyears-Ervin expressed her enthusiasm about the endorsement she received from the Chicago Teachers Union last month.

“I think it’s awesome and it really speaks to the partnership that we look forward to,” Conyears-Ervin said. “I understand what parents are dealing with every day who have school-aged kids. I also understand what the teachers and administrators are dealing with in not having enough resources to really educate our kids in the way they deserve.”

As a lifelong resident of the 7th District, Conyears-Ervin said endorsements from the Chicago Teachers Union and the Illinois Nurses Association mean a lot to her.

“I’m about the everyday people so when people ask me about endorsements, it’s endorsements from everyday people that really matter to me,” she said.

If elected, Conyears-Ervin aims to strengthen public schools, decrease healthcare costs, protect abor tion rights, curb gun violence and fight to create better-paying jobs.

According to data published by the Federal Election Commission, Conyears-Ervin has raised more than $516,000 in campaign donations, which is more than anyone else in the race.

Backlash at Oak Park librar y over handling of Palestinian cultural event

Many are criticizing the librar y for mishandling the event and eliminating at least one DEI position

By LUZANE DRAUGHON Staff Reporter

The leadership of Oak Park Public Library is under fire from for mer staf f and community members over their handling of an event celebrating Palestinian culture and the elimination of two community engagement staf f positions.

They accuse some members of the leadership team of treating the event differently from similar ones held at the library in the past, and question whether the motivations were racist and reactionary as the IsraelHamas war heads deep into its fifth month.

“We want the Oak Park Public Library back,” said Rebekah Levin, the first public commenter of the evening. “The one that had been transforming for many years into one that was far more inclusive and embracing of diversity.”

At the OPPL’s board meeting Tuesday, roughly 30 community members submitted public comments or spoke to protest the library’s practices regarding the two events.

The first incident involves an event at the library. Oak Park Neighbors for Justice and Peace in Palestine and Israel and the Oak Park River Forest Middle Eastern/North African Student Alliance hosted a Jan. 21 event celebrating Palestinian culture that was attended by more than 400 people Its designation as a “community” rather than a “library” event confused critics.

Typically, a community event, like this one, is hosted and planned by the outside group, and is not advertised by the library, said Joslyn Bowling Dixon, the library’s executive director

Library events, on the other hand, are collaborative, meaning the library would have a hand in planning and advertising. Staff do not have the capacity to do that for every program, Dixon said.

In this case, the library liaison for event, Juanta Griffin, the multicultural learning coordinator, told Dixon that thi event was not a library program, Dixon said.

Griffin, however, said she was on medical leave from October to December 2023, and another staff member became the contact person for the event. She said she had never heard the term “library-led event” before. A library should be a safe space to celebrate culture, she said, and many other multicultural events had been promoted the library.

Later on, the event was changed to a library program, Dixon said, without her knowledge. She asked for it to be changed back to avoid confusion.

But it did create confusion. For months, the groups organizing the event thought the library was indeed a cosponsor, commenters said. Once the Palestinian culture event was specified as a community program, commenters said the event was taken of f of the library calendar and denied promotion on its social media platforms.

“If I was there, it would have never gone of f the calendar,” Griffin said.

Griffin said she’s tried to kill ignorance and racism in the community and help build relationships with people. She said she did the same work she did for any other group, and when she came back from medical leave, everything had changed.

Wednesday Journal had reached out to staf f members for comment, but Dixon said that if other staf f were speaking to the news media, “they really should not be” and that “they really aren’t authorized to,” citing the library’s communication policy.

“Here’s our library’s current media practice: ‘The executive director serves as the official library spokesperson and conveys the official library position on issues of general library-wide significance or situations that are of a particularly controversial or sensitive nature,’” Jodi Kolo, the library’s media contact wrote in an email to the Wednesday Journal.

On Wednesday, Griffin gave the Journal permission to include her comments, but said her remarks are her opinion and she is not re presenting the library. She said it

was “bullying” to not be able to speak out.

“It’s time for Oak Park to stop putting Black women, especially, in positions of power and thinking we’ve solved racism,” Griffin said.

Tatiana Swancy, a for mer library employee, said some community members who were part of the event felt discriminated against. Others ag reed.

“When you treat a group of students differently … because of their race, you are telling them at a very young age [that] they are less valuable,” commenter Leila Massouh said at the meeting, which prompted a roaring round of applause.

Suzy Wulf, the library’s deputy director, also criticized the community engagement team for misleading community members about event promotions, Swancy said.

“She [Wulf] told us that it was the wrong time to suppo rt the event because ‘ there was a war going on over there,’” S wancy said.

A nother commenter, Dima Ali, said that as an Arab-American woman, the library’s actions made her feel unsafe.

“We are not ter rorists,” Ali said. “I am ready to challenge the racists in the community.”

Dixon, a Black woman, said she takes concerns about racism seriously and would never want anyone to feel unsafe.

A social media post from the Activate Oak Park Facebook page illustrated some

critics’ frustration and drew an unusually public rebuke from the library’s leaders. The post said library leadership treated the Palestinian culture event “in a racist way” which “led to re primands and silencing tactics.”

In response, library officials took a defensive stance in a Facebook post against what they called the “narrative” about the library that has “many inaccuracies.”

That Facebook post was removed from the site Feb. 27.

Swancy said this is not the first time that community members or groups have felt discriminated against by the library. However, in the past, the library’s response was to talk out the concerns and try to find a solution, she said.

“We do welcome all cultures,” Dixon said. “I’m just really dismayed at the narrative that is happening around this whole situation … It’s very reckless and it’s dangerous and it doesn’t re present who we are as a library or who I am.”

Sta ng cuts

Two positions, including Swancy’s, were recently eliminated. Swancy, who served as the restorative practices coordinator on the community engagement team, said she feels the community engagement team was targeted by the library’s leadership. Swancy added that leadership told her she

FILE

Oak Park Public Library Main Branch

Oak Park librar y’s executive director apologizes

‘What is most important to say, on behalf of the library and for me personally, is I’m sorr y,’ Executive Director Joslyn Bowling Dixon says

By ERIKA HOBBS Editor

Executive Director Joslyn Bowling Dixon publicly apolo gized Monday for the way her administration at the Oak Park Public Library handled the management of a January Palestinian cultural event.

“I am sorry,” she wrote in an emailed statement. “There has been a lot of public conversation, hurt, and confusion about our library over the last week. I am accountable for this library and to this library. And I am deeply sorry I contributed to the hurt experienced by community members surrounding the Celebration of Palestinian Culture event.”

Her words come just days after the library’s Board of Trustees issued its own apology for the administration’s handling of the incidents. Board President Matthew Fruth did not respond to a request for comment.

would be able to continue her diversity, equity and inclusion work in the new role, but she said she felt most of her position would change and was disheartened by the communication.

“My role was one of the few at the library that was explicitly dedicated to amplifying marginalized voices and modeling antiracism and equity,” she told Wednesday Journal in an email.

Dixon acknowledged that two positions were eliminated, and said it was because of budget constraints. It was not a reaction to the Jan. 21 event, she said. The two community engagement team members were of fered an opportunity to move laterally to another open position and to split responsibilities for that role. One accepted, and Swancy declined the offer, she said.

The library is operating on a deficit, spending about half a million dollars too much each year, Dixon said. Next year, no reserves will be left if they continue that pattern, so the library has to find ways to cut costs, she added.

The apolo gy centers on behind-thescenes actions that typically would have remained internal yet were made public and have been fought in an unusually public for um for the otherwise stately institution.

Last week, more than two dozen community members and for mer staf f members pushed back against Dixon’s and Deputy Director Suzy Wulf ’s management of the event, as well as Dixon’s elimination of two positions, one of which performed diversity, equity and inclusion duties.

They accused some members of the leader ship team of treating that event differentl from others held at the library, and questioned whether the motivations of the ac tions were racist and reactionary regardin the Israel-Hamas war

The event was sponsored by Oak Pa Neighbors for Justice and Peace in Palestine and Israel and the Oak Park and River Forest

See APOLOGY on page 13

“It’s not personal, it’s just business,” she said. “It’s happened to everyone.”

Further, the entire library staf f should be working toward antiracism and equity initiatives, Dixon said, rather than having just one position dedicated to it.

“If the library actually believes this, then this is only more proof that they need more DEI training,” Swancy said at the meeting

The previous deputy director of the library, Jim Madigan, said library communications need to be mutually respectful. Several other commenters said library staf f do not feel safe to share their concerns about equity and leadership and are concerned about censorship.

“It is time for leadership that leads, and not divides,” one commenter said.

Library leadership plans to listen to community concerns, Dixon said, and work to reduce misinfor mation.

“[Public comment is] a great thing about democracy,” she said. “If you’re not doing something that bothers someone, you’re not doing much.”

OPRF school board questions the value of Community Council

Council leaders are seeking to mobilize members

By BOB SKOLNIK Contributing Reporter

Some members of the OPRF District 200 Board of Education are questioning whether the Community Council is still relevant today.

The council, founded in 1968 under a different name, the Citizens Council, was designed to serve as a sounding board for school officials.

But the Feb. 22 comments questioning the surprised and apparently alarmed the leaders of the Community Council, which serves as advisory group for the school –so much so, that a meeting was quickly ar ranged among its three leaders, Superintendent Greg Johnson and the two school board members, Tim Brandhorst and Audrey Williams-Lee, who are the liaisons to the council. That meeting took place on Feb. 28, six days after the school board meeting

On Feb. 22, the board was discussing school groups and reevaluating whether school board members should continue to attend the meetings of various organizations, including the Community Council. One of the board liaisons typically attends each of the Community Council’s meetings. Board members questioned whether the Community Council was re presentative of the OPRF community.

“I don’t know that it is broadly re presentative of our community, and it takes up a lot of time of the administration,” said Audrey Williams-Lee, a past member of the Community Council. Williams-Lee said that the Community Council seems to have changed from when she was a member of it nearly a decade ago.

Brandhorst, also a past member of the Community Council, wondered whether the Community Council was even needed these days.

“There are lot of ways to talk to the

board and talk to the administration,” Brandhorst said.

Brandhorst also suggested that some members of the Community Council might overstep their bounds.

“This is a group that does not have fined mission and that manifests that ery year there are a number of members of the Community Council that treat it as an oversight committee and they think that the purpose of it is to grill the administration about a number of topics,” Brandhorst said. “It’s really problematic and my of it is that’s it’s become an enormous time sink of the administration.”

Hearing this, board member Graham Brisben described the Community Council as lacking both mission and purpose, and suggested that the board might want to suspend having members attend its meetings while the Community Council figures out what its purpose is.

Neither the Community Council leadership nor the school board members sponded to a request for an interview from the Wednesday Journal.

“I really don’t have anything to share on this one,” Johnson said in a text message

But Jackson, a Black man who is the co chairman of the Community Council, and the other leaders of the Community Council sent an email to members on March 2 tha was obtained by the Wednesday Journal.

“We expressed our disappointment such remarks being made in a public venue without the board ever expressing their concerns directly to the Community Council,” Jackson wrote. “Especially since the Community Council exists solely at the pleasure of the superintendent.”

OPRF Citizens Council

But Jackson added that the Community Council leaders left the meeting with a better understanding of the concerns of the school board members.

“Having heard their public statements and addressed them privately, we reco gnize there is room for growth and are committed to working alongside the board of education to align with their goals,” Jackson wrote. “As an example of our ef fort, in

of support and solidarity. The email also asked members to make suggestions about how to ensure that the Community Council continues to exist.

The Community Council is made up of 45 to 59 members who are appointed by the Board of Education to two-year terms. According to its bylaws, the purposes of the Community Council are to encourage community and parent awareness of the high school, to promote an interchange of ideas, to be available to the Board of Education for advice, discussion and study and to be available to the administration for any issue they present to the Council. The Community Council does not take action.

provoking and yes sometimes not so flattering questions of our leaders,” the Community Council member said in an email.

School board president Tom Cofsky said no decisions have been made about whether the school board liaisons will continue to attend Community Council meetings.

“We are reviewing what the roles and expectations that we have for our board members on the 20 or so different organizations, committees that we’re involved in,” Cofsky said. “We’re going through that so that we can assure that our time is put to its greatest use and so that we can make sure that board members that are involved understand what is expected of them.”

Bite Nite’s return draws nearly 300 diners, 30 vendors

After a three-year hiatus, Bite Nite was full of new and time-tested local food and drinks

By JESSICA MORDACQ Staff Reporter

Bite Nite returned to Oak Park March 1 after a threeyear hiatus post-pandemic.

Hosted at the Nineteenth Century Club by the Oak ParkRiver Forest Chamber of Commerce, the event attracted more than 260 guests and 30 v olunteers who sampled local food and drinks from 26 vendors.

The purpose of Bite Nite is to connect businesses with the community, said chamber executive director Darien Marion-Burton — whether the vendors are tried and true favorites, or just opening up shop.

Kinslahger Brewing Company will celebrate its eight-year anniversary this weekend. Though Kinslahger has participated in every Bite Nite, its owner Keith

Huizinga brought two new beers for people to try.

Val’s Helles, a German-style lager, is named after Val’s halla Records in Oak Pa rk, which celebrated its 50th anniversary last year. Ein Beer No. 8 is a light bock beer that’s a part of Kinslaughter’s annual series.

Emilio Morrone, marketing director and a manager at Salerno’s Pizza, said this was the restaurant’s first time Bite Nite, though his father co-founded Salerno’s nearly 18 years ago. At Salerno’s table, he handed out cups of tuccine alfredo, both with and without chicken. He also of fered pasta Isabella, a rigatoni with vodka sauce and homemade Italian sausage, and mostaccioli with marinara sauce, both family recipes.

“We wanted to show people that we offer more than just pizza,” Marrone said. “We’re trying to stay relevant in Oak rk and showcase our f amily’s food.”

Though the event was Pretty Please Bistro’s first Bite Nite, since the restaurant opened in January, Nicole Newsom — who co-owns Pretty Please Bistro with her sister, Tracey Tucker, and Deron Tucker — said guests “bombarded us.”

Lou Malnati’s employees Shardai Morris and Shay na Cabrera served cheese pan pizza.

“We wanted to bring more people in to see what else we o er,” Morris said. Malnati’s also had appetizers, salads and pasta. “ ere’s plenty of dishes if yo u’re not a pizza person, or you’re just not in the mood for pizza. You can’t really go wrong. ”

“They have said they’re looking forward to us being here tonight,” Tracey Tucker added. In addition to offering bites of chicken on waffle buns, Pretty Please Bistro made two lemonades. Their top-selling Pardon Me lemonade has a touch of cream and coconut, while the Please and Thank You lemonade is pink and fruity.

“These are our signature lemonades, but you absolutely ve to stop by and try our food,” Newsom said. “We are home of the macaroni-and-cheese waffle cone: the perfect mar riage of sweet and savory.”

It was also the first Bite Nite for Kettlestrings Restaurant Group, which opened their first restaurant Ket-

Kettlestrings Restaurant Group’s table featured biscuits and gravy, which they added to the menu at Kettlestrings Tavern the day a er Bite Nite. ey also prepared Broccoli Bacon Bash from Starship Restaurant & Catering, a salad made with mozzarella cheese and a mayonnaise, vinegar and sugar dressing.

tlestrings Tavern in 2020. Rob Guenthner, president of Kettlestrings Restaurant Group and of the board of directors of the OPRF Chamber of Commerce, said that he wishes Bite Nite drives new customers to Oak Park restaurants: “I hope everybody finds something in the community that they maybe didn’t know about or didn’t g et around to trying.”

TODD BANNOR

Nicole Newsom and Tracey Tucker of Pretty Please Bistro at Bite Nite on March 1.

TODD BANNOR

TODD BANNOR

Stabbing takes place outside e Write Inn

Police say it was a targeted attack

By LUZANE DRAUGHON and ERIKA HOBBS Staff Reporter and Editor

One person was stabbed Monday afternoon on the 200 block of North Oak Park Avenue near The Write Inn, authorities said.

The victim has not yet been identified. The offender has been described as a Hispanic man.

Dan Yo pchick, Oak Pa rk ’s chie f c ommunications officer, said the incident d oes not appear to be mi gr ant-related. T he victim was taken to Loyola University Medical C enter, he said, and is in stable condition.

“Police believe this was a targeted attack

and have learned that the suspect has a child in common with a female who is now seeing the victim,” he said.

Yopchick also said Police Chief Shatonya Johnson confirmed the victim sustained three superficial wounds, one to the neck, one to the arm and one to the torso.

The Write Inn is a temporary shelter site for individuals and families experiencing homelessness. Housing Forward recently received $1 million to renovate the inn.

Harold Hohlen, an Oak Park resident who lives next to The Write Inn, said ambulances stop there about two times per week. Some individuals staying in The Write Inn are part of a medical respite program.

However, Hohlen said, this was the most serious incident he’s witnessed. A helicopter was seen hovering overhead, something Hohlen said he hasn’t seen before.

“I am concerned that this [program] was

One person was stabbed outside e Write Inn, March 4.

put in by Housing Forward and Cook County without talking to one single resident in this neighborhood,” he said. “And you can see what’s happening right now.”

Libby Foster, Housing Forward’s director of communications, said the site was secured quickly and they are cooperating with authorities.

Village hall remodel could include glass addition

The Facility Review Committee is expected to present a recommendation to Oak Park April 9

By LUZANE DRAUGHON Staff Reporter

The Facility Review Committee, a group charged with selecting a plan to remodel Oak Park Village Hall, indicated it is leaning toward an option that would include a glass addition to the building, preserving much of the current historic structure.

In July, the Oak Park Village Board of Trustees proposed demolishing and rebuilding Village Hall and constructing a new headquarters and police station. At the Feb. 21 facility review committee meeting, Johnson Lasky Kindelin Architects presented three potential remodel schemes. The drawings have not been made publicly available.

One option was to retain as much of the original building as possible with certain modifications, including moving the council chambers to the first floor and keeping some police functions on the lower level.

Another was to create a “sunken plaza” to ne gate the need for an addition. This plan would keep the council chambers in

its current location, with modifications, and would move all police functions into a new station. The basement would then become the entry level.

But the one that gar nered the most interest would include a glass addition to the building with a connection to Village Hall. In this scheme, all police functions would be moved to a new police station, including the remodeled firing range, said Frank Heitzman, a founder of Preservation Oak Park, who attended the committee meeting

“The shooting range is not usable during the day because it makes too much noise in the building,” Heitzman said.

Heitzman said he believes some police would prefer the new police station to be connected to Village Hall to permit better communication with village staff. Moving the firing range may still be open to further evaluation, said Colette Lueck, the committee’s co-chair.

The basement, where the police station is located now, could be used as a gathering place for citizens, for public meetings and or for voting instead, Heitzman said was

pointed out at the meeting. The committee also expressed interest in moving the council chambers to the first floor for increased accessibility. Lueck said no one felt remediating the current chambers was a viable option.

“Most of the offices that are in the building are open to the public, which was always the design and the concept of the building: open gover nment,” Heitzman said.

The council chambers may have worked well and been a progressive layout when it was built in 1975, said Daniel Roush, co-chair of the facility review committee, but it needs updating now.

Lueck said this scheme solved as many problems as it could without creating new ones. It provides a safe environment, Lueck said, because there would be one entrance into Village Hall and a level of security.

“The way it laid out staff usage was better,” Lueck said. “It allowed for offices that should adjoin each other or functions that should adjoin each other to be next to each other and facilitate conversations and working together more readily.”

There are still some kinks the committee

asked JLK to address in the revised plan, including what to do with the old council chambers space.

Certain improvements were recommended for all schemes, Heitzman said, including ensuring accessibility standards throughout the building, opening the courtyard entrance to the public with safety measures implemented, adding insulation, new HVAC systems and more parking.

“All three of the schemes that were presented had a core level of changes that were just going to happen to the building no matter what,” Roush said. “There’s general consensus that this is an achievable and sensitive strateg y.”

No cost estimates have been provided for the remodel ideas yet.

JLK is expected to come back with a revised proposal and potentially cost estimates at the next committee meeting on March 13. After the committee votes on its recommendations, a final proposal will be presented to the village board, which is expected to happen April 9.

“The board has the final say,” Roush said.

JAVIER GOVEA

from page 9

High School Middle Eastern/North African Student Alliance in January, and it celebrated Palestinian culture, drawing more than 400 attendees. But during the early planning stages, Dixon told Wednesday Journal, she emailed staff members to change its designation to “community from a “library” event. A library event connotes official sponsor ship and has the advantage promotion through the library among other things — a distinc tion even internal staff say was never made clear to them.

Dixon said that the library liaison for the event, Juanta Griffin, told her that this event was not a collaborative progr However, an email between the two women appears to show that Griffin clearly explained the collaboration among the groups and the library.

event. She said a library should be a safe space to celebrate culture and pointed out that many other multicultural events had been promoted by the library.

Staff members also said that Wulf questioned the motives of the people hosting the event, saying that the library needed to prepare for violence or “riots.”

Wulf denied those alle gations. She said her comments were designed to ensure staf f members were sensitive to “both sides” of the “war in the Middle East.”

The unclear situation created confusion among staf f and the public, particularly among members of the Palestinian community, who said they no longer felt safe at the library.

Dixon has said she never intended for anyone to feel unsafe.

However, Tatiana Swancy, whose position was affected, served as the restorative practices coordinator on the community engagement team, and said she felt she could not do that work in the new position. She did not accept the new role.

Amid this increasingly public and complex situation, staff members affected by the incidents said they were told not to speak to the media and feared for their jobs.

In an i nterview Mond ay, spokeswoman Jo di Kolo denied thi s.

“I will say that the public library is very clear defender of the First Amendment and no staff would ever be let go simply for speaking to the media,” she said.

Swancy on Monday distributed her own rebuttal to the fact-checking piece. She reinforced the idea that some members of the administration were creating a culture of fear while she disputed some of Dixon’s facts.

“In a meeting, Suzy Wulf stated to me, along with most of the Community Engagement Team, that we should’ve considered the timing before supporting the Celebration of Palestinian Culture because ‘there is a war going on over there,’” Swancy wrote.

Griffin also told the Journal last week that she was on medical leave from October to December 2023, and another staf f member became the contact person for the

“We all have spent much time attempting to explain what happened and why, and who knew what, and when and how…when what is most important to say, on behalf of the library and for me personally, is ‘I’m sorry.’”

In the second incident, Dixon eliminated two positions as a result of budget constraints, offering employees lateral moves.

L ast F riday evening, Dixon and the administration responded by publishing a “library fact-checke r” it claims disputes, clarifies or co rrects the record. Fo r example, the author wrote, the library does not b an employees from speaking to the press and that more “Muslim” events are p lanned for the year

“Culturally inclusive progr amming at the l ibrary c ontinues,” Dixon wrote in her apolo gy. “In March and April, Ramadan Around the Wo rl d and Ramadan Read A loud & Craft are happening, and more c ollaborative c ultural events are in the wo rk s. ”

“I would like to move on from this painful chapter in my life,” she added, “but I see library leadership continuing to mislead, lie, and harm certain staf f and community members.”

Dixon said she cares “very much” about Oak Park, adding that she would never want “any less than a welcoming experience for every member of our community.”

“I am committed to re pairing harm,” she said, “and to striving to empower every voice in our community.”

JOSLYN BOWLING DIXON

e Pied Piper of children’s theater

Gigi Hudson of the Actors Garden inspires young thespians

By JESSICA MACKINNON Contributing Reporter

The Pied Piper of young thespians, Gigi Hudson has come full circle in her theatrical journey. As a child, she played old albums of musicals such as the Wizard of Oz, Oliver and The Sound of Music and acted out every part in the solitude of her bedroom. She now has hundreds of children to act with and, better yet, to direct.

As owner of the Actors Garden in Oak Park since 2009, Hudson has encouraged generations of children to express themselves and to appreciate their own creativity —and, perhaps most importantly, to find their tribe

“There is an energy about children that is fresh and genuine. I just love their joy,” Hudson said.

Hudson grew up as the youngest of four siblings in Omaha, Nebraska. She didn’t seriously pursue theater until her sophomore year at the University of Nebraska, where she acknowledges that she drove her dorm mates crazy playing Broadway musicals—constantly and loudly.

“I think back on that, and I want to apolo gize to everyone in my do rm ,” she said, laughing .

She honed her acting chops by performing in small workshops and studio productions in storefront theaters, which are still her favorite theatrical venues. Following college, Hudson performed in a dinner theater

production of Grease in Omaha and met a group of professional actors who encouraged her to go to New York — she chickened out several times before making the leap.

Her first job in the big city wasn’t glamorous — she nannied for a wealthy family on Central Park South — but it af forded her the opportunity to see matinees every Wednesday.

“The first show I saw was Song and Dance with Bernadette Peters. She came on stage wearing a jacket that had “Nebraska” written on it — in the play, she has just moved to New York and her boyfriend is from Nebraska. I just lost it. I’m sure the woman sitting next to me couldn’t understand why I was sobbing,” Hudson said.

Later, as a production secretary for PBS’s Great Performances series, she got a behindthe-scenes peak at professional theater and met some of her heroes, including Beverly Sills and Gregory Hines. She was making acting inroads in small productions when she met her future husband Dave and decided to move back with him to the Midwest when he got a scholarship to Stephens College in Missouri.

While it was hard to leave New York, the mecca for stage performers, it was in Missouri that she discovered her love for teaching and directing other actors, which she did for a community theater. Hudson followed her husband to Oak Park in the mid-90s when he got a job with Goodman Theater.

She later also landed a job there that gave her the chance to watch several masters at work, including esteemed director Mary Zimmerman, whose creativity and dedication to storytelling still inspires her

Hudson’s first foray into Oak Park children’s theater was with the Village Players. In 2002, she established the children’s theater school at Open Door Repertory.

Hudson launched Actors Garden as her own full-time theater school in 2009 and opened her current studio in the Harrison Street arts district in 2015. The program now offers full-year programming, including after-school and weekend classes and workshops as well as a vibrant (and often sold-out) summer camp at Dominican University. In addition to classes in introduction to theater, musical theater, production

and acting on-camera, Hudson recently debuted an innovative Dungeons and Dragons class that provides a deep dive into character development and an improvisation class for neurodivergent teens and adults. She estimated that she works with about 120 children every semester and more than 150 children in the summer.

The keys to the school’s success are Hudson’s boundless energy and contagious positivity. She focuses on the process of theater as much as the product.

Sarah Jansen said she appreciates Hudson’s insights and investment in each of her students as well as the safe place she provides for them to express themselves. Her daughter Luca is a current student at the school.

TODD BANNOR

Gigi Hudson instructs Frances Gibbs as Alice and Liza Gianotti as the Mad Hatter in ‘Alice in Wonderland’ at the Actors Garden Feb. 23.

CRIME

Man strikes Wood Dale resident in face

A man approached a Wood Dale resident March 2 in the 1100 block of South Lombard Avenue, asking for directions. After the victim provided directions, the man struck the victim in the face with an unknown object. A struggle ensued before the man walked away, heading northbound

Burglary

■ Someone got into an Oak Park residence garage in the 600 block of South Humphrey Avenue through an unlocked door. The individual stole a teal Orbea Triathlon bike. The incident, which occurred between Feb. 20 and Feb. 27, resulted in an estimated loss of $2,000.

■ Someone used a prying tool to get into an Oak Park business in the 100 block of South Marion Street during the early hours of March 2. While inside, they used the same tool to bypass the lock on an office door and locked cabinet. They stole approximately $5,700, but the total cost of damage is unknown.

Criminal damage to property

A woman was banging on a storefront window Feb. 28 at Lake N Austin Foodmart, located at 422 N. Austin Blvd. She eventually caused the windowpane to break, then fled on foot. The estimated damage is $1,200.

Motor vehicle theft

■ Someone stole an Oak Park resident’s gray 2018 Hyundai Santa Fe in the 1100 block of South Harvey Avenue. The incident, which occurred between Feb. 25 and Feb. 26, resulted in an estimated loss of $16,000.

■ Someone stole a Berwyn resident’s blue Hyundai Elantra in the 400 block of South Boulevard. The incident, which occur red March 1, resulted in an estimated loss of $13,000.

■ Someone stole an Oak Park resident’s black 2017 Mercedes-Benz in the 100 block of Forest Avenue. The incident, which occur red between Feb. 26 and March 1, resulted in an estimated loss of $50,000.

Arrests

■ A 76-year-old Oak Park woman was arrested for assault against a Des Plaines resident Feb. 26 in the 400 block of South Oak Park Avenue.

■ A 23-year-old man from Bellwood was arrested for battery against a River Forest resident Feb. 28. The incident occurred on the 1000 block of Lake Street. He was given a notice to appear and released.

■ A 30-year-old man from Chicago was ar rested for driving under the influence of alcohol March 3 in the 800 block of North Elmwood Avenue. He was issued a citation and released

Attempted motor vehicle theft

Someone damaged the door handle, then used a prying tool to break the rear driver side window of an Elgin resident’s 2019 Hyundai Sonata. The individual then damaged the steering column and ignition trying to steal the car. The incident, which occur red between March 2 and March 3 on the 500 block of South Maple Avenue, resulted in an estimated damage of $1,500.

These items were obtained from Oak Park Police Department re ports dated Feb. 26 – March 4, and re present a portion of the incidents to which police responded. Anyone named in these re ports has only been charged with a crime and cases have not yet been adjudicated. We re port the race of a suspect only when a serious crime has been committed, the suspect is still at large, and police have provided us with a detailed physical description of the suspect as they seek the public’s help in making an arrest.

Compiled by Luzane Draughon

Join us Sunday, March 31st for our popular Easter Brunch! Attendees will enjoy the delicious menu below along with a complimentary Mimosa! (Must be 21+ to consume alcohol)

Appetizers

Shrimp Cocktail, Baked Clams, Fried Calamari, Focaccia Bread, Easter Calzone

Breakfast

Assorted Egg Frittata, Ham on the Bone, Country Style Potatoes,Bacon, Belgian Waffles

Salads

Garden Tossed Salad, Jim & Pete’s Tortellini Pasta Salad

Entrees

Easter Ham, Sausage Giambotta, Boneless Lemon Chicken, Mediterranean White Fish, Chicken Fingers

Pasta & Risotto

Rigatoni Vodka, Risotto Primavera, Elbow Macaroni and Cheese, Sides, Fried Eggplant, Mashed Potatoes, Assorted Grilled Vegetables

Dessert

Fresh Fruit and Assorted Pastries

Beverages

By ROBERT J. LIFKA Contributing Reporter

River Forest officials want to know why the number of Union Pacific Railroad freight trains idling on tracks through the village has increased and how railroad officials plan to remedy the situation.

Village President Cathy Adduci calls the idling trains “a nuisance that is not acceptable,” noting that the village has received “a significant increase” in re ports of idling trains from residents.

“There must be consideration given by the railroad to our nearby neighbors,” she added.

Village administrator Matt Walsh said complaints about idling trains have been “a fairly common occurrence for years” that has become a daily issue during the past two months.

“I am sure the friction has been around for decades, and I know that president Adduci and Eric Palm, for mer village administrator, worked diligently around 10 years ago to decrease idling during a time of increased concern,” he said. “It appears to increase cyclically, and we are trying to understand the reasons why and whether there are alternative locations.”

Adduci said she is seeking an in-person meeting with officials of the Omaha, Nebraska-based railroad, and also has re-

quested assistance from U.S. Re p. Danny Davis (D-Illinois 7th District), whose district includes River Forest. Davis helped mediate a dispute in 2019 between the railroad and River Forest officials and residents over the Third Rail Expansion project that impacted the village at that time.

Walsh said that Union Pacific officials have responded, and he is trying to find a date when both parties can meet.

“I did speak with their government affairs re presentative over the phone, and he did share that they were working with their operations team to use a different location to idle,” he said.

River Forest residents are not the only Illinois residents complaining about railroads in their communities.

In response to such complaints, legislation has been introduced in the General Assembly

SB1513 would amend the Illinois Commercial Transportation Law of the Illinois Vehicle Code to provide “that no rail carrier shall cause, suffer, allow or permit the unnecessary foreseeable idling of a diesel locomotive within 1,000 feet of a residence, business, school or hospital for a continuous period of time longer than 30 minutes in a manner such as to cause or contribute to a condition of air pollution.”

Adduci said village officials “will continue to monitor” SB1513.

River Forest buys $1.6M re vehicle

New quint will replace pumper and ladder truck

By ROBERT J. LIFKA Contributing Reporter

The River Forest Fire Department will replace two of its aging vehicles with a quint aerial apparatus following action by officials at the Feb. 26 village board meeting but the lead time for delivery is 33 months.

The five trustees present voted unanimously to purchase the single axle 100-foot quint from Indiana-based Emergency One for $1.6 million without discussion as part of the consent agenda. Trustee Katie Brennan did not attend.

A quint fire truck is an apparatus that combines the equipment capabilities of a ladder truck and the water-pumping abil-

ity of a fire engine. As its name implies, it features five main tools to carry out firefighting functions – pump, water tank, fire hose, aerial device and ground ladders.

The quint has also become more userfriendly over the years, according to information on the Firehouse magazine website. Advancements in reach and stability, shorter wheelbases and higher-powered diesel engines have made these units more capable of any task on the fireground that is required, according to the website.

The apparatus can combat structure fires, provide continued elevated egress and serve as an elevated master stream all within one unit, the website said.

In a memo to Matt Walsh, village administrator, fire Chief Tom Gaertner said the quint, once placed into service, will be able to perform the tasks of the 2001 pumper and 2013 ladder truck. It will also reduce operational and maintenance costs by an

estimated $1.2 million over the next 10 years, he added.

“It will also allow us to use our current staffing more efficiently and in a much safer manner,” Gaertner said.

Staf f will also be pursuing a Federal Emergency Management Agency Assistance to Firefighters grant, which would help fund 75% of the purchase, he added. He also said the cost could be partially off-

set by the sale of the pumper and the ladder truck.

This is the second recent major purchase for the fire department. In September 2022, a 2024 Life Line Type III Advanced Life Support ambulance was purchased for $304,021 from Life Line Emergency Vehicles of Sumner, Iowa. The department is still waiting for delivery, which is expected in early 2025.

Our beautiful 6-story building provides quality, a ordable, independent housing for seniors. e Oaks o ers studio and one-bedroom apartments, with kitchens and private bathrooms. Amenities include an award winning interior landscaped atrium, central meeting room, library, laundry facilities, computer learning center, internet access, electronic key entry system, and parking. On-site management includes

agencies and programs designed speci cally for seniors. e Oaks is owned and operated by the Oak Park Residence Corporation and is funded by the US Department of Housing and Ur-ban Development through the 202/ Section 8 Program. Monthly rent is based on the resident’s income, with individuals paying approximately 30% of their monthly income toward rent. For more information, please visit us at www.oakparkrc.com or contact us at 708-386-5862.

HOMELESSNESS

Unseen or overlooked

from page 1

to be able to succeed.”

For now, she’s staying in a Housing Forward shelter, taking online classes and working to find a place for her and her kids to live

“When I got here, I was damaged. I had nobody. I felt like everybody was against me … but they [Housing Forward] didn’t give up on me.”

She’s hoping Oak Park won’t, either.

One might think that Oak Park, with its affluence, might be the unlikeliest place to have people who are unhoused.

That would be wrong.

While it’s difficult to count the number of people who are unhoused or who seek shelter in the village, Housing Forward reported that it served 329 Oak Parkers across all of its programs from January to September 2023. Of them, 38% were unsheltered. In fact, more than half of the entire state’s unhoused population live here in Cook County.

One might also think that with Oak Park’s commitment to progressive politics, residents would be fully onboard to find solutions and homes for all who need them.

It’s true that many government officials and nonprofit organizations are working toward those goals. But everyday Oak Parkers have said privately and to Wednesday Journal that they wish the people sleeping in Scoville Park or in the township parking lot could be swept to neighboring villages or Austin on Chicago’s West Side.

People often think homelessness is a problem for the community, but it’s not, said John Harris, facilitator for the Oak Park Homelessness Coalition.

“It’s important for all of us in communities to recognize that it is a societal problem, and it is a problem for that individual,” Harris said. “If we can help change some of the issues in society … then we’ve got a better shot at helping in the community and the individual.”

Wednesday Journal will be exploring how to give that better shot to those, like Handley, who need per manent, fixed housing in Oak Park.

What homelessness is

A person is considered “homeless” under federal guidelines if they lack a fixed and re gular nighttime residence or if their main nighttime residence is a supervised shelter, a halfway house, a place not normally reco gnized as a place to sleep like a stairway or train station, or a temporary stay at someone else’s residence.

It’s that last scenario that people often don’t consider as “homelessness.” But it’s common.

“That’s a population that is certainly unseen and overlooked,” said Lynda Schueler, chief executive officer at Housing Forward.

It’s caused, she explained, by a lack of af fordable housing — a perpetual problem in Cook County.

HOUSING AND HOMELESSNESS IN OAK PARK

People come to experience homelessness in many ways, Harris said. They might lose their job. The roof could be torn of f their house in a tornado. They could, like Handley, be the victim of domestic violence.

“Quite often, what happens is one issue be g ets another one and then another one,” Harris said. “I f people imagine what it might be like to be living in a car, or on the street, it takes a toll on you mentally and it takes a toll on you physically.”

Whatever the case, it’s important for people to understand experiencing homelessness can happen to anyone, Harris said.

It’s often bundled with other complicating factors. Mental health, physical health, substance abuse and loss of support systems exacerbate the struggle those who need housing find themselves in.

“I never got real help,” Handley said.

Then, when other issues arise, such as an unexpected hospital visit or a car breakdown, and if there are no savings to tap into, homelessness is often just a paycheck away.

What homelessness in Oak Park looks like

Between 2022 and 2023, homelessness across the country grew by 12%, figures show.

In Oak Park, from January to September 2023, that number was 32%.

The village is in high demand for anyone looking for a place to live: It’s perceived to have good schools, social services, community programs and other amenities. It’s close

to both Metra and Chicago Transit Authority lines, making it easy to get around or get to Chicago.

The demand for housing drives rental fees higher.

Consider this: According to the Illinois Housing Development Authority the median rent for a one-bedroom apar tment is $1,225. For an individual classified as extremely low-income in Oak Park, someone who earns less than $23,190 a year, that apar tment would be about 63% of their yearly gross income. Contrast that with the median Oak Park income of $103,264. Those earners, however, tend to be homeowners, not renters.

In 2012, there were 4,100 apar tments in Oak Park available for $1,000 or less per month, according to the IHDA. In 2022, that decreased by 63% to only 1,520.

“[Housing] is not as af fordable to those folks that are barely making a living wage,” Schueler said. “You’ve got renters and homeowners that are really struggling to just keep pace with the increase in housing costs.”

For those in dire need of help, Oak Park may be even more attractive.

In the winter, many people experiencing homelessness ride the trains to stay warm, safe and get rest, Harris said. They also often believe Oak Parkers will help provide money and services, he said, a result of the community’s re putation of generosity.

Handley can attest to that. She said she came to Oak Park with nothing. She drove here from Minnesota with five kids in tow while seven months pregnant.

Now she’s staying at T he Write Inn, one of Housing Forward’s temporary shelters. T hey’ve been able to help

HOUSING AND HOMELESSNESS IN OAK PARK

her g et clothes and diapers, necessary identification and even found childcare for her while she recovered from a cancerrelated surgery

“This whole building, it’s like a village,” she said. “You got one kid, or you got 10, it’s always going to take a village to raise a family, or anybody. I’m going to need that support; I didn’t have none of it.”

Three of Handley’s kids attend Oak Park schools. While she takes classes, she’s also watching over her younger three. She’s been looking for a job, too, but said it’s hard to manage without childcare.

Her dream is to one day open a homeless shelter that does not discriminate in any way and welcomes everyone

“I want to be able to help people like I was helped,” Handley said.

For Kirstein McGhee, Oak Park is a safe haven in a storm. The 39-year-old, who suffers from frostbite that could result in finger amputations, said he was staying with his mom in a senior building on the south side of Chicago when he was forced out because he wasn’t officially on the lease

He has cardiomyopat hy, a condition that causes the heart to have a hard time pumping blood, according to the Mayo Clinic. In January, McGhee had an e pisode outside that left him unconscious in the cold for nearly 20 minutes. That’s when he got the frostbite.

As someone who worked in construction for years, having frostbite on his fingers makes McGhee’s job nearly impossible now. He said his new plan is to go back to school and become an entrepreneur. In the mean-

time, he’s applied for disability benefits.

McGhee said he’s been trying to cope, but he’s constantly in pain from his condition. He’s been battling with depression, too

“I haven’t been able to really go outside,” he said. “Just from being outside for a certain period of time, the weather’s 40 … I’m crying like a baby.”

Both Handley and McGhee said they’d like to stay in Oak Park.

They want a chance to start a new life, just like many others in the village have done.

The Oak Park di erence

Unlike other municipalities that have driven unhoused people out by forbidding panhandling, demolishing tent cities or other tactics, the Village of Oak Park has opted to make policy decisions that aim to address the problem.

For example, in 2019, officials approved an af fordable housing ordinance that requires developers to make 10% of their apar tment or townhouse units af fordable to residents who earn 60% of the area median income.

Developers also can pay the village $100,000 per af fordable unit they don’t include in the building, an attractive option to earn more money for the af fordable housing fund.

That policy doesn’t go far enough, critics said.

“Do we need to do more?” Harris said. “We absolutely do, because we need to help prevent people from entering homelessness.”

Housing Forward has an emergency

shelter, which is a mass cong re gate situation with 20 beds, but it is usually full, Schueler said. At The Write Inn, where Handley and McGhee are staying, Housing Forward also provides temporary shelter and interim housing for individuals experiencing homelessness.

An emergency overnight shelter is also available at St. Catherine of Siena – St. Lucy’s campus at 38 N. Austin Blvd. from 7 p.m. to 6:30 a.m., according to Housing Forward’s website.

Housing Forward’s street outreach team can also provide other short-term assistance. One example is buying a bus ticket to help an individual experiencing homelessness get to a friend or family member, Schueler said.

“We [Housing Forward] are fully committed to ending homelessness for each and every person that comes to us in need,” she said.

Prevention is an important step to reducing homelessness, too, but there are limited resources for that ef fort, Schueler said.

Education and awareness around housing af fordability and income, services for people struggling with substance abuse or g ambling issues and resources for shortand long-term housing are essential to help prevent homelessness, Harris said.

“Let’s not victimize the individual, let’s call on our elected officials to do more to provide more resources to help those people experiencing homelessness,” he said. In all, they ag reed, there’s more work to be done.

Housing in Oak Park by the numbers

Residents

• 53,834 Oak Park residents and 23,345 households reside in the village.

Income

• The median household income in Oak Park is $103,264. In Illinois, that’s $78,433.

• More than 3,680 Oak Park residents, or 6.8% of the population, live below the poverty line.

Rent, a ordability and vacanc y

• The median rent for a 1-bedroom apartment in Oak Park is $1,225.

• For an individual classi ed as extremely low income in Oak Park who earns a salary of roughly $23,190, that apartment would be about 63% of their yearly gross income.

• Studies estimate that a renter working 40 hours per week, 52 weeks per year must earn between $24 and $36 per hour to a ord a modest onebedroom apartment in Oak Park.

• In 2012, there were 4,100 apartments in Oak Park renting for $1,000 or less per month. In 2022, there were 1,520, a decrease of 63%.

• The vacancy rate is 6.1% in Oak Park, compared to 5.6% statewide.

Homelessness

• As of 2022, 54% of Illinois residents experiencing homelessness are in Cook County.

• Housing For ward served 329 Oak Parkers across all its programs from January to September 2023. Of them, 38% were unsheltered.

Sources: U.S. Census Bureau, the Illinois Department of Human Services, U.S. Census American Community Surve y, Housing Forward, National Low-Income Housing Coalition, Illinois Housing Development Authority.

ACTORS GARDEN

eir hours upon the stage

from page 14

“Gigi truly sees every student’s potential and makes each child feel like they are playing an important part of a production, no matter their role. Luca has found her people through Actors Garden, which was such as gift after we moved here from Riverside,” Jansen said.

Ann Bath has two children, Alice and Charlie, who have been involved in the school since 2021. Her daughter has decided to seriously pursue her passion for theater and Bath attributes this to Hudson’s influence. A student at Roosevelt Middle School, Alice is currently training with the Paramount School of the Arts and will perform in a production of Mean Girls this summer.

“We feel so blessed that Alice has had Gigi as a mentor at this stage of her development because, as a pre-teen, it can get pretty hairy. Gigi is such a bright light in her life,” said Bath.

Meredith McGuire, the choir director at OPRF, has two sons in Actors Garden. She said she witnessed Hudson’s magic when she sat in a tech rehearsal in 2019.

“I was profoundly blown away during that rehearsal. Gigi gives 120% to each of her students. Actors Garden is everything a children’s theater school should be,” McGuire said.

Although Hudson has had several notable students who, like Tavi Gevenson, have gone on to professional acting careers, she insists that her goal is more modest.

“At the end of the day, I feel successful knowing that there are students who have gone on to have happy, creative lives and who have fond memories of their experience with Actors Garden,” she said.

Kiki Sikora, an Actors Garden graduate who is studying theater at Northwestern University, is a testament to Hudson’s mission.

“Gigi has inspired and deepened my love for theater. Her positive reinforcement has given me the self-confidence to act professionally. But my goal is to create art in my life, whatever that may mean. Theater is a way of uplifting people and Gigi is a wonderful example of that,” Sikora said.

OFFICIAL NOTICE OF ELECTION, SPECIMEN BALLOTS, REFERENDA/ QUESTIONS OF PUBLIC POLICY & POLLING PLACES

Aviso oficial de elección, balota de muestra, referéndums / preguntas de política pública y lugares de votación

OFFICIAL NOTICE IS HERBY GIVEN, by

Karen A. Yarbrough, Cook County

Clerk

that the Primary Election will be held in Suburban Cook County on: que la elección primaria se llevará acabo en los suburbios de Cook County en:

Tuesday, March 19, 2024

Martes 19 de marzo del 2024

The Primary Election will be held in election precincts under the jurisdiction of the Election Division of the Cook County Clerk's Office.

La eleccion primaria tomara acabo en precintos de eleccion bajo la jurisdicción de la división de eleccion del Cook County Clerk's Office.

The Polls for said Primary Election will be open from 6 a.m. to 7 p.m. Locations are subject to change as necessity requires. Las urnas para tal eleccion primaria estarán abiertas de las 6 a.m. hasta las 7 p.m. Localidades están sujetas a cambio por necesidad.

At the Primary Election the voters will vote on the following contests and referenda questions. Referenda/Questions of Public Policy will be voted upon in those precincts of Cook County under the jurisdiction of the Cook County Clerk in which a Unit of Local Government has requested the County Clerk’s Office to place said referenda/questions of public policy on the ballot.

En la eleccion primaria los votantes votaran por los siguientes puestos y cuestiones de referendo. Referendos/Cuestiones de Política Pública serán votadas en aquellos precintos de Cook County bajo la jurisdicción del Cook County Clerk en la cual una unidad de gobierno local le ha pedido a la oficina del County Clerk que provea dicho referendo/cuestión de política pública en la boleta.

TOWNSHIP OF OAK PARK

continued from previous page

continued from previous page

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continued from previous page

OFFICIAL NOTICE OF POLLING PLACES

The voting will be conducted at the following polling places for each of the aforesaid election precincts selected by the Cook County Clerk. Las votaciones tomaran lugar en cada de los antedichos precintos de elección seleccionados por el Cook County Clerk.

OAK

OAK

325 S KENILWORTH AVE Y

OAK PARK 7OAK PARK TOWNSHIP 105 S OAK PARK AVE Y

OAK PARK 8DOLE LEARNING CENTER 255 AUGUSTA ST Y

OAK PARK 9PERCY JULIAN JUNIOR HIGH SCHOOL 416 S RIDGELAND AVE Y

OAK PARK 10WHITTIER SCHOOL 715 N HARVEY AVE Y

OAK PARK 11DOLE LEARNING CENTER 255 AUGUSTA ST Y

OAK PARK 12PERCY JULIAN JUNIOR HIGH SCHOOL 416 S RIDGELAND AVE Y

OAK PARK 13LONGFELLOW SCHOOL 715 HIGHLAND AVE Y

OAK PARK 14ST GILES GLEESON BUILDING 1101 COLUMBIAN AVE Y

OAK PARK 15J L HEDGES ADMINISTRATION OFFICE 218 MADISON ST Y

OAK PARK 16ADELE H. MAZE LIBRARY 845 GUNDERSON AVE Y

OAK PARK 17LINCOLN SCHOOL 1111 S GROVE AVE Y

OAK PARK 18HOLMES SCHOOL 508 N KENILWORTH AVE Y

OAK PARK 19GWENDOLYN BROOKS MIDDLE SCHOOL 325 S KENILWORTH AVE Y

OAK PARK 2019TH CENTURY CLUB 178 FOREST AVE Y

OAK PARK 21PERCY JULIAN JUNIOR HIGH SCHOOL 416 S RIDGELAND AVE Y

OAK PARK 22OAK PARK PUBLIC LIBRARY 834 LAKE ST Y

OAK PARK 23OAK PARK PUBLIC LIBRARY 834 LAKE ST Y

OAK PARK 24OAK PARK RIVER FOREST HIGH SCHOOL 201 N SCOVILLE AVE Y

OAK PARK 25WASHINGTON IRVING ELEMENTARY SCHOOL1125 S CUYLER AVE Y

OAK PARK 26BEYE ELEMENTARY SCHOOL 230 N CUYLER AVE Y

OAK PARK 27WEST CENTRAL CHURCH 1154 WISCONSIN AVE Y

OAK PARK 28GWENDOLYN BROOKS MIDDLE SCHOOL 325 S KENILWORTH AVE Y

OAK PARK 29WEST CENTRAL CHURCH 1154 WISCONSIN AVE Y

OAK PARK 30WASHINGTON IRVING ELEMENTARY SCHOOL1125 S CUYLER AVE Y

OAK PARK 31OAK PARK CONSERVATORY 615 GARFIELD ST Y

OAK PARK 32BEYE ELEMENTARY SCHOOL 230 N CUYLER AVE Y

NOTE: The letter (N) following the polling place address denotes that the polling place itself is not accessible to the handicapped although other parts of the facility may be accessible. An exemption has been granted by the State Board of Elections and signs are posted indicating if the whole building is accessible or if there is a special entrance.

NOTA: La letra (N) después de la dirección de un lugar de votación indica que el lugar de votación en sí mismo no es accesible para personas discapacitadas, aunque otras partes del edificio pueden ser accesibles. La Junta Electoral del Estado ha concedido una exención y hay carteles publicados que indican si todo el edificio es accesible o si hay una entrada especial.

Dated at Chicago, Illinois this 6TH day of March 2024

Applying online is the easiest, quickest, and most efficient way for you to apply and it allows you to apply anytime - day or night - while the waiting list is open.

Need a reasonable accommodation and assistance in filling out the online pre-application? If you are a person with disabilities or elderly and require a reasonable accommodation and assistance in completing the online pre-application, you can call our special assistance phone line at 708-386-1464 from Monday, March 4, 2024 through Thursday, March 14, 2024 from 8:30 am to 5:00 pm Our special assistance team will schedule an appointment for you at a later time during the open waiting list period to help you complete and submit your online pre-application.

schedule an appointment for you at a later time during the open waiting list period to help you complete and submit your online pre-application.

Home damaged by re gets approved for demolition

By LACEY SIKORA Contributing Reporter

T he home at 430 S. Taylor Ave. in Oak Park has had a checkered past.

In 2005, a previous owner was cited and fined for hosting a rowdy party of 60 to 150 teens.There were re ports of shots fired on the block.

At a Feb. 8 public hearing before the Historic Preservation Commission, owner Anthony Garland said that the basement was full of garbage, and the home had possibly been inhabited by squatters during the several years that it was vacant before he purchased the house in March 2023.

T he home is part of the Ridgeland-Oak Park Historic District and has a rich architectural past. Built in 1908 at $3,000 by J.W. Farr as his personal residence, the home had all the hallmarks of a carefully crafted early-20th century home. Art glass windows, a tiled roof and detailed plasterwork spoke to Farr’s career as a builder and plaster contractor.

Garland purchased the home for $290,000, with plans to clean the house, sand the floors and remodel the kitchen to raise his f amily in the same village where he grew up.

On June 7, those plans went up in smoke — literally — when the house caught on fire. T he fire left a hole in the home’s roof and significant damage on the interio r.

Craig Failor, village planner and planning and urban design manager for the

Village of Oak Park, said that Garland originally sought a certificate of appropriateness from the Historic Preservation Commission to demolish the house

Because the house is in an historic district, the HPC has to we igh any request

“The Commission shall issue a certificate of economic hardship only if the Commission finds that the subject property cannot be put to any reasonably beneficial use or that the owner/applicant will suffer a substantial economic loss thereon without the alteration, construction, relocation, removal or demolition being sought by the owner/applicant and that the owner/applicant is not responsible in any way for the hardship from which he or she is seeking relief. The factors to be considered by the Commission and the Village Board on the issue of economic hardship shall include, but are not limited to, the following:

for demolition. Failor said that because the house was deemed a contributing structure to the historic district by the state, the HPC could not change that designation, and had to vote to deny the certificate of appropriateness.

1. A substantial decrease in the fair market value of the proper ty as a result of the denial of the certi cate of appropriateness;

2. A substantial decrease in the pretax or after-tax return to owners of record or other investors in the property as a result of the denial of the certi cate of appropriateness;

3. The cost of the proposed construction, alteration, relocation or demolition, and an estimate of any additional cost that would be incurred to comply with the recommendations of the Commission for changes necessary for the issuance of a certi cate of appropriateness;

4. The structural soundness of any structures on the proper ty and their suitability for rehabilitation;

On Feb. 8, Garland again appeared before the HPC, this time asking for a Certificate of Economic Hardship to permit demolition. T he HPC has the authority to grant these based on village archi tectural review guidelines. They say in part:

5. The economic feasibility of rehabilitation or reuse of the existing struc ture or improvement on the property in the case of a proposed demolition.

6. The owner/applicant’s purchase of the subject proper ty after the enactment of the relevant provisions of this Article without making said purchase contingent upon the owner/applicant rst obtaining necessary Board and/or Commission approvals under this Ar ticle shall be deemed to be conclusive evidence of the fact that the applicant is responsible for the applicant’s own economic hardship, if any.”

See DEMOLITION on pa ge 26

COURTESY OF STEVE REDICK/SCREENSHOT

Anthony Garland’s home can be demolished w ith the Certi cate Economic Hardship.

DEMOLITION Rare exception

from page 25

At the Feb. 8 public hearing, Susie Trexler, Oak Park Urban Planner in Historic Preservation, summarized the evidence provided by the homeowner, which included a structural engineer’s evaluation; a comparative market analysis from a real estate professional stating that the value of the property in good condition would be approximately $685,000; and a detailed construction estimate that restoring the home to its original state would cost roughly $970,000.

Trexler noted that the staf f recommendation was to grant the Certificate of Economic Hardship as the applicant successfully demonstrated factors three, four and five of the guidelines.

During the hearing, Garland testified that the fire marshall had declared the home was not approved for occupancy and was uninhabitable.

According to estimates Garland provided, building a new home on the lot would cost roughly $540,000.

er hoped to bring integrity to the block.

“This house was in deplorable condition.”

CRAIG FAILOR Village planner

home on the site would “bring integrity to the block.” omments. Commissioners decried the loss of an historically significant home, but all ag reed that restoring the home back to its original state after the fire would pose a significant financial hardship. T he vote to

grant the Certificate of Economic Hardship was unanimous.

HPC chairman Lou Garapolo reminded Garland and Hungerford that because of the location within the historic district, any plans for the new home would be submitted to the HPC for review on an advisory basis.

Garapolo said he cannot recall another Certificate of Economic Hardship granted during his three-year tenure on the HPC, and Failor said that in his time at the village, he cannot recall another economic hardship argument that was supported by the HPC.

“This house was in de plorable condition,” Failor said.

COURTESY OF STEVE REDICK/SCREENSHOT

at 430 S. Taylor Ave. rendered it uninhabitable.

PROPERTYTRANSFERS

Oak Park home sells for $1,050,000

The following property transfers were re ported by the Cook County Clerk from October and November 2023. Where addresses appear incomplete, for instance where a unit number appears missing, that information was not provided by the clerk.

OA K P ARK

1158 S Harvey Ave $470,000 Thomas Kandrell Reynolds Alexis

222 N Marion St $490,000 Schiess Ronda S Walter Carolyn C Tr

1017 N Harlem Ave $505,000 Mason Patrick A Maberry Ii Andre

610 N Lombard Ave $515,000 Ruth B Peck Decl Of Trust Dtd 2-21-2005 Thomas Ben S

113 S Grove Ave $515,000 Schenk Noel Yolo Loft Llc

519 N Taylor Ave $545,000 Oconnor Matthew Ryan Seheult Russell Oliver Tr

603 Clarence Ave $545,000 Mitchum Robert D Jr Stuhlmacher Michelle Faye

208 S Taylor Ave $550,000 Jacob Beth-Anne Trust Shore Samuel L

1138 Home Ave $550,000 Br64 Partners Inc Trevino Ericka Menchen

426 S Humphrey Ave $567,000 Daniel Olusegun O Gutierrez Ti any

1000 N Taylor Ave $580,000 Hoerr Dirk D Dunn Emily R

47 Le Moyne Pky $595,000 Surmac Bldr Llc Jones David A

514 N Taylor Ave $600,000 Dalkilic Ali Gettinger Michael G

635 Madison St $670,000 Chicago Title Land Trust Co Tr 5760 Charli Jean And Oliver Holdings Llc - Oak Pk

1006 S Highland Ave $680,000 Henry Kebreab Mallo Alex

413 Home Ave $75,000 Us Bank Trust National Assn Tr Hayes Deborah

411 Linden Ave $805,000 Larson Charles R Tr Schiess Ronda S

219 S Cuyler Ave $880,000 Kawuki Bruce Serrano David W

1 Le Moyne Pky $895,000 Scotstown Homes Llc Love Josephine

1131 N East Ave $975,000 Goodling Zachary Quach Tammy

420 S Kenilworth Ave $99,000 Orozco Carlos Camacho Cristian Ivan Castillo

1043 Woodbine Avek $1,100,000 Siegel Josh Loizou Constantinos Louis Tr

735 Columbian Avek $1,352,500 Cardosi Kim M Kazimir Erica

420 N East Avek $1,750,000 Monson Paul D Switzer Mark Livingston

737 N Humphrey Ave $353,500 Riddle Matthew Bottero Bennett

200 S Maple Ave $364,000 Kreutzer Craig Ryan Ann Marie

1210 N Oak Park Ave $387,000 Chicago Title Land Trust La Greca Salvatore Co Tr 8002389285

1176 S Harvey Ave $370,000 Colantoni Alexandra Mannix Thomas

710 Gunderson Ave $399,000 Patera Katherine Javor Daniel

464 Lenox St $454,500 Us Bk Natl Assn Tr Mcguire Michael

641 N Cuyler Ave $466,000 Williams Edith G Keith Megan Jean Tr

5 Fillmore Stk $133,000 Haddad Joseph C Riley William Rodgers

1044 Ontario Stk $145,000 Clemons Bessie M Daniels Jimmie L Tr 9831

1041 Susan Collins Lnk $150,000 Vicuna Mylene Bersamina Adyai Llc

821 Lake Stk $160,000 Trevisano Marne Tr Villa Jackelyn

720 Home Avek $180,000 Cozza Joseph Ohalloran Real Prop Llc

1040 Ontario Stk $190,000 Alvarado Jacinto Paonessa Francesco A

PROPERTYTRANSFERS

Continued from page 27

OA K P ARK

ADDRESS PRICE SELLER BUYER

923 Clarence Avek $197,000 Laan Zachary Vander Ho man Alicia Kay

801 Washington Blvdk $221,500 Giuntoli Tina Bwette Diana

201 S Maple Avek $227,000 Levy Reginald Anthony Clinton

1225 N Harvey Avek $298,000 Ohara Anita Surmac Bldr Llc

330 N Taylor Avek $302,500 Berg William G Bella Prop Llc

709 Gunderson Avek $365,000 Kuhn Julia A Wayne Ryan

1034 N Austin Blvdk $402,000 Simoy Phillip A Ronde Ames Moses

237 Home Avek $405,000 Bigongiari Mary J Kozelka Peter

805 Gunderson Avek $420,000 Meier Lisa Tr Divani Abbas

1042 S Ridgeland Avek $440,000 Ford Michelle Clarke Leslie

2 Le Moyne Pkyk $45,000 Linear Dwain Nowak Holds Llc

1031 Wesley Avek $457,500 Calabrese Nicholas L Contreras Jenna C

323 N Taylor Avek $475,000 Longinow Lillian T Tr Rodriguez Gerardo G

821 S Elmwood Avek $500,000 Ondrla Thomas J Prov Joseph T

47 Chicago Avek $510,000 Harty William J Bean Ryan D

641 N Taylor Avek $515,000 Yowell Ronald J Palm Christine E

515 S Euclid Avek $525,000 Hammer Matthew R Beck Bradley

1152 S Harvey Avek $525,000 Textor Lindsey Brooks Maxwell

618 Wesley Avek $525,000 Anand Ankit Brown Eric R

1022 S Kenilworth Avek $536,000 Hutson Charles A Velador Sergio

316 N Taylor Avek $545,000 Todd Raul R Knicker Kenneth David

1117 Wesley Avek $550,000 Waltenbaugh Karen S Tr Fitzgibbon Kevin Michael

211 S Taylor Avek $555,000 Haas Susan A Nielsen Evan J

944 N Taylor Avek $570,000 Murphy Anne Marie Tr Sloan Loren

143 S Cuyler Avek $577,500 Roberts Je rey Tr Ford Jason Elliot

806 S Lombard Avek $585,000 Kaufold Eric R Aier Benlina

132 S Grove Avek $585,000 Callen Hollis A Tr Doty Michael

256 Iowa Stk $600,000 Perez Christian National Resid Nominee Services Inc

256

2

RIVER FOREST

ADDRESS PRICE SELLER BUYER

349

206

ADDRESS

RIVER FOREST

PRICE SELLER BUYER

1439 Jackson Ave $880,000 Banerji Manatosh Loring Scott Charles Hauser

1125 Keystone Ave $894,000 Louis Kimberly Kurrie Zemanski Michael

947 Thatcher Ave $900,000 Gass Christopher Lehne Joseph

718 Lathrop Ave $1,460,000 Macy Lawrence Lu Marvin

1533 William St $140,500 Arnold Charles Lauricella Paul Joseph

406 Franklin Ave $145,000 Muhammad Bashir Rebolledo Jessica

1537 William St $150,000 Blanka Roman Roldan Aida L

414 Clinton Pl $265,000 Jorge Joseph Morrone Emilio

407 Ashland Ave $400,000 Christensen Mark E Tr Sumielto Trust

7200 Oak Ave $76,000 Stojiljkovic Alexandra Tr Rivera Eugenio K

FOREST P ARK

ADDRESS PRICE SELLER

850 Des Plaines Ave $108,500 Chenette Brian Rengifo Junior A

315 Marengo Ave $120,000 Baker Keyna Bland David

300 Circle Ave $121,500 Wiese Ken Cleal Bryan

251 Marengo Ave $175,000 Johansen Pamela S Solomon Paul A

1324 Circle Ave $235,000 Coronel Jeannette C Team Jendy Inc

7314 Randolph St $263,000 La Dev Corp Lorenz William M

330 Circle Ave $280,000 Ih2 Prop Illinois Lp Douglas Bruce

444 Ferdinand Ave $287,000 Chicago Title Land Trust Co Tr 5259 444 Ferdinand Llc

820 Hannah Ave $295,000 Luchez Lionel Baumgarten Martha

7706 Wilcox St $295,000 Demirtas Hakan Niewijk Grace M

1009 Dunlop Ave $296,500 Plotkin Jonathan P Tr Delaney Kerry

1522 Elgin Ave $325,000 Petrick Michael R Jendy Llc

7541 Brown Ave $330,000 Davaadelger Batzaya Wickers Lindsay

837 Hannah Ave $360,000 Stellfox Geo rey Dwyer-Dallmann Virginia

508 Hannah Ave $365,000 Murray James J Hosty Brian C

1110 Troost Ave $367,500 Huang Albert Y Brambila Marisol

7621 Roosevelt Rd $399,000 Myha Inc Rebm Prop Llc

533 Marengo Ave $480,000 Haeger Lisa A Haeger-Montino Lauren A

118 Elgin Ave $520,000 Andriusis Justin E Painter Ryan Samuel

304 Marengo Ave $550,000 Hhi Heritage Llc Kreutzer Craig

614 Elgin Ave $570,000 Moody Jonathan C Linton Christopher Michael Fortson

7635 Roosevelt Rd $665,000 First Secure Bk And Trust Co Tr New Golden 7635 W Llc

16432 Madison St $900,000 Newdocs Inc Shri Prop Llc

505 Hannah Ave $567,000 Gillian James S Sotakoun Kristen A

520 Hannah Ave $549,000 Oshea Kevin J Extr Mast John Fox

908 Marengo Ave $538,000 Rao Chandrika Cozza Joseph

604 Hannah Ave $500,000 Rhoten Theresa C Bowen Jessica Tr

443 Beloit Ave $330,000 Johnson Nancy C Newdocs Inc

1013 Circle Ave

7432 Washington St

315 Des

315 Des

Zahn Rachel Leal Belem Diaz

Delgado Lucerito Rodriguez Maribel

Homes Llc

C

ONSCIOUS A GING

We can all be lastchance tour ists

Things have changed as I’ve gotten older.

When I was a kid growing up, if I saw a person walking down the sidewalk, all alone, carrying on a running conversation with someone unseen, I’d stay away and be wary. Today, the sidewalks are full of people walking alone while carrying on conversations, almost all of them wearing earbuds, talking on a phone stuffed in their pocket.

BLESOFF

And back when I was a kid, if I saw somebody running in the street, I’d look to see who was chasing them and if something bad was about to happen. Today the streets are full of people running and jogging to get exercise, none of them being chased. I am a Boston driver. It’s where ew up. If you are not familiar with the ter m, think “agg resve.” For most of my life, I honked the car horn as if I was saying, “You dumb *, what the * is wrong with you?!” I now honk the horn two ways. Sometimes still the judgmental, impatient way, and sometimes, especially if it’s an older driver in the other car, I honk when I have to, as if saying, “Oh well, I understand, we’re all in this together.” Could that be a bit of empathy I hear in that honking horn?

And things keep changing as I get older. Two of the key changes happening now are climate change and longevity. We’ve added more years to our human lifespan since the year 1900 than in all of preceding civilization. Climate change and aging — both with a sense that time is running out.

I read about something called “last-chance tourism,” where travelers decide to visit places threatened by climate change before it ’s too late, places like glaciers, archipelagos or coral reefs. There is something a bit perverse about this adventure. Poignant at the very least. Don’t even mention the carbon footprint it takes to fly to a glacier. What is the motivation to be one of the last humans to see a for merly beautifully-alive part of our existence?

We could promote a different type of “last-chance tourism.” What if we encourage visiting parts of

In an opinion published in the Viewpoints section of the Feb. 21 Wednesday Journal, a writer criticizes the Oak Park Board for spending money to help “individuals whose first act in the United States may have been a crime” [Uncomfortable truths about migrants]. The statement quotes a portion of §1325 of the Immigration and Nationality Act (8 USC 1325). The portion of the law quoted in the Viewpoint makes it a criminal offense to make false or misleading re presentations when seeking entry into the U.S.

We are volunteers with the Catholic Parishes of Oak Park in our mission to help provide basic needs to the many mig rants who have recently appeared at our doorste p. One of our roles has been helping with the urgent need for housing. In the process, we have interacted with several families who have arrived here from Venezuela.

We have seen the documentation these people received from U.S. Customs and Border Protection in Texas when they presented themselves for examination and inspection by immigration of ficers at our

Border. They each received I-94 for ms from Customs agents, were assigned an Admission Record Number, and given a Notice to Appear at a future date for a hearing on possible removal from the country. They were then admitted into the U.S. None of these migrants that we are helping were ar rested or charged with any criminal offense. On the contrary, they were released by Customs Officials into the United States.

There is no indication on anything we have seen, nor does the Viewpoints writer identify any facts that he has that any person being helped by the Oak Park community lied to Customs officials to gain entry into the country. It is wrong to label this group of people seeking a better life as liars or criminals without a specific factual basis for that accusation.

At the time they are admitted into the country by Border officials, the people we have encountered were given a written notice by Customs personnel informing them that they have one year from admission to file an

Library’s missteps

Oak Park’s public library system has, with intentionality, crafted a mission and a strategy, built a staff and a gover nance model focused primarily on issues of welcome, equity, inclusion and restorative justice

Over recent months, and through wounds that appear largely self-inflicted, this critical institution has caused harm both internally to its staff and externally to its community. All of that boiled over last week when a group of some 30 citizens came to a library board meeting to share their upset over the library’s handling of a proposed event celebrating Palestinian culture.

This library, under its welcoming code, has become known and respected for its active engagement with the diverse cultures that make up the wider community. Whether it is using its highly visible Idea Box, just inside the front doors at the main library, to celebrate and educate visitors, or through its diversity-focused programming, the Oak Park Public Library has taken on the cloak of progressive leadership and run with it.

That cloak is now frayed as critics, internal and external, say the library badly mishandled planning for the Palestinian cultural event. And while first the library board and, belatedly, Executive Director Joslyn Bowling Dixon have now issued apologies to their staff and the community, the matter is not nearly resolved

In part that is because an odd and intense debate over semantics has made plain divisions between Dixon and some staff members, particularly those focused on matters of inclusion and restorative justice. There is a continuing dispute over whether the planned event was a “library” event or a “community event.” To us, this seems a distinction without a difference and a distinction some staff members maintain had never been made clear before So there is active distrust among staff and leadership that will need repair. The library board’s apology actively acknowledges this breach. For her part, Dixon’s apology says that the back and forth over semantics and timing is less essential than her accepting responsibility for all aspects of the library and “personally” saying “I’m sorry.”

We will see if that is too little, too late

Village hall rethought

Happily, it seems clear that Oak Park has stepped back from the brink, that brink being the wacky idea that demolishing the 50-year-old village hall would ever be a good idea.

Initially proposed as a concept last summer, the wave of public astonishment and indignation quickly resulted in alternative thinking. A restoration-focused architectural fir m was added to the discussion and a blue ribbon committee was formed to steer toward a safer outcome

Last week the committee heard multiple options and expressed a strong preference for a general plan that would create an addition to the hall while leaving its structure basically intact. All of the building’s longstanding infrastructure shortcomings will still need to be addressed: Lousy HVAC, lack of accessibility, and security are all to be solved

And there is still a need for an integrated solution for a new police station.

But moving past the option of demolition is a solid start.

On my way to meeting a friend at Whirlwind Coffee last Thursday mor ning, I had misgivings. Maybe I should have stayed home and focused on the talk about my book, the one about finding “True Community,” which I was presenting that afternoon at the Brookdale Senior Living facility. Instead it became my talk as I walked east on Pleasant Street, and spotted a crowd of people on the corner of Euclid and Pleasant and another a block further on Wesley They were waiting for the school bus — kids and parents, maybe some grandparents, very intergenerational — adults talking with kids, kids talking with kids, adults talking with adults. A microcommunity, representing families from surrounding blocks who may know one another only from this short stretch of time in the mornings and/or afternoons, five days a week, nine months a year. They might also know one another from block parties, a longstanding Oak Park tradition. Or maybe they know each other from school events or the kids play at each other’s houses after school, on weekends, or on youth sports teams during the summer

e unity in community KEN TRAINOR

decades housed Gilchrist Hardware, where a cluster of custodians would gather to schmooze and find parts to keep their multifamily buildings functioning through the long, once-cold winters.

When my friend arrived, I asked about his involvement at St. Catherine-St. Lucy and the outreach efforts to create a fullservice “bridge” to families on the West Side of Chicago and how those efforts now overlap and dovetail with housing and resettling the newly arrived migrants at the old St. Edmund School. It is a noble enterprise and, if successful, will be an Oak Park story for the ages, about sinking roots in this community after an epic jour ney, told and retold by grateful generations to come.

By the time I reached Wesley, the bus had already picked up the kids and the adults were dispersing, but three women lingered, one holding a ceramic mug filled with coffee or tea, steam swirling skyward in the sunlight, as they discussed school issues and upcoming events. PTO members maybe.

At East Avenue, I tur ned south and found myself walking upstream as high school kids headed in the opposite direction to OPRF, some on foot, some on bikes, zeroing in on their most influential microcommunity, which likewise links to numerous before- and after-school subcommunities — clubs and athletic teams, friends who hang out at local eateries or jobs or the teen sections at the public library or in the parks or attending the Community Recreation Center’s popular youth program, Monday through Friday, 3:30 to 6 p.m.

At Washington Boulevard, I waded into a confluence of arrivals from every direction, like wheel spokes feeding the hub that is Fenwick High School. The snarl of dropoff traffic is no doubt maddening for commuters heading to workplaces.

From that whirlwind to Whirlwind on Madison Street, one of a proliferating number of village coffee shops and/or bakeries providing hospitable settings for various microgroups, face-to-face and remote — like the games coordinated by the son of a friend who is here with his laptop, setting up Dungeon & Dragon competitions, a longstanding virtual online community. Oak Park has always been a coffeehouse town, not a bar burg

Whirlwind is located in the storefront that for many

That after noon, I told the post-lunch audience at Brookdale about my morning odyssey and noted that they, too, comprise a microcommunity, having in many cases left single-family homes and chosen to live here communally. I related that my mor ning tour of pocket communities was, in fact, what I have been doing for a third of a century, as I walk the streets of Oak Park, identifying and studying the interconnected constellations that make up “Our Town Oak Park.”

Once upon the 1960s, I reminded them, facing an existential threat from “white flight,” our village reinvented itself and morphed into a more open, welcoming place, an entity that was not just diverse, but also inclusive, not only eco-friendly but also equity-aspiring and ever-evolving, a process that is never “finished.” We are now located at the intersection of change and continuity. Embracing change, paradoxically, preserved our continuity. We recognized that, to survive, we had to do more than live next to one another. We had to interact. We had to discover “true” community, the alchemy that takes place when residents intentionally interweave lives, when “we” become more than the sum of our individual selves and more than the sum of our microcommunities.

Oak Park raised the bar on what it means to “integrate” and we need to keep raising that bar. We raise it by aiding asylum-seekers from Central and South America. We raise it by building a stronger bridge between Oak Park and the West Side of Chicago. And we raise it every time we interact and interconnect with one another — at block parties, Far mers Market, Day in Our Village, Thursday Night Out, the July 4th Parade, book clubs, Zoom sessions, attending author talks, reading the local newspaper to “keep up” on what’s happening here, and also reading the Village Diversity Statement — out loud, with pride — at least once a year in a public setting

Because we need the reminder to keep renewing who we are, and because we need to experience, occasionally, the unity in community

SHRUB TO WN by

Marc Stopeck

Why bother if this is your EV policy?

I can only imagine the River Forest Sustainability Commission has no EV owners on it. That is the only explanation for the recommendation they made re garding the fee structure imposed on EV charging at village hall, the only public chargers in the entire village.

Let’s be clear. The 6.6 kw-hour chargers are not fast chargers. De pending on the EV that uses this, the expected range added per hour is 25 miles or less. Adding 50 miles of range before the village imposes its draconian fees make these chargers virtually useless to most EV owners. These chargers are most certainly not conveniently located for most EV owners, so much so that the village is lucky anyone

uses them at all. One wonders what the whole point of installing them is if River Forest is going to then discourage using them.

Finally, there is the comment from Trustee Lisa Gillis that the village is “generous” to allow two hours of free charging. The cost to the village for the electricity for two hours of charging is roughly $1. If someone charges for 2 hours and one minute, the village will make a 600% profit on that particular transaction.

Seriously, what is River Forest doing here? If you don’ t want to encourage EV usage, why don’ t you just rip these chargers out?

Don Anderson Oak Park

JOURNAL

of Oak Park and River Forest

Editor Erika Hobbs

Digital Manager Stacy Coleman

Sta Repor ter Amaris Rodriguez, Luzane Draughon

Viewpoints Editor Ken Trainor

Real Estate Editor Lacey Sikora

Digital Media Coordinator Brooke Duncan

Columnists Marc Bleso , Jack Crowe, Doug Deuchler, Mary Kay O’Grady, Kwame Salter, John Stanger

Shrubtown Cartoonist Marc Stopeck

Design/Production Manager Andrew Mead

Editorial Design Manager Javier Govea

Designer Susan McKelvey

Marketing Representatives Lourdes Nicholls, Ben Stumpe

Business & Development Manager Mary Ellen Nelligan

Circulation Manager Jill Wagner E-MAIL jill@oakpark.com

Special Projects Manager Susan Walker

Chairman Emeritus Robert K. Downs

Publisher Dan Haley

BOARD OF DIRECTORS

Chair Judy Gre n Treasurer Nile Wendorf

Deb Abrahamson, Gary Collins, Steve Edwards

Darnell Shields, Sheila Solomon, Eric Weinheimer

About Viewpoints

Our mission is to lead educated conversation about the people, government, schools, businesses and culture of Oak Park and River Forest. As we share the consensus of Wednesday Journal’s editorial board on local matters, we hope our voice will help focus your thinking and, when need be, re you to action

In a healthy conversation about community concerns, your voice is also vital. We welcome your views, on any topic of community interest, as essays and as letters to the editor. Noted here are our stipulations for ling.

Please understand our veri cation process and circumstances that would lead us not to print a letter or essay. We will call to check that what we received with your signature is something you sent. If we can’t make that veri cation, we will not print what was sent. When, in addition to opinion, a letter or essay includes information presented as fact, we will check the reference. If we cannot con rm a detail, we may not print the letter or essay.

If you have questions, email Viewpoints editor Ken Trainor at ktrainor@wjinc.com.

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Wednesday

e Community Recreation Center: a community asset for all ages

As co-chair of the Community Recreation Center (CRC) fundraising team, In last week’s One View [The Community Rec Center is great, except …, Viewpoints, Feb. 28], I appreciated reading about the positive impact the CRC is having on the author’s life. I, along with our corps of volunteers and donors, are thrilled the CRC is providing residents with access to a lifestyle of recreation, fitness, and fun, re gardless of family economics. In addition, we are thrilled the after-school program is engaging hundreds of youths each day in basketball, volleyball, fitness classes, weightlifting, E-sports, homework help, indoor track, mental health workshops, and peer socializing opportunities in a safe, welcoming environment.

MARY JO SCHULER

One View

and high school students; an alternative to “shopping malls, video arcades, and convenience stores.” Our capital campaign never stated nor promised a full day of “peaceful, warm ambiance” for adults to enjoy. However, outside of the after-school program (3:30-6 p.m.), adults do have access to 14 hours of “peaceful, warm ambiance” each weekday.

As a person who sees the value and potential in every child, and as a person who believes the adults and leaders of our community have a responsibility to deliver opportunities and conditions allowing all children to build bright futures for themselves, may I suggest an alter native view of the “chaotic hellscape” described by the author of the Feb. 28 One View:

nally have alternatives to “shopping malls, video arcades, and convenience stores,” thanks to our park district who not only like children, but also offer them a warm welcome and a place to belong each day after school.

I applaud our park district for having the guts to provide after-school programs for middle and high school students because if you look around, most communities choose the “shopping malls, video arcades, and convenience store” method of “accommodating” youth who are not otherwise occupied with co-curricular activities or expensive enrichment programs.

Vote for quali ed judges

Attached is my annual suggested guide to the Cook County judicial election. The list is not based on my personal recommendations. Instead, as always, the list is based on the highest total of the combined rankings of the Alliance of Bar Associations for Judicial Screenings (13 bar associations), plus one additional bar association, the Chicago Council of Lawyers

If one followed the messaging of our four-year CRC capital campaign, you may recall that we promised our community a family-friendly facility of fering amenities and programs for all ages. In addition, we were crystal clear about our intent to of fer free after-school programming to middle

It is true, kids need unwind time after 7-8 hours of school which often shows up as noise and rambunctiousness, but just to be clear, most after-school participants are engaged in the activities as described above. And equally important, be reminded that working Oak Park parents are comfor ted by the fact that their children fi-

As we approach the one-year anniversary of opening the CRC, I welcome additional feedback and ideas about how our community (adults, leaders, volunteers, public resources) can do a better job of keeping kids safe after school while also perpetuating opportunities for all our children to build bright futures for themselves. Please submit your ideas to OPKIDIDEAS@gmail.com.

Mary Jo Schuler is a longtime Oak Park resident and youth advocate.

e Alabama IVF ruling is cruel and wrongheaded

How is the Alabama Supreme Cour t’s ruling on IVF cruelly wrongheaded? Let me count the ways.

First, the court cites Scripture, Genesis 1:27, to declare that embryos, just like you and me, are “in the image of God” and must have the full protection of our civil laws. But the intent of Scripture, here and elsewhere, is to foster faith, not make a case for biological “facts.” That people relate to God and to the world as God’s re presentatives on Earth, with all the privileges and responsibilities of that lofty status, is the point. Biology was simply inconceivable for the writer, and would have been seen as completely beside the point, and misleading.

Second, their ruling ignores the fact that, prior to implantation in a uterus,

an embryo cannot be nur tured to birth as a fully viable human being. Apparently they argue that its potential to become an actual human gives it all the rights of persons under our laws. That defies logic. As a comparison, let’s say that, because books can be protected under copyright law, the alphabet itself should be similarly protected. After all, the alphabet has the potential of becoming a written text. But that’s true only if the letters are “nurtured” into words, sentences, paragraphs, and finally “birthed” into a finished product. It’s ridiculous to consider random letters of the ABCs as worthy of legal protection. But it’s no more ridiculous than labeling embryos as “human beings.”

Third, bringing a child into the world is obviously the goal of IVF. When the

usual ways of engendering a new life have failed, couples undergo the arduous, invasive, prolonged, and expensive process that produces embryos, hoping against hope that one of them will implant in a woman’s womb and begin the path to viability and eventual birth. Other embryos are not viable. No implantation, no child — it’s that plain and simple.

Finally, respect and compassion toward couples yearning to be loving parents must be top priority in this fraught situation. Rigid ideolo gy cannot be allowed to prevail over their rights as fellow citizens in the United States.

Fred Reklau Oak Park

The separate rankings can be found at Vote For Judges - https:// voteforjudges.org/wp-content/ uploads/2024/02/2024-Cook-County-Primary-Ballot-as-of-2.28-004.pdf

Injustice Watch, a nonprofit that screens judges, has infor mation about each judge but does not make recommendations. https:// interactives.injusticewatch.org/ judicial-election-guide/2024-primary/en:

March 2024 Judicial Election Guide

Joy Virginia Cunningham

Mary Lane Mikva

Cynthia Y. Cobbs

Celia Louise Gamrath

Carl Anthony Walker

Pablo F. deCastro

Corrine C. He ggie

Sarah Johnson

Deidre M. Dyer

Arlene Y. Coleman-Romeo

Neil Cohen

Edward Joseph Underhill

Russ Hartigan

Jennifer Patricia Callahan

James S. Murphy-Aguilù

Chloe Georginna Pedersen

11th Subcircuit - Audrey Victoria Cosg rove

Source: Vote For Judges https://voteforjudges .org/wpc ontent/uploads/2024/02/2024C ook-County-Primary-Ballot-asof-2.28-004.pdf

Jim Poznak Oak Park

Unc and Annie added a lot to our block

George and Ann Armstrong lived next door to us on Oak Park Avenue. They were the aunt and uncle of Mrs. Dunne, the wife of the owner of the house. The Armstrongs lived in a small second-floor apar tment in the home at 508 N. Oak Park Ave.

When I first met the Armstrongs in 1948, I was 8, George was 75 and Ann was 73. All six members of the Dunne family called George and Ann “Unc” and “Auntie” as did the neighbors.

Unc was born in Springfield, Missouri in 1873 and lived there until he graduated from pharmacy school when he moved to Chicago to work in the pharmacy owned by his uncle. It wasn’t long before he met Ann, who was a re gular customer at the pharmacy.

Within a year of meeting, George and Ann were mar ried (1898) and took up residency in an apartment near the pharmacy,

which George bought from his uncle in the 1920s. Unc and Auntie came to li Dunnes when Unc retired in 1943.

In 1949, Unc accepted a parttime job on Monda day, and Friday Oak Park Club, Ontario Street and Oak Park Av he manned the cigar/candy counter. He work capacity for 10 y

When Unc was baked pies, cookies, cakes, and bread in her small kitchen for her family as well as for the neighbors. She made the best cornbread I had ever eaten. Unc loved baseball and especially the White Sox, a team he had followed since the early days of the 20th century.

ve d next to a huge vacant lot where most the neighborhood guys ed baseball, softball, ootball, and socce r. Whened baseball or softball, Unc was seen sitting in a porch chair just over and behind third base. He ould cheer for the team on phew pl ayed , elling encouragement and ich was ve ry good pt for the time he told hi s ne phew Je r ry to slide into third, forgetting that it had rained the night before the g ame, and Je r ry got a mud bath.

Unc rarely drove Mr. Dunne’s car, but each Monday he would drive Auntie to the beauty shop and then drive to Zehender’s Pharmacy to buy a dozen cigars for

All nations/peoples have a right to exist

Thanks to Wednesday Journal and contributing reporter Stephen Sonneveld for last week’s story on weekly walks to support hostages in Gaza [Oak Park residents vow to walk until Israeli hostages are released, News, Feb. 28].

I would like to clarify one point, however. The article states that Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu rejected fur ther negotiations after captives and Palestinian prisoners were released last November. This is untrue. He did indeed say that only complete military victory would result in the release of all hostages, as quoted. But context matters here. He said that after the Israeli military rescued two hostages on Feb. 12. (https://www. washingtonpost.com/world/2024/02/12/ israel-hostage-rescue-rafah)

There have been ne gotiations before and after his statement. For example, a Feb. 26 USA Today headline re ported: “Signs of hope as Israel, Hamas hold ‘proximity talks’ in Qatar: Updates” (https://www.usatoday.com/story/ news/world/israel-hamas/2024/02/26/ israel-hamas-war-gaza-live-up-

dates/72742803007).

I also take issue with the letter in last week’s WJ, which disagreed that denying Israel’s right to exist as a Jewish state is antisemitic [Your definition of antisemitism isn’t absolute]. They’ re cer tainly right to say that Jews don’t speak with one voice about this. (Remember the old joke “Two Jews, three opinions”?) But they’re mistaken if they are disputing Israel’s right to exist as a Jewish state. Jews are collectively a nationality/people, as well as individuals who practice Judaism. The right to national self-determination is protected in the UN Charter and international law. (https://www.law cornell.edu/wex/self_determination_(international_law)

Both Jews and Palestinians have this right, along with all the other peoples/ nationalities in our world. To support this right for every other nationality except Jews would be an antisemitic double standard.

Judith Alexander Oak Park

himself. His 16-year-old nephew wanted to learn how to drive, so Unc volunteered to be his teacher. The neighbors worried that the 82-year-old Unc Armstrong should not be the teacher, but instead Mr. Dunne should send Jerry to a driving school.

Unc persisted and the family relented. The instruction went well until one day Jerry veered to miss a squirrel and crashed into a tree. Jerry was unhurt, but Unc suffered a broken left hand. This was the end of Unc’s tenure as a driving instructor, and Mr. Dunne sent Jerry to a nearby driving school to complete driving instruction.

The Dunne family and Unc and Auntie moved to Chicago in 1959, and I never saw them again.

Even though Unc and Auntie had no children of their own, they truly loved the boys and girls of our neighborhood as though we were their own.

Danny Davis is our oak tree

Oak Parkers have a history of choosing re presentatives who embody our cherished values — compassion, strength, resilience, dedication, stability, and longevity. These qualities, much like our village’s namesake, the great oak tree, serve as the foundation of our community.

Just as oak trees provide vital habitat and resources for the natural community, Congressman Danny K. Davis has dedicated over 25 years to tirelessly representing the 7th District, including Oak Park. He has been instrumental in securing essential resources for our community. From health care and education to support for seniors, veterans, environmental protection, and housing, Davis has been a tireless advocate and legislator.

Since 2008, he has successfully obtained over billions of dollars for the 7th District. From 2021-2023, he secured millions of dollars in federal investment, specifically for Oak Park, demonstrating that he’s not resting on

his laurels, he’s actively fighting for the well-being and prosperity of our community.

In the political landscape, longevity is a valuable asset, and Davis has earned the 24th position in house seniority out of 435 members. His prestigious positions, such as ranking member of the House Ways and Means Committee, let him get things done for the 7th District that a newbie representative could only dream of.

It is essential to recognize that Congressman Davis’ enduring presence in office has been a driving force behind the continued growth and prosperity of Oak Park. As we approach the upcoming election, Oak Parkers are urged to embrace the oak tree — a symbol of strength, stability, and wisdom. Re placing it with a sapling would be to forfeit the invaluable experience and influence Congressman Davis brings to our community.

Scott Drews Oak Park

Patty melt, the All-American hamburger

The origin of the hamburger is in dispute: perhaps grilled ground beef in a bun was first served stateside by Fletcher Davis in his Texas diner — or maybe, as the name implies, it was first served in Hamburg, Germany.

The origin of the patty melt, however, is somewhat better documented, with most sources agreeing that the hamburger patty (or patties) with cheese, served in rye bread slices rather than a bun, first appeared on menus in 1940s Califo at Tiny Naylor’s eponymous restaurants

HAMMOND

Local Dining & Food Blogger

— were fine, but the flavors did not merge in any significant way.

The patty melt is warm, and a warm sandwich is usually better than a cold sandwich, the flavors are more discernible.

Whatever happened to sin?

Whatever happened to sin? I heard a lot about it growing up — too much really — but the word has dropped out of our moder n vocabulary.

Having bread slices stand in for a bun may seem a little, um, low-rent, but at Submarine Tender, the bread used is a good rye, griddled crisp, with caraway seeds, for slight spiciness. The hamburger bun, on the other hand, serves the strictly functional role of enabling you to hold the hamburger while you eat it, but unless it’s a truly good bun (a rarity) the usually squishy white bread adds next to nothing to the flavor. The delicious patty melt at Submarine Tender has so much flavor, it doesn’t need mustard, ketchup, relish, whatever: it’s good straight-up, with only a dollop of griddled onions, which adds a slightly sweet note to the sandwich.

Submarine Tender’s patty melt uses two thin patties with cheese on both the top and bottom bread slices.

The regular Submarine Tender sub sandwich is a decent bite, but compared with the patty melt, it’s clearly an also-ran. The ingredients — “assorted cold cuts,” a slice of cool cheese, lettuce, tomatoes, etc.

As re ported in a 2020 issue of Scientific American: “Our sense of taste is more sensitive to warm food than to cold food.” No argument there. Melted cheese is almost always better than un-melted cheese. I never buy American cheese (rubbery, one-dimensional), but I concur with Ralph Fiennes, the monomaniacal chef in “The Menu,” who declared, “American cheese is the best cheese for a cheeseburger because it melts without splitting.” True, true

And yet … apparently Swiss cheese was traditionally the favored fromage in a patty melt. As Sam Sifton wrote in the New York Times, “As great dinner sandwiches go, it is hard to beat the patty melt: ground beef, Swiss cheese and caramelized onions griddled on rye bread until they become a crisp, oozing package of saltysweet delight.”

Such praise was echoed by Ed Levin in Serious Eats, who wrote that patty melts “are one of the truly great underappreciated sandwich creations of all time. No one thinks about them. They haven’t gotten their due!”

If you haven’t already, now’s the time to begin giving patty melts their due. You can start at Submarine Tender, but you’ ll also find them on the menus at Cozy Cor ner, George’s Restaurant, and other comfy, unpretentious local spots.

When we were children, many of us got tired of hearing about our sinful nature and sinful actions My first-grade teacher actually knew how to draw a soul on the chalkboard. It looked like the outline of a murder victim. She explained this was our soul when we were bo rn. Then she star ted chalking in the outline, explaining that the chalk marks were sins. She ended up with a completely chalked-in soul — the product of our six-year lifetime of crime.

Just about any infraction was a sin, including not cleaning your plate at dinner. I grew up so guilt-stricken, I had the heavy conscience of an escaped convict. It was a shock for me to look back and realize, hey, I haven’ t even been ar rested.

Sin was especially emphasized during Lent. We had to attend daily church services, weekly confession and eat fish sticks on Fridays. Good Friday was the one day of the year we couldn’ t play outside. No matter how sunny it was, we had to gather at my mother ’s feet to listen as she read about Christ’s passion.

When I met my wife, I realized she had suf fered a Good Friday experience every Sunday. Sundays meant going to church twice and refraining from anything resembling fun. Good Friday, though, was not a no-fun day for her She went to ball games and played golf — I couldn’ t believe it

We’re supposed to give up something for Lent. For the fourth year in a row, I’m giving up going to work

Sin may have been overemphasized in the past but the moral pendulum has swung completely the other way. Our society tossed sin out the window, along with guilt and self-responsibility. T here are some who say our society would be better if we redeveloped our sense of sin.

Author Alan Ehrenhalt believes we

lost some sense of community, when we lost our acknowledgement of sin. Avoiding sin meant living decently, resisting self-indulgence and having what was called “character.”

Nowadays, we believe something has to be ille g al to be wrong and we have to get caught in the act and actually found guilty in court. An individual not admitting their sins is one problem but a larger problem is that gover nment and big business have appropriated and co-opted sin.

For example, g ambling was once seen as sinful. Small-time sinners would play the numbers racket or use a bookie to bet on a horse. Now our state gover nment runs the lottery and has le g alized other forms of g ambling. If sin cannot be stopped, why not le g alize it and take a cut.

Drug dealers are the pariahs of our society but what are the giant pharmaceutical firms if not drug pushers? Drugs that make us feel good can be purchased openly at phar macies, enabling these companies to make for tunes

How about loan-sharking or, in sinful terms, usury? That’s been taken over by credit card companies and payday loan shops. In the old days, if you took a high-interest loan from a questionable character, you knew it was wrong and you were in trouble. These days, you’ re just another debt-ridden consumer

As individuals deny sin (We don’ t have gluttony anymore. It’s a health problem called obesity), our government and business leaders continue to turn once-forbidden pleasures into huge moneymakers.

I was reminded of the old-fashioned concept of sin watching the movie, To Kill a Mockingbird. It wasn’t against the law to shoot a songbird, or ignore the heroism of the reclusive Boo Radley Not ille g al, just sinful.

John Rice grew up in Oak Park, is a longtime resident of Forest Park, and writes a weekly column for the Forest Park Re view, a Growing Community Media publication.

DAVID HAMMOND

Patty melt, the All-American Hamburger, at Submarine Tender, Forest Park

Grief Ocean

The older I get

The more grief I collect.

In fact I float

On an ocean of grief.

On my back,

The sun warms my face.

Blue sky, puffy clouds.

I am content.

Until I turn over.

Then I see

The great blue depths

Of my g rieving.

All the dear souls

I’ve cherished

Then lost.

I am lost.

I need air, I must roll over.

Sun escorting me

Back to life.

The ocean rocks me

In rhythms of living.

Warm water bathing me

Enticing me to swim.

Karen Morris Muriello Oak Park

MARC BLESOFF

Last-chance tourists

from page 29

ourselves or our society that are threatened by our own growing awareness as we age? That growing awareness can happen naturally, if we allow it.

Next time I honk the car horn like a Boston driver, what if I said a silent good-bye to that lifelong habit and waved goodbye to it in the rearview mirror? I could be a “last-chance tourist” to that fading away part of me, like people today waving goodbye to whales or honeybees.

I would like to sponsor tours so people have the last chance to see a person fired because they’re “too old.” Or sell tickets to the last chance to see a stand-up comedy routine that includes ageist humor. I’d like to film the very last time a doctor refers to their older patient as “sweetie” and then turns to the relative in the room and explains sweetie’s medical situation, talking about sweetie as an object while sweetie sits 3 feet away

What par ts of yourself would you like one last chance to experience before it disappears? Which ageist prejudice would you like to view as a “last-chance tourist”?

Yes, things have changed as I’ve gotten older. Life is change. To live with intention is to make the change more conscious.

We need a Vision Zero transport system

The thing about our ground transportation system (buses, cars, trucks) is it kills a hundred people every day, give or take. Hard to believe we take that for granted and accept it must be that way. Imagine gathering a group of top engineers and asking them to design from the ground up a new, state-of-the art transportation system. The engineers go away and do their work and come back very excited about their new proposal. During the presentation they reluctantly acknowledge their new system would cause, on average, 100 fatalities every day. We would be outraged. Apoplectic. Engineers, we’d say, how about zero deaths per day? Can we start with that as a requirement? Go back to your drawing boards and start over.

And yet this is what we have today. It’s like

Hunger Games for a modern society. A lottery that claims across the country 100 lives every day in exchange for the ability to use a really great transportation system that benefits us in so many ways.

But it need not be this way. Vision Zero is a world-wide idea whose time is way past due. You can help zero traffic deaths become a reality by throwing your support behind the Oak Park’s Vision Zero initiative (https://engageoakpark.com/visionzero). Check out the website, add your name to the mailing list, and then contact village trustees to indicate your support.

Karl Lauger Oak Park

MIGRANTS

Not here illegally

from page 29

application for asylum if they believe they are eligible. Anyone who knowingly makes false statements on an asylum application would rightfully be subject to the consequences imposed by law. We have attended workshops of fered in Oak Pa rk to migrants. The requirements for asylum have been discussed in detail. The need to present truthful and specific reasons for applying for asylum has been stressed.

The U.S. Gover nment, recognizing the dire economic and governmental conditions in Venezuela, has amended its immigration rules to allow any immigrant from Venezuela who arrived here before July 31, 2023 to file an application for Temporary Protective Status and a companion work permit. TPS status, once granted, is valid for 18 months and, at least at this point, can be renewed.

Certainly, reasonable people can disagree as to whether public money should be used to provide housing and other services to migrants, especially when there is so much unmet need already in our communities. What seems indefensible to us is the labeling of people you don’t know as criminals or liars without specific facts to support the accusation.

Similarly, the painting of migrants who have left everything they have behind and walked a thousand miles seeking a better life as criminals or fraudsters, unfairly taints the generosity and kindness of the many people extending a hand of help to them.

Clancy Senechalle, Bob Senechalle, Celine Woznica, Don Woznica, Margaret Rudnik, Matt Brophy are volunteers working with migrants in Oak Park.

e kids at CRC are anything but disruptive

Last week’s Wednesday Jour nal included a One View [The Community Rec Center is great, except …, Viewpoints, Feb. 28] about the “chaotic” after-school program at the park district’s Community Recreation Center (CRC). I couldn’t disagree more. I walk on the track almost every day in the late afternoon when the after-school program is in operation. I couldn’t be more impressed with the cooperative behavior of the young people or with the calm involvement of the staff members. We can be proud that our Oak Park youth are living up to the high ideals posted on the CRC wall.

Tom Layman Oak Park

Michelle Nika Levan, 83

Homeopath, artist

Michelle Nika

Levan, PhD, HMD, MS, 83, of Oak Park, died on Feb. 12, 2024, due to natural causes. Intelligent, independent, progressive and funny — a true Aquarius — she gave her knowledge to the d and helped many people through her medical/homeopathic practice. She was also an artist who brought her vision to the canvas with colors, pattern and imagery. An absolute original her intelligence, creativity, dry wit and laughter (with snorts) will be missed.

She recently celebrated her birthday on Feb. 9 by going out shopping and then having a great steak dinner with chocolate cake! She truly appreciated all the love and wishes she received for her birthday, which made it was a great weekend.

Michelle is survived by her children, Julie and Adriane Tomlinson, Eric Taubman, Dan Kuraner, many grandchildren and her cat Beauregard.

Respecting her final wishes, there will be no funeral services held. Please honor her by celebrating her life and cherishing the joy she brought to yours.

Arrangements were handled by Zimmerman-Harnett Funeral Home in Forest Park.

Robert Osterlund, 71

Teacher, programmer, thinker

Robert Gerard Osterlund breathed his last on Feb. 24, 2024 at 9 a.m. The morning sun streamed in the room, and the ground outside was covered with snow Born on Nov. 8, 1952 to Russell Gaylord Osterlund and Dolores Joyce Brown in Royal Oak, Michigan,

He loved Lutheran music from childhood on, which evolved into a love of early music, especially the Renaissance and earlier. His three greatest fascinations were: numbers, history, and music. A deep thinker, he took his time to think things over and, when he finally arrived at a point of deci-

sion, he stuck with it. He was married to Lucy for 45 years, whom he met as a Peace Corps volunteer in the Philippines. During his first of two tours, he taught economics at a local colle ge in Tuguegarao City, and left behind a trust for a deserving student.

They adopted Michael, Lucy’s ne phew. Later they became parents to a miracle daughter, Laura. Three years after that, after returning to the U.S., they were blessed with another miracle, a son, Christopher.

Bob had an analytical mind, a knack for details, logic, reasoning, order, problemsolving, and patience, all of the essential skills of a programmer. When he retired, he delved into historical wargaming with a small group composed of a Canadian and a Fin. Not long after, he for med ties with the company Wargame Design Studio, headed by an Australian.

His proudest accomplishments: having a family; creating PIKT, an open source computer security program; and contributing to the computer war game, Campaign Series: Vietnam. His happiest times were the years he spent in the Philippines.

His noteworthy attributes included a knack for mastering skills of study. He graduated valedictorian from Oak Park and River Forest High School and earned his bachelor’s and master’s de grees in Economics from the University of Chicago. He loved U.S. history and wanted to enlist in the Armed Forces but failed his entrance physical exam. He looked at life with a sense of wit and humor.

Things that excited him: watching the 100 Top-Rated Movies of All Time and bringing cultural awareness to his family, following the Best National University Rankings and Nobel Prize-award winners each year, implementing new IT innovations in his work, and overcoming programming bugs (hard as it was)

Bob is survived by his siblings, Russell Osterlund (Patricia Poraczky) and Lynnette Osterlund (Greg Schlatter) and his nieces, Alessandra and Mariana Gallastegui; his son, Michael (Rebecca Bahlou) and grandsons Michael, Matthew, and Morgan; Michael’s ex-wife, Michiyo and grandsons, Marvin, Ian, and Ethan in Okinawa; his son, Christopher; his daughter, Laura, and son-in-law, Alan Klehr; and his wife, Otilia (Lucy) Melad.

A memorial service will be held on March 10, at St. John Lutheran Church in Forest Park

Bob’s ashes will be buried in the Osterlund family plot at Hill Cemetery in Lawrence, Michig an on March 11.

Norman Hane, 84

Poet and teacher

Norman R. Hane, 84, of Forest Park, died on Jan. 23, 2024. Born in Oak Park, he attended Kenyon Colle ge in Gambier, Ohio, graduating in 1961. He earned his PhD in English Language and Literature from the University of Chicago in 1968 and taught American literature at Drake University in Des Moines, Iowa, for 24 years. A poet as well as a teacher, he published a booklength collection of his work, Riding into the Solstice, with River Oak Press in 1994 and an award-winning chapbook, Outliving, with The Ledge Press in 2015. His work has also appeared in The Spoon River Poetry Review, Atlanta Review, Poet and Critic, Poetry East and other literary journals. He is survived by his wife, Barbara Croft Hane. The couple lived in Oak Park from 1992 to 2021, then moved to Forest Park

Paul Seline, 72

Teacher, writer, outdoorsman

Paul Seline, 72, of Oak Park, died on Feb. 28, 2024. Born on Sept. 11, 1951, in Faith, South Dakota, near the ranch where his mother grew up, he spent his first eight years in Oak Lawn, after which the family d to Davenport, Iowa. Summers were spent working on his cousins’ farm in Upper Michigan and riding horses in South Dakota.

After graduating from high school in 1970, he joined the Air Force. He served in Texas, Wyoming, and Okinawa, where he studied Japanese and cultivated a lifelong interest in Japanese culture. Upon returning to the States in 1975, he earned a B.A. in English and a M.A. in education from the University of Iowa. He married Rhonda Rath in 1979.

He started teaching high school English in Hot Springs, South Dakota. The couple

welcomed their son, Eric, in 1983. Wanting to be closer to family, they moved to Central Illinois in 1987, where he taught at Olympia High School in Stanford for the next 25 years.

At school he was the yearbook and newspaper advisor, co-taught an innovative program combining English, the environment, and technology, and later chaired the language department. He was a National Board-Certified teacher and earned the Illinois Master Teacher Certification.

During these years, he cultivated many hobbies, including gardening, birding, hiking, reading, writing, biking, photography, and cooking. He served as Eric’s Cub Scout leader, coached his baseball team, and took him camping.

Newly single, he met his partner, Sue Piha, at a writing workshop, and later moved to her home in Oak Park. In 2020, he published a book of his essays and poems.

Diagnosed with dementia in 2019, he coped with a devastating diagnosis as well as anyone could.

A celebration of life will be held on Saturday, March 16, at the Bloomington, Illinois Unitarian-Universalist Church, 1613 E. Emerson St., at 1 p.m., and available on Zoom.

Donations in Paul’s honor may be made to the Olympia English Department (c/o Andy Walsh, Olympia High School, 903 E. 800 North Road, Stanford, IL 61774) or the Lewy Body Dementia Association (https:// www.lbda.org/honor-memorial-gifts).

Michael Houren, 74 Grew up in Oak Park

Michael McCabe Houren, 74, died on Feb. 13, 2024. Born on Oct. 26, 1949, he grew up in Oak Park. He was the son of the late William T. and Virginia M. Houren (nee McCabe); the brother of William (Diane), Jerome (Christine), Patrick (Nancy McKnight), Maurita (Thomas) Beamish, John (Tracy), Timothy (Tena), Margaret (Tony) Kireopoulos and the late Virginia Houren; the brother-in-law of Linda Houren; and the uncle, cousin, and friend of many.

A memorial Mass will be scheduled for a later date. Private family interment will take place at Queen of Heaven Cemetery.

Arrangements were handled by AdamsWinterfield & Sullivan Funeral Home in Downers Grove. 630-968-1000 or www.adamswinterfieldsullivan.com.

Garlandaimsfortheshotlight

OPRF shot-putter

par ticipates in two major invitationals this week

By MELVIN TATE Contributing Reporter

When it comes to throwing events in track and field, the Garland family has a long history at Oak Park and River Forest.

Reese Garland, a class of 2023 graduate, earned an athletic scholarship to the University of Southern California and is throwing the discus and shot put for the women’s track and field program.

Next year, she’ll see a familiar face on the Trojans’ men’s team as her brother Kaden, an OPRF senior, told the Wednesday Journal that he is committed to USC as a thrower.

“Definitely a big part of it was the facilities and the coach,” Garland said. “Obviously Reese being there was another factor, and I like the nice weather.”

The Garland siblings have been throwing since middle school. They were introduced to the shot put and discus by their father, Ty, who himself was a thrower.

“We liked it and stuck with it,” Garland said.

Central Throwing Showcase, Feb. a toss of 17.99 meters (59 feet, 0.3 inches).

“I’m really happy with where I’m now,” Garland said. “I’ve improv since the start of the year, and I’m looking forward to bigger marks.”

He is currently the top-ranked thr in the state and is ranked 14th nationall says the hard work he puts in has been the key to his success.

“Training year-round and being consistent is big,” he said. “Shot put is from January to May, and training year-round is like double the work that other people, who don’t take it as seriously, do. I’m for the work I’ve been able to put in.”

Garland’s ef for ts will be on displ week as he participates in two high-profile national events: the Nike Indoor National, March New York City, and the New Balance Indoor National, March 10, in Boston.

“Shot put is from January to May, and training year-round is like double the work that other people, who don’t take it as seriously, do.”

K ADEN GARDEN OPRF shot-putter

Garland’s dedication is evident based on results. Last season, he won both the shot put and discus titles at the West Suburban Silver meet and the IHSA Class 3A Proviso East sectional respectively. He went on to place fifth in the shot put and 11th in the discus at the state championships

This year, Garland is of f to a terrific start. At the OPRF Triangular, Feb. 8, he established a new personal best as well as the field house record with his winning shot put throw of 18.59 meters (60 feet, 11.89 inches). Then he won the Grayslake

“I’m extremely excited for that,” he said.

He’s also excited about OPRF’s potential for the upcoming outdoor season. Last year, the Huskies took home their sixth consecutive WSC Silver championship, won the Proviso East sectional, and finished eighth at the Class 3A state meet.

“Right now, we’re looking pretty good,” said Garland. “We’re looking forward to showing teams how good we can be.”

OPRF also recently debuted an on-campus track and field facility with re gulation lanes and designated areas for jumps and throws. Although there are currently no meets scheduled for this spring there, Garland said he hopes to somehow get a chance to throw there during a competition.

“I would love to,” he said. “We used to train at Concordia [University in River Forest], so training here has made a huge difference. All we have to do is just walk outside and we’re there.”

Oak Park and River Forest senior thrower Kaden Garland competes in a track and eld meet last season. Garland, who recently committed to the University of Southern California and is the top-ranked thrower in Illinois, will compete in the shot put March 8 at the Nike Indoor National in New York City and March 10 at the New Balance Indoor National in Boston.

Fenwick driven out by St. Patrick

Shamrocks pull away from host Friars in boys sectional semi nal

By MELVIN TATE Contributing Reporter

The Fenwick High School boys basketball team had reason to feel confident going into its IHSA Class 3A sectional semifinal versus St. Patrick on Feb. 28. After all, the Friars were sure to get a boost playing at home in front of their classmates, families, and friends.

But having home-court advantage doesn’t make advancement automatic, and this was proven again as the visiting Shamrocks pulled away in the second half to notch a 6252 victory to end the Friars’ season.

“I’ll give it to them, they’ve got it,” said Fenwick junior forward Nate Marshall. “They’re well-coached and well-disciplined, and they can knock down shots for sure.”

Fenwick (18-11) started slowly as St. Patrick had a 16-0 run to take an 18-6 lead after a quarter. But the Friars started the second with a 9-0 run of their own to get back into the contest and only trailed 25-21 at halftime

Fenwick’s momentum continued in the third quarter as the Friars twice took a one-

point lead. But St. Patrick regained the lead for good with a 9-0 run and took a 40-32 ad tage going into the final eight minutes.

“Every time we got it going, we either turned it over or missed a shot, and they answered,” Marshall said.

In the fourth quarter, the Shamrocks used a 6-0 spurt to open up their biggest lead of the game, 54-39 with 4:12 left. That essentiall sealed Fenwick’s fate.

“They’re solid and tough,” said Fenwick coach David Fergerson. “They played had a good game plan, and stuck to thei brand of basketball. My hat’s off to them.

St. Patrick had a balanced attack with players scoring in double figures. Harpe Krolak and A.J. Thomas each had 14 points; Cooper Kavanagh 11 points; and Ne Hawkins 10, all in the fourth quarter

Marshall and Ty Macariola tied for game-high scoring honors, with 15 points each. Dominick Ducree added 10 points for the Friars.

Overall, Fergerson felt they had a solid season.

“We had some ups and downs, some highs and lows,” he said. “We fell a little short tonight, but everybody’s coming back, and hopefully we’ll be able to regroup and come back better next year.”

Marshall thought Fergerson did an excellent job in his debut season leading Fenwick

“He’s a great coach,” he said. “He’s been my coach since fifth grade when I joined his AAU (Amateur Athletic Union) team and he taught me the game.”

Indeed, next season looks promising as Fenwick returns all but one player, senior reserve Marek Hill. Ducree, Macariola, and Marshall will be entering their fourth years

OPRF badminton takes wing

Large tr yout numbers lead to program growth

By MELVIN TATE Contributing Reporter

T he Oak Park and River Forest High School badminton progr am has a good problem: a large number of students trying out.

OPRF head coach Paul Wright told Wednesday Journal that over 70 girls came out, with roughly 40 spots available for the entire progr am. It’s a good problem to have because the Huskies aren’t the only West Suburban Conference school experiencing it.

“We’re hoping to add a level in the future,” said Wright, entering his 12th season. “Other schools in our conference are noticing this type of increase, and Hinsdale South has added a fourth level to accommodate the large turnout of student athletes.”

OPRF, which finished fourth in the WSC Silver and second in its own sectional last season, returns one of its two doubles teams, which qualified for the IHSA state tournament — junior Annika Gupta and senior Lilliana Jasinska. Gupta and Jasinska are two of four returning players.

The others are seniors Emerson Am-

stutz and Ella Papandreou, who nar rowly missed qualifying for the state tournament in singles by one match in the sectional.

Despite going up against conference programs that feature players with much more experience, the Huskies have held their own, advancing either a singles or doubles entry (sometimes both) Downstate for 11 consecutive seasons.

“My freshman coach Jim Webster and junior varsity coach Liz Maxwell are an essential part of this accomplishment,” Wright said. “Many of our athletes don’t start playing organized badminton until

on varsity, and Marshall knows it’s time to get past the sectional round, something that hasn’t been done since 2017, when the Friars were runners-up in Class 3A

“We know what we need to work on this offseason,” he said. “As juniors, this is our third year in a row losing like this, and we’ve got to come back hung ry next year.”

they come to OPRF and are playing catchup against many of the girls in the state who have been playing for years.”

A highlight of OPRF’s schedule is the Conant Invitational, Apr. 20.

“It’s our premier tournament as it prepares us for the sectionals,” Wright said.

The WSC Silver, as usual, figures to be highly competitive, with perennial power Hinsdale Central and York leading the way with multiple returning state qualifiers.

OPRF’s season opener is March 13 versus visiting Leyden Township at 4:30 p.m. in the field house.

STEVE JOHNSTON

Fenw ick’s Kamren Hogan (5) drives the baseline against St. Patrick during the Class 3A Fenwick Sectional semi nals, Feb. 28, in Oak Park.

EQUAL HOUSING OPPORTUNITY

All real estate advertising in this newspaper is subject to the Fair Housing Act, which makes it illegal to advertise any preference, limitation or discrimination based on age, race, color, religion, sex, handicap, familial status or national origin, or intention to make any such preferences, limitations or discrimination.

The Illinois Human Rights Act prohibits discrimination in the sale, rental or advertising of real estate based on factors in addition to those protected under federal law. This newspaper will not knowingly accept any advertising for real estate which is in violation of the law. All persons are hereby informed that all dwellings advertised are available on an equal opportunity basis. Restrictions or prohibitions of pets do not apply to service animals.

To complain of discrimination, call HUD toll free at: 1-800669-9777.

GROWING COMMUNITY MEDIA

LEGAL NOTICE

The Village of Oak Park will receive electronic proposals at the Office of the Village Engineer, 201 South Boulevard, Oak Park, Illinois 60302, until 10:00 a.m. on Thursday, March 28, 2024 for

Project: 24-8, Lot 10 Streetscape. Bids will be received and accepted, and bid results posted via the online electronic bid service listed below. In general, the improvements consist of installation of permeable interlocking brick pavers; removal and replacement of curb and gutter, sidewalks and sidewalk ramps; drainage structure adjustments; pavement patching; full depth pavement removal; earth excavation; cold-milling of bituminous concrete; installation of hot-mix asphalt base, binder and surface courses

Plans and proposal forms may be obtained via the electronic service starting on Thursday March 7, 2024 at 4:00 pm. Plans and proposals can be found at https://www.oak-park.us/yourgovernment/budget-purchasing/ requests-proposals or at www. questcdn.com under login using QuestCDN number 8997082 for a non-refundable charge of $64.00. The Village of Oak Park reserves the right to issue plans and specifications only to those contractors deemed qualified. No bid documents will be issued after 4:00 p.m. on the working day preceding the date of bid opening.

The bidder is specifically advised that the Village is a Subgrantee of a Metropolitan Water Reclamation District of Greater Chicago (MWRDGC) grant, pursuant to an agreement entered into and between the MWRDGC and the Village. Each bidder is required to comply with the MWRDGC’s Affirmative Action Requirements and Affirmative Action Ordinance, of which are

as follows:

1) $44,000 for Women-Owned Business Enterprises (WBE) and/ or Minority-Owned Business Enterprises (MBE)

2) $6,600 for Veteran-Owned Business Enterprises (VBE)

The DBE requirements listed within these Contracts are requirements, not goals.

The MWRDGC requires that contractors entering into contracts shall have a performance bond and a payment bond. The Contractor shall furnish a satisfactory performance bond in the sum of the amount of the contract in dollars guaranteeing the proper completion of the work and the maintenance of the work during the period of one (1) year from and after the date of the completion and acceptance of the same. The Contractor shall furnish a satisfactory payment bond in the full amount of the Contract guaranteeing payment of all material used and for all labor performed.

The Contract will be subject to the requirements of the Multi-Project Labor Agreement. A copy is on file at the offices of the Engineer and may be requested from the Engineer. The Contractor shall execute the form entitled “Certificate of Compliance with Multi Project Labor Agreement (MPLA), as found in the Bid Proposal Submittal Packet.

All prospective bidders must prove they are pre-qualified by the Illinois Department of Transportation in order to submit bids. This project is subject to the Illinois Prevailing Wage Act, 820 ILCS 130/0.01 et seq.

THE VILLAGE OF OAK PARK Bill McKenna Village Engineer

Published in Wednesday Journal, March 6, 2024

LEGAL NOTICE

The Village of Oak Park --Office of the Village Engineer, 201 South Boulevard, Oak Park, Illinois 60302-- will receive electronic proposals until 10:00 a.m. on Friday, March 29, 2024 for Project: 24-3, 2024 Sidewalk Improvements Program. Bids will be received and accepted, and bid results posted via the online electronic bid service listed below. In general, this contract includes removal and replacement of public sidewalk, parkway and carrage walks, combination curb and gutter, driveways, and PCC basecourse; pavement adjacent to curbs, adjustment of drainage structures, buffalo boxes and all appurtenant work thereto. Sidewalk sequencing during the work and adherence to the completion date is of emphasis for this project as outlined in the plans and proposal forms. Plans and proposal forms may be obtained via the electronic service starting on Friday, March 8, at 4:00 p.m. Plans and

PUBLIC NOTICES

LEGAL NOTICE

ZONING BOARD OF APPEALS

RIVER FOREST, ILLINOIS

Case Number 24-0004

Public Notice is hereby given that a public hearing will be held by the Zoning Board of Appeals (ZBA) of the Village of River Forest, County of Cook, State of Illinois, on Thursday, March 21, 2024, at 7:30 p.m. in the First Floor Community Room of the River Forest Village Hall, 400 Park Avenue, River Forest, Illinois on the following matter:

Mosaic Montessori Academy is seeking a Special Use Permit to establish a Child Daycare Center in the C-3 Commercial District, in the existing building at 7777 Lake Street, in River Forest, Illinois.

proposal forms can be found at https://www.oak-park.us/yourgovernment/budget-purchasing/ requests-proposals or at www. questcdn.com under login using QuestCDN number 9014465 for a non-refundable charge of $64.00. The Village of Oak Park reserves the right to issue plans and specifications only to those contractors deemed qualified. No bid documents will be issued after 4:00 p.m. on the working day preceding the date of bid opening.

This project is financed with local Village funds and federal Community Development Block Grant (CDBG) funds and thus is subject to all federal rules, regulations and guidelines, including Davis-Bacon and Related Acts, Section 3, and Equal Opportunity requirements.

THE VILLAGE OF OAK PARK

Bill McKenna Village Engineer

Published in Wednesday Journal, March 6, 2024

p.m. or as soon

LOCATION OF HEARING: Room 201 (Council Chambers), Oak Park Village Hall, 123 Madison Street, Oak Park, Illinois, 60302

CALENDAR NUMBER:

01-24-DRC

APPLICANT: Hot Rod’s Exclusive Inc.

ADDRESS: 805 Garfield Street, Oak Park, IL 60304

REQUEST: The Community Design Commission will conduct a public hearing on an application filed by the Applicant, Rodney Dotson, owner of Hot Rod’s Exclusive Inc., seeking a variance from Section 7-7-15 (C) (1) of the Oak Park Sign Code, requiring that permanent window signs affixed to or painted on the inside of a window shall occupy

no more than twenty-five percent (25%) of the surface of each window area, to allow the existing permanent window signage to remain at the premises commonly known as 805 Garfield Street, Oak Park, Illinois, Property Index Number 16-18-307-017-0000 (“Subject Property”).

A copy of the application and applicable documents are on file and are available for inspection at Village Hall, Development Customer Services Department, 123 Madison Street, Oak Park, Illinois 60302, Monday through Friday between 8:30 a.m. and 5:00 p.m.

The public hearing may be adjourned by the Commission to another date without further notice by public announcement at the hearing setting forth the time and place thereof.

Section 10-18-4 of the Village Code provides the Zoning Board jurisdiction to hold public hearings and offer recommendations to the Village Board concerning applications for a Special Use Permit.

The legal description of the property at 7777 Lake Street is as follows:

LOT 14 (EXCEPT THE EAST 27.5 FEET THEREOF) AND LOT 15 (EXCEPT THE SOUTH 20 FEET OF THE) EAST 27.5 FEET AND EXCEPT THE NORTH 30 FEET OF THE EAST 15 FEET THEREOF) ALSO LOT 16 (EXCEPT THE EAST 15 FEET THEREOF) IN BLOCK 4 IN LATHROP’S RESUBDIVISION OF LATHROP AND SEAVERN’S ADDITION TO RIVER FOREST, BEING A RESUBDIVISION OF THAT PART LYING EAST OF PARK AVENUE TOGETHER WITH THE EAST 3/5 OF BLOCK 15 IN LATHROP AND SEAVERN’S ADDITION IN THE NORTHWEST 1/4 OF SECTION 12, TOWNSHIP 39 NORCH, RANGE 12 EAST OF THE THIRD PRINCIPAL MERIDIAN, (EXCEPT FROM SAID PREMISES THE WEST 72 FEET OF LOTS 15 AND 16 AFOERSAID CONVEYED BY BOAG BUILDING CORPORATION, A CORPORATION OF DELAWARE TO ROSANA CENTRUM CORPORATION BY DOCUMENT NUMBER 9934913 RECORDED FEB. 23, 1928), IN COOK COUNTY, ILLINOIS

All interested persons will be given the opportunity to be heard at the public hearing. For public comments to be considered by the Zoning Board of Appeals and Village Board of Trustees in their decision, they must be included as part of the public hearing record. Interested persons can learn more about how to participate in the hearing by visiting www.vrf.us/guides/ guide/DevelopmentGuide.

Sincerely,

Clifford

Radatz Secretary, Zoning Board of Appeals

Published in Wednesday Journal, March 6, 2024

PUBLIC NOTICE STATE OF ILLINOIS VILLAGE OF BROOKFIELD

Notice of Public Hearing

Village of Brookfield Planning and Zoning Commission

March 21, 2024 at 7:00 PM

NOTICE is hereby given that a public hearing will be held by the Planning and Zoning Commission of the Village of Brookfield on Thursday, March 21, 2024 at 7:00 PM in the Edward Barcal Hall located at 8820 Brookfield Avenue, Brookfield, Illinois to consider applications from James J Koblish for a Special Use Permit to conduct Low-Impact manufacturing of beer and for a Variance from the Village Code Chapter 62 Zoning, Article III-Off Street Parking and Loading for the commercial property located at 9509 Ogden Avenue.

Legal Description: Lots 5 and 6 in Block 7 in West Grossdale, A Subdivision in the West ½ of Section3, Township 38 North, Range 12, East of the Third Principal Meridian, in Cook County, Illinois.

The public is invited to attend the public hearing and present oral and/ or written comments. Written comments may be provided prior to 4:00 PM on the day of the meeting to: Village of Brookfield, Planning and Zoning Commission c/o Kate Portillo, 8820 Brookfield Avenue, Brookfield, IL 60513, kportillo@brookfieldil.gov, or 708-485-1445. Oral or written public testimony may be given during the public hearing.

The applications may be viewed at the Village of Brookfield Village Hall during normal business hours. Please reference PZC Case 23-05. Public hearings may be continued from time to time without further notice, except as otherwise required under the Illinois Open Meetings Act.

Individuals with disabilities requiring accommodations to participate in any meeting may contact the Village of Brookfield at (708) 485-7344 prior to the meeting. Wheelchair access is available through the front and side (south and east) entrances of Village Hall.

By the Order of Chuck Grund, Planning and Zoning Commission Chairman.

Published in RB Landmark, March 6, 2024

Enjoy free live music performances inside 13 local restaurants with the option to order from the host restaurant’s menu.

Music

Barry Winograd Duo

Tony Richards

Suenos Latin Jazz

Chris Greene Quartet

Crystal Rebone Duo

Neal Alger Brazilian Trio

Abigail Riccards Quartet

The New Deal

Maddie Vogler Duo

Mason Jiller

Paul Abella Trio

Kyle Asche Organ Trio

Tony Do Rosario Duo

Juli Wood Trio

Rene Avila Afro-Cuban Quartet

Chuck Webb and Guru Tonic

Casey Nelson & Christy Bennett

Erik Skov Duo

Almee Gwen Duo

Presented by Downtown Oak Park Business Alliance in partnership with 90.9 WDCB “Chicago’s Home for Jazz!”

For the full schedule go to downtownoakpark.net/event/jazz-thaw or

AUSTIN FORWARD. TOGETHER. 2024 QUARTER 1

March

THE AUSTIN COMMUNITY PUBLISHED ITS FIRST QUALITY-OF-LIFE PLAN CALLED AUSTIN FORWARD. TOGETHER. (AFT) IN 2018. THIS QUARTERLY PUBLICATION DESCRIBES HOW AUSTIN COMING TOGETHER (ACT) IS SUPPORTING THE COMMUNITY TO IMPLEMENT AFT AND OTHER EFFORTS.

AUSTIN’S GOT NEXT

The evolution of the community’s plan

PROGRESS IN SIGHT: HOW THE COMMUNITY’S PLAN LOOKS TO ADVANCE PAGE 3

HIGHLIGHTS OF THE AUSTIN EATS INITIATIVE PAGE 4

THE COMMUNITY SUMMIT: AN ANNUAL FORUM TO CULTIVATE AUSTIN’S FUTURE PAGE 7

Special thanks to these Austin Forward. Together. quality-of-life plan legacy investors:

Since 2010, Austin Coming Together (ACT) has facilitated collaboration to improve education and economic development outcomes in Chicago’s Austin neighborhood.

Today, we serve a network of 50+ organizations committed to improving the quality of life in the Austin community. Our strategic plan is called Thrive 2025 and outlines how we will mobilize our resources to achieve four impact goals by the year 2025: Quality Early Learning, Safe Neighborhoods, Living Wage Careers, and Stable Housing Markets.

ACT BOARD OF DIRECTORS

Officers

CHAIR

Larry Williams

Broker, State Farm Insurance

VICE CHAIRMAN

Bradly Johnson

Chief Community Officer, BUILD Inc.

SECRETARY

Jerrod Williams

Law Clerk, Illinois Appellate Court

ACT STAFF

Leadership

Darnell Shields Executive Director

Andrew Born*

Senior Director of Community Impact

*Also part of the ACT Leadership Team

Operations

TREASURER

LaDarius Curtis

Senior Director of Community Engagement & Health, West Side United

EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR

Darnell Shields

Austin Coming Together

Directors

Sharon Morgan

Director of Graduate Support & Community Outreach, Catalyst Schools

Reverend Reginald E. Bachus Pastor, Friendship Baptist Church

Deirdre Bates*

Director of Operations

Dearra Williams

Executive Operations Lead/ Assistant to the CEO

Londen Mance

Office Administrator

Strategic Initiatives

Sandra Diaz* Service Delivery Enhancement Manager, Austin Community Hub

Emone Moore Engagement Coordinator, Austin Community Hub

WE’RE HIRING! View job openings at AustinComingTogether.org/Careers

ACT MEMBER ORGANIZATIONS

A House in Austin

Academy of Scholastic Achievement

Austin Childcare Providers Network

Austin Community Family Center

Austin Weekly News (Growing Community Media)

Be Strong Families

Beat the Streets Chicago

Bethel New Life Beyond Hunger BUILD Inc.

By The Hand Club For Kids Cara Catholic Charities

Chicago Austin Youth Travel Adventures

Chicago Community Loan Fund

City of Refuge

Defy Ventures Illinois

Erikson Institute

Friends of the Children

Friendship Community Development Corp. of Austin

Greater West Town Community Development Project

Tenisha Jones

Vice President of Community & Government Engagement, Catholic Charities

Reginald Little

Business Development Specialist, Great Lakes Credit Union

Dawn Ferencak

Senior Marketing Strategist, Chicago Parent

Deborah Williams-Thurmond

Community Outreach & Engagement Specialist, Habilitative Systems, Inc.

Dollie Sherman Engagement Specialist, Austin Community Hub

Ethan Ramsay*

Planning and Investment Manager

Grace Cooper Lead Organizer

Mia Almond Project Coordinator

Housing Forward

i.c. stars

IFF

Institute for Nonviolence Chicago

Jane Addams Resource Corporation

Kids First Chicago

KRA Westside

American Job Center

Learning Edge Tutoring (fka Cluster Tutoring)

Ruth Kimble

Founder & CEO, Austin Childcare Providers Network

Max Komnenich

Associate Principal, Lamar Johnson Collaborative

In Memoriam

BOARD OF DIRECTORS

Jack Macnamara

1937–2020

FOUNDING BOARD CHAIR

Mildred Wiley

1955–2019

Arewa Karen Winters

Community Organizer

Natalie Goodin

Special Projects Manager

Nicholas Galassini

Chicago Neighborhood Recovery Program Associate

Rachel Follenweider Research and Evaluation Intern

Legal Aid Chicago (fka LAF)

Manufacturing Renaissance

Mary Shyrese Daycare

Maryville Academy

Mercy Housing Lakefront

New Moms

OAI, Inc.

Oak Park Regional Housing Center

Open Books

PCC Community

Wellness Center

Project Exploration

Renaissance Social Services, Inc.

Sarah’s Inn

South Austin Neighborhood Association

St. Joseph Services

St. Leonard’s Ministries

Stone Community Development Corporation

Marketing & Development

Alicia Plomin* Director of Marketing and Development

Sydni Hatley Marketing and Development Coordinator

The Catalyst Schools

The Journey Forward

The North Avenue District, Inc.

Towers of Excellence

UIC Jane Addams

College of Social Work

VOCEL

Westside Health Authority

West Side Forward Worldvision

Youth Guidance

Progress in sight: How the community’s plan looks to advance

By Darnell Shields Executive Director, Austin Coming Together

Since its genesis in 2018, the Austin Forward. Together. (AFT) quality-of-life plan has been an impactful driver for extensive change and transformation in Chicago’s Austin community. As most readers know, the plan set forth an ambitious array of detailed actions outlined in five years between 2019 and 2024. Despite these parameters, the plan’s impact will go beyond these five years by continually tapping the collective and collaborative power of the community.

The success and implementation of the AFT plan and key actions have established a world of opportunity for Austin and has been the recipient of many awards. Austin Coming Together (ACT) is incredibly proud of the

unrelenting commitment and work put into the plan by community residents and partners and is excited to see what it will evolve into in the future.

In recent months, ACT has been working closely with AFT leaders to begin discussing and envisioning just how the massive plan will look moving ahead. As part of the assessment period, these convenings allowed AFT leaders to gain a better understanding of the plan at its five-year mark and its unique implementation landscape regarding current actions.

ACT staff were able to provide an in-depth overview of progress, along with key takeaways from the five-year implementation period. Some of these takeaways have included:

• Tested by a global pandemic, AFT’s leadership remained strong and emerged more unified than ever, working together in new, innovative, and exciting ways.

• Our impact has been driven by continuous and growing community engagement as we use and promote the AFT plan as a compass for Austin.

• AFT Leaders are committed to the plan, making slow and steady progress—some

The work we do in this plan is the spark for a renaissance that goes beyond all we outline in the plan’s pages.

FROM THE AUSTIN FORWARD. TOGETHER. (AFT) QUALITY-OF-LIFE PLAN

aided by unique opportunities and accelerants, and others struggling against strong headwinds.

• In partnership with numerous Implementation Partners, we’ve used the plan, its Actions, Focal Projects, and Infrastructure to gain traction, catalyze change, and attract investment to Austin.

• There are still unrealized opportunities across the plan that can help propel us forward as we seek to make a greater impact.

Symbolically, AFT has represented a unified vision AND agenda for comprehensive community development in Austin. As such, it has been highly influential—attracting millions of dollars of investment, inspiring countless hours of change-making activity, and catalyzing numerous projects and partnerships that would not have happened if not for the plan.

When we started implementing AFT in 2019, we began with three key assumptions:

• AFT Strategies and Actions are not all equal in scope, effort, and resources needed

• AFT was too massive to mobilize all at once

• We needed to identify initial priorities to gain traction

After our first five years, we’ve both confirmed these assumptions and learned new lessons:

• There is a great deal of overlap and intersection across the plan.

• Priorities change over time.

• We should continue to prioritize different Actions in the plan.

• Unique implementation models, like the Austin Eats initiative, have emerged from the Action planning processes, showing that once Action plans are created, they are more likely to generate successful projects if there is dedicated funding involved.

The AFT quality-of-life plan continues to exist and progress but is entering a new phase where we sustain and deepen community ownership and amplify its impact, and conduct robust research & evaluation to better understand what works and what needs to change in the future.

On March 9th, we are hosting our annual AFT Community Summit at By The Hand Club For Kids. We are inviting the whole community to celebrate our past five years of progress and to help us confirm our path forward.

We will seek community feedback at the Summit about what actions should be prioritized in the near term and onward into the future. After more years of implementation, the plan will once again be subject to further review and evolution. ACT firmly believes that community involvement will be essential to continue the plan. For the past five years, we have seen a deeply unprecedented level of progress, a direct result of Austin partners and residents. n

AFT Leaders met in December 2023 to discuss initial recommendations for the plan’s future.

Highlights of the Austin Eats Initiative

Born out of the ‘Austin Forward. Together.’ quality-of-life plan, the Austin Eats initiative is a network of deeply committed organizations working to combat food insecurity by promoting healthier food choices and building up the Austin community’s food access infrastructure. We believe by synergizing organizations already promoting healthier food choices through emergency food preparedness, grocery access, culinary entrepreneurship, food education, community gardens & farms, Austin Eats will strengthen the community’s food access ecosystem. Below are some key highlights of the initiative:

AUSTIN TOWN HALL FARMERS MARKET

In 2023, the the Austin Town Hall Farmers Market traffic grew by over 40% with a weekly average of 100 people buying high-quality fresh-food groceries. A high proportion of the market’s customers are residents from Austin’s senior buildings and people living in Austin zip codes. Led by Forty Acres Fresh Market, the the Austin Farmers Market also hired a full-time market manager, which lead to further developments in market expansion and advertising. Forty Acres also celebrated a milestone this year in breaking ground for a future brick-and-mortar fullservice grocery store in Austin!

Austin Town Hall Farmers Market traffic grew by over 40%  with a weekly average of 100 PEOPLE buying high-quality fresh-food groceries.

AUSTIN GARDEN COLLECTIVE

The Austin Garden Collective’s volunteer days have also had a positive impact on green space access in Austin. On average, around 8.25 volunteers (a total of 99 over the summer) showed up to support the community gardeners, who are primarily senior residents. A total of 12 Volunteer Saturdays had occurred in 2023.

99 PEOPLE volunteered at 12 Volunteer Saturdays

FILM SCREENINGS

Austin Eats and One Earth Collective hosted two food justice film screenings in 2023 that took place at BUILD’s community garden and Bethel New Life. Altogether, 373 people came out to hear from panels of local food professionals, discuss pertinent food issues, and eat food prepared by local vendors. Both screenings, which happened in July and October, saw an increase in attendance from the previous year.

Bags of food distributed to 65–100 FAMILIES per week.

EMERGENCY FOOD ACCESS

373 PEOPLE attended two food justice film screenings.

300+ PEOPLE fed at each Hot Meal Pop-up.

Our partner Jehovah Jireh provides healthy food to those experiencing food insecurity by distributing to homebound residents and by opening up his space to the public weekly. He continues to distribute food (5 bags/ person) to 65-100 families a week. Jehovah Jireh also serves about 300 people per hot meal pop-up.

Plan Leaders

Community Narrative

TASK FORCE CHAIRS

Briana Shields

Briana Janeé Arts

Kenneth Varner

Healthy Schools

Campaign

Dearra Williams

Austin Coming

Together

STRATEGY LEADS

Lasondra Kern Community Resident

Suzanne McBride

Austin Talks

Alicia Plomin

Austin Coming Together

Cindy Gray Schneider Spaces-n-Places

Jai Jones

PSPC, The Chicago Community Trust and Community Resident

Economic Development

TASK FORCE CHAIRS

Jerrod Williams South Austin

Neighborhood Association

Heather Sattler

Community Development Consultant

STRATEGY LEADS

Erica Staley

Manufacturing Renaissance

Emily Peters

Jane Addams Resource Corporation

Tina Augustus

Chicago West Side Chamber of Commerce

Roxanne Charles

West Side Forward

Melissa O’Dell Defy Ventures

Fanya Berry Community Resident

Education

TASK FORCE CHAIRS

Crystal Bell

Ella Flagg Young Elementary School (retired)

Charles Anderson

Michele Clark High School

STRATEGY LEADS

Ruth Kimble Austin Childcare Providers Network

Madelyn James

Austin Childcare Providers Network

Pam Price

Chicago Public Schools

Cata Truss Community Resident

Housing

TASK FORCE CHAIRS

Athena Williams

West Cook Homeownership Center

Allison McGowan

Community Resident

STRATEGY LEADS

Shirley Fields

Community Resident

Rosie Dawson

Westside Health Authority

Athena Williams

West Cook Homeownership Center

Baxter Swilley

Oak Park Regional Housing Center

Public Safety

TASK FORCE CHAIRS

Bradly Johnson BUILD Inc.

Marilyn Pitchford

Heartland Alliance

STRATEGY LEADS

Adam Alonso BUILD Inc.

Edwina Hamilton BUILD Inc.

Gina Young

Catholic Charities

Bertha Purnell

Mothers OnA Mission28

Jose Abonce

The Policing Project

Ruby Taylor Taproots, Inc.

INTERESTED IN JOINING AN IMPLEMENTATION TASK FORCE?

Youth Empowerment

TASK FORCE CHAIRS

D’elegance Lane

Community Stakeholder

STRATEGY LEADS

Deonna Hart BUILD Inc.

Gina Young

Catholic Charities

Aisha Oliver

Lurie Children’s Hospital of Chicago

Helen Slade

Territory NFP

Dollie Sherman

Austin Coming Together

Chris Thomas

YourPassion1st

Civic Engagement

TASK FORCE CHAIRS

Deborah Williams-Thurmond

Habilitative Systems Inc.

STRATEGY LEADS

Arnold Bearden

Community Resident

Crystal Gardner

Protest to the Polls

Sharif Walker

Bethel New Life

Contact ACT’s Lead Organizer Grace Cooper at gcooper@austincomingtogether.org

The Community Summit: An annual forum to cultivate Austin’s future

By Scott Prywitch Marketing & Development Coordinator, Austin Coming Together

The initial recommendations on the evolution of the Austin Forward. Together. (AFT) quality-of-life plan will be put on full display on Saturday, March 9, 2024 at the annual Community Summit.

The community summit model has been integral to the plan’s success and continuation ever since its inception in 2018. Since the plan was created, ACT has been intentional about updating the community on key actions and how residents can continually be involved in the process. In the five years between the plan’s launch and today, the community summit has also served an important purpose in convening the community to focus on what they created together. It is an opportunity for community leaders and residents to add their voice to the conversation.

Not only has the annual summit been an extremely vital method in updating the community, it has also served as an opportunity for the community to simply gather together and celebrate. The event has allowed for local small businesses to provide food for attendees such as Schweet Cheesecake, Splyt N Half Kitchen, and Forty Acres Fresh Market.

The first community summit took place in 2018, where the Austin Forward. Together. (AFT) plan was unveiled. With hundreds of residents and leaders in attendance, the community had their first glance at the massive plan and what it would come to

symbolize for Austin. After an 18-month process of engaging the community over what they felt were the most significant concerns in Austin, the plan came to life. The inaugural summit was a moment in time. A moment when the community knew it could take complete ownership of its future.

The plan celebrated one year of implementation at the 2019 Summit. At this point, nearly 30% of plan actions had been initialized in one year alone. Highlights included the launch of the implementation infrastructure for the plan as well as ACT unveiling its new logo and branding.

When the pandemic hit, the mode of the in-person community summit pivoted to something different. Throughout 2020 and into 2021, ACT began to mobilize support and programs to focus on emergency COVID-19 response, but remained intentional about updates through regular and highlevel communications. Despite the absence of the in-person summit, ACT persisted with implementation even in the face of rapid programmatic changes.

In 2021, the efforts of the AFT plan and its direct impact in the community were showcased in a short documentary film. Created by Digifé, a black-owned production company, the film not only tells the story of the year’s progress, but also aims to inspire the support needed to achieve all that was left to accomplish.

The plan represents a roadmap and a starting point for how we can convert our potential power into action, into real collective power in the neighborhood.

DARNELL SHIELDS, ACT EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR AT THE 2018 SUMMIT

The community summit returned to its customary in-person format in January 2023. Over 300 attendees gathered to hear from community leaders about community development projects and learned more about the plan in-depth.

Additionally, the 2023 summit helped to inspire more residents and stakeholders to become part of the AFT work as it began its fifth year of implementation. This upcoming community summit will truly be something special. With attendance expected to approximate 300 community residents and partners, the summit will be unique as the AFT plan enters its next phase beyond the original five year scope. Community input will be crucial to the direction of the plan, and ACT is thrilled to use this year’s summit as a launching pad. n

The AFT Community Summit is an annual opportunity for Austin residents to gather together, hear progress of the plan, and learn how to become involved.