Village Free Press_042821

APRIL 28, 2021

Vol. V No. 17 Maywood cleans up, PAGE 8

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Black business owners share their PPP stories

Wyatt Widmer, a Save the Prairie Society board member who volunteers as the prairie’s land manager, stands on the prairie earlier this month. Widmer said proposed construction of luxury townhomes at 2 Hickory Lane, roughly a quarter-mile to the west, will at least indirectly impact the prairie and its biodiversity.

We interviewed three Black entrepreneurs and one Black nonprofit executive who received Payroll Protection Program loans

Shanel Romain

Westchester stakeholders mobilize against townhomes

By WOOJAE JULIA SONG, MICHAEL ROMAIN & OLIVIA OBINEME Catchlight, Austin Weekly News & Better Government Association

As the federal government’s main initiative to help small companies survive the coronavirus pandemic, the Paycheck Protection Program has become a focal point for businesses across the nation and praised by Democrats and Republicans alike. But questions remain about how well PPP loans have worked — and who they worked for best.

See PPP STORIES on page 5

Choose an account you can rely on.

More affordable housing coming to Broadview, PAGE 7

GET

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Save the Prairie Society fear ecological impact of planned luxury townhomes at 2 Hickory Lane

By MICHAEL ROMAIN Editor

A group of Westchester residents and stakeholders are pushing back against a developer’s plan to build a luxury townhome community on 15 acres of land adjacent to

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the roughly 80-acre Wolf Road Prairie Nature Preserve and the 43-acre Hickory Lane buffer lands — an area known worldwide for its biodiversity and soil composition.

The prairie at Wolf Road has “over 370 species of native plants known to the site and more than 140 species of birds have been documented using the preserve for migratory stopovers, habitat needs and nesting,” according to the Salt Creek Greenway Association.

“Mammals, large and small, amphibians and untold numbers of insects, dragonflies and damselflies also inhabit the preserve,” the Association explains on its website.

“The seasonal migration of Monarch butterflies is a mid-September spectacle.”

During a regular meeting on March 9, Westchester’s Village Board unanimously agreed to send the proposed luxury townhome development, which would be called the Springs at Wolf Prairie, to the village’s zoning committee.

The 15 acres are owned by luxury home developer Gallagher & Henry, which is based in Countryside. Wisconsin-based Continental Properties will manage the community, which will include 180 luxury units at 2 Hickory Lane, according to information the developer provided to the WestSee PRAIRIE on page 2

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Village Free Press | April 28, 2021

PRAIRIE

Arousing preservation advocates the village free press Editor & Publisher Michael Romain Senior Sales & Strategic Consultant Kamil Brady Editorial Designer Andrew Mead Advertising Design Support Debbie Becker, Mark Moroney HOW TO REACH US Village Free Press c/o Wednesday Journal 141 S. Oak Park Ave. Oak Park, IL 60302 PHONE: 773-626-6332 FAX: (708) 467-9066 vfpress.news Twitter: @village_free Facebook: @maywoodnews The Village Free Press is published weekly

by Michael Romain. It is distributed free of charge at locations throughout Maywood. © 2021 Village Free Press We’re proud to partner with Growing Community Media, NFP. Publisher Dan Haley

“To learn to be human is to develop through the give and take of communication an effective sense of being an individually distinctive member of a community.”

—John Dewey

from page 1 chester board last month.

Wyatt Widmer, a board director of the Save the Prairie Society — a nonprofit chartered in 1975 that’s dedicated to protecting the rare black soil prairie in Westchester — said he’s been conducting research on the proposed development’s potential environmental effects.

Widmer, 23, of Brookfield, said he can only speculate on the possible impact without seeing the developer’s blueprints, but added that construction of the development will almost certainly indirectly affect the prairie reserve, which is downwind from 2 Hickory Lane.

“Where they’re building, the last time it was tested, the sediment and the groundwater contained a variety of carcinogenic and neurologically degrading compounds,” Widmer said. “And methane — a greenhouse gas that is 26 times stronger than carbon dioxide at degrading the ozone.

“Usually, we have an eastbound wind, so all of that particulate matter, filled with carcinogens, neurological compounds and methane, gets blown this way,” he said, during an interview conducted on the prairie earlier this month.

“And if it doesn’t just flow right into our sediments, it blows into our waterways and into their neighborhoods,” Widmer said.

“In addition to that, there’s a bedrock of dolomite six feet under the soil. In order to build anything there, there’s going to be some serious excavating,” he added. “We’re no longer talking about just digging the soil out, we’re talking about possibly the use of plastic, we’re talking about things that haven’t been dug up for 10,000 to 12,000 years getting suddenly released.”

The land near 31st Street and I-294 was once the site of a 275acre landfill, which closed in 1982 after being in operation for 24 years, according to a 1989 Chicago Tribune article.

At the time, Sexton Sand & Gravel Corp., the proprietors of the landfill, were “trying to find the source of a carcinogenic chemical suspected to be leaking from there.”

At the time, Hickory Lane was the site of an exclusive subdivision of roughly a dozen homes, whose private wells, once the source of their municipal water, had to be capped because the chemical, vinyl chloride, was suspected to have leaked into the water supplies.

Despite the wells being capped and Sexton building a $300,000 water pipeline that carried Lake Michigan water to the Westchester subdivision, the residents of Hickory Lane told the Tribune at the time that they still feared for their health.

Vinyl chloride, the paper reported, “is a versatile but toxic, man-made flammable liquid and gas widely used in the manufacture of plastics and paints. It can cause cancer, including liver and lung cancer.”

Sexton also developed and operated along with Allied Waste Transportation Inc. the landfill at Hillside Quarry in Hillside, which closed in 2008, according to the Tribune. That landfill has since been capped.

Six of the houses in the subdivision are still standing, Widmer said. Most of them are abandoned. The Prairie Society owns one of the homes, which it rents out to tenants.

The Cook County Forest Preserve and the Illinois Department of Natural Resources own the other portions of prairie and oak savannah surrounding the 15 acres proposed for development.

Widmer said that the potentially harmful compounds underneath the land near 2 Hickory Lane “are better off staying in the soil and not having to be cleaned up by anyone.”

Widmer said that if he can obtain the blueprints from Gallagher & Henry, he may be able to make a case for how the devel-

opment might directly impact the prairie and surrounding oak savannah, prompting possible governmental intervention. The prairie is federally protected land.

During the board meeting in March, a representative with Continental Properties said that they had actually reduced the number of townhome units from 260 to 180 due to some board members’ concerns about how the site might impact the surrounding nature and forest preserves.

The developers also plan to construct an open space area on the site that could be dedicated to tree preservation. Widmer said that the idea to include the tree preservation was a concession the developers gave the Prairie Society members and others concerned about the impact to the area’s biodiversity.

But Widmer said he suspects the tree area would only conserve invasion plant species that could imperil the health of the prairie. He said the prairie already gets overrun with invasive trees and other vegetation that risk turning the diverse local ecosystem into a monoculture.

He said he and other Prairie Society members would prefer that the developers simply abstain from developing the site; instead, he said, the Hickory Lane subdivision should be turned into an oak savannah again alongside, perhaps, a public park.

Widmer added that to disrupt the land near the prairie would also disrupt the land’s benefits to the Westchester community, particularly as climate change poses more and more threats.

“There is no more efficient form of carbon sequestration, which is getting carbon dioxide out of the atmosphere and turning it back into compounds that we can use and so can the rest of life than grasslands and wetlands — the two environments we have here,” he said.

The prairie, Widmer added, also works as one of the most effective forms of flood control, retaining water from flood events and preventing the surrounding properties from being overwhelmed by uncontrolled discharges.

The environment is also critical to the water and air, acting as a giant filter that cleans soil runoff and removes pathogens like E. coli bacteria from getting into the local waterway.

Citing information specific to Westchester obtained from the Field Museum and the United States Forest Service, Widmer said researchers have shown that keeping the prairie and oak savannah intact also translates into dollars and cents.

He said the plants and trees in the area work as natural “green infrastructure” services that provide the village and surrounding communities with nearly $600,000 a year worth of air quality control, nearly $37,000 worth of carbon sequestration and nearly $170,000 worth of stormwater management, according to researchers.

Widmer said Save the Prairie members plan on bringing their concerns about the development directly to the Westchester village board, which will get a new mayor, Frank Perry, and several new trustees, next month.

In the meantime, Westchester resident Annie Marie Davis started an online petition to “protect the Wolf Road Prairie” that’s garnered more than 1,200 signers, as of April 26. Davis was also influential in creating “Protect the Wolf Road Prairie” t-shirts, hoodies and posters.

Davis said a Village Free Press article about the townhomes published in March prompted her to research the importance of the local ecosystem.

“I decided something had to be done about this and I thought I’d be the person to do it,” she said.

Representatives with Gallagher & Henry were not immediately available when contacted on Monday afternoon.

CONTACT: info@vfpress.news

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Village Free Press | April 28, 2021

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Mobile app that can map litter complaints launches at cleanup Maywood’s new MyCivic app that can map service complaints like trash piles debuted Saturday during Village Pride, Village Wide cleanup event

which he eventually won over Perkins and Brandon, Booker vowed to ensure that the MyCivic app would be appropriately monitored by personnel, even if someone within his office had to perform that function.

During Saturday’s Village Pride, Village Wide event, Booker directed attendees to sign up for the MyCivic application at a station manned by the village’s IT personnel.

“We work at Hines and Krista, my coworker, came into work one Saturday,” Reynertson said. “She came into work from I-290 and drove past the community and came to work almost in tears about how much trash there was. Just everywhere,” she said.

“And Krista thought, ‘We need to do something for our community that surrounds the hospital that we work at,’” Reynerston added.

Reynerston said she and her co-worker were able to get about 250 of their colleagues to volunteer for the annual Maywood cleanup. ““I drive by here often and I always say I want to be part of helping plant some plants in this garden,” said Maywood realtor Eileen Olivier.

Olivier was volunteering inside of the Maywood Peace Garden, located at the cor-

“This application will serve as community notifications for things that are going on throughout the community,” Booker told those in attendance before volunteers like Sandy Reynertson fanned across the village to clean up litter and debris — ongoing problems in Maywood that residents may start reporting in the new MyCivic application.

Reynertson, who works at Hines VA Hospital, 5000 5th Ave. in Hines, said she was motivated to volunteer by the unseemly sight of trash strewn on the streets that framed her daily commute to work.

ner of 17th Avenue and Madison and organized by Maywood Youth Mentoring.

“I just sold a building to a family across the street from the garden and I invited them to become part of the community,” Olivier said.

“The goal in this Peace Garden is to make this site look pleasing and calming,” said Tywanna Grace-Rand.

To learn more about MyCivic, visit: mycivicapps.com/solutions/mobile-apps/.

By MICHAEL ROMAIN Editor

Hundreds of volunteers spread across Maywood for the annual Village Pride, Village Wide cleanup event, held from 9 a.m. to 1 p.m. on April 24.

The day was also the launch of Maywood’s MyCivic application, said Mayor-Elect Nathaniel George Booker during Village Pride’s kickoff gathering at the gazebo behind the police station, near 3rd Avenue and Oak Street.

The MyCivic application, which residents can download on their smartphones, replaces an older system, called GovQA, that allowed residents to communicate concerns and complaints to village workers, but that some residents, including Booker, said was being neglected.

The village board approved the MyCivic application by a 4-3 vote during a regular meeting on Feb. 2. Trustees Isiah Brandon and Miguel Jones, along with outgoing Mayor Edwenna Perkins voted against the switch.

At the meeting in February, Booker said he introduced the proposal to switch from GovQA to MyCivic after learning that the service complaints residents were logging into the GovQA system on the village’s website weren’t being addressed by staff.

“Yes, the [GOV QA] portal is online, but it is not being addressed,” Booker said. “In the last 48 hours, I’ve received over 30 different text messages, phone calls or emails that could’ve all been input into the MyCivic system and addressed by appropriate staff.”

Both MyCivic and GOV QA cost roughly $11,000 a year, but MyCivic can run on the web, as a mobile app and on Facebook and allows for real-time notification. MyCivic also provides interactive maps of service complaints logged by residents, provides feedback and suggestions, and finds “local news, job postings, events, parks and trails,” according to a document prepared by village

SPRING CLEANING: Volunteers in front of the many trash bags they collected during Saturday’s Village Pride, Village Wide cleanup event. Below, a young Maywood girl helps to spruce up the Maywood Peace Garden.

Shanel Romain

staffers.

But most village staffers who spoke during the Feb 2 meeting, along with the board members who opposed MyCivic, expressed concerns that the MyCivic system would simply be switching out one largely neglected system for another without addressing the underlying reason why GOV QA wasn’t being utilized — the lack of staffing at the village.

“With GOV QA, we have the capacity to use it as part of inspection reports, but we don’t have the capacity to use it any more than that,” said Edgar Lara, the village’s planner.

“Unless we have the capacity to take advantage of [MyCivic’s] bells and whistles, it’s kind of for naught,” he said, adding that MyCivic’s capability for mapping residents’ complaints would be useless if the village has no one on staff tasked with administering the map.

“If we were to switch to MyCivic without more staff and manpower it’s kind of a moot point,” Lara said, a point echoed by Brandon, Jones and Perkins.

Ahead of the April 6 mayoral election,

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Village Free Press | April 28, 2021

PPP STORIES

these stories will be useful for other Black entrepreneurs applying for PPP loans or other government grants in the future.

Overcoming obstacles

Vena Nelson § Owner, Go Big Accounting and Global Business Center, 840 S. 17th Ave. in Maywood § PPP funds received: $8,712

from page 1 Early surveys and studies repeatedly showed Black and Latino businesses struggled to get assistance from the program while white-owned businesses benefited.

Most of the data released last year by the U.S. Small Business Administration, which administers the loans, didn’t detail how much minority-owned businesses received.

The small amount of data that did include information about race or ethnicity of business owners who received PPP loans indicated Black-owned businesses “received less than 2% of the loans, and 6.6% of the loans went to Hispanic-owned businesses,” according to a report by the Center for Public Integrity.

With another round of PPP funding set to launch this spring, the Better Government Association’s Olivia Obineme wanted to spotlight the stories behind the statistics and detail the experiences of some Blackowned businesses and nonprofit leaders in Chicago and the suburbs when they applied for PPP funding.

For this series of interviews, the BGA partnered with Austin Weekly News, which covers the West Side neighborhoods of Austin, North Lawndale and Garfield Park; Village Free Press, which covers nine of

Vena Nelson Chicago’s western suburbs; and Catchlight, a nonprofit news organization focused on visual journalism.

Catchlight reporter and photographer Woojae Julia Song conducted more than three hours of interviews with three Black business owners and one Black nonprofit leader who reported receiving PPP loans.

All of the interview subjects were identified and vetted by Michael Romain, who edits Austin Weekly News and publishes Village Free Press.

We have condensed Song’s interviews into short excerpts, which have been edited for clarity. We hope these interviews will shed light on the experiences of Black business owners and social entrepreneurs who applied for PPP loans. We also hope

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Nelson, a certified public accountant, works with local Black-owned businesses, nonprofits and churches through her Go Big Accounting company. She also operates Global Business Center, a shared office space in Maywood for area entrepreneurs to conduct business. When she learned about the first round of PPP loans, Nelson called dozens of her clients. “Maybe one or two” got the funds, she said. Her state representative recommended she work with a nonprofit to help more small businesses through the PPP process.

The pandemic hit during tax season.

I probably do, on average, about 125 tax returns each tax season. Well, the PPP came up. I had banked with Chase at the time and so I applied with Chase. Silence. I heard absolutely nothing. And I actually ended up getting PPP through Wintrust.

When I was doing this, I not only did it for my company but I called all of my clients who I provide accounting services for and I had webinars to talk to them about getting

their applications in. I walked everybody through how to go to the SBA website, how to go to their banks to fill out the PPP applications. Maybe one of my clients got PPP funding and that was through a community bank.

I was so upset that we banked with the big banks, I contacted my state representative and I just complained that the big banks did not serve us. I think the intent of the legislation was to help small businesses, but the banks have kind of ignored and preyed on our communities. They really haven’t invested in our communities.

I saw a lot of the good and the bad. If you don’t have enough capital for your business, the longer you stay in the game, trying to turn it around, the more deteriorated

Jeannie Jones

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Village Free Press | April 28, 2021

you become. So you may have more late payments, your bank account may be overdrafted more. Your credit goes south, but you’re still trying to maintain your smoothie shop or your trucking company. A lot of those people were not eligible for the EIDL (Economic Injury Disaster Loan) or for the paycheck protection loans because of their credit.

Jeannie Jones § Site manager for the Bethesda Manor West Association, 23 S. Central Ave. in Chicago § PPP funds received: $5,528 Bethesda Manor West is a nonprofit housing development that provides affordable housing to area residents. It is run by the Pleasant Ridge Missionary Baptist Church, which has served Chicago’s West Side for nearly 97 years. Jones is wife of the church’s pastor, Joseph Jones, and serves as first lady of the church as well as its Christian education director. Bethesda is one of the few clients of Nelson’s that secured a PPP loan.

We did the PPP program, but we didn’t hear about it or were informed of it until the day it was due. When my CPA called me, she said, ‘We gotta get this in today!’ And I said, ‘What? We haven’t been told.’ So I had to gather all of my documents in one day and we got it in on time thanks to her — and that was Vena Nelson.

She helped a lot of businesses and churches try to apply and get it going. I think, overall, it was a good program.

There are some things I would change, though. For minority small businesses, a lot of them (lack enough financial resources to) have full-time workers and they tend to have contractors who are on regular staff, but are not on the payroll. I think there should be some allowance for those small businesses that have contractors on a regular basis, but who are not on a salary. So, I wish they would look at that.

I also want to make sure that the loan forgiveness doesn’t slip by us. I notice that I don’t hear anything else about the forgiveness application. I printed it out when it came into my email and forwarded it to my CPA and my management company to make sure that it’s done appropriately. I didn’t want to do anything to mess up the whole thing. So, my concern is, can it pass by you without them notifying you? I would hate to learn later that we missed that deadline and now have to pay interest on that loan and pay it back. That’s a possibility and that can be the catch.

Never just trust yourself to go blindly and do it. Find out some people who have applied or find someone like a Vena who knows what they’re doing, because you don’t want to mess up and get audited if you do the wrong thing. I would say, go for it. Do it. Even if it’s hard, it’s worth it.

Corry Williams § Owner, 345 Art Gallery, 345 N. Kedzie Ave. in Chicago § PPP funds received: $3,000 (self-reported)

Corry Williams Williams, who is also a Chicago police officer, re-opened 345 Art Gallery in Garfield Park in February after the city loosened coronavirus restrictions on storefronts. The gallery canceled many of its programs, including art shows and partnership events with Chicago Public Schools, during the pandemic. Williams said when his gallery applied for PPP funding, preparation paid off. While not completely adequate, the loan helped, he said.

We have a team member who fills out our grants. We sat down and discussed the ask and whether it met the qualifications in areas that they were looking to assist.

So, we figured things out on our own. We knew what we needed and what we were doing and how it would help support us during these times and just provided the information for the documents that were requested of us.

We used the money for payroll protection in order to keep the team employed. That extra money really helped. It wasn’t enough, but I appreciated the amount we got. To me, it wasn’t how much they gave us, it’s how we utilized what we got.

It (the loan) was for the purpose of keeping the team together because we still got together to come up with ideas. The planning doesn’t stop. We try to know what’s going on in the art world and in different art galleries and think of different events and activities for the kids that we can bring back to the gallery.

Stacey Hawkins Armstrong § Owner, Sha-Poppin’ Gourmet Popcorn, 10352 Roosevelt Rd. in Westchester § PPP funds received: $17,745 Patrons dub Armstrong the Mad Scientist of Popcorn. She’s been testing popcorn flavors since she was 9 and has customized more than 150 popcorn flavors in her West suburban storefront since 2018. During the pandemic, Armstrong saw other businesses close and didn’t want that to be her business’ fate. She decided to go curbside with her popcorn retail shop.

I tried to apply for PPP through Chase, which is where I bank, and it was horrible.

You couldn’t get through online and you couldn’t go in somewhere and speak to anyone. Every time I turned around, I hit

a brick wall, hit a brick wall. There was nothing. I was just left out in the cold. Just like other small business owners that were shut out, I was in a dark room. It was like, ‘What do I do?’ It just seemed like my dreams were diminishing right before my eyes.

When I made contact with the person at Self-Help Credit Union, it was maybe a little more than a week and my process was done. That’s how simple it was when you have someone to contact. Chase is such a large company, you can’t say they don’t have anyone for customers to contact. And as large as they are, they should have had some kind of helpline when they were going into this since they were the ones getting millions of dollars. But you go to a smaller entity and they guide you through it from

Stacey Hawkins Armstrong

beginning to end.

I didn’t want to close my doors because I employ a lot of high school and college students. I try to keep them working because that keeps them busy. I also teach them about opening up a small business so I didn’t want to let them down. I didn’t want to let my dream go.

All the money that I received went towards my payroll completely just to keep my kids employed. It gave me that leg up to keep them going and that was all I needed — just to make sure I was able to innovate and keep my doors open and keep someone there to help me. And that’s what I needed.

Last year April, Armstrong filed a class action lawsuit against JP Morgan Chase Bank and three of the bank’s large business clients. That suit is still pending. We reached out to Chase for comment on Armstrong’s lawsuit and they emailed us the following statement: “While we can’t comment on pending litigation, we’re proud that our bank provided more PPP loan relief funding than any other lender in both 2020 and in 2021. In 2020, we processed $28 billion in loans to 280,000 small businesses. The average loan size was $112,000 and 50% went to companies with fewer than 5 employees. This relief went to America’s small businesses, protecting more than 3 million jobs.”

Five Things to Know Before you Apply for PPP Looking to apply for governmental funding for your small business? Here are some tips we gathered from the small business owners we interviewed about their loan application experiences:

Get an accountant, if you don’t have one already All four of the businesses we interviewed for this project had one very important thing in common — they all had accountants who were able to easily provide the required information for applying for PPP and other emergency assistance.

Pay your employees legally Many did not pay their employees taxable income, which means employees did not receive 1099 or W-2 forms. Taxpayers use those forms to provide information about their income to the Internal Revenue Service (IRS).

Invest in a payroll processing service To keep track of what you’re paying your employees and what you’re withholding for taxes, invest in a payroll processing service, such as ADP, SurePayroll,

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Gusto Payroll, QuickBooks and Paychex.

Seek out information You should actively monitor the websites of key government entities such as the SBA, the Illinois Department of Commerce and Economic Opportunity, the Cook County Bureau of Economic Development and the Chicago Department of Planning and Development. Subscribe to start receiving those agencies’ emails or text notifications to get the latest updates about possible financial assistance for businesses.

Get a champion All of the businesses we interviewed expressed gratitude for having networks of support that they can lean on during times of financial hardship. Those networks can also advocate for them and mobilize resources when the time comes. Join a local chamber of commerce or a larger chamber such as the U.S. Black Chamber of Commerce. There are also groups designed to offer support and community for Black business owners, such as Black Owned Chicago.

CONTACT: info@vfpress.news

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Village Free Press | April 28, 2021

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Village Free Press | April 28, 2021

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More affordable housing coming to Broadview

Maywood-based Housing Forward to develop housing units, office space at 10141020 W. Roosevelt Rd. in Broadview

By MICHAEL ROMAIN Editor

Housing Forward, a nonprofit that supports people experiencing housing insecurity and that’s headquartered at 1851 S. 9th Ave. in Maywood, recently received zoning approval from the Broadview Board of Trustees to build a mixed-use development on vacant land at 1014-1020 W. Roosevelt Rd. in Broadview.

At a regular meeting on April 5, the board voted unanimously in favor of the zoning requests necessary to build the development.

Trustee Judy Miller abstained while Trustees Sherman Jones and Verina Horne were absent.

The vacant lot is currently owned by the Broadview-Westchester Joint Water Agency and is under contract by Housing Forward, Broadview Building Commissioner David Upshaw said on April 5.

Linda Schueler, Housing Forward’s executive director, said the development will cost a total of $7 million, which will be paid for by a mix of state and federal funds.

In January, the Illinois Housing Development Authority Board of Directors announced that the Maywood nonprofit was among the organizations awarded grants to increase the number of affordable housing for vulnerable residents.

In a January statement, Gov. J.B. Pritzker’s office said Housing Forward was looking to build a “three-story, 16-unit development” in Broadview “that will serve individuals who are at risk of homelessness, those with a long-term disabling condition, veterans and youth aging out of DCFS care.”

On April 5, Schueler said that 12 of the 16 units will be one-bedroom apartments while four units will be two-bedroom apartments.

In total, the development will house between 20 and 22 people, she said.

The ground floor will include office space for the nonprofit, communal space for residents and on-site supportive services.

Individuals at or below 30 percent of the Area Median Income level will be eligible to apply to live in the new development, Schueler said.

Rich Toth, Housing Forward’s zoning attorney, said proposed zoning changes included a request for a “variation for reduced

MOVING IN: Vacant land in Broadview that Maywood nonprofit Housing Forward is looking to turn into an affordable housing development and offices.

Google Maps

parking,” among other changes.

Upshaw said the village’s Zoning Board of Appeals unanimously approved the zoning requests earlier this year.

Once completed, Housing Forward’s development would be the second newly constructed affordable housing facility in Broadview.

Work is nearing completion on a 70-unit, three-story affordable housing development for seniors and veterans at 2111 S. 17th Ave. in Broadview — about six blocks west of the Housing Forward development.

The board’s April 5 vote to give the green

light to the Housing Forward project comes a few months after Broadview unveiled its housing action plan, a document designed to address a range of housing challenges in the village.

Among those challenges, according to the plan, include the need for more programs to support senior citizens who are agingin-place, the need for more homeownership assistance for renters in the village, and the need for more affordable housing developments to accommodate lower income residents in Broadview.

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Village Free Press | April 28, 2021

Man shot by police on I-290 April 22 charged with murder Marion Lewis, 18, shot while attempting to carjack a vehicle in traffic near Mannheim, charged in death of 7-year-old, police say

By LOCAL NEWS CURATOR Village Free Press

The man who was shot by police while attempting to carjack a vehicle in traffic on I-290, near 25th and Mannheim, on April 22, has been identified and charged with the murder of 7-year-old Jaslyn Adams. The girl was fatally shot while in a car with her father at a McDonald’s drive-thru on Chicago’s West Side on April 18.

Marion Lewis, 18, was charged with one count of first degree murder and 16 other felonies, including a series of gun charges, attempted murder, vehicular hijacking and assaulting an officer, police said.

During a press conference on April 22, Chicago Police Supt. David Brown said Chicago Police were surveilling Lewis, whose identity Brown did not identify to the public at the time, in a west suburb.

After several attempts were made to stop the man’s vehicle while he was traveling eastbound on the Eisenhower Expressway, the man crashed the vehicle, exited it and

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attempted to carjack the vehicle of a family stopped in traffic, Brown said. The superintendent did not say whether or not Lewis pointed his gun during the altercation.

During a press conference on April 24, Brown identified Lewis as the suspect involved in the I-290 shooting and attempted carjacking, but said he could not specify whether or not Lewis was the man who pulled the trigger in Adams’s murder.

Brown said they’re still investigating.

Block Club Chicago reported on April 24 that Brown was shot in the arm and that Chicago Police said they recovered two weapons from Lewis, one of which was an AK-47 assault rifle, a police source told the publication.

Block Club reported on April 26 that two men involved in the April 18 shooting, which also wounded Adams’s father, Jontae Adams, are still on the run.

The attempted carjacking and shooting on April 22 took place in the eastbound lanes near Mannheim Road near Westchester and Hillside about 4:15 p.m., Illinois State Police said.

As a result of the shooting, all eastbound lanes on the Eisenhower at Mannheim Road were shut down while authorities conducted an investigation.

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CHARGED: Marion Lewis, 18, was arrested and charged with first degree murder and 16 other felonies. Lewis attempted to carjack a vehicle in traffic near Mannheim on I-290 on April 22, police said. The incident resulted in a lane closure an hours-long traffic backlog. He was wanted in connection to the murder of 7-year-old Jaslyn Adams.

Provided

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Village Free Press | April 28, 2021

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House passes bill to reclassify small-amount drug possession

Bill would reclassify small drug amounts as misdemeanors, expands expungement eligibility, treatment programs for drug possession offenses

By SARAH MANSUR Capitol News Illinois

SPRINGFIELD — A bill to lessen penalties for possessing and selling small amounts of drugs, including heroin and cocaine, narrowly passed out of the state House of Representatives on April 21 after a contentious debate.

The discussion over House Bill 3447 provoked strong emotions on both sides of the aisle, passing by a 61-49 vote, or just one more than was needed to pass.

The bill — filed by Rep. Carol Ammons, an Urbana Democrat — would reclassify small amounts of drug possession from a low-level felony to a misdemeanor.

For example, a person who possesses less than three grams of heroin would be charged with a Class A misdemeanor. Currently, that offense would be charged as a Class 4 felony, which carries a one- to fouryear prison sentence.

Misdemeanors under the bill would also include possession of less than five grams of cocaine, less than five pills of most schedule III substances such as Xanax and Valium, and less than 40 pills of oxycodone and similar painkillers. Class A misdemeanors

are punishable by a prison sentence of less than one year.

The bill would create a new category of drug possession for medium amounts of possession, such as three to 14 grams of heroin and five to 14 grams of cocaine, that would be charged as a Class 4 felony. Currently, those amounts of possession are a Class 1 felony, which is the second highest class of felonies and is punishable by a prison sentence between four and 15 years.

It would also reclassify some low-level drug dealing offenses as a Class 4 felony, from a Class 3 felony.

Ammons said the impetus for the bill came in part from a constituent who was forced to leave a state university after being charged with a felony for illegally possessing a prescription medication, which the student was addicted to.

“This initiative will give them an opportunity to true treatment as opposed to putting a felony on people for possession of drugs,” Ammons said. “It will also remove the barrier to housing and jobs that comes along with giving people felonies. Our goal and our initiative is to level the playing field and give them true opportunity to treatment, as opposed to saddling them with felony convictions that unfortunately we have to unravel later.”

Rep. Kelly Cassidy, a Chicago Democrat and a co-sponsor, said the bill is a necessary response to the lack of appropriate drug treatment in the state’s jails and prisons that frequently leads to overdose deaths once a person is released.

“It is well past time to start addressing addiction as a public health issue, not a criminal justice issue. We don’t need to continue

to get people tied up in a system, when what they need is health care. They don’t need a cage. They need treatment, and they need quality treatment,” she said.

House Minority Leader Jim Durkin, of Western Springs, who is a former assistant state’s attorney in Cook County, said he opposed the bill because it would benefit individuals charged with drug possession but who should have faced drug dealing charges.

“Here’s a typical situation, you have an area, anywhere in the state of Illinois that has a lot of activity, crime activity, and also a history of drug activity. These (police) officers will see an individual on a street corner, they will look in his direction, that person will drop bags on the ground, and possibly flee,” Durkin said.

In these cases, prosecutors are only able to charge the person with possession rather than distribution of drugs because of legal precedent, he said.

“So those are the people who are going to get the benefit of this bill. A lot of them are drug dealers, and I have zero tolerance for that,” Durkin said. “Mark my words, it’s a mistake.”

The bill applies, retroactively, so it would

allow individuals whose offenses have been reclassified as a lesser felony or a misdemeanor to seek resentencing for their conviction.

It also would enable any circuit court or state’s attorney to create a misdemeanor drug program for low-level drug offenders to obtain addiction treatment. The program would not be available to anyone who is charged with a crime involving violence. A person who successfully completes the drug treatment program would be eligible to have their charges dismissed.

The bill would also expand the types of drug possession offenses that an individual convicted of a crime can seek to have expunged or sealed by a court. Under the bill, individuals who are convicted of a misdemeanor drug possession offense or who complete a diversion program for misdemeanor drug offense can ask the court to expunge or seal their criminal records.

The bill goes to the state Senate where it must receive at least 30 votes to pass.

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Village Free Press | April 28, 2021

NEWS briefs § Tinley Park, 18451 Convention Center Drive (Moderna, age 18+) § Matteson, 4647 Promenade Way (Pfizer, age 16+) § South Holland- South Suburban College, 15800 State Street (Pfizer, age 16+) § Des Plaines, 1155 E Oakton Street (Pfizer, age 16+)

Forest Park and Triton mass vaccination sites now taking walk-ins Cook County Health recently announced that all of its mass vaccination sites will start taking walk-ins beginning Monday, April 26, according to a statement released April 24.

The mass vaccination sites will be open for walk-ins from 8:30 a.m. to 5 p.m., Monday through Saturday, but the hours are subject to change, county officials said. Visit cookcountyhealth.org/covid19-vaccine-sites/ for updated hours of operation.

The county’s mass vaccination sites include two sites in or near Proviso Township: Triton College, 2000 S. 5th Ave. in River Grove, which has the Pfizer vaccine; and the old Hobo store at 7630 W. Roosevelt Rd. in Forest Park, which has the Pfizer vaccine.

Other sites include:

“Individuals or groups who are interested in getting a vaccine can simply show up and register onsite,” county officials said.

“The Pfizer vaccine is the only vaccine currently approved for 16 and 17 year old’s,” they added. “As such, it is important for these individuals to walk-in or make an appointment at a Pfizer site. Individuals age 16 and 17 must be accompanied by a parent or guardian.”

People can still make appointments for at: vaccine.cookcountyil.gov or by calling (833) 308-1988, Monday through Friday, from 7 a.m. to 10 p.m., and Saturday, from 8 a.m. to 10 p.m.

Sun-Times: 68-year-old man fatally shot in Maywood on April 23 A man was fatally shot on April 23 in Maywood, the Chicago Sun-Times reported last week.

“The shooting happened about 6 p.m. in the 600 block of South 12th Avenue, accord-

ing to the Cook County medical examiner’s office.

“James Sisson, 68, was found in a vehicle with a gunshot wound to the shoulder, Maywood police said.”

Sisson was pronounced dead at 6:12 p.m., the medical examiner’s office said. An autopsy ruled his death a homicide.

Maywood police are investigating, the Sun-Times reported.

“It wasn’t simplistic and about bravado …

A lot of people see the leather jacket and the beret, but there’s an underbelly of what a revolutionary is. How do you deal with this climate? … Those in the valley … We went to the valley. The ground was literally still hot.

The community was out there. And we had our dialogue.

“That respect among each other … These are some things you can’t read in books.

This is grit you got to feel and they came.

They came.”

CTA unveils new look rail cars on Blue Line trains

Actor who portrayed Maywood native Fred Hampton in biopic wins Oscar Daniel Kaluuya won the Academy Award for best supporting actor on April 25 for his portrayal of Maywood native and slain Black Panther leader Fred Hampton in the film “Judas and the Black Messiah.”

Fred Hampton Jr., the chairman of the Black Panther Party Cubs and Hampton’s only child, was a key consultant on the film.

Hampton Jr. lives in the house where his father grew up and wants to turn it into a museum.

On March 21, the Maywood-Proviso Rotary Club held a virtual panel discussion on the film at Proviso East High School in Maywood. The film’s producers were among the virtual attendees.

“The more we got to learn about Chairman Fred Hampton Sr., the more we learned he was an incredibly unique person,” Ryan Coogler, the film’s producer, said during the March 21 discussion held inside of East’s auditorium.

During an interview on HBO Max, Hampton Jr. said that he insisted Kaluuya visit an area of North Lawndale while Kaluuya was studying to play Hampton Jr.’s father.

“There happened to be like 11 people, literally, who were just shot that night and we said, ‘Let’s go, we’ll meet right there,’” Hampton Jr. said.

“As passengers begin returning to the CTA, they may get a ride on brand-new, made-in-Chicago rail cars,” the Chicago Tribune reported last week.

“The Chicago Transit Authority has started in-service testing of its next-generation rail cars — the 7000 series — which were built at a new facility in the Hegewisch neighborhood on the city’s Far Southeast Side. The 10 prototype cars began running Wednesday on the Blue Line to O’Hare International Airport, with plans to rotate to other routes during the year, CTA spokesman Brian Steele said.

“Riders will be able to identify the cars from a distance, with distinctive blue end caps, new layout of headlights and taillights and a more streamlined look than the rest of the CTA’s aged fleet.”

Melrose Park DMV’s driver services a breeze, Tribune reports What if you heard there was a driver services facility the size of a gymnasium where there was zero wait Monday afternoon, and only about 20 people waiting outside Wednesday morning?

That describes the state’s “pop-up” that opened in September in the gym in the Melrose Park Civic Center, 1000 N. 25th Ave., and is expected to stay open through the summer, officials said, the Chicago Tribune reports.

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Village Free Press | April 28, 2021

PUBLIC REAL ESTATE NOTICES FOR SALE

REAL ESTATE FOR SALE

PUBLIC NOTICE Notice is hereby given, pursuant to “An Act in relation to the use of an Assumed Business Name in the conduct or transaction of Business in the State,” as amended, that a certification was registered by the undersigned with the County Clerk of Cook County. Registration Number: Y21006612 on April 14, 2021 Under the Assumed Business Name of CHEF RELL with the business located at: 3938 W GLADYS AVE, CHICAGO, IL 60624. The true and real full name(s) and residence address of the owner(s)/partner(s) is: CHARELL MARQUISE KING 3938 W GLADYS AVE, CHICAGO, IL 60624, USA

20 CH 6242 NOTICE OF SALE PUBLIC NOTICE IS HEREBY GIVEN that pursuant to a Judgment of Foreclosure and Sale entered in the above entitled cause Intercounty Judicial Sales Corporation will on Monday, May 17, 2021 at the hour of 11 a.m. in their office at 120 West Madison Street, Suite 718A, Chicago, Illinois, sell at public auction to the highest bidder for cash, as set forth below, the following described mortgaged real estate: P.I.N. 15-09-109-017-0000.

Commonly known as 3832 Saint Charles Road, Bellwood, IL 60104.

The mortgaged real estate is improved with a single family residence. If the subject mortgaged real estate is a unit of a common interest community, the purchaser of the unit other than a mortgagee shall pay the assessments required by subsection (g-1) of Section 18.5 of the Condominium Property Act. Sale terms: 10% down by certified funds, balance, by certified funds, within 24 hours. No refunds. The property will NOT be open for inspection.

For information call Sales Department at Plaintiff’s Attorney, Manley Deas Kochalski, LLC, One East Wacker Drive, Chicago, Illinois 60601. (614) 220-5611. 20017065 F2 INTERCOUNTY JUDICIAL SALES CORPORATION intercountyjudicialsales.com I3166930

Published in Village Free Press April 28, May 5, May 12, 2021

REAL ESTATE FOR SALE IN THE CIRCUIT COURT OF COOK COUNTY, ILLINOIS COUNTY DEPARTMENT - CHANCERY DIVISION TOWD POINT MORTGAGE TRUST 2017-FRE2, U.S. BANK NATIONAL ASSOCIATION, AS INDENTURE TRUSTEE; Plaintiff, vs.

MARTHA SANFORD-DUNBAR AKA MARTHA SANFORD AKA MARTHA DUNBAR; Defendants,

REAL ESTATE FOR SALE

REAL ESTATE FOR SALE

REAL ESTATE FOR SALE

REAL ESTATE FOR SALE

REAL ESTATE FOR SALE

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: 1-800-669-9777.

Village Free Press

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Village Free Press | April 28, 2021

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