Vol. VI No. 18 VFP is hiring a reporter, PAGE 9
Lindop students dialogue with students in Ukraine
MAY 4, 2022
vfpress.news
Northlake data center opens, PAGE 2
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Fifth-graders at Broadview school asked questions on Zoom of two students in Kyiv, Ukraine last month By MICHAEL ROMAIN Editor
Last month, a class of fifth-graders at Lindop Elementary School, 2400 S. 18th Ave. in Broadview, listened with rapt attention as two young people their ages who were 5,000 miles away spoke about living in a war zone. “You have support right here at Lindop and if there’s anything we can do to help you that is what we will do,” Lindop District 92 Janiece Jackson said to the young Ukrainian students, who spoke with the young Lindop students by Zoom. “We feel that if we’re able to just dialogue and bring a little joy to you just for a few minutes then it’s going to be worth it,” Jackson said. The video exchange between the Lindop students and the Ukrainian students has since been uploaded to YouTube by Joshua Eliscu, Lindop’s technology director and the person who made the exchange happen. According to Lindop teachers, Eliscu has See UKRAINE on page 7
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Westchester’s move to new village hall? Not so fast Building sits empty as estimated costs pile up By MICHAEL ROMAIN Editor
In October 2021, the village of Westchester was well on its way toward relocating from its current Village Hall at 10300 Roosevelt Road to its new municipal complex on a campus that includes two buildings at 2305 Enterprise Drive and 2315 Enterprise Drive, which would house a brand new senior center along with renovated village offices, and new spaces for the po-
lice and public works departments. Last April, the board borrowed $4.6 million in order to purchase the Enterprise Drive properties. The site of the village’s current Village Hall is slated to be demolished and replaced with a new retail development that would include an Aldi Foods and a Starbucks, among other retailers. If all went according to plan, village officials would be moving into the new municipal digs by next month. “A lot of municipalities are spending tens of millions of dollars to build a new property,” said former Westchester village manager Paul Nosek in October 2021. “If we spend $1.5 million to $2 million on
our renovations and purchase after we sell our property, which is our estimate right now, we’d be in pretty good shape.” Things have changed considerably since then, shell-shocked Westchester village board members learned during a Committee of the Whole meeting on April 26. It turns out, the buildings on Enterprise Drive still sit empty, there are no fleshed out plans for a senior center and a project once projected to cost a few million dollars has now ballooned to a total cost that is currently unknown, since a comSee VILLAGE HALL on page 4