Opinion

OUR VIEW Red-light cameras.

Ban them T hree years ago, before everyone was on to the con of redlight cameras, Wednesday Journal, Forest Park Review and the Riverside-Brookfield Landmark did a deep dive that made clear these cameras have nothing to do with traffic safety, how rapidly small towns and cities had become fiscally addicted to this grift revenue, and how corrupt the politics of red-light contracts were at their core. Now everyone is on to the scam. State legislators and municipal officials are resigning, being indicted, getting raided, lawyering up. The Sun-Times and the Trib are in the chase. Federal prosecutors are wiring and flipping weasel politicians. And down in Springfield, the dirty town on the prairie, momentum is building to attempt once more to outright ban red-light cameras. We’re all for it. Red-light cameras are a scam perpetrated by greedy con men — elected and otherwise — on overtaxed drivers just living their lives. The cameras cannot be justified as an advance in traffic safety. There are more serious traffic worries than a slightly rolling right turn on red. If the scoundrels behind this technology are so determined to save lives, if the town trustees hooked on $100 fines to pay their underfunded pensions want to argue it is all about safety, then just leave the cameras pointed at bad drivers actively running red lights. That could do some good. Otherwise we are in support of state Sen. Mattie Hunter, quoted in the Sun-Times saying, “Traffic laws should be driven by safety, not bribery, shakedowns or the need to boost revenue.” And we’ll urge Oak Park’s own state Senate President, Don Harmon, to take seriously his pledge that “It’s becoming increasingly clear we need a full review of the red-light camera program in Illinois.” We need a review before the exorcism.

Two things at once We are now 17 years into the village of Forest Park owning the 11 acres at The Altenheim. In three years taxpayers will own it outright.

Might be time to figure out what to do with this green gem that former Mayor Anthony Calderone acquired by inspiration to prevent its development. What to do with it besides mow the grass, look at the tumble-down buildings, and barbeque a few ribs once a year. Mayor Rory Hoskins tells the Review he wants to hold off planning until the village receives promised demolition cash from the state. Don’t know why we’d wait to plan. The buildings will come down, if just by force of gravity. There is a perfectly good committee eager to continue its work. Public meetings have already been held, input sought and plans scaled back based on that input. We’ll ask, as we always do, where’s the park district in these conversations? They’re the experts in park development, upkeep and programming. Time for them to come to the table or explain why they are stepping away. Let’s get cracking. This is a tremendous opportunity for Forest Park.

You gotta have boundaries I was in Washington D.C. last week, which you might think would have been exciting. I say “you might” because I would not. I have successfully placed such strict boundaries around consumption of news that I actually had this conversation with my friend Shelby when she called me while I was buying a bagel on K Street: Shelby: “How is the mood there?” Me: “Maybe a little bleak; the weather sucks. It’s 45 and raining.” Shelby: “I’d have thought people would be tense.” Me: “Well, I mean, it is February.” Shelby: “No. About the President.” Me: “Why, what’d he do?” Shelby: “He was acquitted?” Me: “Acquitted of what?” You could almost hear her eyes roll. But I was serious! I gave up news when I left ABC in 2005. It was a great call. I used to marinate in that stuff, like all-day-every-day type attentiveness. I remember, during Bill Clinton’s impeachment trial, assuming that we were now entering an era of one impeachment trial per administration. I assumed this partially because of the rancorous, overwhelmingly-connected, 24-7 news cycle nature of the world in 1998 compared to those civil, decent days, decades and decades ago during the previous impeachment trial. Here’s some dismaying math I just did: Clinton and Nixon’s impeachment trials were separated by a similar amount of time to that separating Clinton and Trump. I realize, as I type this, that I can tell you vastly more about the trial of Bill Clinton (and the trial of O.J. Simpson) than I can about whatever Trump was on trial for even though I was in D.C. last week and he and I work for the same company. I purposely didn’t look it up, by the way. One hundred percent of the facts I know about Donald Trump’s impeachment: 1) It was over asking the Ukrainian government to help discredit Joe Biden. 2) There was some controversy around whether or not to have witnesses (but I don’t know what it was or how it came out). 3) He was acquitted. I feel like I don’t need to know more. I didn’t really even need to know the three facts I do know. The more I have managed to avoid current events, the more those events begin to feel like something from a TV show everyone watches but me. (Though I can tell you more than three facts about Breaking Bad and Game of Thrones and I have not seen more than five total minutes of those two shows combined.) Catching 10 minutes of involuntary exposure to the stuff from Airport CNN or a waiting room TV or something is like watching maybe 10 minutes of a show I used to watch but let go of years ago. “Hey, who’s that guy? And why does she look mad? Whoa, is that Stacey? She looks great! But how did she wind up in Seattle?” News angries up the blood (as Satchel Paige used to say about fried meat), same as Facebook or Twitter or listening to a crazy drunk person yelling about Satan on the Blue Line. They’re all comparable experiences at this point anyway. Someone you don’t know is yelling about something you may or may not agree with them about in an effort to transfer either their rage or their outrage to you. Ya gotta have boundaries. Turn off the TV. Don’t look at social media. And stay off the Blue Line. ALAN B ROUILETTE