6 minute read
Opinion
OUR VIEW Walk this way A bold plan from Forest Park Village Hall to enhance walkability, public transit and connection to natural resources was moved forward Monday as the village council approved applying to Cook County for a grant to construct a 10-foot wide “Multi-Use Path” along Van Buren Street from Madison to the Blue Line. The proposed project will be part of an envisioned Desplaines River Trail project while furthering a connection to the existing Illinois Prairie Path. There is likely to be fierce competition for these limited Invest in Cook grants. Forest Park is asking for $432,000 in county funds to match with $108,000 in local monies. But there is nothing but upside in making the request. It is in keeping with Mayor Rory Hoskins’ pledge to work county and state legislative connections to bring money back to Forest Park. Most recently, Forest Park managed to break loose long- approved state funding for demolition of several decrepit buildings at the village-owned Altenheim property. Kudos, too, to Ralph DiFebo, best known for his work on the proposed Culture Park at the Altenheim. DiFebo has also been quietly working the Van Buren Street plan as well.
PASO’s path It is painful to watch overflowing tensions between staff, management and the board at PASO West Suburban Action Project. Seven of eight staff members are currently on strike against the nonprofit which does essential work on behalf of immigrants in our immediate area. Workers complain of a toxic work environment. The board has hired a specialized law firm to mediate the dispute, a response workers have thus far rejected. At least three board members have resigned as this dispute has ignited. We don’t know the inside details. We don’t take a side. We hear worker complaints of screaming and mocking. We hear remaining board members talk of growing pains while acknowledging the rights of workers to organize. We know that Oak Park attorney Mony Ruiz-Velasco, the organization’s invaluable executive director, is the embodiment of this organization and brings passion and intensity to this work. Calls for her resignation, we fear, could effectively end this necessary organization’s work. Certainly we are at a moment in our country’s history where the full-on assault against immigrants by Donald Trump is a crisis, and effective opposition is vital. PASO has led that opposition in Chicago with effectiveness stretching from the courts to suburban city halls, from well-played media outreach to compassionate support. We need PASO. And right now PASO needs compassionate leadership that we don’t see coming from an outside law firm. Acknowledgment of pain inflicted, a listening plan that puts all the parties in a room, a determination to make change so forward movement is possible. That is what we want to see.
Bein’ green … around the gills I don’t like St. Patrick’s Day. I’m supposed to, I am told, as I have some Irish background. (It’s anecdotal, though — I will have no truck with 23 and Me. I have enough new relatives already.) But I also have Portuguese and Spanish and French-Canadian, and yet I am not plied with malasadas and linguiça and poutine once a year despite the fact that all of those are so vastly superior to corned beef as to defy comparison. Corned beef is unflavored pastrami. The highlight of a corned beef and cabbage dinner is that once you’re done, you don’t have to do it again for a year. And you don’t! No one eats Irish food, not even the Irish. Chinese people eat Chinese food more than one day a year. Irish food as practiced in my family comprises two things: boiling and starch. Cabbage, and potatoes, lukewarm. Soda bread (Shudder). I get gastronomic hardship that represents something symbolic, as at a Seder, but cast as a voluntary day-to-day virtue? There’s a reason you can’t get Irish Takeout from Grubhub. St. Patrick’s Day is to bars the bonanza that Valentine’s Day is to florists, so if there’s a florist reading this, I wish to know if you hate February 14 with the same passion that my bartender friends hate March 17. “Amateur Night,” they call it. I’m not sure what kind of ethnic pride shines brightest through the lens of screaming arguments between sobbing girls and shoving matches between guys wearing green Sox hats and hockey jerseys, but perhaps I don’t understand ethnic pride. I don’t understand workplace pride, school spirit or patriotism, either. I’m with Groucho Marx: I don’t want to belong to any club that would have someone like me as a member. If I were to throw up on a public street to promote a cause, it would not be based on the birth location of a relative 100 years in the grave. I also don’t get why those so allegedly proud of their Irish heritage aren’t madder about the whole Amos-and-Aidan vibe surrounding St. Patrick’s Day, but not even I will be offering comparable ethnic stereotypes in print. The internet does not consider context when there are pitchforks and torches to be brandished. Furthermore, I don’t look good in green. Black I look good in. Lavender I look good in. White. Pink is a great color for me, too. When I wear pink, people ask me if I just got back from vacation. Green, not so much. In green I look seasick. I basically just don’t get why the Irish have the big day. Can we promote some more fun ethnicities for a couple years? Dial back St. Paddy’s to St. Swithin’s Day levels for a bit and give somebody else a turn. Drive the fun toward Cinco de Mayo or Ferragosto or Juneteenth. The food’s better, the music’s better, the drinks are better, even the weather is better. I’ll cheerfully march in a Juneteenth Parade and stay for the picnic afterward. You can’t tell me “Chi-talian” isn’t a vast improvement on the etymological butchery that is “Chi-rish.” Mardi Gras is an outstanding parade. So is Pride. Do we have those in Forest Park? I’m down to throw some beads. ALAN B ROUILETTE
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