17 minute read
Big Week
June 22-29 BIG WEEK
Forest Park Pride Celebration
Thursday, June 23, 5 p.m., Thu Constitution Cour C t
The village of FoThe village of Forest Park, in conjunction with the Forest Park Chamber of Commerce, is going to do this Forest Park Chambe party up right! Hosted by Angel Lebare with music by DJ Melo, there will be an hour-long performance by famed drag queens LeBare, Britney Taylor, Fox E. Kim, Harlet Wench, Aleyna Couture, Mariela Duarte, and Monique Greene at 7 p.m. This will be preceded by a mee-andgreet at 5 p.m., with one queen at seven di erent businesses - Brown Cow, Twisted Cookie,
Jimmy’s Place, Play It Again Sports, Team Blonde, MacDaddy, and Fiore. Take your pick!
Dirty Dozen Brass Band
Wednesday, June 22, 8:30 p.m., FitzGerald’s This legendary New Orleans band, who brought the funk to that town’s jazz horn tradition, will be warming up for their opening slot on the upcoming Doobie Brothers tour with a special show in Berwyn. $30, 6615 Roosevelt Road, Berwyn.
Listing your event in the calendar
Forest Park Review welcomes notices about events that Forest Park community groups and businesses are planning. We’ll work to get the word out if you let us know what’s happening by noon Wednesday a week before your news needs to be in the newspaper. ■ Send details to Wednesday Journal, 141 S. Oak Park Ave., Oak Park, 60302 ■ Email calendar@wjinc.com
Sound Opinions Presents - It Was Fifty Years Ago Today ... Albums From 1972 Still Inspiring & In uencing Musicians 50 Years Later
Greg Kot & Jim DeRogatis, hosts of the famed rock radio talk show, Sound Opinions, will look back at the pivotal year 1972. Even though much time has passed, much of the music released during this year has continued to resound, rebound and reverberate straight through to today’s performers. Kot and DeRogatis will discuss this magic year in depth. Register through Forest Park Public Library.
Negotiation & Compromise For Better Work/Life Balance
Friday, June 24, 9-11 a.m., River Edge Hospital
Special workshop that focuses around a meaningful work/life balance. Presented by Sandra Montes.
SANDRA MONTES
Kona Ice Truck Visit
Made ya look, didn’t we? Yes, you read correctly - Kona will be giving away free cups of shaved ice while supplies last. First come, rst served, one per customer. 7555 Jackson Blvd., Forest Park
Lady Gaga Laser Light Show
Saturday, June 25, 8:30 p.m., Triton College
The Cernan Earth & Space Center at Triton College will present a special light show based on the music of Stefani Germanotta, better known as the one and only Lady Gaga. A 45-minute show recommended for the whole family. $10 for adults, $5 for seniors (55 and over), $5 for children (2-17), free for Triton students, sta and faculty. 2000 Fifth Avenue, River Grove.
Forest Park Review, June 22, 2022 5 Three decades of love and dedication
And Laurie Kokenes has no plans to stop any time soon
By TOM HOLMES
Contributing Reporter
The board of Forest Park’s Chamber of Commerce recently gifted its executive director, Laurie Kokenes, with a getaway to Galena as a way of saying thank you for reaching the 30-year mark in her service to the chamber and to the village.
Rave reviews poured in from chamber members and the wider Forest Park community as they reflected on the meaning of her three decades of service.
Trying to make a go of a small business is often challenging. Chamber board member Dexter Cura explained how Kokenes supports owners like him. “Laurie is such an amazing asset to the chamber. She has really helped to spread the word about my Bespoke Flipbook photobooth business! Not only was I able to showcase my service at some chamber events, but there have been numerous posts and emails as well sent out to the community about my business.”
Mayor Rory Hoskins told a story illustrating one of the many ways Kokenes in particular and the Chamber in general partners with the village. “Laurie is always great to work with. What stands out to me is the Spring of 2020. When the village began interpreting Covid-19 guidelines for essential businesses and communicating our expectations to business owners and consumers, Laurie helped us to amplify our message. She continued to provide invaluable support during the period where we began encouraging residents to get vaccinations.”
“Now that our lives have returned to normal,” he said, “Laurie should be credited for the success of events like Casket Races or the St. Patrick’s Day Parade. Laurie and her team make Forest Park shine!!!”
Augie Aleksy, owner of Centuries and Sleuths and a past president of the Chamber, focused on the virtues Kokenes brings to her work. “Laurie is hardworking and loyal to the Chamber. Her creativity stands out for me as demonstrated by the annual Casket Races she imagined. It is so appropriate to Forest Park with all the cemeteries, it attracts all ages kids, adults, but mostly young adults/teenagers. . . . It’s amazing too because Laurie faced some opposition. But her idea helps the Chamber to appeal to the younger set which a Chamber and village need to not only survive but expand.”
Sal Stella, director of public works at the village, maybe touched on the core source of respect and affection so many people have for her. “As a laborer, and now a director, I have known Laurie for many years. She has nothing but love and dedication to this community. She is one of the good ones and it has always been a pleasure working with her.”
Kokenes said she “caught” her love for Forest Park from her dad, Bob Haeger who was the editor and publisher of the Forest Park Review before it was purchased by what is now Growing Community Media in the mid-1980s. He also served as the executive secretary of the Chamber before his daughter took that position over in 1992.
“My father loved Forest Park so much,” said Kokenes. “He ate, slept and breathed Forest Park.”
The last 30 years, she said, have been marked by both continuity and change.
What has always been true of Forest Park’s main business street, she said, is that it has been anchored by small businesses and people in town who supported them. “If you needed a stove,” she said, “you went to Trage Brothers. If you wanted a new dresser, you bought it at Krader Wolf. Sam Zussman had a men’s clothing store. You went to Peaslee’s hardware store to buy tools.”
What has changed is that back then “everyone was involved, not just in the Chamber but in fraternal/service organizations like Lions, Eagles and the Odd Fellows. The Chamber would hold an annual banquet at the Mar Lac House in Oak Park, and 300 people would be there. Everyone participated in everything.”
A lot more people are working from home these days, she added, and small businesses have to compete with big box stores which have moved into the area and online shopping.
The Chamber has also changed with the times. For example in 1998, a parallel organization called Mainstreet Redevelopment recognized that there were a lot of empty storefronts along Madison Street. Led by people like Art Jones, John Trage, Bill McKenzie, Carl Schwebl and Jerry Vainisi — names familiar to old timers here — took on the task of economic development that the Chamber had not focused on. The two organizations had compatible objectives, said Kokenes, and they eventually merged. The result has been that the Chamber has become the marketing agent for the whole village. Among the changes, of course, has been COVID. Two years ago Kokenes wrote to Chamber members, “Last year at this time, it’s doubtful any of us would have readily agreed to sign up for the challenges that 2020 would bring. … but we weren’t given a choice. However, what you chose to do was to tackle those challenges with determination, creativity and passion while also giving back to the community.”
In an interview last week she said, “During COVID we literally threw away our to do list and became the main information resource connector for whatever the village needed to tell business owners. We helped in a big way keeping our members informed. We went on webinars to help figure out grants, deadlines and things of that nature. We also gave our members a lot of one-on-one support.
Kokenes is heartened to see events returning like the St. Patrick’s Day Parade with an estimated 10,000 spectators packing the sidewalks along Madison Street. That’s one of the main goals of the Chamber, she said, to draw people to the street from out of town with events like the parade, casket races and the wine walks, so they can see the great businesses in town.
The 71-year-old Kokenes has no plans of retiring. Not only does she love her job, but she believes that the Chamber will continue to have a significant impact in the years to come.
LAURIE KOKENES
POOL
Snapchat stampede from page 2 stab you when you leave’ and ‘I will shoot you dead in the head if you continue to speak,’” she said, adding that police officers helped to manage the situation.
Iovinelli said while there have been several instances of Snapchat pool party invitations, the park district has never seen anything of this scale. She said the district appreciated the police assistance in the matter.
While Hoskins said there was no property damage, Iovinelli said there was “damage to all the gates and entrance to the pool” as well as damage to the construction site. She said that most of the damage was fixed on June 15, but they were still reviewing the damage to the construction area as of June 16.
Iovinelli said people who pay for onetime admission are normally charged non-resident rate unless they can show an ID indicating they are residents. She said the district suspended non-resident one-time admission to help the staff keep better track of how many people are in the pool at the time.
Iovinelli said that the suspension is “indefinite until we feel there is not a threat to our staff or patrons.”
Both she and Hoskins said the police and the park district plan to discuss ways to better secure the park.
“Our goal is to always provide a safe place for our young staff to work, for our patrons to enjoy leisure time and to protect our amenities,” Iovinelli said. “We will continue to have conversations with our police department to only make us better.”
Hoskins said he was satisfied with the way the police handed the situation.
“Our command staff reported that the officers did great work in deescalating numerous situations, which could have gone much worse,” he said.
Inaugural Juneteenth parade unites west suburbs
Events demonstrate growing importance of holiday
By MICHAEL ROMAIN
Editor
Back in 2008, when Forest Park Mayor Rory Hoskins (then a commissioner) hosted the very first Juneteenth Pool Party, the holiday’s staying power in the village was still an open question.
“It’s unclear whether Forest Park will embrace Juneteenth in the coming years,” wrote Forest Park Review columnist John Rice in an article praising the holiday, about which he learned from Hoskins.
“Will we have a parade here and save the mayor a trip to South Shore? Will we have a formal observance, or quiet family barbecues?”
Fourteen years later, Rice’s questions have been definitively answered and Hoskins, a native of Galveston, Texas, where Juneteenth originated, is looking more and more prescient.
A year after Juneteenth was formally made a federal holiday in the United States, the annual commemoration is perhaps bigger than ever.
For instance, the U.S. stock markets were closed Monday, June 20, to observe the holiday — the first time in history, according to the Wall Street Journal.
More locally, the official Juneteenth flag flew above municipal buildings across the west suburbs, including in Forest Park and Broadview.
Speaking of Broadview, the village that made Juneteenth a paid local holiday in 2020 hosted its biggest Juneteenth celebration ever over a period of three days this weekend, with the festivities culminating with a fireworks show on Sunday night.
Meanwhile, Illinois Gov. J.B. Pritzker joined Illinois House Speaker Emanuel “Chris” Welch at Memorial Park in Hillside for the speaker’s inaugural Juneteenth Father’s Day barbecue.
The moment that crystallized the holiday’s bridge-building importance this year happened Saturday, when the villages of Oak Park, River Forest, Forest Park and Maywood collaborated to pull off another historic first — a joint Juneteenth celebra-
See PARADE on page 8
Juneteenth was celebrated in Forest Park and in neighboring towns last weekend, including a West Villages P arade (upper right and lower le ) combining the e orts of Forest Park, Oak Park, River Forest and Maywood on June 18 and Forest Park’s annual Juneteenth Pool Party (upper le and lower right), also on June 18.
ALEX ROGALS/Sta Photographer
Recreation Board can’t make quorum, looking for members
Two recent meetings cancelled
By IGOR STUDENKOV
Staff Reporter
The Forest Park Recreation Board is looking to fill its two vacant seats as it had to cancel the past two meetings due to the lack of a quorum.
Originally created to supervise villageowned pocket parks, its mission evolved to serve as more of a coordinator for village volunteer projects as most of its parks have been leased to the Park District of Forest Park.
On May 12, the rec board was supposed to discuss how it was going to screen nonprofit organizations that would get its support, get updates on the dog park fundraiser headed by 6th grader Juliet Harrington, and reschedule the community clean-up that got derailed twice due to rain. But they were unable to discuss any of this due to the lack of a quorum. The same issue at the June 9 meeting caused the board to shelve the issues again.
During the June 13 village council meeting, Commissioner of Public Property Jessica Voogd, who serves as the village council liaison to the rec board, spoke about the issue. She invited Forest Park residents to send applications to her via e-mail or by calling the village. Mayor Rory Hoskins said that, while he would consider the candidates, he wanted to take the time with the appointment process to ensure that the new appointees wouldn’t cause quorum issues.
Like all the other village boards and commissions, Recreation Board members are appointed by Forest Park mayors and confirmed by the village council. While it is supposed to have seven members, two of the seats are currently vacant.
Members serve for staggered five-year terms. Meetings are usually held every second Thursday of the month at 7 p.m., and they’ve been held online since the start of the pandemic. Under the village municipal code, the only eligibility requirement is that members must be Forest Park residents. During the June 10 meeting, board chair Amy Binns-Calvey remarked that Harrington would technically be eligible.
In 2020, the village leased four of its pocket parks — Reiger Park, 1526 Circle Ave.; Lathrop Park, 1138 Lathrop Ave.; Popelka Park, 501 Thomas Ave., and Remembrance Park, 7341 Randolph St. — to the park district for 99 years for a symbolic lease of $1 a year. As part of the deal, the park district took over the responsibility for maintaining and improving the parks. Veterans Park, 631 Circle Ave., wasn’t included in the deal because its ownership is unclear, and neither was the dog park at 632 Circle Ave.
In September 2021, the village council changed the rec board’s primary duty to helping residents and organizations serve the community, which can include “influencing the maintenance, safety and improvement of the village-owned green space and recreational public property.” The board would be “available as a resource and a possible coordination center” for Forest Park residents and organizations wishing to organize volunteer projects.
Voogd previously told the Review that final decisions on which volunteer efforts would get village support will be made by village administrator’s office and, if necessary, voted on by the council.
The June 9 meeting only had two members in attendance – Binns-Calvey and Bob Dorneker. While Voogd and Director of Public Works Sal Stella attended as well, they didn’t count toward the quorum. After waiting about 10 minutes to see if anyone else would join the meeting, Binns-Calvey called it a day. But before the attendees disbursed, they agreed that recruiting more members would be a good idea.
During the June 13 meeting, Voogd summarized the situation and encouraged everyone in attendance to spread the word about the vacancies.
“You can email me if you’d like the application, you can call the village,” she said.
After the meeting, Hoskins told the Review that, while he would consider any candidate Voogd recommends, he wasn’t in any particular hurry to make the appointments.
“You don’t want to appoint someone who won’t attend the meetings,” he said.
VIEWPOINT S Whatever happened to Roy L. Frakes?
Thirty years ago on July 20, Roy Frakes left his apartment in Forest Park to go to work in Chicago. He would never return.
Roy and his wife had moved to Forest Park a few months earlier when Roy took a job in downtown Chicago. Like many young couples new to the Chicago area, he and his wife selected Forest Park for our easy access to downtown and the western suburbs.
Roy and his wife were friendly and courteous. Other than myself, their landlord, I don’t think the other residents in the building know that he was a deputy U.S. marshal at the Dirksen Federal Building where Jeffrey Erikson was on trial for a series of bank robberies in 1990 and 1991.
Erickson and his wife had robbed banks in the Chicago area until July, 1991 when the FBI caught up with them. Erickson was captured and his wife killed herself after being wounded exchanging gunfire with the FBI agents. In July of 1992, Jeffrey Erickson was on trial at the Dirksen Federal Building. As he was leaving court in a suit and handcuffs, he somehow obtained a key to the handcuffs and was able to disarm another U.S. deputy marshal who cried out for help. Immediately upon entering the area, Roy was shot in the head by Erickson. He was shot again in the head as he lay on the ground and died immediately. The bank robber and now murderer attempted to escape from the Dirksen Federal Building through the underground garage entrance. He exchanged gunfire with Special Deputy Marshal Harry Belluomini and both men were wounded. Harry was struck four times and later died of his wounds. Lying wounded on the driveway leading from the underground garage, Jeffrey Erickson then put the gun to his head and sent himself to hell by ending his miserable life.
That night, local news media came to the building in Forest Park where Roy and his wife lived. One news outlet even entered the building and aired a video of the door of Roy and his wife’s apartment on the nightly news. U.S. marshals were then stationed in the building for the next 24 hours to provide privacy for Roy’s widow and family until they could collect their personal belongings. Months later, family members returned to the apartment to collect the personal belongings of Roy and his wife who was too grief-stricken to return.
Even now, it saddens me to think about this tragic loss of life and what should have been. Roy was only 30 years old and was just starting his law enforcement career and life with his wife. Harry Belluomini was a former Chicago police officer and was near the end of his law enforcement career. The futures of Roy and
MARTY Harry were taken and their families. from them TELLALIAN One View Lives lost and sorrow because of the fact that some people will rob you and will kill you or anyone else who gets in their way. Thank God there are people who are willing to get in their way. Some of them make the ultimate sacrifice. Thirty years ago, one of them was briefly our neighbor. Marty Tellalian is a former Forest Park commissioner.
