W E D N E S D A Y
January 3, 2018 Vol. 36, No. 20 ONE DOLLAR
@oakpark @wednesdayjournal
JOURNAL
OAK PARK YOUTH BASEBALL & SOFTBALL 2018 REGISTRATION NOW OPEN AT OPYBS.ORG
of Oak Park and River Forest
Bag fee takes effect in Oak Park Shoppers will now pay 10 cents for plastic, paper bags By TIMOTHY INKLEBARGER Staff Reporter
Paper or plastic? Either way, shoppers in Oak Park will have to cough up a dime per bag at larger stores in the village, beginning in 2018. The goal is not to raise revenue for the village — the fee will be split between the retailer and the village — but to encourage patrons to bring their own bags and reduce the amount of waste that gets sent to the landfill every year, according to those facilitating the new village ordinance. An estimated 17 million plastic bags are distributed in Oak Park every year, Karen Rozmus, Oak Park’s former Environmental Services Manager, told trustees at a meeting in 2017. Environmental sustainability advocates have been pushing for the ordinance for years, and last year, following the election of three new members to the Oak Park Board of Trustees, they got their wish. The ordinance requires retail stores of more than 5,000 square feet to charge for the single-use bags. That applies to about 24 different shops in the village — mainly grocery stores and big-box retailers — according to Mindy Agnew, Oak Park sustainability coordinator. Agnew said the village is working to remind shoppers about the new ordinance by posting signs at businesses that will be required to charge for the bags. The village also is providing hundreds of reusable bags for free at Village Hall, 123 Madison St., and the Oak Park Public Works See BAG FEE on page 13
ALEXA ROGALS/Staff Photographer
OMNIPRESENT: Anthony Clark, Wednesday Journal’s Villager of the Year, at the corner of Austin Boulevard and Division Street in Chicago’s Austin neighborhood, across from Oak Park.
Rocking the boat on race
Anthony Clark, the founder of Suburban Unity Alliance, ubiquitous in 2017 By MICHAEL ROMAIN
A
Staff Reporter
nthony Clark was 5 years old when his parents sold their home in Calumet City in order to move to Oak Park, so that their youngest son could get a good public school education. They enrolled him at First Baptist
Church’s preschool, where Clark, in an 2017 instant, realized for VILLAGER the first time in his of the young life that he was a problem. YEAR “There was this young white girl — blond hair, blue eyes — we were super close,” said Clark during an interview
in December. The little girl kissed him on the cheek and talked of marriage. They were inseparable during playtime. Until one day, the puppy love abruptly ended. “She just told me she couldn’t play with me anymore,” Clark recalled. “We walked outside and her dad told
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See CLARK on page 14