WednesdayJournal_042926

Wired Wisdom: How to Age Better Online

to Age Better Onlin

with Author John Palfrey

to Age Better Online

Wired Wisdom: How to Age Better Online

April 7, 2026

to Age Bett

with Author John Palfrey

with Author John Palfrey

A Celebrating Seniors Event! To Tell the Truth: The Future of Local Media

with Author John Palfrey

April 7, 2026

with Author John Palfrey

2 PM - 3 PM CT

April 7, 2026

Zoom

April 7, 2026

Saturday, May 9, 1:00-2:30 p.m.

April 7, 2026

2 PM - 3 PM CT Zoom

Nineteenth Century Charitable Association • 178 Forest Ave., Oak Park Free Event. Refreshments served. Registration requested.

April 7, 2026

2

PM

2 PM - 3 PM CT Zoom

- 3 PM CT Zoom

2 PM - 3 PM CT Zoom

2 PM - 3 PM CT Zoom

Wired Wisdom provides a surprising window into the online lives of people sixty and over offering

with Author John Palfrey April 7, 2

Wired Wisdom provides a surprisi the online lives of people sixty an essential insights, no matter one ’s opening book on the internet ’s fa demographic, John Palfrey and c Hargittai paint a more nuanced pi common myths about older adult presenting hope and a necessary book provides practical advice an stereotypes can be hurdles that k building intergenerational- suppor helping loved ones adopt new tec improve their lives, and thriving t

The need for fact-based, current journalism in our communities has never been greater — and more threatened. Join us at the historic Nineteenth Century Club in Oak Park for a dynamic panel discussion around the evolving state of the news.

Chicago GM,

This program may be offered on ZOOM and will be recorded for future viewing. Register for information to come at a later date.

essential insights, no matter one ’s age. In their eye opening book on the internet ’s fastest-growing demographic, John Palfrey and coauthor Eszter

Wired Wisdom provides a surprising window the online lives of people sixty and over— off essential insights, no matter one ’s age. In the opening book on the internet ’s fastest-growi demographic, John Palfrey and coauthor Es Hargittai paint a more nuanced picture— deb common myths about older adults’ internet presenting hope and a necessary call to actio book provides practical advice and show s th stereotypes can be hurdles that keep us from building intergenerational- support commun helping loved ones adopt new technology that may improve their lives, and thriving together online.

Hear their insights on storytelling, media trust, and the importance of local voices. This engaging conversation offers a unique opportunity to hear from experienced media leaders and reflect on how news shapes our understanding of the world around us.

Wired Wisdom provides a surprising window into the online lives of people sixty and over offering essential insights, no matter one ’s age. In their eye opening book on the internet ’s fastest-growing demographic, John Palfrey and coauthor Eszter Hargittai paint a more nuanced picture— debunkin common myths about older adults’ internet use, presenting hope and a necessary call to action. The book provides practical advice and show s that our stereotypes can be hurdles that keep us from building intergenerational- support communities, helping loved ones adopt new technology that may improve their lives, and thriving together online.

Hargittai paint a more nuanced picture debunkin common myths about older adults’ internet use, presenting hope and a necessary call to action. Th book provides practical advice and show s that our stereotypes can be hurdles that keep us from building intergen i l i i helping loved one ay improve their live

Receive 30%

Wired Wisdom provides a surprising window into the online lives of people sixty and over offering essential insights, no matter one ’s age. In their eye opening book on the internet ’s fastest-growing demographic, John Palfrey and coauthor Eszter Hargittai paint a more nuanced picture— debunkin common myths about older adults’ internet use, presenting hope and a necessary call to action. The book provides practical advice and show s that our stereotypes can be hurdles that keep us from building intergenerational- support communities, helping loved ones adopt new technology that may improve their l e

2 PM - 3 PM

Zoom

Receive 30% off your book purchase from University of Chicago Press with code: UCPNEW

Wired Wisdom provides a surprising windo the online lives of people sixty and over— o essential insights, no matter one ’s age. In t opening book on the internet ’s fastest-gro demographic, John Palfrey and coauthor Hargittai paint a more nuanced picture de common myths about older adults’ interne presenting hope and a necessary call to ac book provides practical advice and show s that our stereotypes can be hurdles that keep us from building intergenerational- support communities, helping loved ones adopt new technology that ma improve their lives, and thriving together online.

Wired Wisdom provides a surp the online lives of people sixty essential insights, no matter on opening book on the internet ’s demographic, John Palfrey an Hargittai paint a more nuanced common myths about older ad presenting hope and a necessa book provides practical advice stereotypes can be hurdles tha building intergenerational- sup helping loved ones adopt new improve their lives, and thrivin

University o W

John Pa

Receive 30% off your book purchase from University of Chicago Press with code: UCPNEW

president o D. and Cat MacA Foundation educator, sc law pro

Receive 30% off your book purch University of Chicago Press with

Receive 30% off your book purchase from University of Chicago Press with code: UCPNEW J presi D. a Foun educ la

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Monica Eng Lydia Manning

Max Reinsdorf

Axios Chicago reporter, formerly of Chicago Sun-Times, Tribune and WBEZ

Gerontologist, Educator, Circle Life Consulting CEO

NEWSWELL

Wednesday Journal, Forest Park Review, Riverside Brookfield Landmark, Austin Weekly

Panelists

Charlie Meyerson

Chicago Public Square publisher, WXRT, Chicago Tribune alumnus

Moderator

Streetscape looking south along 1031-35 South Boulevard in Oak Park

Developer withdraws plans for Arcade Building

Plans for 1035 South Boulevard now on hold pending revisions

By BRENDAN HEFFERNAN Staff Reporter

The developers behind a controversial proposal for a mid-rise apartment building near a historic site have withdrawn their application to the village.

The proposed 10-story, 24-unit apar tment building is adjacent to the historic Boulevard Arcade Building on South Blvd. Project architect John Schiess and developer J. Trent Stoner confirmed to Wednesday Journal that they’d pulled their application for zoning approval to revise the proposal.

“After thoughtful consideration, the Boulevard Arcade Homes development team has withdrawn its application for the proposed development from review by the village of Oak Park,” the developers wrote in an email to the Journal. “The team plans to reassess all aspects of the proposal with the intent of potentially submitting a revised development plan. We acknowledge and appreciate the ef for ts of the village’s planning, engineering, and public works departments, as well as the fire and police departments, the Plan Commission, and the Historic Preservation Commission. We also thank the neighbors who participated in meetings and shared their perspectives.”

The proposal was set to be reviewed by

Oak Park’s plan commission as the developer’s sought relief from zoning ordinances re garding building height, off-street parking and unit density.

Because the proposed building abuts the Boulevard Arcade Building, the project required a Certificate of Appropriateness from the village’s Historic Preservation Commission. The proposal came before tha t body several times over multiple years.

The preservation commission denied the necessary certificate four times in total, while some residents in the immediate area have been vocal in their opposition to the development.

In November 2025, Oak Park’s village board heard the developers’ appeal of the commission’s rulings and issued a COA for the building, overruling the Historic Preservation Commission citing a need for more housing in the village

Before overruling the commission’s denial, several trustees said the village needed to work on its hearing process to avoid a re peated waste of both developer and commission time in the future.

“The fact that this has gone through four hearings and still needs to go through even more, I don’t know why they even want to build anything here,” Trustee Cory Wesley said at the meeting. “That’s a problem that we at this board need to fix. We can’t have

people waiting a year before they know if they can actually build something. I think that’s going to cost us development that we could otherwise use.”

The village board’s decision caused two members of the Historic Preservation Commission to resign, including thencommission chair Louis Garapolo. In his resignation letter, Garapolo wrote that the board’s ruling on the project made it impossible for him to continue serving on the commission.

“In my opinion, this disre gard for the required process has under mined the commission’s work and the integrity of Oak Park’s preservation ordinance,” he wrote in the letter, obtained by Wednesday Journal through a FOIA request. “Because of this recent board decision re garding 1035 South Blvd, I find it difficult to continue on the commission and proceed with a positive attitude.”

Former commissioner Mark Weiner also resigned following the board’s ruling.

“I served on the Historic Preservation Commission and Architectural Review Committee for 2 1/2 years,” Weiner wrote. “In that time, I learned the board and president do not appreciate or understand historic preservation, even though a large basis of Oak Park’s economic model involves historic tourism.”

COURTESY OF JCSA CHICAGO

Your Best Life This Spring YOUR BEST LIFE with Lisa Capone

As the days grow longer and the air turns warmer, spring is the perfect time for seniors to refresh their routines and refocus on overall wellness This season brings renewed energ y, blooming surroundings, and new opportuni ties to stay active, social, and engaged. Taking a proactive approach to wellness can support your well-being and help you feel your best and enjoy all that spring has to offer

i e tines pend tay

Spend time outdoors to enjoy fresh air, sunshine, and the beauty of the season

Stay active wi th lig ht exercise like walking, stretching, or yoga to support strength, and mobili ty

Fire at e Daly Bagel

Owners expect to be rolling dough again within a few weeks

By RISÉ SANDERS-WEIR Eats Reporter

On Saturday, April 25 around 10 a.m. a fire flared at The Daly Bagel, 130 Chicago Ave. in Oak Park Though the flames were limited to inside an oven and were quickly extinguished, damage will take some time to rectify.

The flames appear to have been kindled by dough debris. As customers calmly evacuated the storefront, employees put out the blaze with a hand-held extinguisher

“The fire de par tment was not required to put out the fire,” co-owner Adrienne Guldin said. “But they did come to check everything, but it wasn’t bad enough that it required fire hoses.”

Amanda Daly, co-owner and namesake, lives just a few blocks away. She ar rived on scene just after fire trucks ar rived.

Incorporate fresh, seasonal foods like leafy greens, berries, and vegetables to nourish your body

Declutter and refresh your living space to create a calm, organized, and uplifting environment

Reconnect socially by joining activi ties, events, or simply spending time wi th friends and neig hbors

ncorporate egetables eclutter econnect tay

Stay on top of wellness by scheduling check-ups, reviewing medications, and setting new health goals

By embracing these simple habi ts, you can make the most of the season while supporting your health and vi tali ty. Spring is a time of renewal making i t the perfect opportuni ty to reset, refresh, and continue living your best life ever y day.

“I think we had both Oak Park and Forest Park here,” Daly said. “They were amazing. They covered all our equipment, so that anything that they did would not ruin other things. That’s the stuf f that actually really gets me emotional.”

Ow ners Amanda Daly and Adrienne

After the firefighters evaluated to make sure the fire had not spread beyond the oven, upstairs apar tment residents were allowed to retur n to their home, but the bagel kitchen will take some work to get back to business

“We do have some damage,” Guldin said. “We don’t know the extent of the damage to the oven quite yet. We also have some drywall on the outside of the oven that needs to be re placed. Obviously, there’s a lot of

in front of the o ending oven.

cleanup, between smoke and the chemicals from the fire extinguisher.”

The owners hope to star t baking again in 1 to 2 weeks.

isit s nior 08) ependent h rt-Term

Visit Cantata org for more senior living advice or call (708) 387-1030.

In better news, the shop participated in the first Chicago Bagel Fest hosted in March by Chicago20Something. Their seasonal lemon & lavender bagel won the prize for fl avor

As they re group, Daly and Guldin want to thank their employees for quick action and commitment to helping get the business back up and running. And they have a message for customers too.

“Thank you all for your patience,” Guldin said. “We will be back, I promise And I want to say thank you to everyone who has checked in with us and sent us kind messages. It’s been a lot of people, and it’s been really, really gratifying.”

It is too early to know if the shop will need to set up a GoFundMe-type donation request to pay expenses that aren’t covered by i nsuranc e, but in the meantime the owners ask that c ustomers buy g ift cards from the we bsite for f uture bage l purchases Doing so, Guldin said, would be a “wonderful show of suppo rt and a financial boost. ” RISÉ SANDERS-WEIR

Guldin

JAVIER GOVEA

Amanda Daly show ing the oven used for making bagels in 2023.

Built with passion, School of Rock owner brings same

Amy Renzulli grew music school with goals of welcome, safety and fun. New owner Adam Inste ord has been there from the star t

By JACKIE PISANO Contributing Reporter

Fourteen years ago, Oak Parker Amy Renzulli could have never imagined herself owning and operating a music school.

Renzulli was a mixed-media artist and painter, and the idea of opening up a music school wasn’t sparke d by her love of art, but from the p ositive, l ife-changing experience her d aughter had wh i le attending classes at a Chicago School of Ro ck location.

“My daughter, who is now a professional musician, had a great experience there, and I wanted to spread that opportunity into the Oak Park area,” Renzulli said. “The other force that was at play was a desire to get out of the corporate world, have more freedom and build something new.”

That’s why in May 2013, Renzulli and her husband, Bob Miller, took the leap to purchase a dilapidated for mer storefront at 219 Lake St. and renovate the space, launching Oak Park’s School of Rock location.

Thirteen years later, School of Rock has blossomed into a cherished community hub, teaching over 10,000 people of all ages As owner, Renzulli’s priorities were to provide a perfor mance-based music education to develop musical proficiency and foster personal growth.

“I wanted School of Rock to be a community resource; a place that people would value and count as one of the things that makes Oak Park so special,” she said. “Also, I did not want to open a country club where only wealthy people could af ford to go. I wanted the inside of our walls to reflect the surrounding community. I wanted anyone who walked through our doors, to

see someone who looked li teachers and students to parents, I wanted our school to be a home for all.”

Due to the success of her Oak tion, Renzulli ond location in suburban Northbrook in July 2020.

But, ov over a difficult decision — selling both schools and moving on from School of Rock.

“Over the past few year being less involved in the day-to-day and felt like my staf f were able to fully maintain the business,” she said.

Though not an easy call, Renzulli says she feels comfortable leaving the schools in the hands of the trusted staf f she’s come to consider as family. Fortunately in Oak Park, School of Rock’s new owner is someone who has been invested in the location since Day 1 — Adam Instefjord.

A for mer guitar and bass guitar teacher who moved into management operations, Instefjord says working at School of Rock has been one of the most rewarding things he’s ever done.

“What I enjoyed the most was watching a shy, nervous kid develop confidence, social skills and a sense of belonging,” he said. “Seeing the journey from a quiet student in the lesson room who had never touched an instrument, to a skilled and poised musician rocking out on stage in a matter of months, is pretty special. I really believe we are a place where students can find themselves and find their people.”

So, when Instefjord was approached with the opportunity to buy the business, it was a no-brainer.

“I’ve done every job thinkable at School of Rock, from teaching lessons and directing group classes, to working the front desk and managing big-picture operations,” said Instefjord. “Amy and I have become very close friends and business partners, so as she was able to step back a bit, I was eager to step in. When Amy let me know that she was thinking of selling eventually, I think she knew it was a dream of mine

to one day purchase the business and continue the le gacy she built here. She helped make that dream a reality.”

“I’ve run the business with passion for the c ommunity and really caring about making sure the school has b een accessible to those who ca n’ t af ford it,” she said. “While Adam and I are ve ry different — I’m a creative and he’s analytical and thoughtful — we ’ve c omplimented each other, and I know that he’s going to carry on my same values.”

Instefjord ag rees.

“I am most looking forward to preserving what Amy started and continuing to grow so more p eople c an experience the magi c of School of Ro ck,” he said. “Kids lear n l ife-long skills, parents have a safe and accepting p lace to send their k ids, adult stud ents reconnect and re-eng ag e, and staf f c an see the impact of their wo rk , f eel valued and grow with us in ways that fit into their live s. ”

A ll things c onsidered, Renzulli says wh at has meant the most to her are the c ountless stories of how p eoples’ live s have b een impacted by School of Ro ck and wh at they’ve done after leaving.

“What makes me happy is bringing a whole c ommunity to g ether, providing a space that’s safe and where p eople are acce p ted, and helping staf f grow i nto leader s, ” she said.

One for mer School of Ro ck student who says her l ife was p ositive ly impacted by

School of Ro ck is Oak Park native L ola Reach. S he now teaches vo c als, guitar and b ass at the school, p assing on her knowledge to the next generation.

“Before School of Ro ck, I really strugg led to find my ‘ thing,’” she said. “Wit h help from the i mmense amount of love, p assion, c onnection and joy, I was able to go from a shy, soft-spoken k id to a rockstar who c ould sing at the top of her lung s to a crowd f ull of p eople. C oming back to the school to teach was the b est choice I c ould have ever made for myself.”

Aaron Kolb, of Rive rside, also has a fond c onnection to School of Ro ck. No t only has he taken guitar and vo ice lessons at School of Ro ck, but his w ife and their three children have all taken musi c lessons there as well.

“School of Rock introduced my three daughters to music, encouraged their self-expression and confidence, and built lasting friendships in our community,” he said. “Our family and Oak Park are better for the community Amy and the School of Rock team have provided.”

As for the future, Renzulli — who has called Oak Park home for 30 years — will be working full-time as an artist in South Haven, Michig an, working to bring teaching artists for workshops to her new art barn. With her sights set on contributing to the art communities of Southwest Michigan, she plans to move there permanently within the next few years.

Renzulli plays a show with School of Rock Oak Park’s new owner, Adam Inste ord (right).

Plan to boost Roosevelt Road approved by Oak Park Board of Trustees

Consultants share development plan, which includes collaboration with Berwyn

By BRENDAN HEFFERNAN Staff Reporter

Oak Park’s village board unanimously ap proved a new economic development plan fo Roosevelt Road this week, but it’ll take “a lot of effort” in order for it make an impact, vil lage leaders said.

The board heard from a team of consultants that spent the last year working on “the Roosevelt Road Corridor Plan,” the new economic development and streetscaping plan sponsored by Oak Park’s village gover nment and the Berwyn Development Corporation. The plan will look to boost residential de velopment, support local businesses and im prove road safety and pedestrian access along the bustling thoroughfare, which serves as defining border for suburban Oak Park, Ber wyn and Cicero.

Last March, Oak Pa rk’s village board ap proved $50,000 in funding for The Lakota Group, a project management and urban design firm that had helped develop Oak Park’s Pleasant District streetscaping project, to help develop the plan. Berwyn also pledged $50,000 for the study, according to village documents.

Safety, beautification and economic development solutions that consultants presented included adding more crosswalks on Roosevelt Road, building curb bump outs at busy intersections, adding flashing lights to new pedestrian crossings, adding trees and public art to the corridor, utilizing vacant lots for regular events or outdoor dining and supporting “Main Street style” mixed-use development along the road

“We’re trying to achieve cohesion along the corridor, making it seem like a district, a destination from west to east and east to west,” said Alexis Stien of the Lakota Group

Work on the project included field studies of the corridor and 17 focus group interviews with Berwyn and Oak Park residents. There were also two open houses for the project, ac-

cording to the consultants

The Roosevelt Road border between Oak Park and Berwyn has long been a target for hoped for development, as this plan comes 20 years after the communities jointly-adopted the “Plan for the Redevelopment of Roosevelt Road” in March 2005. That plan, which took four years to finalize, was “the first-ever comprehensive redevelopment study of this corridor,” according to Oak Park documents. Implementing this new development plan will require a heightened level of collaboration between Oak Park and Berwyn, Trustee Chibuike Enyia said.

“How do we have these larger conversations, having that conversation around what

we mutually want to see with this space,” he said. “Whether that’s with the growing of the arts, continuing with safety and building up mutually beneficial buildings and how each side of the street is developed. I want to see all of that done in the area because my neighbors are asking for it.”

“I feel like Roosevelt is one of the most trafficked parts of Oak Park but that doesn’t matter if no one stops and stays.”

Trustee Brian Straw said that inter-municipal collaboration has been a barrier that’s led to parts the 2005 plan going unimplemented. That cycle can’t be repeated if the corridor is going to be revitalized, he said.

“Actually, setting up agreements whereby

each of the municipalities involved cooperate and have a plan for maintenance is really important because otherwise it’s a temporary solution, it’s lipstick on a pig,” Straw said. “I appreciate the thoughtfulness of the plan and I do believe if we’re able to execute on this we could see Roosevelt Road come back to life, because I think right now it’s a very confusing stretch to go down. There are some blocks where you’ll say,‘this is incredible,’ and then you get a block or two down and you’re saying, ‘this is not a place where I want to be.’ I think we can get there but it’s not going to be easy, I think it’s going to take a lot of time a lot of ef fort and a lot of communication.”

VILLAGE OF OAK PARK

Study area and surrounding communities

River Forest wins All-America nomination for engagement e orts

Casual Conversations, open houses touted for connecting citizens

By ROBERT J. LIFKA Contributing Reporter

Having already been named a finalist, River Forest officials are hopeful that their communication and outreach ef forts will lead the village to a 2026 All-America City Award.

In March, River Forest was named one of 20 finalists for the award, which is given by the National Civic League River Forest is the only community in Illinois to be chosen as a finalist.

In making the announcement, Civic League officials sai the award recognizes communities “that are bringing the ideal of gover nment of, by and for the people to life.”

Village Administrator Matt Walsh said he, Luke Masella, deputy village clerk and management analyst, and fellow staff members felt the village’s Neighborhood Dialogues, Casual Conversations with the President and open houses for the proposed Madison-Ashland development project addressed the problem-solving criteria.

Masella said the events demonstrated how village officials “try to meet people where they are.”

Those efforts have not been without some controversy as critics contend they have not always been as open as promised. And the village’s development processes around the Madison-Ashland project have been criticized by some.

Ten winners will be announced at the Civic League’s annual award event and competition in June in Denver. The culmination of the three-day event will be finalists delivering 10-minute presentations to a panel of judges.

Since the award’s inception in 1949, 500 communities have been reco gnized. The Civic League, which was founded as the National Municipal League in 1894, has typically presented awards to 10 communities annually in recent years.

“The village of River Forest is extremely honored to be one of just 20 finalists for the All-America City Award, often called the Nobel Prize for constructive citizenship, recognizing communities that build strong connections among residents, businesses and local gover nment,” said Village President Cathy Adduci

Walsh said village officials and staff members decided to submit an application after learning of the award from the Civic League and studying the criteria which included civic engagement, collaboration and innovation to solve local problems.

Walsh said Masella prepared “90 percent” of the application with assistance from Jessica Spencer, assistant village administrator, and Seth Jansen, management analyst.

“It seemed appealing,” Walsh said. “It seemed like we would be a good match” for the criteria. He also noted that the village had not previously applied for the award.

Seven sessions of the Neighborhood Dialogues were held over four months in 2024. The gatherings were hosted by residents who invited a small group of friends and neighbors to discuss economic development in the village

Eight Casual Conversations have been held since they were started in May 2024. The gatherings provide an informal opportunity for community engagement that helps to shape the future of River Forest. Community members are invited to attend and receive answers to any questions they may have about village operations and initiatives.

Three open houses were held earlier this year for residents to learn more about the proposed redevelopment of the village-owned property at Madison Street and Ashland Avenue.

The senior bingo program held in August provided anoth-

er example of identifying a local problem and addressing it Walsh said staff members came up with a Bingo and BBQ event in response to a suggestion by Adduci to do something for senior citizens residents. Sixty senior citizens attended a barbeque lunch, bingo games and an ice cream social. The village also provided transportation assistance.

Walsh said officials and staff members learned of the award in late 2025 and submitted the application in February.

He called the list of finalists “interesting,” noting that finalists are nationwide and of all sizes although most are cities. He said “a lot” of communities apply often and applicants include previous winners.

Masella said he also highlighted the 100 annual Memorial Day parades, along with more recent village activities such as the Pride Parade and Juneteenth celebration. Walsh admitted he was surprised when they learned the village was a finalist. Masella added, “We were excited.” They have less than two months to prepare for the three days in Denver and start creating their presentation.

“Right now we’ll start brainstorming what we are going to do,” Masella said.

Walsh said he was told that the judges expect the presentation to be an extension of the application.

“We don’t want to be giving a boring and dry speech,” he added.

TODD BANNOR

Cub Scouts and Boy Scouts carr y a giant American Flag at the River Forest Memorial Day Parade on May 26, 2025.

Oak Park says no to funding electric shuttle service

Proposed program could come back through outside funding or collaboration

By BRENDAN HEFFERNAN Staff Reporter

Oak Park leaders aren’t interested in suppor ting a village-sponsored electric bus shuttle system in the village

Oak Park’s village board heard from village staff about the feasibility of a villagesponsored electric shuttle bus program earlier this week. Staff’s exploration of the idea was ordered through the village’s Climate Ready Oak Park Plan, the ambitious emissions-reduction strategy that Oak Park codified in 2022.

But in 2026, the board doesn’t see sponsoring the service as an efficient way of reaching Oak Park’s ambitious climate goals. The program would likely come with high upfront costs, according to the consulting fir m TYLin’s feasibility assessment.

A fixed-route service would cost between $2.2 million and $3.2 million depending on frequency of service, according to the consultant. While such a program could result

in a “medium” or “medium-high” potential greenhouse gas reduction, trustees were not impressed with the cost to emissions saving ratio.

The program’s yearly emissions savings would be equivalent to electrifying “10 to 20” homes in the village, according to a calculation by Trustee Derek Eder.

“It’s just not taking a big chunk out of those emissions,” he said. “Through that lens, it doesn’t seem like an efficient way to spend money.”

Oak Park’s Chief Sustainability Officer Lindsey Roland Nieratka agreed with Eder’s assessment.

goal there are other ways to get there.”

TYLin’s resident survey also found the Oak Parkers have “high expectations” for a potential shuttle service, which would likely be difficult for the village to meet.

“It’s just not taking a big chunk out of those emissions. Through that lens, it doesn’t seem like an e cient way to spend money.”

DEREK EDER Village trustee

“The emission savings aren’t exceptional, to see emission reductions from this we’d have to replace a lot of gas vehicle trips. ... I agree with you that if greenhouse gas emission reductions were our only

“Many participants (44%) would not be willing to walk more than two blocks to access the shuttle, which could be a barrier to ridership.,” the consultants wrote in their report. “Wait times were also identified as the top bar rier to public transit use, and the majority of participants (81%) would not be willing to wait more than 10 minutes for a shuttle.”

Oak Park did sponsor a local shuttle service during the 2000s, but the program was shuttered after a few years due in-part to low ridership, according to village documents.

Trustee Cory Wesley said that a shuttle service would fill a gap in Oak Park, particularly for Oak Park and River Forest High School students since the school district does not offer bus service.

Oak Park students would be the “prime constituent” of a shuttle program, he said.

“I wish this was cheaper, because it’s expensive but there’s a real need for this,” he said. “This is a significant problem because a lot of people move here for our schools so we end up with a lot of kids trying to get across town. We only have one high school, so you have kids coming from southeast Oak Park, southwest Oak Park trying to get to OPRF and there is no good way. It creates unsafe traffic conditions.”

Village staff could bring back a proposal for shuttle service in the future if a significant opportunity for grant funding or intergover nmental partnership presented itself, according to Village Manager Kevin Jackson.

“We’ll continue to look for funding opportunities as they arise,” he said.

A D V O C A C Y 1 0 1 How Community Action Shapes State Policy Sunday, May 3rd 6:00 - 7:30pm

Robert’s Westside 7321 Madison Street, Forest Park

Chicagoan Boulton elected 7th District GOP State Central Committeeman

By BILL DWYER Contributing Reporter

In April 2024 the conservative Illinois Review published what was supposedly former Chicago Re publican Party chair man Steve Boulton’s political obituary.

The Review opined that Re publicans “were growing weary of Boulton,” and that “the g ame is now over – ending the political career of an IL GOP leader whose tenure was marked by controversy and endless election night defeats.”

That obit, to borrow Mark Twain’s famous phrasing, was “g reatly exaggerated.”

On April 15, Boulton was elected 7th District Re publican State Central Committeeman by a weighted vote of precinct committeemen throughout the district. He re places Mark Hosty of River Forest, who

Alienated some on GOP right for Trump criticism

did not stand for re-election. No media were allowed at the Cook County GOP meeting held at restaurant in Edison Park the city’s far nor thwest side and no fur ther details ha been released so far.

Re publican State Party chair Kathy Salvi issued a statement last week cong ratulating the winners; it misspelled Boulton’s name.

Also r unning was Caroline Cronin, of Rive r Fo rest. A Caroline Cronin is listed as living at the same a ddress as cu rrent Rive r Fo rest GOP committeeman Thomas Cronin. Neither T homas Cronin nor anyone else r an for Rive r Fo rest Townshi p C ommitteeman in the March 17 primar y election.

Boulton’s LinkedIn page ys he is Of C ounsel at Anthony J Pe raica & A ssociates Ltd. and has b een a GOP activst “since 2000. ”

In January 2024, Boulton was r uled of f the primary b allot for 27th ward c ommitteeman by the Chicago Board of lections, for failing to have enough valid signatures on his nominating petitions

Following the primary, then-Cook County Re publican Chair Sean Mor rison subsequently appointed Boulton to the 27th Precinct committee chair manship. Boulton, who created a stir in 2016 with an online post comparing Donald Trump to Hitler, has battled the GOP’s far right wing for years. In April 2024 he announced

he would not run for re-election as Chicago par ty chair, telling the Illinois Review in an email statement that he was “a bit bur ned out after what seemed like fighting the whole world for years to create change, including iner tia in the (Republican) Party and maniacal enemies on the far Right.”

“I also now have enemies within the Republican Party, mostly from petty personal jealousies or those seeking personal empower ment through destruction, preferring to burn down the entire structure of the par ty so long as they can either attack me personally or rule the smoking ruins.”

Boulton has previously said he is “a member of no ‘establishment’ and no ‘insider club’ in the ILGOP.” He is, however, now one of 18 people empowered to make policy and direct the activities of the Illinois Re publican Party.

STEVE BOULTON

WEST SUB’S FUTURE

West Sub landlord sues hospital CEO, alleges diverted funds

Ramco Healthcare Holdings’ lawsuit asks court to appoint new hospital management

By JESSICA MORDACQ and BRENDAN HEFFERNAN Staff Reporters

The property owner of West Suburban Medical Center has filed a lawsuit in the Cook County cour t against Resilience Healthcare, alleging millions in unpaid rent and prolonged mismanagement of the hospital.

On April 22, Rathnaker Reddy Patlola — the landlord of West Suburban through Ramco Holdings and a minority owner of Resilience Healthcare — filed the suit for seven counts of breach of contract, seeking to recover over $24 million in unpaid rent and fees from Resilience-owned West Suburban, Weiss Memorial Hospital in Chicago’s Uptown neighborhood and other medical office buildings. The lawsuit also calls for a court-appointed receiver to take over hospital operations from Manoj Prasad, CEO of Resilience Healthcare, and alleges misappropriation of a $10 million state loan.

“West Suburban Medical Center has been a vital healthcare resource for thousands of residents, including many who rely on safety net services,” Patlola said in a statement. “We are taking this action to ensure that a qualified and responsible operator can be put in place as quickly as possible to restore care and protect the health and well-being of the community.”

According to Ramco’s suit, the same day that Resilience received a $10 million loan for Weiss Memorial Hospital on May 2, 2025, the money was moved from Weiss’ lockbox account to the hospital’s operating account, then transfer red to Westlaw Management Group — a company owned solely by Prasad. Ramco claims the state money was not used for hospital operations, which led to Weiss closing that August after its Medicare ag reement was terminated by federal of ficials Ramco alleges that West Suburban’s closure is the product of financial and opera-

tional mismanagement by Prasad and that he lacks a viable plan to reopen the hospital.

“While Dr. Prasad claims that he has a plan in place for reopening West Suburban Medical Center, his track record paints a bleaker picture,” Ramco said in Wednesday’s filing. “Weiss Memorial Hospital was also a safety-net hospital which closed due to Dr. Prasad’s mismanagement and believed misappropriation of millions of dollars of funds provided as a loan by the state

of Illinois to Weiss.”

Ramco’s suit argues that Prasad’s alle ged misappropriation of state funds led to major facilities issues at the hospitals, including failing HVAC systems and X-ray machines creating unsafe conditions for patients

This week’s filing is just the latest piece of fallout to hit the local court system since West Suburban abruptly closed last month. Last week, Prasad and Resilience filed a lawsuit against Ramco c hallenging the eviction notices placed on West Sub’s River Forest

campus and at Weiss on April 9.

In that filing, Prasad argues he had a deal with Ramco that set rent for the hospital properties at just $1 per year until the hospitals turned a profit. The filing accuses Ramco and Patlola of sabotaging the hospitals

“This matter arises from the latest escalation in a series of improper acts perpetrated by Ramco and its owner, Rathnakar Reddy Patlola, to sabotage the operations of Weiss Memorial and West Suburban and

TODD BANNOR

Resilience Healthcare CEO Manoj Prasad speaks at press conference at West Suburban Medical Center on April 1.

WEST SUB

State and feds

weigh in from page 1

blamed structural issues at the hospital for contributing to the recent death of a patient, according to the documents

Both gove r nment probes we re c ompleted in Fe bruar y, j ust weeks before the hospital shut down on March 27 with hospital leadership citing a year- long c ollapse in West Sub’s online E lectronic Medical Re cord billing system.

T he HFS f unded audit, wh ich was c ompleted by c onsultant group Health Management A ssociates, c onfir med Resilience Healthcare CEO Manoj Prasad ’s previous claims that the billing system breakdown led to a 90% reduction in hospital reve nue be ginning in March 2025. T he audit estimated $500 million in uncaptured charges as result of the failure in the EMR system.

At the time of the audit, the agency sai d West Sub was operating with only three days’ wo r th of cash on hand

T he 16-page audit had scathing c omments for hospital leadershi p. One section of the audit document reviewed by We d nesd ay Jour nal was titled “Strat eg y (lack of.) ”

“West Suburban lacks a data-drive n strat eg y to stabilize operations or rebuild service lines,” the auditors wrote “Planned expansions such as obstetric s

substitute in new management for financial gain,” attor neys wrote in Prasad’s le gal complaint. “The relationship between Dr. Prasa d and Patlola deteriorated over time after Dr Prasad requested, on Resilienc e Healthcare’s b ehalf, that Ramco c omply with i ts obligations to perfor m re pairs and fix serious i ssues at b oth hospitals, including the hospitals heating and c ooling systems and elevators. Patlola, on behalf of Ramc o, re peatedly refused, claiming that he would not pay for re pairs unti l he rece ived more reve nue from the hospitals—even though the lease ag reement he signed on Ramco’s b ehalf expressly provides that a dditional rent would not be c oming until the hospitals we re profitable.”

Ramco’s filing this week argued that the documents that Prasad included to

WEST SUB’S FUTURE

restar t and b ehavioral health expansion lack financial modeling, staf fing p lans, or validated assumptions. L eadership expects E MR transition to solve structural i ssues d espite lacking foundational financial infrastructur e. T here are proposed new but unvetted initiative s. Unclear if and how c an be successful. Actions are d eter mined day to day. ”

Prasad d enied the claims of financia l malfeasance in a statement provided to We d nesd ay Jour nal on T uesd ay. West Suburba n’s Oak Pa rk c ampus reopened some clinic-level patient services shor tly after the eviction notice was posted at the Rive r Fo rest campus

“While Mr Patlola files lawsuits, West Suburban Medical C enter is treating patients,” Prasad said. “The claim re ga rding the $10 million is f alse. T hose f unds we re sent to an a ccount coowned by Mr Patlola and we re used for hospital payroll and operating expenses Mr. Patlola knows thi s. ”

“The hospital has resumed outpatient services, staf f are retur ning from fu rlough, and the focus is to achieve f ull operations by Ju ly.”

A lawsuit filed by Patlola included the record of a CMS “immediate j eopardy ” i nspection at the hospital. T he 22-page CMS inquiry included federal investi gators findings that p oor org anization and equipment failures c ontributed to the death of a patient who c ontracted se psis wh i le at West Su b.

T he inquiry d etails the c ase of a patient with end stage renal disease who was ad -

suppo rt that claim we re fraudulent.

“The document that defendants rely upon c ontains seve r al ir re g ularitie s, ” Ramco argued. “It appears defendants are using this dubious document in a blatant attempt to shi rk defendants’ obligations under their respective leases.”

We d nesd ay ’s lawsuit asked for a q ualified rece iver to be appointed to take over operations and manage the closed hospitals. Ramco argued that Resilience had c onsented to the appointment of a new rece iver in the event of a default on rent. Ramco’s chosen rece iver will li ke ly be I nsight Chicago, a Michig an-based non-profit health system that manage s the for mer Mercy Hospital in Chicago’s Bronzeville neighborhood. Patlola wrote to State Re p. La Shawn Fo rd last week following Prasad ’s suit saying that Prasad ’s

mitted to the hospital because they had not b een able to rece ive dialysis for over a week. T he hospital did not have a f unctioning po rt able chest x-ray machine to help treat the patient wh i le they we re in the IC U, according to CMS investi gator s.

T he re po rt d etailed seve r al other c ases where po rt able x-rays we re not available to unstable patients in Fe bruar y.

“The standard is not met,” investi gators wrote. “Based on observation, document review and i nterview for three of three unstable patients’ clinical records reviewed of patients requiring po rt able chest x-ray, the hospital failed to prov id e the appropriate chest x-ray modality to ensure proper provision of care.”

T he “immediate j eopardy ” inquiry also noted lapses in the hospital’s over nigh t staf fing and c ommunications that f ell well b elow federal standards. Investi gators i nterviewe d a doctor at West Sub wh o spoke to the c ommunication i ssues at the hospital.

“There has b een a gr adual d eterioration in b asic services in the hospital, ” the doctor told investi gator s. “There is a g eneralized problem with c ommunication in the hospital, physician schedules are not distributed, leadership cove rage is not c ommunicated when leaders are on vacation so it becomes an i ssue when problems a rise and no one is available to c all or to respond.”

T he weeks since the hospital’s closure have been color ed by a le g al battle among the hospital’s ownership group. Ea rl ier this month, Rathnaker Re ddy

claims we re fraudulent and that a d eal for I nsight to take over West Sub was i mminent, We d nesd ay Jour nal has lear ned .

“He sued us tod ay, presenting a fraudulent document that claims I signed a lease with him for $1 rent per year,” he wrote to Fo rd. “Despite thi s, we are moving forward with filing for emergency rece ivership this T hursd ay. To succeed , we urgently need letters of suppo rt from c ommunity leaders emphasizing the hospital’s necessity, as well as letters from furloughed employees expressing thei r d esire to retur n to wo rk It will be great if we can g et letters from elected re presentatives for the b enefit of their c onstituents (i.e patients) that will be g olden. This is an uphill battle, but I am givin g this my last shot to save the hospital and bring our staf f back. Insight Hospital is

Patlola — the landlord of West Suburba n through Ramco Holdings and a minorit y owner of Resilience Healthcare — p osted eviction notices a ddressed to Prasad and Resilience at West Sub’s Rive r Fo rest c amp us alle ging millions in unpaid rent. Days later, Prasad challenged the eviction bid in c ounty c our t saying that he and Patlola had a d eal where rent would be only $1 a year until the hospital became profitable.

Patlola filed the suit for seven c ounts of breach of c ontract, seeking to recove r over $24 million in unpaid rent and f ees from Resilience-owned West Suburban, We i ss Memorial Hospital in Chicago’s Uptown neighborhood and other medical of fice buildings

Ramco’s lawsuit c alls for a c our t-appointed rece iver to take over hospital operations from Prasad and alle g es that he misappropriated a $10 million state loan. According to Ramco’s suit, the same day that Resilience rece ived a $10 million loan for We i ss Memorial Hospital on May 2, 2025, the money was move d from We i ss’ lockbox a ccount to the hospital’s operating a ccount, then transfer red to Westlaw Management Group — a c ompany owned solely by Prasad. Ramco claims the state money was not used for hospital operations, wh ich led to We i ss closing that Au g ust after i ts Medicare ag reement was ter minated

Ramco’s prefer red rece iver will li ke ly be I nsight Chicago, a Michig an-based non-profit health system that manage s the for mer Mercy Hospital in Chicago’s Bronzeville neighborhood .

ready to take over and reopen the facility ASAP, but we need significant c ommunity suppo rt to convince the judg e. ” Hospital leadership announced the closure of West Sub last month, citing a prolonged failure in the hospital’s billing system that resulted in as much as 90% of it s wo rk going unbilled. Resilience has sinc e hired do z ens of p eople to try and c ollect pay ment for the 120,000 outstandin g claims related to West Sub services, the c ompany announced earlier this week.

In the months leading up to the closure, We d nesd ay Jour nal re por ted on a variety of financial i ssues at West Sub and at Resilience Healthcare, including unpaid vendor s, the loss of the hospital’s once-reve red doctor residency progr am and the millions owed in state and local taxes.

Brutality of Chicago mob captured in River Forester’s new book

John Binder avoids glamorizing a mob with strong Oak Park and River Forest connections

By BILL DWYER Contributing Reporter

Outside of a few FBI agents and federal prosecutors, few people know more about Chicago organized crime and its cast of characters than River Forest’s John Binder.

Binder’s latest book, The Chica go Outfit During the 1960s, offers a photo graphic and narrative look at the Chicago mob during its most powerful period.

What captured the public’s fascination was the dark allure of people who did whatever they pleased, whenever they pleased, to whomever they decided deserved it.

Binder shows how the glory is inseparable from the gory, with graphic photos and long narrative captions that capture the ugliness of the Chicago outfit beneath the public fascination.

The book offers both an array of photos from Binder’s personal collection, many never seen before by the general public. And an organization chart from a 1962 FBI internal memo which shows clearly the outfit’s org anizational hierarchy.

“It makes for a nice mix of images,” said Binder, who said the book includes arrest photos, surveillance photos and candid shots from personal collections. But if photos were all Binder brought to his latest project, it would be just another picture book.

It’s Binder’s deep and extensive knowledge of mob history that make the book a must read. “I wanted to get into the facts of what org anized crime is,” he said. “So much is lost by glamorizing it. Reality is much more interesting than glamorizing.”

The book’s time frame starts just over two years after the infamous mob confab in Apalachin, New York in November 1957,

when an alert local cop noticed the parade of g angsters headed toward Joseph “Joe the Barber” Barbara’s house.

It ultimately proved to be a disaster for the Mafia. The news coverage shook J. Edgar Hoover, the FBI chief, out of his stubborn denial of the existence of org anized crime, and led to a series of Congressional hearings, many televised to a rapt national audience.

The klieg light of publicity proved to be the beginning of the long, slow decline of organized crime’s chokehold on the American economy.

Still, the 1960s were the zenith of organized crime’s operations in Chicago. “This organization was at its absolute height at the start of the sixties,” Binder said.

Mr. and Mrs. Tony Accardo are show n here at a New Year’s Eve Party ringing in the year 1960. It was held in Willie “Smokes” Alosio’s basement. By virtually all accounts, Accardo was a devoted husband. And Clarice Accardo was one of only two people who could tell him wh at to do. e other one was Paul Ricca.

“The federal government hadn’t quite gotten going yet,” Binder said. “It took (them) a while to figure out who they were

In 1981 Tony Accardo was placed under arrest by FBI agent Ray Shryock (at the le ), who ran both organized crime squads in the FBI’s Chicago o ce. is was part of a labor racketeering case in Miami. Although all the other defendan ts were convicted, Accardo was found innocent. He died of natural causes in 1992.

Binder said most people will not have seen most of the book’s photos before, saying, “a lot of them are ones I hadn’t seen

Binder said he wanted the book to be both entertaining and informative, without glamorizing the criminals while prors to the questions of “Who re they? Who were their leadership?”

Readers meet both the important players who directed the Chicago Outfit and the run of the mill mobsters who did their public fascination and cinematic glamorization, members of Chicrime were just that, crimigreed and ke pt in line

citizens happily partook fered. If there was an appetite for something not allowed under the law, the mob fed it. If there was a weakness, the mob exploited it. And if any of their interests were threatened, the mob defended them with violence.

As with liquor in the 1920s, the outfit provided access to gambling, prostitution, porno graphy and narcotics, considered by many to be victimless crimes

“A lot of it has been consensual over the years,” Binder said. But, he added, the mob

also cor rupted labor unions, extorted legitimate businesses, hijacked trucks, committed burglaries and ran usurious loan sharking rackets.

“For years, society accepted the trade of f,” said Binder. “Society looked the other way, including the authorities.”

For some 60 years, the Chicago mob was impressively stable under Paul “The Waiter” Ricca and Anthony “Big Tuna” Accardo, who operated “sub rosa,” out of the spotlight, exercising the final say on policy and strate gy, while letting others be the public face of the mob.

Two high profile mobsters who refused to conduct their af fairs more discretely and made frequent headlines, Sam “Momo” Giancana and Anthony “The Ant” Spilotro, both suf fered violent deaths.

Binder noted that Hoover wasn’t the only person who wasn’t interested in org anized crime back in the 60s. Mario Puzo’s epic book, The Godfather was met with utter indifference by publishers before finally getting into print in 1969.

“That book was rejected 58 times by publishers,” said Binder, who characterized the prevailing attitude as, “Who wants to read a book about f’ed up mobsters and their f ’ed up families?”

The answer, it turned out, was “Lots and lots of people.” An unfortunate byproduct

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PROVIDED

of the subsequent massive success of The Godfather and other movies, however good they were, was the glamorization of organized crime in some people’s minds.

Binder said his ultimate goal with his book was to show “exactly who these guys were.” And no photo conveys the sense of wanton brutality rampant in org anized crime more than a photo on page 91.

The photo shows two small-time hoods, Ronnie and Phillip Scavo, lying shot to death in a car crashed against an Elmwood Park bungalow.

But what immediately captures the viewer’s eye is 30-year-old Lydia Abshire, her face covered in her own blood, her open eyes staring lifelessly.

Peter Rice, Elmwood Park’s police chief at that time, said Abshire, who was Ronnie Scavo’s girlfriend, “was shot from no more than 6 inches away.” She had simply been in the wrong place at the wrong time.

It was Omer ta, the Mafia’s code of silence, practiced by ordinary people, who tor pedoed the police investigation. “We’ve had vir tually no cooperation from relatives and friends of the victims,” Rice testified at a May 1962 coroner’s inquest.

But mob leaders knew who did it and

were incensed at such unsanctioned violence committed in their own back yard. They sent two of their most vicious enforcers — sociopathic killer Sam “Mad Sam” DeStefano and his prote ge, street thug and up-and-coming mob enforcer Tony Spilotro — to hunt down the killers.

What ensued became known as the M&M murders of burglars Billy McCarthy and James “Rocco” Miraglia. McCarthy’s medieval interrogation is memorialized in the 1995 Martin Scorcese movie Casino, starring Robert DeNiro, Joe Pesci and Sharon Stone.

The ugly and decidedly unglamorous reality is captured in the pages of The Chicago Outfit During the 1960s for all who care to see it for what it was.

From the Roaring ’20s into the ’90s, numerous Chicago Outfit leaders and their top lieutenants lived in Oak Park and River Forest and in adjacent towns like Elmwood Park.

John Binder’s tour of the former homes of some dozen Chicago gangsters, “There Goes the Neighbor Hood,” has fi ve 2026 tour dates: June 21, July 26, Sept. 20, Sept. 27, and Oct. 11, at 11 a.m. and 2 p.m. Tickets are $40 per person, $36 for seniors and acti ve military.

PROVIDED

Touhy’s bodyguard and friend, former Chicago police o cer Walter Miller, was also hit, but he surv ived.While he was in the hospital, the hoods beat his wife to pressure him not to testif y about what he saw that night.

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D97’s eighth-grade class trip becomes point of contention

St. Louis vs. D.C., equity and other points of order

By BOB SKOLNIK Contributing Reporter

If you want to get people worked up, the issue of eighth-grade class trips will do it

The subject of where to go on the eighthgrade class trip has become a hot one thi spring in Oak Park The official District 97 sponsored trip was to Nashville. But ther is some upset because Holly Spurlock, an Oak Park District 97 school helped organize an unofficial D.C. in March that took 49 District 97 eighth-graders and eight Ascension School eighth-graders to Washing ton, D.C. for a four day trip that tured visits to Congress, the United State Holocaust Museum, the Na tional Museum of African-American History and Culture, memorials and other important sites.

all eight graders and their families knew about it.

The trip largely mirrored an official District 97 trip in 2023 and unof ficial ones that were taken by District 97 eighth-graders ov years.

Spurlock, who said she suppo an official District 97 eighthclass trip to D.C., said she hear an Ascension School parent was organizing a trip for 8th graders to D.C. and she got involved in it as parent because she is the mother of an 8th grader at Gwendolyn Brooks Middle School. She wanted her son to have the same experience that her daughter had a few years ago.

“I think we’re in a crisis of democracy right now and it’s important to me that we send our kids out in the world with the D.C. experience,” Spurlock said.

Spurlock said her role on the trip was as parent, not a school board member However, in a public comment at the March 24 District 97 school board meeting parent Courtney DePinto harshly criticized Spurlock for helping organize an unofficial trip to D.C. for eighth-graders. DePinto said the private trip was exclusionary and that not

“She did not include everyone, not even everyone who could afford to pay,” DePinto said during her public comment at the meetwas othered and not part of everyone,” DePinto said.

Spurlock said she did her best to publicize the trip and no one was excluded

“It was word of mouth but it definitely was not exclusive,” Spurlock said. “I put it on the Brooks (Facebook) page and I had someone put it on the Julian page, if anyone wants to go to D.C. instead of Nashville contact Holly Spurlock. We had a Power Point, we had a parent meeting.”

Danny Davis with eighth-graders in Washington D.C.

No resolution on Avenue’s vaulted sidewalks as road project closes in

Scaman says sidewalks are a ‘safety issue’, threatens cour t action

By DAN HALEY Interim Editor

With sewer and water infrastructure work already underway on the 100 Nor th Block of Oak Park Avenue, ne gotiations continue between Oak Park’s village gover nment and a private property owner over the f uture c ontrol of some 200 f eet of vaulted s idewalk wh ich fronts the Scoville Block #1 Building at Oak Pa rk and La ke Street.

T he vaulted s idewalk dates back to the c ommercial building’s c onstruction more than a c entury ag o. Ownership of the space under the s idewalk has neve r b een f ully resolved. But now with the $18

million infrastructure and streetscaping wo rk already underway, the village wants to ne g otiate an ag reement wh ich will allow it to c ontrol the space and remake it in a more conventional way.

T he overall project wh ich be g an in early March has a hard c ompletion d eadline of T hanksgiving. Vi llage of ficials have promised retail and restaurant businesses on the 100 S outh and 100 Nor th blocks of Oak Pa rk Avenue that wo rk will be c omplete before the c ritical holiday shopping period.

Vi llage President Vi cki Scaman sai d April 23 that the village is d eter mined to stay on schedule S he said infilling the open space is a “maintenance and safety i ssue” wh ich must be resolved during the road c onstruction project. “It absolutely has to get done,” she said.

Scaman said the village attor ney is c onfident the village would prevail if it took i ts c ase to c our t. “A ny c our t would

reco gniz e, ” the necessity of the wo rk being done, she said.

James Bushouse, the owner of the proper ty, has a strong interest in historic preservation and has argued that the vaulted space which abuts of fice space in the basement of his building is both historically notable and that by vir tue of building permits issued to him by the village since the 1990s now contains multiple mechanical systems which are critical to his building.

In a recent interview with the Jour nal, Bushouse said the two sides are now ne gotiating.

“The village wants me to pay for changes to the vault. They want me to remove mechanics from the vault that the village approved. That is very costly. Why as a private property owner should I be responsible for a public works project?”

Bushouse acknowledged a power imbalance in the ne gotiations “The private sector rarely wins out over gover nment. They have way more money than I have.”

He said the village has a timeline but that he doesn’t. Bushouse said any settle-

ment is likely months away.

Scaman said she is paying close attention to this matter “I’ve made it very clear we need to stay on schedule Village engineers are very clear on what needs to be done and how to keep on schedule,” she said.

As it has over the p ast two months, village of ficials declined to have either Bill McKenna, the village engineer, or Greg Smith, the village attor ney, answe r q uestions from We d nesd ay Jour nal.

A spokesman for the village gove rnment, Dan Yo pchick, i ssued this statement: “A t this time the village is c ontinuing to wo rk with proper ty owners to reach a resolution re ga rding the vaulted s idewalks. As those discussions are currently ongoing, neither the village attor ney nor village engineer are available to discuss that at this time.”

Yo pchick answe red a follow-up q uestion emailed to the village about p otential c onstruction d elays ow ing to the c ontinued ne g otiations with this note: “There are no anticipated d elays or changes associated with the ongoing discussion at this time.”

TODD BANNOR

Scov ille Building ow ner James Bushouse in the vault under the Oak Park Avenue sidewalk on Feb. 12.

JAVIER GOVEA

Road closed on Oak Park Avenue dur ing construction on March 27.

CLASS TRIP

from page 14

The trip cost $1,900 per student. Spurlock said a couple of families got modest, perh aps $500, in financial support from the Close Up Foundation which ran the trip

At the March 24 board meeting Jung Kim, a school board member, vented about the attack on Spurlock and the tone of the discussion about the class trip and the school board in general on Facebook.

“I am so fed up about the way this board is talked about in the community,” Kim said. “I’m just going to put it out there. We are treated and spoken about as if we are idiots, as if we hate children, as if we hate students, as if we hate teachers, that we make these decisions in a vacuum.”

“I feel like it’s getting worse and people talk about us like we are not human beings,” Kim said. “We just had public comment talking about us being immoral or evil or whatever and I am done with that.”

The official eighth-grade class trip in District 97 this year was a three-day bus trip to Nashville in March. The trip was optional and 212 eighth-graders, or 35 percent of the eighth-grade class, went on the trip.

The cost of the Nashville trip was $1,059 and the district waived the fee for students who qualify for free and reduced price lunch. Last fall eighth-graders voted to go to Nashville over a trip to Springfield and St. Louis that the previous class took. Three hundred-plus eighth-graders, 53 percent of that year’s eighth-graders, went on the 2025 trip to Springfield and St. Louis.

For the last two years District 97 has chosen to focus on a bus accessible eighth-grade class trip in order to increase affordability and promote equity. The district covered the cost for 56 of the students on this year’s Nashville trip in March.

“By prioritizing equitable access, the district has increased participation among the priority groups named in our equity policy specifically Black and Brown students, those eligible for free and reduced price lunch, and students with disabilities,” said Amanda Siegfried, the district spokesperson, in an email. “These rates now match or exceed their representation across the entire eighthgrade class.

A group of parents are asking District 97 to again sponsor an eighth-grade class trip to Washington, D.C.

“We want to create equity so, I think really, the only option for everyone is to have the trip go to D.C. because if you do have the

trip go to D.C. you get a great number of kids who go there, this will lower costs,” said Bob Pickrell in his public comment at the March 24 board meeting.

Lisa Peloquin, the mother of a seventh grader, spoke at the April 14 school board meeting advocating for next year’s eighthgrade class trip to go to Washington, D.C. She said the district should make sure that all eighth-graders can go to D.C.

“All of our students should stand in the footsteps where a million men marched, see their rights outlined in the Bill of Rights, and witness the devastating human cost of a war a gover nment lied to its people about,” Peloquin said. “Given the antidemocratic tendencies of our current administration, equity demands that every student knows how to make sure their voice is heard. The truth is that all of our children deserve to be inspired by a trip to our nation’s capital. If the district decided not to go to D.C. then only some of our students will have that experience. This path might be easier, but let’s not kid ourselves and call it equity.”

Peloquin coined a new word, schmequity, to describe something that looks like equity from a distance but under close examination is not equitable. That’s how she described the trips to Springfield/St. Louis and Nashville.

Peloquin and some other parents have already begun fundraising to help pay for the costs of a D.C. trip for families that can’t afford to pay the full price. Brooks and Julian Middle School students will go on a fundraising walk between their two schools after school on Friday, May 8 to raise money.

“Reject shmequity arguments and push the district leadership to commit to ensure all of our children have access to the gover nment,” Peloquin told the school board. “This should be a community wide effort, and the district should be leading it. And, finally, I urge you to increase the funding the district allocates for this trip. It’s the equitable thing to do.”

In the board discussion at the March 24 meeting board member Venus Hurd Johnson said that she supports the concept of the district trip to D.C.

“I do like the idea of a D.C. trip,” Hurd Johnson said. “Both of my children did make an extraordinary expensive D.C. trip when they were in D97 and for me I remember doing it when I was in eighth-grade,” Hurd Johnson said.

The District 97 administration will give a report at the May 12 school board about eighth-grade trips The district is already gathering input from parents and students as it prepares to present possible destinations to eighth-graders next fall for a vote.

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CRIME

Oak Park police investigate attempted kidnapping

By BRENDAN HEFFERNAN Staff Reporter

Oak Park police are investigating re por ts of an attempted kidnapping in the village over the weekend.

A man driving a silver colored Toyota Sienna with no re gistration approached an Oak Park woman in the 1000 block of Chicago Avenue at 10:50 a.m. Saturday, April 25. The suspect attempted to pick up the woman’s child and then attempted to grab the woman and pull her towards his vehicle, according to police

The victim then be g an to strike the offender who then fled nor thbound in his vehicle, according to police.

Weapons and drug arrest

Oak Park police stopped a 45-year-old

POLICE CHIEF

No-con dence union vote

from page 1

Johnson, who was been with the de partment since 2000, ste pped into the role of chief in 2022, becoming the first woman to hold the position in Oak Park

“The village of Oak Park selected Chief Shatonya Johnson following a comprehensive national search because she was, and remains, the best person for this role,” Oak Park Village Manager Kevin Jackson said in the village’s statement. “She has been

Texas man in reference to a dece ptive practice investigation in the 1100 block of Lake Street shortly after 7 a.m. April 20. Police ultimately ar rested the man on charges of unlawful possession of a weapon by a felon, fraudulent identification card, possession of methamphetamine, two additional counts of possession of a controlled substance, possession of drug parapher nalia, and obstructing identification, according to police

DUI arrests

A 55-year-old Chicago man was involved in an accident in the 300 block of Madison April 23 and was found to be driving under the influence of drugs. The person was arrested and charged with driving under the influence and possession of a controlled substance, according to police

a significant part of OPPD since 2000 and is the first woman to serve as police chief in this village ’s history. Chief Johnson has honored that distinction every day. We are proud to have her leading the Oak Park Police De par tment, and that support is unwavering.”

In an interview last week with Wednesday Jour nal, Oak Park Village President Vicki Scaman acknowledged having received the results of a no confidence vote along with a patrol of ficer membership survey.

“It’s not for the village board to be discussing personnel beyond the leadership of our village manager,” she said. “But to speak for myself, service, community safe-

Oak Pa rk p olice stopped a 45-year- old Savoy man for a traf fic of f ense in the 1100 block of Madison Street shor tly before m idnight on April 23. Police ar rested the man for ag gr avated driving under the influence of alcohol, and driving on a revo ke d drive r’s license, a ccording to p olice

These items were obtained from Oak Park’s Police De partment re ports dated April 22–28 and re present a portion of the incidents to which police responded. Anyone named in these re ports has only been charged with a crime and cases have not yet been adjudicated. We re port the race of a suspect only when a serious crime has been committed, the suspect is still at large, and police have provided us with a detailed a description of the suspect as they seek the public’s help in making an arrest

ty, those basic services that you de pend on from gover nment, always remains of top concer n and attention. That’s our job fundamentally as a municipal go ver nment, to make sure that we’re serving our community and kee ping all residents equally safe and respected. So that in and of i tself, j ust means we suppo rt our staf f in having a healthy wo rk ing environment.”

We d nesd ay Jour nal is waiting on c omment from the union at this time

T he village ’s statement emphasized some of the challenges that the de pa rtment has faced since Johnson took over leadership of the de par tment including the fatal shooting of Oak Pa rk Detective

A llan Re ddin s, a chronic of ficer shor tage

in the de par tment, 2023’s “mi gr ant c risis ” and the de par tment’s c ontinued o ccupation of the “inadequate” police headquarters in the b asement of Vi llage Hall. Th e village ’s statement also pointed to Johnson’s role in recent depar tmental reform s for “accountability and transparency. ”

“Votes of no c onfidence c an be a le gitimate expression of wo rk p lace frustration,” the statement said. “The village hears that frustration. But frustratio n with some circumstances that predate Chie f Johnson’s tenure, and that she has wo rked harder than anyone to chang e, should not be directed at her leadership.”

This is a de v eloping story.

Mars Wrigley backs McCa ery Interests’ Galewood redevelopment proposal

Plans face backlash at latest community meeting

By IGOR STUDENKOV

Contributing Reporter

It was more of the same for a controversial proposal for the redevelopment of the Mars Wrigley’s Galewood property.

Almost five months after three community meetings in December on the proposed redevelopment of the plant site drew backlash, Ald. Chris Taliafer ro (29th) and Galewood Neighbors community organization changed the format – and got a similar response at the latest meeting: some support but a lot of criticism.

The next step remains unclear, as parties work to get a plan that is acceptable to the community and economically viable for the for mer plant at 2019 N. Oak Park Ave. Taliaferro for one said he still hoped for a positive outcome “I’m glad that we were able to come together as a community to discuss this project,” he said. “As we continue to have community meetings, we’ll see some changes to the development [plan], and I’m still hopeful that, at some point, the developer will present a development that both the community and the developer can benefit from.”

The earlier meetings had McCaffery Interests, the developer Mars chose to redevelop the site, present their plans to the community. The latest meeting, which was held on Apr. 21 at Trinity Galewood Church, 1701 N. Narragansett Ave., also included Mars and Chicago Department of Planning and Development officials The city will need to sign off on zoning changes that would inevitably be required if the property is used for anything other than industry.

Move than 100 people attended the meeting which was standing room only. Some attendees who spoke were willing to entertain the concept, even if they had concer ns about details But others who spoke pushed back against the entire McCaffery proposal in favor of either single-family homes and/or two flats, or urged some commercial or industrial use.

In 2022, Mars announced that it would close the plant, which has been at 2019 N. Oak Park Ave. since 1929, by the end of 2024. It con-

tracted Local Initiatives Support Corporation

Chicago to come up with a community-driven plan for the property’s future. That led to several in-person and virtual community meetings that resulted in a plan that called for residential housing, a community center and a business park

McCaffery used that plan, along with DPD’s broader Ar mitage Corridor Framework approved last year, as the foundation for its proposal. That concept includes a mixed-use building at the northwest cor ner of the property, with a coffee shop and/or some other retail use on the first floor, four stories with 100 apartments above it.

T he historic Mars factory building would be rehabbed for some kind of community use T he proper ty would also include 150-unit senior housing development to the southeast, a park available for public use in the middl e, a trail that links to the existing Rutherford-S ayer Pa rk trail south of the railroad tracks, and townhomes along the south side of the proper ty.

Over the past 10 years, Galewood saw several major development proposals that included some combination of multistory residences and retail. T hey usually attracted opposition from residents who pushed for single-family homes or condominiums, arguing that apar tments would increase crime. T hose developments went forward with only some modifications.

After the initial December meetings, Taliafer ro scheduled a January follow-up meeting, only to cancel it a day before due to concer n that the format wasn’t conducive to a discussion. For the April 21 meeting, the org anizers brought on Rosa Y. Or tiz, head of the 3e.Studio [sic] planning fir m and a member of the Chicago Transit Board, to serve as a moderator. Throughout the meeting, she tried to reduce tensions and encouraged speakers to be respectful.

During the April 21 meeting, Mars Wrigley vice president John Benazzi, who headed Mars’ corporate real estate operations while the factory was wound down, said that his fir m contracted Goodman Williams Group real estate market analysis fir m to see what

kind of development would be feasible.

Benazzi said that it found that “the site is not suited for industrial use” such as a distribution center, and it’s too far away from major commercial corridors to be profitable as a retail use. That is why, he said, Mars sees residential use with some small-scale retail that takes advantage of the Metra station that historically served the plant.

Benazzi emphasized that, while it is impor tant for Mars to have something the community wants, there are two other factors that have an equally impor tant weight – it should be economically viable, and it should be inte grated into the sur rounding neighborhood and have something the community could use.

To avoid the repeat of residents shouting over each other, Ortiz asked residents to submit questions on notecards But as the meeting went on and more people demanded to speak, she tried to work with that, while continuing to encourage everyone to be civil.

Leonard Glover, who said he lived in Galewood for 40 years, pointed to the fact that, between Metra trains and freight trains, the Oak Park Avenue crossing gets blocked for extended periods of time.

“If you put 479 units in there, the community will become a parking lot,” he said.

Glover was among several residents who said that rental units would bring in crime,

“You’ ll change the whole [character] of our community,” he said. “We want the community the way it is.”

Donna Guido, who said she lived in Galewood for 62 years, said she took part in the LISC workshops. The disconnect, she said, is that many of her neighbors didn’t, and the only way to bridge the gap is to come up with a compromise between the concept developed through LISC process and what the other residents are pushing for.

In a follow-up interview, she added that she

would personally prefer to see single-family homes and two-flats, and some kind of a community use for the historic factory building.

As the meeting went on, the crowd got increasingly vocal, leading Ortiz to end the Q&A. The original plan was for DPD, McCaffery Interests, Galewood Neighbors and Mars representatives to sit at the tables set up in another room and answer questions, but many residents left shortly thereafter.

Jeronna Hansberry told Austin Weekly News that she lived in Galewood since 1996, but her personal website states that she currently lives in Elmwood Park.

“What I think is that I do not want any low income-housing, we don’t want any rental housing,” she said. “We want the community to remain what is – quiet, and problem-free.” When asked how she would feel if the apartments were high-end, Hansberry said that she believes the owners would tur n it into low-income apartments if they don’t attract well-off tenants.

Galewood Neighbors president Steve Green told Austin Weekly News that, in retrospect, having a Mars representative there was something they should have done in the first place. And while he described the meeting as a positive step, he was worried that, if the process stalls, Mars would simply put the property up for sale, which he worried would leave it unused for years.

Benazzi acknowledged the pushback, but said Mars has gotten support for the concept as well.

“If the community decided that this is not what they want on this site, we’re going to change direction,” he added. “We’ve certainly tried to do right by this property, and I think we have,”

Benazzi said it was too early to talk about next steps, but he added that “we got to get the community aligned with this project, or it’s not going to happen.”

IGOR STUDENKOV

Galewood residents respond with a show of hands dur ing the April 21 community meeting.

Oak Park home sells for $1,010,000

The following property transfers were re ported by the Cook County Clerk from January 2026. Where addresses appear incomplete, for instance where a unit number appears missing, that information was not provided by the clerk.

K P ARK

Homes

How high can you bid?

Recent real estate sales prove high demand in spring market

By LACEY SIKORA Real Estate Reporter

In the real estate world, when inventory is low and demand is high, as it has been locally for the past few years, it means one thing: it’s a seller’s market. A seller’s market is in place when housing demand is greater than supply. Characterized by low inventory, fast sales and rising prices, a seller’s market can result in bidding wars and homes selling above asking price.

While the local spring real estate market is just getting into full swing, so far, it’s been a busy season and indications for the first par t of the year are that we are in an environment where sellers have the upper hand in ne gotiations

Rising interest rates and market uncertainty could still put a damper on things

-- in other par ts of the have the upper hand, but a look at three recently show just how far buye to secure the house they want.

This quar ter’s winner tween listing and closing Forest. The home at 1317 was listed at $880,000 million on March 26, square foot. The four-bedroom, one-half bathroom house 3,200 square feet and The stone house has an garage and slate roof tiled entry floors, a contemporary-styled kitchen and a family room built-ins. Outside, the ture plantings

According to Realtor Laura Maychruk’s spring newsletter, the bu yers of this house were not alone in of fering more than the asking price. In the first quar ter of 2026, of the 16 homes that sold in River Forest, 9 sold at or ab ove asking price.

and nor thwest Indiana.

Maychruk shares the statistics that she

In Oak Park, 452 Lenox wins for biggest price increase for the first quar ter of 2026. Listed at $590,000, the home sold for $710,000 on March 12, selling for $198 per square foot. At roughly 3,500 square feet, the house has four bedrooms

and three bathrooms. The blonde brick bungalow was built in 1924 and has ar t glass windows spanning the front living room. A basement family room makes the home live large

In the first quar ter of 2026, Oak Park saw sales of 49 single family homes, and 29 of those sold at or ab ove asking price.

In Forest Park, 914 Hannah sold for the biggest increase over asking price. Listed for $349,000, it sold for $375,000 on March 25, selling for roughly $258 per square foot.

The three-bedroom, one-bathroom home has over 1,400 square feet of living space. Built in 1952, the home has a cheerful yellow exterior paint job, updated interiors and a two-car g arage

During the first quar ter, Forest Park recorded 16 single family home sales, with 7 selling for at or above asking price.

It’s anyone’s guess where the market goes as the spring market transitions to summer over the next two months, but indications are that it will be more of the same A quick search of closings at the be ginning of the second quar ter indicates buyers are willing to pay over ask to get what they want. On April 13, 624 S. Taylor Ave. in Oak Park sold for $686,525, a hefty increase over its $595,000 March listing price.

914 Hannah Ave., Forest Park

1317 Jackson Ave., River Forest

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Call Viewpoints editor

Ken Trainor at 613-3310

Email: ktrainor@newswellchicago.org

Finding nature closer to home

OVIEWPOINTS

ur family spring break was spent in Moab, Utah, scrambling up the ancient sandstone at Arches and seeing 200-million-year-old dinosaur footprints. The deserts out West are one of my favorite places to vacation: wild and weird and utterly foreign to this midwesterner

CHAVAS

eekend after we returned, I headed down to Matthiessen State Park with some girlfriends. Being back in the Midwest, walking through the simple, quiet and lovely woods, streams and , I was reminded that while I love spending time in deserts and mountains, this is the kind of nature where I feel most at home. It’s the opposite vast; it’s cozy and comforting. It also reminded me how easy it is to take our abundance of trees and water for granted

My stroll through Matthiessen gave me plenty rden inspiration too. Native spring ephemre popping up all over the forest floor: Spring Beauties, Trout Lilies and Mayapples galore. Signs of life pushing up through layers of fallen leaves. I immediately started plotting which ones to put in my yard, so I could experience them each spring, closer to home

Native gardening connects us with what lived on this land before we took it over. This whole region was once Illinois prairie and oak woodland. We built over it. It’s a small, stubborn attempt to bring some of that back in the patches we have left. The soil in your yard isn’ t prairie soil; it’s been through a lot. But the right native in the right spot will find its way.

I am not a natural gardener. One section of my yard was designed and installed by professionals and is, as a result, thriving: an inspiration for the rest of my work-in-progress yard. The sections I “designed” and “installed” myself (scare quotes intentional) are more of a mixed bag. My first planting season I buy plants that look pretty in the pictures and plop them into empty spots, not remotely considering sun, shade, soil or bloom time. I now see my garden beds as my own little personal biodiversity lab. I spend spring and early summer experimenting with new plants, fighting off the bunnies and seeing what sticks. T he following spring I realize I have completely forgotten what I planted (attention to detail is not my strong suit), which means I get to re-lear n my garden every year

It’s an investment in the future, definitely not a path to immediate gratification. It rewards patience but also sets me up for surprises. Every spring it’s fun to reconnect with my kooky garden. I mour n what was lost, celebrate what came back and figure out what to try next. Every year, more and more bees and butterflies visit our yard, to the delight of our kids.

I’m proud to live in a community where native gardening is a nor m, not an exception. Neighbors share plants on Facebook, the West Cook Wild Ones sale is a highlight of my spring calendar, and my best garden education comes from walking the neighborhood with a plant ID app. We shouldn’t have to go far to find nature that feels like home. But we can build it ourselves, one yard at a time

PROVIDED

Black veterans of World War II were promised the housing nancing of the G.I. Bill, but most were denied the bene t because of racism in the local housing industry across the nation.

Coming of Age at Unity Temple p. 23

PROVIDED

Percy Julian, right, receives a distin guished merit award of the Decalogue Society of Lawyers, the oldest Jewish bar association in the United States, on January 9, 1951 in Chicago.

Post-war housing: continuity and change

This is the sixth installment of a series on Oak Park housing history as it relates to diversity and equity:

During and after World War II, there was hope here and across the nation that racism and antisemitism in housing might come to an end. U.S. war propaganda had embraced an unprecedented vision of multicultural understanding (1). The country had united against Nazism and fascism and as Americans learned more of the horrors of the holocaust, American Jews were hopeful for a more accepting mindset here and around the country (2).

JOHN DUFFY

One View

tuition grants, payment for books and fees and stipends for monthly living costs. Unfortunately, the landmark legislation barely benefitted Black veterans seeking to own homes. In metropolitan New York and Norther n New Jersey, historian Ira Katznelson documents that less than 100 of the 67,000 G.I. loans went to African Americans. More than any other federal legislation on housing, the G.I. Bill accelerated the generational racial wealth gap across the nation and further strengthened racial exclusion in Oak Park (4).

1947 zoning reform

In face of an epidemic of racist violence in the postwar years, Black leaders pushed forward with ending Jim Crow segregation in all aspects of American life. Foreshadowing a national push for racial integration, President Truman in 1946 ended racial segregation in the Ar med forces. In 1948 the Supreme Court ruled restrictive covenants unconstitutional and unenforceable With growing pressure from Black leaders and their allies (3) Truman established the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights. Most promising for all veterans were the extraordinary benefits guaranteed all who served the nation in World War II.

The G.I. Bill of Rights

With passage of the federal Selective Service Readjustment Act, commonly called the G.I. Bill of Rights, World War II veterans anticipated securing low interest, low down-payment home financing and gaining access to higher education with

With guidance from Harland Bartholomew, the nation’s leading consultant on municipal zoning, in 1947 Oak Park rewrote its zoning ordinance to cover every dimension of residential, commercial and industrial development. The document would continue, with occasional modifications, right to the present to define housing development (5). However, many legal, social historians and housing advocates, including current Oak Park free market supply advocates, agree that the revisions of the 1947 ordinance aimed to strengthen socioeconomic and racial exclusion in the village (6). With the goal of preserving Oak Park’s “suburban character,” the 1947 ordinance banned, unless exempted on a case-by-case basis, any new multiunit apartment buildings. It codified most of the village as single-family housing zones

A world of cha e is coming Village shuts o access

The spokesman for the village of Oak Park dropped an 898-word statement in Wednesday Journal’s inbox, Monday after noon. The critical sentence is the very first one. “The village of Oak Park has issued the following statement in the interest of transparenfor its residents, members of the Oak Park Police Department and other stakeholders.”

what Dan Yopchick, the spokesperson, sent us in response to our reporter’s efts to reach Police Chief Shatonya Johnson for her response to Brendan Heffernan’s ing that the police union had recently en a no-confidence vote in her leadership. pchick, likely following the direction of llage Manager Kevin Jackson, told us that ould not be available for an interview with the local paper.

, friends, is the new reality of our efver village hall. We are not permitted to talk to department heads. ust in the past two weeks the Jour nal has ttempted to speak with the police chief about the no-confidence vote, the village attorney and the village engineer about a potential hangup in the water and sewer project on Oak Park Avenue, and calls placed to the head of public health about the disinte gration of West Sub were not returned

This is what our village leaders describe as being in the “interest of transparency.”

What nonsense. This is nothing like transparency.

Transparency is allowing well-trained, well-compensated village officials to take questions from the local paper. Blocking that access makes the manager seem controlling and the department heads toothless.

What followed was 870 words of political cover with a wordy statement attributed to “the village,” a few words from Jackson and then a statement attributed to Chief Johnson.

There is nothing in the statements that surprises or feels disingenuous. Yopchick works the line between talking up Johnson and her accomplishments and ongoing challenges while also not dissing the rank-and-file officers who took a vote that actively undercuts their leader

Jackson said, “We are proud to have her leading the Oak Park Police Department, and that support is unwavering.”

He could have said that to our reporter but that would require answering the follow up questions that are the heart of actual reporting.

The statement attributed to Chief Johnson reads mostly as boilerplate. “Profound honor,” “constructive, good-faith dialogue,” “steady leadership, transparency and accountability as we move forward.”

All of this dodgy effort by the village manager to tur n the Journal into a transcription service under mines the police chief. She has a story to tell and she is perfectly capable of telling it. She has a very tough job. She’s made progress on critical issues, such as alternative policing strategies, headway toward getting the cops out of the dank and dangerous basement of village hall. Refilling the depleted ranks of officers has been a nearly impossible task, though some progress has been made. Johnson most certainly feels in a bind between the progressive policing strategies of the village board and the concer ns of her officers. Like those officers, Johnson too must feel at times, a lack of support from elected officials. That is the nature of policing in this fraught moment.

Be certain the Jour nal is not backing off from our reporting work. We’ll find ways to tell these stories even as the village gover nment works to shut off access

We are living through a revolt the future

The future will prevail.

Ilove Anand Giridharadas’ statement above, one of three gateway quotes leading into Rebecca Solnit’s latest book, The Be ginning Comes After th End – Notes on a World of Change which I recommend if you’re feeling hope-starved — which probably de scribes most of us at this point.

Solnit has a gift for finding viabl avenues to hope. She doesn’t indulg in wishful thinking and doesn’t mak predictions. Just the opposite: “I have always drawn my hope from the past, not from the future, from the way the past shows us how change works, how what once seemed impossible becomes actuality.”

TRAINOR

Within the unfriendly confines of current events — conditioned by the media news cycle to look no further than the present — we often find scant signs of hope. But Solnit reminds us, with abundant examples, of the remarkable changes we have witnessed in our lifetime. Indeed, so much has changed in that time that our current political upheaval should be viewed more as a desperate reaction by a dying world order.

“We have won enough,” she writes, “that we are in, what is to some, the unfamiliar position of defending an imperfect and incomplete revolution against backlash and counterrevolution. … What we’ve been living through is backlash. It’s not the engine of history. It is the revolt against the engine of history.”

And that engine has had greater impact than we realize

“The transformation of everyday life has, in recent decades, been revolutionary in its scope, its reach into every arena of life,” Solnit says, “from how we produce energy to how we think about food and nature and human rights.”

She characterizes this transition as moving away from the disconnection and alienation of the old order to a worldview of interconnected interdependence.

“My generation,” she writes, “is a bridge generation, a rider clinging to the back of a runaway horse of change. We were born in the midst of the Black civil rights movement, as decolonization in Africa was gathering force, before the great waves of feminist and queer rights movements were launched, before the environmental movement arose … before the reassertion of Indigenous presence became such a powerful influence on settler-colonialist worldviews, born in an old world that was tolerant of the old cruelties and repressions, the old story in which so many stories were buried and silenced, the old story of domination and control over nature and much else. …

s the imagined barriers came down that separated animals from humans, humans from nature, men from women, that constrained what gender is and at sexual relations should be, that ted races, that legitimized and enforced hierarchies, some of us welomed and benefitted from a more fluid and open society. Others insisted that without fixed categories and a sort of border patrol around them, chaos had een loosed, and what had spilled out of the containers needed to be stuffed back in. But the changes came anyway.”

She traces the surprisingly widespread impact of Asian spirituality — Buddhism, yoga and meditation in particular — on Wester n culture, beginning in the 1950s and ’60s, as well as celebrating a Native American revival, reasserting itself after somehow surviving five centuries of cultural and spiritual genocide She cites the oil pipeline protests and the remarkable popularity of Robin Wall Kimmerer’s unlikely book, which has sold 1.6 million copies, despite a very unsexy title, “Braiding Sweetgrass,” about plants no less, bringing together her knowledge of nature and her scientific background. The book’s success, Solnit says, “speaks to the appetite for this worldview.”

The environmental movement has prompted the biggest change of all, preaching the good news of One Earth and the interrelated web of life, fortified by Martin Luther King’s “network of mutuality” (beloved community), bolstered by scientific discoveries, the space program, the saner side of the inter net and social media, Gandhi’s soul force (satyagraha) and nonviolent resistance, the Dalai Lama’s campaign of compassion, Desmond Tutu’s gospel of racial reconciliation, Thich Nhat Hanh’s mindfulness (peace in every step) — all of it, Solnit says, creating “a vision of a better way … the opposite of alienation, estrangement, segregation, disconnection, as the antithesis to the existential loneliness and strife of … capitalism and the ideology behind privatization, social Darwinism, consumerism, individualism as separateness or selfishness.” A better vision is taking its place, a worldview based on interconnection. “I believe that this vision equips us to prepare for the next [era],” she says, “and to leave behind the last one.”

It’s happening. Has been happening. Will continue to happen, even though progress can be frustratingly incremental — with surprising leaps forward, followed by setbacks like our present political catastrophe — because the old world order resists the future with all its might.

But the future will prevail, a new worldview, emphasizing “we” over “me.”

If you’re looking for hope, you can’t do better than this short, very readable book.

What I believe

During a recent ceremony at Unity Temple, two 15-year-old members of the “Coming of Age” portion of Unity’s religious education program delivered their personal creed, an exercise inspired by the long-running “This I Believe” radio broadcasts. The program’s Coming of Age facilitator is Amy Markley. We thought our readers would enjoy hearing some of what’s on the minds of our community’s 15-year-olds these days

Paul Gage

Ibelieve that we define who we are as human beings through our actions and our inactions.

I do not believe in the idea of an all-mighty universal god who has foreseen everything because I have seen no evidence to believe such a thing

I believe that when people are born, they start with a blank page in a long book that is filled by their actions as they move through life.

Some people’s surroundings may be far more yielding than others. Some people might be born into poverty while some might be born into royalty, but I believe that it is possible for every person to help themselves try and be successful and achieve great things in their life

Some people consider the future to be a certain thing; perhaps what you will do and have done has always been predetermined and set.

I do not believe this. I believe the future is more of a branch of threads.

When you say something or do something some paths may become faded, some new ones may open up, and some may close forever.

During my own life, I have seen how my actions have influenced my future.

In sixth grade I choose to take speech/drama/debate as an elective and this has led to gaining much more confidence and if I had not taken this class I would have lost a lot of opportunities that I gained through taking the class, and if

I hadn’t taken it I probably wouldn’t be speaking to you now. This choice that seemed small to me then altered the course of my future.

The point I’m making is I do not believe that people’s fate is predetermined at all. I believe that destiny is a story that everyone writes for themselves.

I believe that if people tirelessly work and learn and strive, they can help influence their own future and help themselves be successful.

Harrison Steathen

What you believe is only half of what matters in life. The other half is how you came to those beliefs. I have not solidified my beliefs yet, and so what I have right now is the journey I am taking in order to figure out my personal truth. I do not believe that there is any sort of god. I also do not believe in souls, and so I do not believe in heaven, hell, or other forms of afterlife.

So what do I believe? I believe in people. The summer after sixth grade, I went to Marwood, a summer camp that you may or may not know about. The idea of Marwood is that the campers and counselors all provide unconditional love for each other

At Marwood I learned that what I value the most is being cared about and caring for others. In a world without god, we have each other. I believe that even if I don’t know what meaning there is in life, or the universe, I can still appreciate the presence of other people.

The moments where I learn the most about life are the fleeting sunsets, the unwilling goodbyes, and the times that a cherished memory I am forgetting resurfaces. We do not appreciate the things we always have, and my jour ney to accept that will never end

But I can still grow on my way to that unachievable point. And I believe that is the most important thing of all.

Capping rent increases

Recently, state Senator Adriane Johnson proposed SB3530, limiting security deposits and capping rent increases to 3.5% a year. I am a small landlord. I own the two flat I live in and 2 three flats — all in the Austin area of Chicago. Property taxes on one of my buildings went up 53% since 2015; the other went up 58% since 2015. Insurance costs went up 58% since 2015. Then there are the rate increases at Commonwealth Edison, People’s Gas, and the city of Chicago water utility

In addition, the cost of maintaining a property has skyrocketed well above the rate of inflation. For example, in 2017, I installed a new furnace. It cost me $1,700 and was installed by a reputable Chicago-area firm. That same fir m wanted over $4,400 last year for the same type of fur nace! The hot water heater I installed in 2020 now costs 32% more, not counting the increase in labor costs.

A 3.5% rent increase limit doesn’t take into account the reality that the expenses associated with maintaining a

rental property have been increasing at a rate far above 3.5% annually. What about the damage caused by bad tenants, which can run thousands of dollars? Similarly, thanks to state and local ordinances, it takes several months to evict a tenant who stops paying rent. A one-month security deposit doesn’t begin to cover those costs.

Instead of always heaping burdens on landlords, why not help them to keep costs down? Big developers get grants, low-interest loans, you name it. We small landlords get no help whatsoever, which is why so many of us either lose our properties or have to sell them.

Last, but not least, I find it rather ironic that legislators’ pay is capped at 5%, but since 2018 it has risen 44%. Don’t hold landlords to a higher standard than the one to which you legislators hold yourselves. Who is the public servant here?!

Paul Eichwedel Austin area

WEDNESD AY JOURNAL

of Oak Park and River Forest

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An important resolution

On April 28 at 6:30 p.m., Oak Park Township will conduct its annual meeting at Percy Julian Middle School, in the common room, 416 S. Ridgeland Ave., Oak Park. Although the township’s annual meetings are not usually noteworthy, this year is an exception. The agenda will include a “yes or no” vote on the following referendum resolution:

“Do you support the right of individuals and organizations, including state contractors, to boycott, divest, and sanction Israel?”

This resolution will be presented because, under current Illinois law, the Illinois pension system is prohibited from investing in companies that boycott Israel. Illinois legislators are considering repealing this law. The resolution is intended to inform legislators of Oak Park’s opinion on this issue.

The resolution will pass or fail based on the vote of the registered voters residing in Oak Park who attend the township meeting. If the resolution passes, it will be placed on the November 2026 ballot.

Although the issue of boycotting Israel might not directly involve Oak Park Township, Illinois law allows resolutions on almost any subject to be raised at the township’s annual meetings. For example, several years ago a resolution to repeal the Second Amendment (right to own and carry guns) was on the ballot due to an affir mative vote at a Township annual meeting

In my opinion as Jewish person, this resolution is not discriminatorily directed against Jewish people. Instead, this resolution is intended to stop policies of the state of Israel that grossly mistreat Palestinians.

A nondiscriminatory boycott decision is free speech protected under the First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution. Companies should be able to make those decisions without interference from the Illinois pension system. I will be voting Yes on the resolution. I encourage you to attend the meeting to vote on this important resolution.

Jim Poznak Oak Park

Who pays for Pete’s delays?

We are approaching an important anniversary in the village. The end of this year will mark a decade since the village board commissioned Jupiter Realty Company LLC, the developer who would build a new Pete’s Fresh Market. Pete’s was expected to yield $1.3M annually in sales and property tax revenue [1] and be completed by the end of 2021 [2]. It reflected a commitment by the then-board of trustees to reverse economic stagnation and attract business development, branding Oak Park “open for business.” It also signaled a fiscal policy to diversify municipal revenue and limit an over-reliance on property taxes

LUCIA ROBINSON

One View

Pete’s development be gan as planned, but it lost momentum in a series of extensions with no recourse for the villa ge. When I joined the board in 2021, Pete’s was not close to completion and significant revenue was deferred. As the sole dissenter, I refused to approve further delays without a renegotiation of the contract. We eventually amended the contract to include a clawback provision as well as a monthly fee if Pete’s failed to meet a new deadline and open by February 2026. That deadline has passed and Pete’s is still not completed.

The village board is conspicuously silent on whether it intends to hold Pete’s accountable and exercise the new remedies. This is on par with the current board’s passive approach to business development. Despite engaging a consultant for a

US Bank should accept o er

Reading the latest article in Wednesday Jour nal about the village’s efforts to use eminent domain to wrest ownership of the building at Madison and Austin from US Bank [Oak Park police station ‘quick take’ bid moves forward, News, April 22], I had to laugh at the bank’s accusation that vindictiveness is in the heart of Oak Park’s village board. As the “public commentator, who criticized US Bank’s role in the 2008 financial crisis” as well as written comments submitted by Jackie Leavy during January’s board meeting when the filing of the eminent domain case was approved, I will admit to being vindictive toward a bank that profited from the mortgage foreclosure and nationwide financial crisis. But the matter had been placed on the board’s agenda before my comments and Village President Vicki Scaman apparently had other issues with US Bank.

In 2025, Wednesday Jour nal reported

comprehensive village-wide economic vitality plan, the board still has not created such a plan.

Instead of developing a strategic vision for growth, the board has created a policy gap for our business community. Moreover, they rejected oppor tunities to support businesses with a failed mobile food truck ordinance and unfunded OPRF Chamber of Commerce programs in its 2026 budget.

While each board has the prerogative to set its own initiatives and create its own le gacy, the interests of residents should be a shared goal across successive boards. Each month Pete’s remains unfinished represents lost revenue that could be used for small business grants, lead water line replacement, senior home repair assistance, sewer backup grants, and many other programs that benefit residents

The board must hold Pete’s accountable under the rene gotiated contract ter ms and fulfill its fiduciary duty by collecting the fees owed. Even if Oak Park is no longer open for business, our community is not a commodity and its future is not for sale

[1] Oak Park Village President and Board of Trustees Meeting, Dec. 10, 2018, virtual meeting, https:// www.oak-park.us

[2] S. Sheridan, “Madison Street Pete’s Pushing Opening Date Yet Again,” Wednesday Jour nal, Sept. 21, 2023, https://www.oakpark.com

Lucia Robinson is a former Oak Park village trustee.

on US Bank’s closure of 25 branches in the Chicago area, among them a facility in the Austin community at Laramie and Madison, and the Oak Park Avenue branch in the village. In 2020, Crain’s Chicago Business reported that US Bank planned the closure of 12 branches, eventually among them two other locations in Oak Park, one on North Avenue and the other on Roosevelt Road, both intersecting with Austin Boulevard.

It is absurd to believe US Bank’s banking services for the city’s West Side and the wester n suburbs relies on the limited amount of business conducted at its lone remaining outpost in Oak Park at Austin and Madison. After disinvesting in Chicago for years, on its way out of town US Bank should accept the offer negotiated as part of the eventual eminent domain settlement with the village.

Chris Donovan Oak Park

When will Republicans reject Trump?

Grotesquely tone deaf. How else to judge Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt’s defense of Trump’s threat to wipe out “a whole civilization” in Iran? She said, right out in public, “I think it was a very, very strong threat from the president … that led the Iranian re gime to cave to their knees and ask for a ceasefire and agree to reopening the Strait of Hor muz.”

Never mind that it’s lies from beginning to end. Just consider how Iran’s re gime leaders must have reacted. For decades now, they have kept everyone who might oppose them in Iran on their knees, and have viciously struck down efforts at dissent just recently yet again. Words like Leavitt’s, broadcast throughout the world, can get no response but doubling down against any opposition.

There’s more. How the message was sent – mostly to feed the deluded MAGA base, of course – is not as bad as the what of it: threatened war crimes. Ravings like these, from the sitting president of the most powerful country in the world, car ry immense weight. They are, in fact, an action, according to both national and inter national law. We may have heard on the playground, “Sticks and stones may break my bones, but words will never har m me,” but anybody who’s paid attention knows how words can crush a vulnerable child or unwitting but clueless rival so badly that the damage lasts a lifetime, even robbing the victim of their sense of self, their very humanity. It’s virtual murder. For our sake, as well as for others, we cannot stand for it, even for a moment.

What will it take for Republicans and/or conservatives to excise the cancer? How long will it take?

Fred Reklau Oak Park

As a recent graduate of Oak Park and River Forest High School, I received a complete lack of sex education. I sat in health class as my teacher used stigmatizing language, assumed we “knew everything we needed to” and provided abstinence as the only contraceptive

Implementing a comprehensive and inclusive sex education curriculum in a structure that maintains accountability is the best sex education we can give students Illinois guidelines do not require sex education be taught in schools, but rather, grants individual school districts the ability to elect teaching sex education. District 200 elects to teach comprehensive sex education and claims to meet all required guidelines in

OPRF misses the mark with Sex Ed

their yearly catalog. Clearly, the structures to ensure students receive the sex education they deserve are severely lacking.

The rising attack on sex education nationwide, and the Illinois districts that are left unaccountable, are increasingly worrisome. Making sure comprehensive sex education is in our public schools is more imperative than some parents might think; one study suggests that only about one in five teens, age 15-19, received some type of sex education from parents or guardians. If students are not receiving proper sex education in school, they may tur n to untrusted sources. I know that if my mom was not someone who welcomed conversations about sexuality and sexual health, I would

Book donations for Austin

Open Books is a Chicago organization that distributes books and provides literacy programs in “book deserts” – neighborhoods where book access is hard to come by. If you’ve donated books in the big metal bins by the Oak Park Public Library (and there are enough of you that we had to install a second bin!), please know those books are going to schools and communities (including our neighbors in Austin) with the goal

to help families become lifelong readers. As a believer in the power of books to change lives, I thank you for your support. If you’re able to do more in this challenging time for nonprofits, we’re very much in need of financial donations to continue our programming. Visit www.open-books.org or email me if you’d like to lear n more!

Laura

Wylie lauraewylie@yahoo.com

Right-turn sign is wrong

Many of my neighbors and I are dismayed by the new Right Turn Only sign installed at Thomas and Ridgeland. We live in the 800 block of North Cuyler and our alleys only exit onto Thomas or Division. We can rarely tur n west onto Division because of the volume of traffic, so we must go east, away from most of the village, at that end Now if we exit onto Thomas, we can’t make the historically easy left turn from Thomas onto Ridgeland, heading into the village. The natural move now is to tur n south on Cuyler or Harvey on either side of Whittier Elementary School and the Dole branch of the public library

Yep, increasing traffic around a grade school and branch library, an area thick with pedestrians. Always a good plan. Our calls and letters to village engineers receive boiler-plate responses that the plans are already in place and can’t be altered They will “study the situation.” Thomas will become a bike-friendly greenway. We have

have been at risk for misinfor mation. A 2016 survey conducted by the Boston University School of Public Health found that 54% of participating teens had watched pornography in order to learn something about sex. Porn is undeniably dangerous to teens, boasting misogynistic rhetoric, displaying sex in profoundly unrealistic ways that misinform adolescents, and promoting violence. Having comprehensive sex education at OPRF models for adolescents that having open dialogue for their questions is safe and productive.

As someone who loves the OPRF community, it pains me that something as crucial as sex education still falls through the cracks

The health, safety, and well-being of children

and teens should be of utmost importance, and sex education is a critical avenue with which to fulfill these priorities.

Sources: OPRF H.S. yearly catalog https://www.pbs.org/newshour/show/ sex-education-is-under-attack-by-a-wave-ofproposed-legislation-advocate-warns, May 25, 2024

https://www. npr. org/2022/07/30/11146 20485/what-does-age-appropriate-comprehensive-sex-ed-actually-look-like Sexuality Information and Education Council of the United States (SIECUS) IL state profile

Kashing in?

Before being entrusted to lead the FBI, 46-year-old Kashyap Pramod Patel was best known for a self-published children’s book series, “The Plot Ag ainst the King,” where a Trump-like figure is falsely accused & ultimately saved by a wizard named “Kash.”

Not satire. Not subtle. Sycophantic, & telling. Also, a window into Patel’s childlike understanding of power.

The books make the hierarchy clear: loyalty is paramount, inde pendence is optional. That might work in a story. It’s the opposite of how the FBI is supposed to function.

yet to hear back from village trustees. I’m struck by the similarities between this and that greenway on the south side of the village which now prevents residents from parking in front of their homes

As residents, we are only finding out about significant changes to traffic flow near our homes when plans have already been approved. Where is the public comment option? When did we get mail talking about the proposed changes? Just who is benefitting from these changes? Because it sure isn’t me and my taxpaying neighbors

I think the village is going too far in creating greenways. It’s become hard to drive in the village. How am I supposed to bring my groceries home on my bike?

I encourage the village trustees to look more carefully at these plans. There are a lot of unhappy residents out here.

Kris Hansen Oak Park

The FBI is an institution built on investigative distance, not personal alle giance. Directors do n’t exist to protect figures. They exist to scrutinize them when necessary. James Comey’s tenure became a public tug-of-war between Bureau & White House. Christopher Wray’s de par ture came after open pressure from a president who made clear he wanted someone more aligned. That patter n isn’t subtle. Trump detests anyone with investig ative authority willing to publicly rap him on the discolored knuckles he tries so hard to cover with foundation.

Patel doesn’t break the patter n because he is unburdened by principle; a willingness to treat institutions as instruments rather than guardrails is what happens when people running critical institutions see themselves as accountable to individuals rather than rules. Suppor ters may call that ef ficiency. Others see erosion.

The Atlantic alle gations Patel is now suing over don’t misalign with his alcohol-soaked behavior at the Olympics, the high tur nover rate in field of ficers, usage of gover nment resources to go after political/personal enemies, FBI jet visits to see his fame-hung ry country music singer girlfriend (20 years his junior), or hanging out at nightclubs in Ve gas. All of this is to be expected of him at this point in an administration that has seen a revolving door of piss-poorly behaved agency heads ushered from a Trump rally parking lot to the Oval Of fice and back to private life before the midter ms even occur.

If J. Edg ar Hoover could see what was happening with the organization he helped found & direct, he’d tur n over in his closet.

Sources:

Kash Patel’s Maga Kids’ Book Is Embarrassing. I Should Know – I’m A Children’s Author, The Guardian, 1/7/25

The Plot Against the King by Kash Patel (Author), Laura Vincent (Illustrator)

The Plot Against the King 2 by Kash Patel (Author), James Scrawl (Illustrator)

The Plot Against the King 3 by Kash Patel (Author), James Scrawl (Illustrator)

The FBI Director Is MIA, Atlantic, 4/17/26

Christopher Wray Says He’ ll Ste p Down As F.B.I. Director, New York Times, 12/13/24

Joshua Cooper Oak Park

Sarah Mae Fieser Oak Park

Celebrating our seniors

When was the last time you did something completely out of your routine?

Celebrating Seniors Week, May 7-14, offers more than 35 chances to shake things up — in the best way possible. You could find yourself learning improv comedy, trying pickleball for the first time, or joining a mural tour you’d nor mally walk right past. Too often, we assume these kinds of events are “for someone else.” They’re for anyone willing to be just a little curious

TWhat makes this week special isn’t just the focus on older adults; it’s the invitation to step outside your comfort zone and connect with people you might not otherwise meet.

If you’re looking to break the monotony, this is your moment. Try one event. You might surprise yourself. Check out the full schedule at celebratingseniors.net/events

Maureen Rafa Forest Park

A failure of public oversight

he collapse of West Suburban Medical Center is not simply a business dispute. It is a case study in regulatory failure — and the state of Illinois must answer for it.

A lawsuit now alleges over $24 million in unpaid obligations and the diversion of a $10 million state-backed loan intended to keep a safety-net hospital alive. At the same time, the facility has already shut its doors, eliminating critical access to care for thousands of residents. These are not routine corporate disagreements. These are red flags — large, obvious, and flashing

ROBERT MILSTEIN

Yet the most troubling question is not what private actors allegedly did. It is what public oversight failed to do.

State auditors had already identified deep structural problems: no financial reserves, no coherent operating strategy, and leadership deficiencies so severe that decision-making was concentrated in a single individual. Public money had been deployed into this system — millions of dollars — despite those conditions

At what point does this move from “monitoring” to negligence?

Illinois does regulate hospitals through agencies tasked with ensuring financial stability, continuity of care, and responsible use of public funds. That is not an optional standard — it is the baseline expectation when taxpayer dollars are involved

But in this case, oversight appears reactive rather than preventive. Funds were issued. Warnings were documented. The hospital still collapsed. Now lawsuits attempt to reconstruct accountability after the damage has already been done. This is backward gover nance.

The public is left with the consequences: a shuttered hospital, unemployed workers, and a community suddenly facing

reduced access to emergency and essential care

Meanwhile, accountability is being sorted out in courtrooms rather than through the regulatory safeguards that were supposed to prevent this outcome in the first place.

The state cannot credibly claim surprise. The war ning signs were documented. The financial instability was known. The reliance on public funds was explicit.

What failed was not information. It was intervention.

If Illinois intends to continue supporting private operators with public dollars — particularly in safety-net health care — then oversight must be more than a paperwork exercise. It must include enforceable financial controls, real-time accountability, and the authority to intervene before collapse becomes inevitable

Otherwise, we are not regulating a system. We are subsidizing its failure. And communities like Oak Park are left to pay the price.

The responsibility for this failure lies at the state level. Residents should expect their Illinois state representative, Camille Lilly, and state senator, Don Harmon, to demand a full accounting of how public funds were used, why documented war nings failed to trigger intervention, and what enforceable safeguards will be implemented to prevent a repeat of this collapse.

To the extent that actions have been taken, the public deserves to see all information that can lawfully be disclosed, with as much transparency as permitted under the law. Legal constraints and ongoing proceedings may limit disclosure — but they do not eliminate the obligation to inform the public. Oversight cannot begin after a hospital closes. It must exist before failure becomes inevitable.

Robert Milstein is a former Oak Park village trustee.

A simple invitation that matters

Not every community offers something like Celebrating Seniors Week — and we shouldn’t take it for granted. From May 7-14, residents can choose from dozens of free events designed to inform, connect, and inspire. What stands out is how approachable it all is. You don’t need to commit to a full week. Just show up once.

Attend a workshop, join a meal, try something new. These

small steps create ripple effects — new friendships, better understanding, and a stronger sense of belonging.

Sometimes the simplest invitation is the most important one: be part of the community.

The full schedule is at celebratingseniors.net/events

Lydia Manning River Forest

JOHN DUFFY Post-war housing

from page 21

The ordinance stood without challenge until 1951. Then the Illinois Supreme Court ruled in favor of a developer’s civil suit challenging Oak Park’s refusal to approve a 3-story apartment building on North Harlem Avenue. The key finding was that the village zoning ordinance had “no substantial relationship to the public health, safety, comfort, morals, and general welfare of the village of Oak Park” (7).

A village epiphany

In 1954, the Brown v. Board of Education Supreme Court ruled that racial segregation in schools was unconstitutional. Subsequent events like the Montgomery, Alabama bus boycott and the Emmet Till lynching in Mississippi emboldened those seeking to end segregation across American life. These national events fueled the fervor of the rapidly growing Civil Rights Movement and the willingness of more Oak Parkers to openly confront the moral contradictions of racist, exclusionary housing When the world-renowned African American scientist Dr. Percy Julian moved to Oak Park in 1950, his house at 414 N. East Ave. was the target of firebombs by arsonists on two occasions. In response, 300 villagers rallied in front of the Julian home, asserting the right of Blacks to live and be safe in Oak Park. They temporarily prevented more heinous violence against the Julian family. Then in 1951, unknown racists threw dynamite at the Julian home. Luckily, the family was not physically harmed Members of the community offered more support The racism directed at the Julian family was mirrored among the most powerful people in the Chicago region. In the summer of 1951, Dr. Julian had been invited to speak at the Union League Club of Chicago to honor a notable white scientist. The club’s membership was a “who’s who” of Chicago’s leading business, legal, cultural and civic elite. It included many Oak Parkers as well.

Before his scheduled presentation, Union League officials, following the club’s racist by-laws, denied Julian entry to the club. Chicago historian Ron Grossman relates how Julian connected the violence in Oak Park to the exclusion of Blacks at the Union League Club. In an interview with a Chicago Tribune reporter, Julian said, “When individuals, supposedly in high places, behave as the Union League Club has behaved, ordinary citizens of lesser intelligence follow suit” (8).

The pain, fear and violence that came with the Julian family’s move to Oak Park provided an opening for the village and many villagers to break with the systemic racism Dr. Julian experienced.

In the 1960s, the national Civil Rights Movement tur ned its energy to directly backing Chicago efforts for open housing (9). In response, more villagers began to understand the reciprocal relationship between racial justice in America and inclusionary housing in Oak Park

A battle royale loomed

Sources for information found in this essay can be found in the online version at oakpark.com.

Dee Galbraith, 93

St. Luke member, teacher, librarian

Dolores (nee rrar) “Dee” Galbraith, 93, died peacefully on March 31, 2026, happy knowing she is reunited with her husband, Bob, a reunion 50+ years in the making. Born on Sept. 15, 1932, in Springfield, she lived a life of grace and quiet strength, deeply rooted in her faith. She expressed that faith not only in words, but in the way she lived each day. In addition to raising her children, and her work as a teacher and a brokerage assistant, she was an active and member of St. Luke Church in River Forest, for over 50 years, where she not only started and chaired the Bereavement Committee, but volunteered in many other ministries, such as the Peace and Justice, and Arts and Environment committees.

She didn’t believe in love at first sight until she met Bob Galbraith, the absolute love of her life, in 1952. She blossomed, as he instilled in her a confidence she hadn’t previously known, opening up her world to new opportunities, completely changing the course of her life. They considered their family of five children their crowning achievement

She carried herself with a curiosity that never seemed to fade. Her laughter and humor were gifts, and her wise pe rspective brought clarity to those seeking guidance. She listened carefully, spoke thoughtfully, and of fered a well-timed remark that often brought a laugh.

Dee was the wife of Robert A. (Bob) Galbraith, who preceded her in death. She is survived by her children, Stephen A. Galbraith, Anne G. Danaher (Jack), Christopher R. Galbraith (Maura Matthews), Margaret G. Norman (the late Doug Norman), and Thomas B. Galbraith (DeeDee Campbell); her 12 grandchildren and 16 great-grandchildren.

A visitation will be held at ZimmermanHarnett Funeral Home in Forest Park on Sunday, April 26, from 2 to 4 p.m. A funeral mass will be held at St. Luke Church in River Forest on Monday, April 27, beginning at 10 am.

In lieu of flowers, the family requests

donations to the Forest Park Public Library or Housing Forward (previously known as PADS in Oak Park).

Cathy Sullivan, 72 A career with the DMV

Catherine Marie Sullivan, 72, of estmont, died at home with family on April 9, 2026, following a long and courageous battle with lupus and lung cancer. Born on December 8, 1953, in Chicago, she was the daughter of the late Michael and Catherine (née McLaughlin) Sullivan.

After graduating from Trinity High School in 1971, she continued her education at Nor thern Illinois University. During her colle ge years, she began experiencing health challenges and was eventually diagnosed with lupus. She faced it with remarkable strength and perseverance.

In 1974, she began her career with the Illinois Secretary of State Division of Motor Vehicles. Over more than three decades of service, she held a variety of roles and earned the respect and admiration of her colleagues prior to her retirement in 2008.

In 1982, she made her home in Forest Park and then established her residence in Westmont in 1994, where she remained. Among her cherished experiences were trips to Ireland with her cousins. For many years, she and her good friend, the late Car rie Coppini, enjoyed a weekly Bingo obsession. Her other passion was crafting various projects to be gifted to friends and family

Cathy is survived by her siblings, Mary, Michael (Diane), Margy (Brian) Ripa, and Terry Sullivan; her nieces and nephews, Eamonn Cog an, Mick and Bailey Sullivan, Bridget (Tyler Eubanks), Brendan (Amanda), and Michael (fiancée Skye Synder) Ripa; and many cousins and friends. She was preceded in death by her parents.

A visitation was held at ConboyWestchester Funeral Home on April 24. A Funeral Mass was celebrated on April 25 at St. Giles, 1045 Columbian Ave., Oak

Park. Interment private.

In lieu of flowers, memorial contributions may be made to the Lupus Foundation of Chicago in Catherine’s memory.

Mike Wilkey, 83

Freedom fighter for the oppressed

Michael Wilkey, 83, died on April 12, 2026. Mike was a character, truly one of a kind: a fierce lover of people, a playful spirit, and an advocate for social justice. Born and raised on the West Side of Cincinnati, he entered the seminary at the age of 14 to become a Catholic priest, eventually leaving a decade later before ordination to serve as a VISTA volunteer in Chester, Pennsylvania, where he was radicalized as a freedom fighter on behalf of the oppressed. He then moved back to Cincinnati and met the love of his life, Patty. His Catholic faith and commitment to family remained central.

Mike was the husband of Patricia for over 55 years; the father of Christopher Wilkey (Donelle Dreese) and Michelle (Steve) Nache; the grandfather of Isabella and Mariana Nache; the brother of Janet (Dennis) Martin and Robert (Janie) Wilkey, and the late Judy Goins, Terry Wilkey and Tim Wilkey.

A memorial Mass was celebrated on April 25 at Ascension Catholic Church, 808 S. East Ave., Oak Park.

Alan Becker, 75 Teacher then dentist

Alan L. Becker DDS of Oak Park, 75, died peacefully on April 23, 2026 at home with his wife at his side. Born on May 12, 1950, he was married to Andrea for almost

56 years. To gether they raised four great children, Chad (who died in 2016), Kirk (partner Michelle), Stephanie (Gre g) and Blythe (Tyler). He is survived by his grandchildren, Nadia, Ilyana, Jackson, Caroline, Charlotte, Nora, Emmett, Rhett and Phaedra.

After teaching high school and junior colle ge, he went on to become a dentist. He genuinely enjoyed the lab work and getting to know his patients. His interests included jazz, photography, woodworking, gardening and biking. He lived life with kindness and generosity.

A Celebration of Life will be held at a later date.

Arrangements were handled by ConboyWestchester Funeral Home.

Joan Collins, 89 Author, ran an architecture firm

Joan Bard Collins, a longtime resident of Oak Park, died on April 7, 2026 in Palm Springs, California. Born in Illinois in 1936, she grew up in Whiting, Indiana. She was a 1954 graduate of Bishop Knoll Catholic School and earned her bachelor’s de gree at Ball State Teachers Colle ge in 1958. She be gan teaching in the Chicago area as part of the Chicago Public School system. During that time, she also earned her Master in Education from Loyola University Chicago.

A lifelong lover of art, she met her husband James during a drawing class at the Art Institute of Chicago. They ran a successful architectural fir m in Oak Park for over 40 years before retiring in 2021. She was also a published author of mysteries. In addition to several short stories, her historical mystery novel, Honor Above All, is currently in its second printing. Joan will be greatly missed by her family and friend s. She is survived by her husband, James; her son, Matthew (Celeste), and their children, Gabriel and Neige; her son, Jon (Thomas Hietter); her son, Owen (Ann Courtney), and their children, McKelvey, Arden and Liam.

SPORTS

Fenwick girls soccer is nding its way

Friars unbeaten in last six matches

By MELVIN TATE

Contributing Reporter

After a slow start to the season with a pair of losses in its first three matches, the Fenwick High School varsity girls soccer team has found its footing with four victories and two draws over the last six. Last week, the Friars put on an impressive offensive display with 15 goals in their two victories. On April 23, Fenwick (5-2-2) blanked visiting De La Salle 6-0, then the following day at IC College Prep, the Friars rolled to a 9-2 rout.

“As a team, we’ve definitely improved a lot,” said Fenwick sophomore midfielder Quinn Sansone, who had a natural hat trick against De La Salle and added five more goals at IC Prep. “We’ve grown closer together and been very gritty in games and not given up a lot. It’s good to keep tacking on good games, and I feel really proud of how we’ve played.” Senior midfielder Mary Brunick, sophomore defender Fiona MacKinnon, and sophomore forward Keira Magee each had a goal and an assist against the Meteors, and

goalkeepers Mimi Carvalho and Sofia Frech (three saves) combined for the clean sheet.

“We’re getting some momentum going. We played really well as a team,” said Carvalho, a junior who has committed to Bucknell University. She’s also one of the team’s captains, which is something she appreciates. “It’s awesome. Obviously, being with this team since I was a freshman, I’ve seen so many players come in. Being captain is an honor.”

At IC Prep, junior midfielder Coco Braithwaite scored twice, and Magee and senior midfielder Madison Zorovich had a goal and two assists apiece

Sansone, who’s one of the top players in the Class of 2028, leads Fenwick in scoring this season with 23 points (17 goals, six assists). Despite her success, she maintains a humble demeanor.

“I enjoy scoring goals in high school. It’s fun to represent my team,” Sansone said. “I’ve been able to both score and distribute so I can help out my team in any way.”

Fenwick head coach Craig Blazer has been impressed with the growth and development

Fenw ick sophomore Quinn Sansone races up eld with the ball during a Girls Catholic Athletic Conference Red Div ision soccer match against De La Salle at the Fenwick Priory, April 23. Sansone had a natural hat trick in the Friars’ 6-0 shutout v ictory.

of his team, especially Carvalho (1.62 goalsagainst average), Magee (four goals, five assists), and Sansone.

“We’re extremely proud to have Quinn. She’s a great example of just having a lot of joy for the game and making those around her better,” he said. “Can’t wait to see what she brings the rest of the season.

“Mimi’s been huge. I’m really happy for her. She’s an extremely committed player and a great leader on and of f the field. For us

to do well, Quinn and Mimi are going to have to score goals and stop goals. Keira’s having a great sophomore year, she’s worked extremely hard, and she and Quinn are working well together.”

Fenwick began a four-match homestand against DePaul Prep, April 28 (after deadline). The Friars will also welcome to the River Forest Priory Glenbrook North (April 30), Wheaton Academy (May 1), and Wheaton St. Francis (May 5). All matches start at 5 p.m.

Hagins Day celebrates OPRF baseball legend

By GREGG VOSS Contributing Reporter

Saturday event to include scholarship given to a current Huskies player

Whether it was Oak Park and River Forest High School baseball or adult softball, Andrew Hagins was the kind of player with bigtime power. In both venues, his home runs were the stuff of legend.

“There was a time where we had a game at Glenbard West,” recalled his close friend and teammate Bobby Fratto, “he hit a ball so far, even though it went foul it was close to 500

feet. We talked about it on the bench and the bus ride back.”

Hagins graduated from OPRF in 2006, but his exploits with power hitting extended to his time as a softball player for the Park District of Oak Park. Fratto remembers that, too.

“He made a 14-inch softball look like someone was hitting a golf ball with a driver,” he said. “Absolute strength and power he had and how majestic he made every swing look was incredible. There would be times people on the other field would stop and watch him

hit it.”

But Hagins, who died in December 2023, had another superpower beyond his ability to hit prodigious home runs, and that was how selfless and caring he was to other people and animals, as a supporter of the Animal Care League in Oak Park.

That’s what will be remembered most on Saturday at the third annual Andrew Hagins Day, when the current OPRF baseball team will face off against Hinsdale South at 10:30 a.m. on the varsity baseball field at Lake

Street and East Avenue

In addition to a good prep ballgame, a $1,000 scholarship from the Hagins family will be given to a Huskies player. Funding comes in part from sales of Andrew Hagins Day T-shirts, with a whopping 165 purchased this year.

“We wanted to keep his legacy alive, not only as a player through the scholarship, but through the player he was,” Hagins’ mom Toni said, “the type of person that didn’t get a big head, a true teammate. What better way

COURTESY OF CAROL DUNNING

Hammerschmidt hones her skills at OPRF

Senior has played three spor ts for the Huskies

By MELVIN TATE

Contributing Reporter

In this age of specialization, high school student-athletes playing multiple sports during the school year has become less commonplace. An exception to this rule, however, is Oak Park and River Forest High School senior Leia Hammerschmidt, who has played three varsity spor ts during her four years.

“I chose to play three spor ts in high school because I love being part of a community and utilizing my athletic abilities wherever I can,” she said. “I also just happen to really love playing spor ts I think it’s a great way to eng age with the school outside of academics and is honestly fun.”

In each of the last two years, Hammerschmidt, an Oak Park resident, spent her fall after noons and evenings with OPRF’s flag football team. She helped make history her junior year, which was the first time the IHSA sponsored the spor t. Last fall, she was a captain and received the 2025 Community High School All-Star Award from the Chicago Bears, and ear ned All-Academic honors as well.

In the winter, Hammerschmidt played varsity girls basketball three years for the Huskies, serving as a captain in junior year. Though she didn’t experience much in ter ms of winning, she enjoyed her hardwood time

to give back to a player that had some of the traits Andrew possessed and the love of the game? That’s how we started.”

Although current Huskies’ baseball coach Kevin Campbell didn’t know Hagins personally, he interacted with Toni Hagins when she worked at OPRF and so he realizes how important a day Saturday will be.

“Toni called me and said she wanted to do something to celebrate Andrew’s life and le gacy here and came up with the idea of starting the scholarship and doing something over the years, not only benefitting the baseball program, but the community,” he said.

“When you take on a role like this, you get so connected to the current players and fami-

“Basketball taught me dedication, perseverance, and most impor tantly finding wins in the small things,” she said.

For the last two springs, she has been an impor tant player for OPRF’s softball team. She admits to having a complicated relationship with the spor t at times, but she also realized how fun it can be

“My experience with varsity has been honestly riveting. We’ve had so many close g ames where the passion is just radiating from the field and dugout,” said Hammerschmidt. “I am so lucky to be part of such a close-knit community, as we tend to team bond at least once every other week.

Like flag football and basketball, Hammerschmidt is one of the softball captains Entering last weekend, she was batting .458 for the season with eight home runs and 29 runs batted in while helping the Huskies to an 18-7 record.

“I think our team is be ginning to gel really well to gether,” she said. “We have such a young team this year, so I am proud of how far we’ve come on and of f the field despite our wide range of ages. I see so much potential in our group, and I am more than excited to see how we be gin to perfor m under increasing pressures.”

This will be the final season of Hammerschmidt’s org anized softball career In the fall, she will attend the University of F lorida and plans to study health science on a pre-medical track. And she has developed a

lies and also the alumni. It’s an emotional day when we take the field, and our kids take pride, running out on the field for the Huskies and the Hagins family.”

Though Saturday will be a celebration of Hagins’ life and OPRF baseball, it won’t be an easy day for his best friends Fratto and Gil Claudio. All three shared birthdays within about a week of each other and they enjoyed celebrating together over the years.

“Every day is hard,” Claudio said. “It’s good to get with the people he impacted. You try to look at the positive side, but every day is hard.”

Added Fratto: “Every day is just a day where I live in disbelief that he’s not here

good career plan.

“I plan to work as an EMT in college and then go under a military program for medical school,” she said. “After medical school, I will become a medic in the ar my until I switch to emergency medicine at a general hospital.”

But just because she’s heading to college doesn’t mean her athletic career is over “UF has an extremely well-respected flag club that I am looking forward to trying out for. They’ve won multiple national championships in recent years and I hope that streak will continue.”

Hammerschmidt cites her family as one of the reasons for her success in athletics and in the classroom. It helps that older sister, 2024 OPRF graduate Aria, played softball, and she’s someone who serves as a role model for Leia

anymore. Not having him here is something you just can’t put into words. It’s a very emotional day.”

As an OPRF senior, Hagins batted a blistering .465 with 13 doubles, five home runs and 40 RBI. He was named the West Suburban Conference Silver Division Most Valuable Player and ear ned All-Area and All-State honors.

He was drafted out of high school by the then-Tampa Bay Devil Rays but elected to play at Oakton Community College instead … with his good friend Fratto

“He told me he was going to Oakton, and we were excited about what day we were going to look for apartments,” he recalled. “We

“Because of our close age, I have always looked up to my sister as a softball player, a student, and a person in general. My sister created a legacy at OPRF that I was lucky enough to follow and build onto,” she said of Aria, who plays club softball at the University of Wisconsin. “Our competitive nature has always driven us to one-up each other in any way we can, even on the softball field

“I think I have been able to succeed as an athlete and student at OPRF because of the huge support system I have around me, and the drive I have within myself,” she added. “My parents have also taken such an active role in my athletic and academic careers. They check my grades weekly and of fer help any time I need it. They also work in very prestigious jobs themselves, which sets a great example for me and my sister academically.”

got an apartment in Wheeling, and our relationship became stronger.”

Hagins eventually went from Oakton to Wester n Illinois, where his power hitting only improved.

“I remember him once at Wester n Illinois, he hit a ball over the treetops,” his mom said, her voice trailing off. “The power that he had in softball, baseball …”

Like Fratto, Claudio saw a lot of those softball home runs, too

“I’ve seen multiple moonshots,” he said. “Off the bat, you knew it was gone Sometimes it was bases loaded and they walked him. They were doing that at OPRF, PONY, anywhere we traveled.”

OPRF High School senior Leia Hammerschmidt

SUBMIT TED BY LEIA HAMMERSCHMID Hammerschmidt lines up for a play during a ag football game

REAL ESTATE FOR SALE

IN THE CIRCUIT COURT OF COOK COUNTY, ILLINOIS COUNTY DEPARTMENT - CHANCERY DIVISION

HSBC Bank USA, National Association as Trustee for Renaissance Home Equity Loan Asset-Backed Certificates, Series 2007-3 Plaintiff vs. Unknown Heirs and Legatees of Dorothy M. McGlory a/k/a Dorothy M. Mcglory a/k/a Dorothy McGlory; Carmen. L. Graves; Daphne Graves; Brandon Heard; Shawn Heard a/k/a Robert Shawnell Heard; Reginald E. McGlory, Individually and as Executor of the Estate of Dorothy M. McGlory a/k/a Dorothy M. Mcglory a/k/a Dorothy McGlory; Estate of Dorothy M. McGlory a/k/a Dorothy M. Mcglory a/k/a Dorothy McGlory; Unknown Owners and Non Record Claimants Defendant 24 CH 1157 CALENDAR 58

NOTICE OF SALE

PUBLIC NOTICE is hereby given that pursuant to a Judgment of Foreclosure entered in the above entitled cause Intercounty Judicial Sales Corporation will on May 27, 2026, at the hour 11:00 a.m., Intercounty’s office, 120 West Madison Street, Suite 718A, Chicago, IL 60602, sell, in person, to the highest bidder for cash, the following described mortgaged real estate: P.I.N. 16-08-315-029-0000. Commonly known as 114 Washington Boulevard, Oak Park, IL 60302. The real estate is: single family residence. If the subject mortgaged real estate is a unit of a common interest community, the purchaser of the unit other than a mortgagee shall pay the assessments required by subsection(g-1) of Section 189.5 of the Condominium Property Act. Sale terms: At sale, the bidder must have 10% (or 25% if so ordered in the Judgment of Foreclosure) down by certified funds, balance within 24 hours, by certified funds. No refunds. The property is sold AS IS subject to all liens or encumbrances. The property will NOT be open for inspection. Prospective bidders are admonished to check the circuit court case record, property tax record and the title record to verify all information before bidding. IF YOU ARE THE MORTGAGOR (HOMEOWNER), YOU HAVE THE RIGHT TO REMAIN IN POSSESSION FOR 30 DAYS AFTER THE ENTRY OF AN ORDER OF POSSESSION, IN ACCORDANCE WITH SECTION 15-1701(c) OF THE ILLINOIS MORTGAGE FORECLOSURE LAW.

For information call Sales Department at Plaintiff’s Attorney, The Wirbicki Law Group LLC, 33 West Monroe Street, Suite 1540, Chicago, Illinois 60603. (312) 360-9455. W23-0512 INTERCOUNTY JUDICIAL SALES

CORPORATION intercountyjudicialsales.com I3285454

LEGAL NOTICE

ZONING BOARD OF APPEALS RIVER FOREST, ILLINOIS

Public Notice is hereby given that a public hearing will be held by the Zoning Board of Appeals (ZBA) of the Village of River Forest, County of Cook, State of Illinois, on Thursday, May 14, 2026, at 7:30 p.m. in the First Floor Community Room of the River Forest Village Hall, 400 Park Avenue, River Forest, Illinois on the following matter:

The ZBA will consider an application for a major zoning variation submitted by George & Laura Toerner, owners of the property at 846 Forest Ave, who are proposing to add a 2nd floor addition onto a portion of their residence.

Section 4-8-5 of the Village Code provides the Zoning Board with jurisdiction to hold public hearings and offer recommendations to the Village Board concerning variations to the Zoning Ordinance. The applicant is requesting a major variation to Section 10-9-7 of the Zoning Ordinance.

For secondary front yard setbacks, Section 10-9-7 of the Zoning ordinance (10-8-7-A-2) requires “On the secondary street the front yard shall be a minimum of thirteen feet for a fifty foot wide lot…”; for side yard setbacks, Section 10-8-7-C-2-b requires “…and the height of a wall that maintains a nonconforming side yard setback may not be increased.”

The applicant is requesting that the north elevation of the 2nd floor addition match the current setback of the main structure at the eave’s edge (6.57’ instead of the required 13’) and that the south elevation of the addition increase the wall height of the existing nonconforming setback (4.79’ instead of the minimum 5’) to match the existing structure’s wall height.

The legal description of the property at 846 Forest Ave is as follows:

LOT 24 IN OGDEN’S SUBDIVISION OF BLOCK 5 IN SNOW AND DICKENSON’S ADDITION TO RIVER FOREST, BEING A SUBDIVISION OF PARTS OF SECTIONS 1 AND 2, TOWNSHIP 39 NORTH, RANGE 12 EAST OF THE THIRD PRINCIPAL MERIDIAN, IN COOK COUNTY, ILLINOIS.

The Zoning Board of Appeals’ meeting packet, which includes a copy of this zoning variation application, will be available at www.vrf.us/meetings no less than 48 hours prior to the public hearing.

All interested persons will be given the opportunity to be heard at the public hearing. For public comments to be considered by the Zoning Board of Appeals and Village Board of Trustees in their decision, they must be included as part of the public hearing record. Interested persons can learn more about how to participate in the hearing by visiting www.vrf.us/ zoningvariation.

Sincerely, Christian Luis Secretary, Zoning Board of Appeals

PUBLIC NOTICE

Notice is hereby given, pursuant to “An Act in relation to the use of an Assumed Business Name in the conduct or transaction of Business in the State,” as amended, that a certification was registered by the undersigned with the County Clerk of Cook County. Registration Number: M26001576 on April 17, 2026 Under the Assumed Business Name of ATWOOD STUDIOS with the business located at: 9214 BROADWAY AVE, BROOKFIELD, IL 60513. The true and real full name(s) and residence address of the owner(s)/partner(s) is: JUSTIN LYSONS ATWOOD 9214 BROADWAY AVE BROKFIELD, IL 60513, USA.

Published in RB Landmark April 22, 29, May 6, 2026

PUBLIC NOTICES

RIVERSIDE BROOKFIELD TOWNSHIP HIGH SCHOOL DISTRICT 208 TIMELY AND MEANINGFUL CONSULTATION FOR PARENTS AND ADMINISTRATORS OF PRIVATE AND HOME SCHOOLED CHILDREN WITH DISABILITIES

In accordance with the requirements of Section 612(a) (10) of the Federal Individuals with Disabilities Improvement Act of 2004 (“IDEA 2004”), Riverside Brookfield High School will conduct a Timely and Meaningful Consultation on Friday, May 15, 2026, at 9:00 AM at Riverside Brookfield High School, 160 Ridgewood Road, Riverside, Il 60546 The purpose of this meeting is to discuss how students with disabilities, who attend private schools or are homeschooled within the district boundaries, will be served by District 208 during the 2026-27 school year.

Parents and private school administrators who would like to attend should contact Kevin Baldus, Director of Special Education, at baldusk@rbhs208. net.

Published in RB Landmark April 29, May 6, 13, 2026

Submit events and see full calendar at oakpark.com/events

Discover news and community info you won’t get anywhere else.

Come for a casual mixer, brought to you by Forest Park Review/Wednesday Journal, and get the inside scoop on what makes living here so great. Grab a drink and meet other folks in town.

Join us at Robert’s Westside 7321 Madison St., Forest Park Sunday, May 3, 3:00 p.m. - 4:30 p.m.

FREE admission

• Cash bar, FREE snacks, lively fun. Everyone welcome!

Learn what smart moms know about living in the Forest Park/Oak Park/River Forest area. Have a blast while getting program info and ideas from these local resources:

• Collaboration for Early Childhood

• Comedienne Emily Ramirez from BABS Comedy Club

• Riot Sisters rock live music

• Mom music trivia with Robert’s Westside

Growing Green 2026 Art out of the trash

Record Mandala by Pat Williams created from a discarded and damaged record, paint and paint markers.

Fresh ar t from old and discarded things

By JILL WAGNER Contributing Reporter

Actively participating in Ear th Day, ar tists in Forest Park gathered for a public exhibit of ar t made from repurposed items Reimagining waste from our daily lives was the challenge set by Commissioner Michelle Melin- Ro govin after recently completing the Chicago Conservation Corps (C3) training. This event was used to spread the lessons and connect community to engage with community members on a small scale.

C3 teaches leaders about sustainable agriculture, food access, waste reduction, and the aim to support green-living projects throughout Chicago and near suburbs In addition, leaders have access to more resources and connections to scale up local change.

Leaning on the strong arts and environmentally conscious networks in Forest Park, Melin-Rogovin partnered with the village’s environmental commission and the Forest Park Arts Alliance to spread the word in a call to artists

The call was answered and the show featured 10” x10” art that was made with a variety of materials including plastic caps, paper scraps, a record, plastic bags, objects tucked away in drawers, and items found on the sidewalk during a walk.

“Something now exists where there was nothing,” said Melin- Rogovin “Something that was considered to be of no value has been transfor med by ar t into something of value.”

See ART on pa ge B4

PHOTO BY ALEXIS ELLERS

Keep Oak Park Beautiful cleans up village collaboratively

Program an umbrella for four separate e or ts to remove litter, gra ti

By GREGG VOSS Contributing Reporter

Tom Nor they will be the first to tell you that he has a passion for litter

But let’s be clear: The Oak Pa rk resident’s passion focuses on removal, not distribution.

“Litter has been the bane of my existence since I was a little kid,” Nor they said. “My dad would take us for a walk and I’d come back with an ar mful of trash. This was the 1960s (and I thought) how does this happen? How do you address this?”

As he got into his late high school and early colle ge years, he became familiar with the broken window theory.

“It says, if you let broken windows and graf fiti and litter exist, that’s where other antisocial behaviors star t,” he said. “Take care of the little stuf f and it will take care of the big stuf f.

“Everybody is looking to solve big issues, but what if we solved the little things?”

For residents of a certain age, the commercials for Keep America Beautiful, with the tearful indigenous American, also had a profound effect on him, and he’s ke pt all of those things close to his heart for decades.

Now, he’s a driving force locally for Keep Oak Park Beautiful, an extension of Keep America Beautiful and an umbrella program for the village for four ef for ts: the Neighborhood Clean-Up, Adopt a Block, Green Block Party and Graf fiti Re porting and Removal.

According to Christina Waters, Oak Park’s village clerk, these ef for ts are specific to various areas of the village For example, in Adopt a Block, residents and business owners work to gether to keep their chosen adopted block clean. For Neighborhood Clean-Up, Nor they’s prime focus, the village provides black plastic bags for garbage and clear plastic bags for re cyclables, litter pickers, gloves and

GROUND LEVEL: Keep Oak Park Beautif ul volunteers clean up a stretch of Madison Street near Ridgeland.

TBD; Nor they is working that detail out with Publican Quality Bread at 211 Har rison St. Re gistration is easy; go to https://www.oak-park.us/Events-directory/Neighborhood-Clean-Up-Days on the village website.

y 15 that businesses talk Oak comes to garbage and recyclables and consider the long-ter m consequences

“That gum is never going to disinte grate,” he said. “Put it in a receptacle.”

Resident and local artisan, Meghan Hunt used the mesh netting that is used to package purchased fruits and vegetables to create her “For the Love of Flowers.” Her reflections ofthe simple fruits and vegetables which are born from the earth then enter the global marketplace. This includes far mers, harvesters, migrant workers, packers, packaging, shipping, storage, showcasing and all the additional connections and micro plastics introduced along the way before coming to her home. She reshaped the vibrant colors ofthe mesh bags from onions, avocados, sweet potatoes and garlic into flowers. “The flowers are surrounded by packing paper from shipping boxes that reflect how things come to us.”

Susan Baus re purposed cereal boxes and other packaging to create a woven tablecloth for her “Forever Still Life.” Reimagining six-pack yokes as flowers, alongside colored dried allium and sage grass were part ofthe focal point. Mimicking lily-inthe-valley in the vases with egg cartons, re-

Sponsored by Riverside Township

Sponsored by Riverside Township

using pill bottles, and an embellished ruffle from candy wrappers made a maximizing impact at the base. Showing her whimsy and charm, she set a small table for a guest beetle to enjoy a glass of wine.

Sponsored by Riverside Township

Sponsored by Riverside Township

found objects and Forest Park trinkets in a wooden frame. Rethinking uses for old plates, bowls and cups Deb McNichols designed a clever bird feeder and craftsman

Steve Metro re purposed wood into a stunning checkered board.

Sponsored by Riverside Township

Louis Rivera created an interactive piece sending people to the village website included using fragments from his art,

Sponsored by Riverside Township

Sponsored by Riverside Township

Embracing beauty and hope was a common theme throughout the exhibit. Participants

were awarded upcycled cardboard “ribbons,” Nature Museum passes and gift cards to WasteShed, a non-profit reuse art supply center. Connecting with other community members gave an additional layer of optimism to access for experience to take action in sustainability principles and practices in daily living in town.

Saturday, May 2nd 9:00 am –Noon

GARMAN PAINTING

Saturday, May 2nd 9:00 am –Noon

Saturday, May 2nd 9:00 am –Noon

Saturday, May 2nd 9:00 am –Noon

Saturday, May 2nd 9:00 am –Noon

Riverside Masonic Lodge parking lot 40 Forest Avenue, Riverside

Saturday, May 2nd 9:00 am –Noon

Saturday, May 2nd 9:00 am –Noon

This FREE event is only for Riverside Township residents and only for personal, confidential documents. No business shredding, magazines, or junk mail. Each household is restricted to no more than 3 boxes of paper.

Riverside Masonic Lodge parking lot 40 Forest Avenue, Riverside

Riverside Masonic Lodge parking lot 40 Forest Avenue, Riverside

Riverside Masonic Lodge parking lot 40 Forest Avenue, Riverside

Riverside Masonic Lodge parking lot 40 Forest Avenue, Riverside

9:00 am –Noon

Riverside Masonic Lodge parking lot 40 Forest Avenue, Riverside

Riverside Masonic Lodge parking lot 40 Forest Avenue, Riverside

Riverside Masonic Lodge parking lot 40 Forest Avenue, Riverside

This FREE event is only for Riverside Township residents and only for personal, confidential documents No business shredding, magazines, or junk mail. Each household is restricted to no more than 3 boxes of paper.

This FREE event is only for Riverside Township residents and only for personal, confidential documents. No business shredding, magazines, or junk mail. Each household is restricted to no more than 3 boxes of paper.

This FREE event is only for Riverside Township residents and only for personal, confidential documents. No business shredding, magazines, or junk mail. Each household is restricted to no more than 3 boxes of paper.

This FREE event is only for Riverside Township residents and only for personal, confidential documents. No business shredding, magazines, or junk mail. Each household is restricted to no more than 3 boxes of paper.

This FREE event is only for Riverside Township residents and only for personal, confidential documents No business shredding, magazines, or junk mail. Each household is restricted to no more than 3 boxes of paper.

This FREE event is only for Riverside Township residents and only for personal, confidential documents. No business shredding, magazines, or junk mail. Each household is restricted to no more than 3 boxes of paper.

This FREE event is only for Riverside Township residents and only for personal, confidential documents. No business shredding, magazines, or junk mail. Each household is restricted to no more than 3 boxes of paper.

Your documents will be securely destroyed on site by American Mobile Shredding and Recycling.

Your documents will be securely destroyed on site by American Mobile Shredding and Recycling.

Your documents will be securely destroyed on site by American Mobile Shredding and Recycling.

Your documents will be securely destroyed on site by American Mobile Shredding and Recycling.

Your documents will be securely destroyed on site by American Mobile Shredding and Recycling.

Your documents will be securely destroyed on site by American Mobile Shredding and Recycling.

As always, this will be a drive-up event. No need to get out of your car; place the documents in your trunk, follow the signs at the event and then simply pop the trunk. We will remove the documents from your vehicle and shred them for you.

As always, this will be a drive-up event. No need to get out of your car; place the documents in your trunk, follow the signs at the event and pop the trunk. We will remove the documents from your vehicle and shred them for you.

As always, this will be a drive-up event. No need to get out of the documents in your trunk, follow the signs at the event and pop the trunk. We will remove the documents from your vehicle and shred them for you.

As always, this will be a drive-up event. No need to get out of lace the documents in your trunk, follow the signs at the event and pop the trunk. We will remove the documents from your vehicle and shred them for you.

As always, this will be a drive-up event. No need to get out of the documents in your trunk, follow the signs at the event and pop the trunk. We will remove the documents from your vehicle and shred them for you.

Your documents will be securely destroyed on site by American Mobile Shredding and Recycling.

Please bring a non-perishable, unexpired food item to donate to the Riverside Township Food Pantry!

Please bring a non-perishable, unexpired food item to donate to the Riverside Township Food Pantry!

Please bring a non-perishable, unexpired food item to donate to the Riverside Township Food Pantry!

Your documents will be securely destroyed on site by American Mobile Shredding and Recycling. , this will be a drive-up event. No need to get out of the documents in your trunk, follow the signs at the event and pop the trunk. We will remove the documents from your vehicle and shred them for you.

As always, this will be a drive-up event. No need to get out of documents in your trunk, follow the signs at the event and pop the trunk. We will remove the documents from your vehicle and shred them for you.

Please bring a non-perishable, unexpired food item to donate to the Riverside Township Food Pantry!

Please bring a non-perishable, unexpired food item to donate to the Riverside Township Food Pantry!

For more event info, call Riverside Township at (708) 442-4400 or visit our website: www.riversidetownship.org

For more event info, call Riverside Township at (708) 442-4400 or visit our website: www.riversidetownship.org

Please bring a non-perishable, unexpired food item to donate to the Riverside Township Food Pantry!

As always, this will be a drive-up event. No need to get out of your car; place the documents in your trunk, follow the signs at the event and then simply pop the trunk. We will remove the documents from your vehicle and shred them for you.

For more event info, call Riverside Township at (708) 442-4400 or visit our website: www.riversidetownship.org

For more event info, call Riverside Township at (708) 442-4400 or visit our website: www.riversidetownship.org

Please

For more event info, call Riverside Township at (708) 442-4400 or visit our website: www.riversidetownship.org

For more event info, call Riverside Township at (708) 442-4400 or visit our website: www.riversidetownship.org

PHOTO BY ALEXIS ELLERS

Art by Susan Buss

PHOTO BY ALEXIS ELLERS

Art by Meghan Hunt

PHOTO BY ALEXIS ELLERS

Art by Louis Rivera

Growing Green 2026

At 25 years, Seven Generations Ahead focuses on connections

Seven Generations Ahead works to connect villages, schools with climate solutions

By HEC TOR CERVANTES

Contributing Reporter

As Seven Generations Ahead marks its 25th anniversary, founder and executive director Gary Cuneen says the organization is entering a critical new phase, expanding its role as a connector between communities and climate solutions.

Rooted in local and re gional sustainabil ity, Seven Generations Ahead has emphasized climate, equity and long-ter m impact throughout its work Looking ahead, organization aims to connect public private institutions with initiatives lower expenses while achieving greenhouse gas reduction targets, creating community benefits, and advancing wider sustainabil ity goals

“It’s really about identifying resource connecting our institutions with par operating in the clean energy and broader sustainability space, and driving these lutions forward. We’re in this interesting period, of course, with the federal go ment funding cutbacks, which requires to dig in stronger and harder at the level. There are tremendous opportunities for mainstream institutions to take action, Cuneen said.

He said part of the organization’s r to connect institutions with suitable ners and projects tailored to their need while also helping them access the resources necessary to car ry those projects out.

“Our current federal administration denying climate change, so they are providing funding resources. I think pa our job, honestly, is to parse out what is still available. We’re doing that with respect to federal incentives and funding programs established in previous administrations, and helping our institutions take advantage of those opportunities,” Cuneen said.

lenges is that there is a lot of information out there and many different types of projects and approaches We are working with institutions that, by nature, are designed to do what they are intended to do for K–12 schools, that is, to educate children,” Cuneen said.

Cuneen said local gover nments are tasked with numerous responsibilities, including public safety and yd services such

ing ways to strengthen partnerships across neighboring communities, as well as with gover nment agencies, nonprofits, and private companies. Building on the concept of public-private partnerships, the founding team came together through shared connections and a mutual interest in collaborative, community-focused work.

“W beli that ould ha eater

a grant through the EPA, Cook County, the state, or any other organizations that would be appropriate, he looks at where that grant would make the greatest impact,” Scaman said.

Many institutions do not have sufficient staff to consistently track advances in sustainability, particularly in underserved arand Se en Generations Ahead steps in gap by serving as an extended director across communities , they deliver information and opthat support local residents and

CONNEC TED: Gary Cuneen of Seven Generations Ahead and his sta at the Microbrew Review on August 17, 2024.

laborative efforts across the region.

for support in this venture,” Scaman said.

onnecting youth to some of the inidoing with adult leaders in our community institutions and also providwith the capacity to advocate for solutions in their local schools and That’s a big piece for us moving forward.” Cuneen said. ed what success looks like for Generations Ahead over the next dereal impact will be measured, it will be reflected in the voleenhouse gas emissions reduced egies related to energy effilean energy, and composting, among

hoping to expand the number of in our cross-community cliollaborative. … We want to get more ed,” Cuneen said.

Even as federal tax incentives through the Inflation Reduction Act phase out onsite solar tax credits by July of this year, institutions still have viable pathways forward, said Cuneen. Battery storage credits remain available and can be combined with solar projects to generate high retur ns and meaningful cost savings.

“It’s putting some of these opportunities in front of our municipalities now, as well as community institutions One of the chal-

One such effort is the initiative known as C4, which began around 2022. Building on the concept of public-private partnerships, the founding team came together in collaborative, community-focused work C4 is led collaboratively by the mayors of Broadview, Oak Park and River Forest, along with the Urban Efficiency Group and Seven Generations Ahead. This coalition deepens coordination among communities, gover nments, nonprofits and private sector partners.

Oak Park Village President Vixki Scaman said when C4 began it started explor-

According to Scaman, when a community joins C4, the first step is meeting with Cuneen and Urban Efficiency Group CEO Dar nell Johnson to assess where it currently stands. She said they meet communities where they are, whether they are just starting sustainability efforts or have been engaged for years and help them develop a roadmap based on their specific needs and goals.

“We also work to have everyone report back regularly so that we’re able to track our progress with the C4 initiative Gary is primarily the grant writer So if he identifies

ommunities have signed a memounderstanding to collaborate on equity and sustainability. The goal participation by bringing more ommunities into the initiative equipping them with the tools to take action. This includes supporting not only municipal gover nments but also other institutions in implementing strategies to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, such as electric vehicle infrastructure, onsite solar, onsite geother mal, and the procurement of clean energy from projects developed in Illinois.

“There are so many different organizations that are advancing solutions and working in these different spaces and I would encourage people to get connected to those organizations. There are many ways to volunteer, do inter nships, and support existing organizations and initiatives and we have a lot of that in the Chicago metro area that have been working on these issues for quite some time, like us,” Cuneen said.

TODD BANNOR

Portraits of stewardship: West Side Earth Keepers at BUILD

The exhibition showcases gardeners and land stewards using green space as a tool for care and identity

By HEC TOR CERVANTES Contributing Reporter

Since opening on April 3 at BUILD, the “West Side Ear th Keepers” exhibition has showcased the stories and por traits of West Side gardeners whose stewardship sustains both community and future generations

Kesiah Bascom, manager of Austin Grown, a program from BUILD helped shaped the “West Side Earth Keepers” exhibition by leading interviews and community eng agement, while Kenn Cook Jr., a West Side photo grapher and culture keeper, created the project’s portraits documenting local gardeners and land stewards.

Cook said the project grew out of meeting Bascom last year, which sparked his curiosity about the rise of community gardens and urban farming in Austin. As he connected with her and other West Side Ear th Keepers, he be g an lear ning more about the work and was inspired to explore and document it.

Growing Green 2026

“We want to say, ‘Hey, we see you, we honor you and we want you to know that the work you’re doing doesn’t go unrecognized.’”

KENN COOK Photographer for project

“I lear ned that Austin has 26 community gardens that have developed over the last few years, and people star ted recommending books for me to read. From there, we be g an discussing a potential project to honor those doing this work, because I realized I

didn’t know much about it,” Cook said.

The vision behind the West Side Ear th Keepers ar t exhibit is to uplift longtime community members doing this work and place them at the center of attention, according to Bascom. The exhibit aims to reco gnize and celebrate their contributions by putting them on display.

“We want to say, ‘Hey, we see you, we honor you, and we want you to know that the work you’ re doing doesn’t go unrecognized.’ We would love for other people to share in our pride in the work that you’ re doing. I feel like Kenn really played an important role in bringing that to life and exceeded my expectations of what it could be, so it was a really fun project,” Bascom said.

Bascom described how a mother and daughter participated in the project to gether at Harambee Garden, being both interviewed and photo graphed side by side. The ex-

perience highlighted the intergenerational nature of the work, as the mother passed down her care for the ear th while the daughter inter preted it in her own way.

Cook said when people came to see themselves on the walls, it became a powerful moment, bringing families and friends to gether to honor them and reco gnize the importance of caring for the land and for one another.

“While we often think of memory and archives as records in past tense, I’ve always seen my work as bridging the gap between generations. When I’m making these images, I feel like I’m in the presence of history and also creating it through these photo graphs, because these are people who are continuing to shape the West Side and the culture we live in,” Cook said.

There was a reflection on the historical connection of Black people as stewards of the ear th, noting how land

PROVIDED

Growing Green 2026

care has long been a significant part of Black culture and movement. This relationship was also acknowledged as being shaped by history, including enslavement and its impacts.

“I think that natural connection to land is just who we are. But also, as an act of resistance, these earth keepers are taking spaces that would otherwise be empty in our community and turning them into something beautiful. They are inviting people into this culture of resistance that doesn’t depend on large companies or chain stores to produce our food; instead, they’re trying to give people the skills so they can survive. With that, I think there is a lot of resistance built in there,” Cook said.

Bascom said the team sat down to be intentional about the questions they were asking participants, aiming to capture a

range of perspectives depending on each person’s background.

“The easiest way to a gardener’s heart is to just ask them what’s growing in their backyards, or what they’re most excited about in nature for the growing season. Not everybody was a far mer, but people are doing this work not to make money or anything like that, they’re doing it because they truly love it. It’s their passion,” Bascom said.

The interview questions were shaped around themes of advocacy, people’s relationships to nature and what they personally enjoyed in the natural world.

“I love that having these photo graphs and stories will continue that le gacy for future generations to see and hear what we’ve been doing, and to understand why we feel so passionate about protecting our earth,” Bascom said.

Growing Green 2026 Art out of the trash

Record Mandala by Pat Williams created from a discarded and damaged record, paint and paint markers.

Fresh ar t from old and discarded things

By JILL WAGNER Contributing Reporter

Actively participating in Ear th Day, ar tists in Forest Park gathered for a public exhibit of ar t made from repurposed items Reimagining waste from our daily lives was the challenge set by Commissioner Michelle Melin- Ro govin after recently completing the Chicago Conservation Corps (C3) training. This event was used to spread the lessons and connect community to engage with community members on a small scale.

C3 teaches leaders about sustainable agriculture, food access, waste reduction, and the aim to support green-living projects throughout Chicago and near suburbs In addition, leaders have access to more resources and connections to scale up local change.

Leaning on the strong arts and environmentally conscious networks in Forest Park, Melin-Rogovin partnered with the village’s environmental commission and the Forest Park Arts Alliance to spread the word in a call to artists

The call was answered and the show featured 10” x10” art that was made with a variety of materials including plastic caps, paper scraps, a record, plastic bags, objects tucked away in drawers, and items found on the sidewalk during a walk.

“Something now exists where there was nothing,” said Melin- Rogovin “Something that was considered to be of no value has been transfor med by ar t into something of value.”

See ART on pa ge B4

PHOTO BY ALEXIS ELLERS

Keep Oak Park Beautiful cleans up village collaboratively

Program an umbrella for four separate e or ts to remove litter, gra ti

By GREGG VOSS Contributing Reporter

Tom Nor they will be the first to tell you that he has a passion for litter

But let’s be clear: The Oak Pa rk resident’s passion focuses on removal, not distribution.

“Litter has been the bane of my existence since I was a little kid,” Nor they said. “My dad would take us for a walk and I’d come back with an ar mful of trash. This was the 1960s (and I thought) how does this happen? How do you address this?”

As he got into his late high school and early colle ge years, he became familiar with the broken window theory.

“It says, if you let broken windows and graf fiti and litter exist, that’s where other antisocial behaviors star t,” he said. “Take care of the little stuf f and it will take care of the big stuf f.

“Everybody is looking to solve big issues, but what if we solved the little things?”

For residents of a certain age, the commercials for Keep America Beautiful, with the tearful indigenous American, also had a profound effect on him, and he’s ke pt all of those things close to his heart for decades.

Now, he’s a driving force locally for Keep Oak Park Beautiful, an extension of Keep America Beautiful and an umbrella program for the village for four ef for ts: the Neighborhood Clean-Up, Adopt a Block, Green Block Party and Graf fiti Re porting and Removal.

According to Christina Waters, Oak Park’s village clerk, these ef for ts are specific to various areas of the village For example, in Adopt a Block, residents and business owners work to gether to keep their chosen adopted block clean. For Neighborhood Clean-Up, Nor they’s prime focus, the village provides black plastic bags for garbage and clear plastic bags for re cyclables, litter pickers, gloves and

GROUND LEVEL: Keep Oak Park Beautif ul volunteers clean up a stretch of Madison Street near Ridgeland.

TBD; Nor they is working that detail out with Publican Quality Bread at 211 Har rison St. Re gistration is easy; go to https://www.oak-park.us/Events-directory/Neighborhood-Clean-Up-Days on the village website.

y 15 that businesses talk Oak comes to garbage and recyclables and consider the long-ter m consequences

“That gum is never going to disinte grate,” he said. “Put it in a receptacle.”

Resident and local artisan, Meghan Hunt used the mesh netting that is used to package purchased fruits and vegetables to create her “For the Love of Flowers.” Her reflections ofthe simple fruits and vegetables which are born from the earth then enter the global marketplace. This includes far mers, harvesters, migrant workers, packers, packaging, shipping, storage, showcasing and all the additional connections and micro plastics introduced along the way before coming to her home. She reshaped the vibrant colors ofthe mesh bags from onions, avocados, sweet potatoes and garlic into flowers. “The flowers are surrounded by packing paper from shipping boxes that reflect how things come to us.”

Susan Baus re purposed cereal boxes and other packaging to create a woven tablecloth for her “Forever Still Life.” Reimagining six-pack yokes as flowers, alongside colored dried allium and sage grass were part ofthe focal point. Mimicking lily-inthe-valley in the vases with egg cartons, re-

Sponsored by Riverside Township

Sponsored by Riverside Township

using pill bottles, and an embellished ruffle from candy wrappers made a maximizing impact at the base. Showing her whimsy and charm, she set a small table for a guest beetle to enjoy a glass of wine.

Sponsored by Riverside Township

Sponsored by Riverside Township

found objects and Forest Park trinkets in a wooden frame. Rethinking uses for old plates, bowls and cups Deb McNichols designed a clever bird feeder and craftsman

Steve Metro re purposed wood into a stunning checkered board.

Sponsored by Riverside Township

Louis Rivera created an interactive piece sending people to the village website included using fragments from his art,

Sponsored by Riverside Township

Sponsored by Riverside Township

Embracing beauty and hope was a common theme throughout the exhibit. Participants

were awarded upcycled cardboard “ribbons,” Nature Museum passes and gift cards to WasteShed, a non-profit reuse art supply center. Connecting with other community members gave an additional layer of optimism to access for experience to take action in sustainability principles and practices in daily living in town.

Saturday, May 2nd 9:00 am –Noon

GARMAN PAINTING

Saturday, May 2nd 9:00 am –Noon

Saturday, May 2nd 9:00 am –Noon

Saturday, May 2nd 9:00 am –Noon

Saturday, May 2nd 9:00 am –Noon

Riverside Masonic Lodge parking lot 40 Forest Avenue, Riverside

Saturday, May 2nd 9:00 am –Noon

Saturday, May 2nd 9:00 am –Noon

This FREE event is only for Riverside Township residents and only for personal, confidential documents. No business shredding, magazines, or junk mail. Each household is restricted to no more than 3 boxes of paper.

Riverside Masonic Lodge parking lot 40 Forest Avenue, Riverside

Riverside Masonic Lodge parking lot 40 Forest Avenue, Riverside

Riverside Masonic Lodge parking lot 40 Forest Avenue, Riverside

Riverside Masonic Lodge parking lot 40 Forest Avenue, Riverside

9:00 am –Noon

Riverside Masonic Lodge parking lot 40 Forest Avenue, Riverside

Riverside Masonic Lodge parking lot 40 Forest Avenue, Riverside

Riverside Masonic Lodge parking lot 40 Forest Avenue, Riverside

This FREE event is only for Riverside Township residents and only for personal, confidential documents No business shredding, magazines, or junk mail. Each household is restricted to no more than 3 boxes of paper.

This FREE event is only for Riverside Township residents and only for personal, confidential documents. No business shredding, magazines, or junk mail. Each household is restricted to no more than 3 boxes of paper.

This FREE event is only for Riverside Township residents and only for personal, confidential documents. No business shredding, magazines, or junk mail. Each household is restricted to no more than 3 boxes of paper.

This FREE event is only for Riverside Township residents and only for personal, confidential documents. No business shredding, magazines, or junk mail. Each household is restricted to no more than 3 boxes of paper.

This FREE event is only for Riverside Township residents and only for personal, confidential documents No business shredding, magazines, or junk mail. Each household is restricted to no more than 3 boxes of paper.

This FREE event is only for Riverside Township residents and only for personal, confidential documents. No business shredding, magazines, or junk mail. Each household is restricted to no more than 3 boxes of paper.

This FREE event is only for Riverside Township residents and only for personal, confidential documents. No business shredding, magazines, or junk mail. Each household is restricted to no more than 3 boxes of paper.

Your documents will be securely destroyed on site by American Mobile Shredding and Recycling.

Your documents will be securely destroyed on site by American Mobile Shredding and Recycling.

Your documents will be securely destroyed on site by American Mobile Shredding and Recycling.

Your documents will be securely destroyed on site by American Mobile Shredding and Recycling.

Your documents will be securely destroyed on site by American Mobile Shredding and Recycling.

Your documents will be securely destroyed on site by American Mobile Shredding and Recycling.

As always, this will be a drive-up event. No need to get out of your car; place the documents in your trunk, follow the signs at the event and then simply pop the trunk. We will remove the documents from your vehicle and shred them for you.

As always, this will be a drive-up event. No need to get out of your car; place the documents in your trunk, follow the signs at the event and pop the trunk. We will remove the documents from your vehicle and shred them for you.

As always, this will be a drive-up event. No need to get out of the documents in your trunk, follow the signs at the event and pop the trunk. We will remove the documents from your vehicle and shred them for you.

As always, this will be a drive-up event. No need to get out of lace the documents in your trunk, follow the signs at the event and pop the trunk. We will remove the documents from your vehicle and shred them for you.

As always, this will be a drive-up event. No need to get out of the documents in your trunk, follow the signs at the event and pop the trunk. We will remove the documents from your vehicle and shred them for you.

Your documents will be securely destroyed on site by American Mobile Shredding and Recycling.

Please bring a non-perishable, unexpired food item to donate to the Riverside Township Food Pantry!

Please bring a non-perishable, unexpired food item to donate to the Riverside Township Food Pantry!

Please bring a non-perishable, unexpired food item to donate to the Riverside Township Food Pantry!

Your documents will be securely destroyed on site by American Mobile Shredding and Recycling. , this will be a drive-up event. No need to get out of the documents in your trunk, follow the signs at the event and pop the trunk. We will remove the documents from your vehicle and shred them for you.

As always, this will be a drive-up event. No need to get out of documents in your trunk, follow the signs at the event and pop the trunk. We will remove the documents from your vehicle and shred them for you.

Please bring a non-perishable, unexpired food item to donate to the Riverside Township Food Pantry!

Please bring a non-perishable, unexpired food item to donate to the Riverside Township Food Pantry!

For more event info, call Riverside Township at (708) 442-4400 or visit our website: www.riversidetownship.org

For more event info, call Riverside Township at (708) 442-4400 or visit our website: www.riversidetownship.org

Please bring a non-perishable, unexpired food item to donate to the Riverside Township Food Pantry!

As always, this will be a drive-up event. No need to get out of your car; place the documents in your trunk, follow the signs at the event and then simply pop the trunk. We will remove the documents from your vehicle and shred them for you.

For more event info, call Riverside Township at (708) 442-4400 or visit our website: www.riversidetownship.org

For more event info, call Riverside Township at (708) 442-4400 or visit our website: www.riversidetownship.org

Please

For more event info, call Riverside Township at (708) 442-4400 or visit our website: www.riversidetownship.org

For more event info, call Riverside Township at (708) 442-4400 or visit our website: www.riversidetownship.org

PHOTO BY ALEXIS ELLERS

Art by Susan Buss

PHOTO BY ALEXIS ELLERS

Art by Meghan Hunt

PHOTO BY ALEXIS ELLERS

Art by Louis Rivera

Growing Green 2026

At 25 years, Seven Generations Ahead focuses on connections

Seven Generations Ahead works to connect villages, schools with climate solutions

By HEC TOR CERVANTES

Contributing Reporter

As Seven Generations Ahead marks its 25th anniversary, founder and executive director Gary Cuneen says the organization is entering a critical new phase, expanding its role as a connector between communities and climate solutions.

Rooted in local and re gional sustainabil ity, Seven Generations Ahead has emphasized climate, equity and long-ter m impact throughout its work Looking ahead, organization aims to connect public private institutions with initiatives lower expenses while achieving greenhouse gas reduction targets, creating community benefits, and advancing wider sustainabil ity goals

“It’s really about identifying resource connecting our institutions with par operating in the clean energy and broader sustainability space, and driving these lutions forward. We’re in this interesting period, of course, with the federal go ment funding cutbacks, which requires to dig in stronger and harder at the level. There are tremendous opportunities for mainstream institutions to take action, Cuneen said.

He said part of the organization’s r to connect institutions with suitable ners and projects tailored to their need while also helping them access the resources necessary to car ry those projects out.

“Our current federal administration denying climate change, so they are providing funding resources. I think pa our job, honestly, is to parse out what is still available. We’re doing that with respect to federal incentives and funding programs established in previous administrations, and helping our institutions take advantage of those opportunities,” Cuneen said.

lenges is that there is a lot of information out there and many different types of projects and approaches We are working with institutions that, by nature, are designed to do what they are intended to do for K–12 schools, that is, to educate children,” Cuneen said.

Cuneen said local gover nments are tasked with numerous responsibilities, including public safety and yd services such

ing ways to strengthen partnerships across neighboring communities, as well as with gover nment agencies, nonprofits, and private companies. Building on the concept of public-private partnerships, the founding team came together through shared connections and a mutual interest in collaborative, community-focused work.

“W beli that ould ha eater

a grant through the EPA, Cook County, the state, or any other organizations that would be appropriate, he looks at where that grant would make the greatest impact,” Scaman said.

Many institutions do not have sufficient staff to consistently track advances in sustainability, particularly in underserved arand Se en Generations Ahead steps in gap by serving as an extended director across communities , they deliver information and opthat support local residents and

CONNEC TED: Gary Cuneen of Seven Generations Ahead and his sta at the Microbrew Review on August 17, 2024.

laborative efforts across the region.

for support in this venture,” Scaman said.

onnecting youth to some of the inidoing with adult leaders in our community institutions and also providwith the capacity to advocate for solutions in their local schools and That’s a big piece for us moving forward.” Cuneen said. ed what success looks like for Generations Ahead over the next dereal impact will be measured, it will be reflected in the voleenhouse gas emissions reduced egies related to energy effilean energy, and composting, among

hoping to expand the number of in our cross-community cliollaborative. … We want to get more ed,” Cuneen said.

Even as federal tax incentives through the Inflation Reduction Act phase out onsite solar tax credits by July of this year, institutions still have viable pathways forward, said Cuneen. Battery storage credits remain available and can be combined with solar projects to generate high retur ns and meaningful cost savings.

“It’s putting some of these opportunities in front of our municipalities now, as well as community institutions One of the chal-

One such effort is the initiative known as C4, which began around 2022. Building on the concept of public-private partnerships, the founding team came together in collaborative, community-focused work C4 is led collaboratively by the mayors of Broadview, Oak Park and River Forest, along with the Urban Efficiency Group and Seven Generations Ahead. This coalition deepens coordination among communities, gover nments, nonprofits and private sector partners.

Oak Park Village President Vixki Scaman said when C4 began it started explor-

According to Scaman, when a community joins C4, the first step is meeting with Cuneen and Urban Efficiency Group CEO Dar nell Johnson to assess where it currently stands. She said they meet communities where they are, whether they are just starting sustainability efforts or have been engaged for years and help them develop a roadmap based on their specific needs and goals.

“We also work to have everyone report back regularly so that we’re able to track our progress with the C4 initiative Gary is primarily the grant writer So if he identifies

ommunities have signed a memounderstanding to collaborate on equity and sustainability. The goal participation by bringing more ommunities into the initiative equipping them with the tools to take action. This includes supporting not only municipal gover nments but also other institutions in implementing strategies to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, such as electric vehicle infrastructure, onsite solar, onsite geother mal, and the procurement of clean energy from projects developed in Illinois.

“There are so many different organizations that are advancing solutions and working in these different spaces and I would encourage people to get connected to those organizations. There are many ways to volunteer, do inter nships, and support existing organizations and initiatives and we have a lot of that in the Chicago metro area that have been working on these issues for quite some time, like us,” Cuneen said.

TODD BANNOR

Portraits of stewardship: West Side Earth Keepers at BUILD

The exhibition showcases gardeners and land stewards using green space as a tool for care and identity

By HEC TOR CERVANTES Contributing Reporter

Since opening on April 3 at BUILD, the “West Side Ear th Keepers” exhibition has showcased the stories and por traits of West Side gardeners whose stewardship sustains both community and future generations

Kesiah Bascom, manager of Austin Grown, a program from BUILD helped shaped the “West Side Earth Keepers” exhibition by leading interviews and community eng agement, while Kenn Cook Jr., a West Side photo grapher and culture keeper, created the project’s portraits documenting local gardeners and land stewards.

Cook said the project grew out of meeting Bascom last year, which sparked his curiosity about the rise of community gardens and urban farming in Austin. As he connected with her and other West Side Ear th Keepers, he be g an lear ning more about the work and was inspired to explore and document it.

Growing Green 2026

“We want to say, ‘Hey, we see you, we honor you and we want you to know that the work you’re doing doesn’t go unrecognized.’”

KENN COOK Photographer for project

“I lear ned that Austin has 26 community gardens that have developed over the last few years, and people star ted recommending books for me to read. From there, we be g an discussing a potential project to honor those doing this work, because I realized I

didn’t know much about it,” Cook said.

The vision behind the West Side Ear th Keepers ar t exhibit is to uplift longtime community members doing this work and place them at the center of attention, according to Bascom. The exhibit aims to reco gnize and celebrate their contributions by putting them on display.

“We want to say, ‘Hey, we see you, we honor you, and we want you to know that the work you’ re doing doesn’t go unrecognized.’ We would love for other people to share in our pride in the work that you’ re doing. I feel like Kenn really played an important role in bringing that to life and exceeded my expectations of what it could be, so it was a really fun project,” Bascom said.

Bascom described how a mother and daughter participated in the project to gether at Harambee Garden, being both interviewed and photo graphed side by side. The ex-

perience highlighted the intergenerational nature of the work, as the mother passed down her care for the ear th while the daughter inter preted it in her own way.

Cook said when people came to see themselves on the walls, it became a powerful moment, bringing families and friends to gether to honor them and reco gnize the importance of caring for the land and for one another.

“While we often think of memory and archives as records in past tense, I’ve always seen my work as bridging the gap between generations. When I’m making these images, I feel like I’m in the presence of history and also creating it through these photo graphs, because these are people who are continuing to shape the West Side and the culture we live in,” Cook said.

There was a reflection on the historical connection of Black people as stewards of the ear th, noting how land

PROVIDED

Growing Green 2026

care has long been a significant part of Black culture and movement. This relationship was also acknowledged as being shaped by history, including enslavement and its impacts.

“I think that natural connection to land is just who we are. But also, as an act of resistance, these earth keepers are taking spaces that would otherwise be empty in our community and turning them into something beautiful. They are inviting people into this culture of resistance that doesn’t depend on large companies or chain stores to produce our food; instead, they’re trying to give people the skills so they can survive. With that, I think there is a lot of resistance built in there,” Cook said.

Bascom said the team sat down to be intentional about the questions they were asking participants, aiming to capture a

range of perspectives depending on each person’s background.

“The easiest way to a gardener’s heart is to just ask them what’s growing in their backyards, or what they’re most excited about in nature for the growing season. Not everybody was a far mer, but people are doing this work not to make money or anything like that, they’re doing it because they truly love it. It’s their passion,” Bascom said.

The interview questions were shaped around themes of advocacy, people’s relationships to nature and what they personally enjoyed in the natural world.

“I love that having these photo graphs and stories will continue that le gacy for future generations to see and hear what we’ve been doing, and to understand why we feel so passionate about protecting our earth,” Bascom said.