Wednesday Journal_050620

GROWING COMMUNITY MEDIA RECEIVES PPP LOAN Page 3

HEMINGWAY OR HARMON? Senate leader sprouts a beard Page 9

W E D N E S D A Y

May 6, 2020 Vol. 40, No. 41 ONE DOLLAR @oakpark @wednesdayjournal

JOURNAL of Oak Park and River Forest

Farmers market opens May 30 COVID-19 radically alters format

By MELISSA ELSMO Oak Park Eats Editor

MATCH THIS: Oak Parkers Patty and Ken Hunt want to support local social services and have donated $250,000 as a matching fund.

Couple donates $250,000 for local relief Ken and Patty Hunt back Community Foundation

By STACEY SHERIDAN Staff Reporter

Oak Park residents and philanthropists Ken and Patty Hunt have pledged $250,000 in a matching challenge to support the

Oak Park-River Forest Community Foundation’s “Rapid Response and Recovery Fund.”

“The Oak Park-River Forest Community Foundation is something we’ve been involved with for a while. This is the most significant contribution we’ve made,” said Ken Hunt.

When COVID-19 began to spread in Illinois, the Hunts donated directly to non-

profits. To make the greatest impact and support many non-profits, the Hunts decided to continue their efforts through the community foundation.

“During this particular time, we feel we have to help those most in need,” said Patty Hunt. “And that’s why we chose to support the community foundation.”

See DONATION on page 12

Though details are still emerging, the Oak Park Farmers Market is scheduled to open on Saturday, May 30 at 7:30 a.m. and operate through the last Saturday in October barring any COVID-19 related adjustments made to a Public Health Order issued by Public Health Director Mike Charley Monday evening.

Details of the plan were presented Monday evening to the village board amid tensions over how the plan for opening was developed. The chair of the farmers market commission expressed frustration at the lack of involvement by volunteer commissioners and multiple trustees were critical of the process.

An emotional Cara Pavlicek, Oak Park village manager, told the board, “We’re trying our best.”

Farmers’ markets have been named among essential businesses in Gov. J.B. Pritzker’s stay at home order issued on April 30, 2020. Charley’s order points out local governments may adopt “provisions that are stricter” than those contained in Pritzker’s order.

“People should expect a modified standard market and the addition of an online pilot program with preordering and pick up,” said CamerSee FARMERS MARKET on page 6

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May is Mental Health Awareness Month

Oak Park and River Forest Mental Health Boards are here to help!

We provide access to resources and services to for the Oak Park and River Forest Communities Students can text us at: 844-670-5838 District 90 Text: Safe District 97 Text: Hope District 200 Text: Care

Download our new COVID-19 resource guide at: bit.ly/oprfguide

Visit The HUB for a complete list of resources

Sponsors:

In Partnership with:

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DEAR READERS

Growing Community Media receives PPP loan

Funds to be spent on payroll, rent, utilities

Pleased to share news today that Growing Community Media, the nonprofit entity that publishes Wednesday Journal and three other community newspapers, has received a loan from the U.S. government’s Paycheck Protection Program.

PPP is an initiative aimed at supporting small businesses and their employees during the COVID-19 pandemic and the economic shutdown which has resulted.

The loan amount is $242,500, an amount calculated based on GCM’s payroll costs. The loan was made through Byline Bank. Under terms of the federal program, portions of

the loan used to fund payroll, rent and utilities over the next 60 days can be forgiven.

The balance of the loan will have to repaid over time at a 1-percent rate of interest.

We are appreciative of this funding at a time when advertising revenue, our most important revenue source, has been decimated by the pandemic’s direct impact on local businesses. We thank local merchants and nonprofits that have continued to share their messages with readers through our print and digital news channels.

And, as we come up this July on our company’s 40th anniversary, we assure our many friends and partners in local business that we will be there for them as we all gradually and safely reopen our lives into what will be a changed world.

We continue working hard to tell our read-

ers that we need them to help pay for our independent community journalism. Whether that is a print subscription or a digital membership, we will thrive in the mid-term only if readers pay their share.

It is gratifying that only a few months into our new nonprofit incarnation that nearly 1,000 individuals and organizations have signed on as donors or digital members.

And, we will intensify our efforts to bring more donors and foundations into our cause of providing the essential glue in each of our seven neighborhoods.

This PPP loan is a critical bridge for us.

But we still need to build the road on the far side of that bridge. It is a new road, different from the one that has brought us through nearly 40 years. Like all of our colleagues in local journalism we are inventing this road

even as we drive it.

While we are grateful for this PPP loan, it does not feel entirely natural for a newspaper to accept a loan/grant from the federal government. The founders of this great nation intended it to have a free press. It is separate from government, and actively adversarial. When earned, there is a respectful tension with that government.

That said, this is an extraordinary and difficult moment. Be assured that we are aware of our responsibility to serve as a watchdog on local government and will, to the best of our ability and resources, continue to fill that key role.

Our thanks to each of you in these hard days.

Dan Haley, publisher

Growing Community Media

River Forest family celebrates unique Ramadan

Ahmed-Achter family reflects on community

By TOM HOLMES Contributing Reporter

Many of Zayna and Safiya Ahmed’s classmates may not know much about what Muslims do during the month of Ramadan since Muslims comprise only one percent of the U.S. population.

When asked what it’s like, 15 year old Zayna tells her Oak Park and River Forest High School friends, “Ramadan is a month in Islam where we fast for 30 days from sunrise to sunset to better ourselves and bring ourselves closer to God.” Safiya, who is 11, explains to her Roosevelt Middle School classmates that while fasting Muslims pray and read the Qur’an in addition to going about their everyday routine.

One thing it teaches you, she said, is to not take things for granted.

Suleyman Ahmed is a senior at the University of Chicago Lab School and therefore is acutely aware of how the coronavirus has robbed him of finishing his time in high school with his classmates and the graduation ceremony itself. He recently found out he is one of 621 semifinalists for the 2020 U.S. Presidential Scholars Program.

He said COVID-19 has also radically changed the way his family celebrates Ramadan. “Ramadan is a month for Muslims to really celebrate community,” he said. “We fast together, we break fast together, we pray together at mosques. Under a normal circumstance that would be what Ramadan would be about.”

Suleyman’s mother, Nausheen Akhter, added the stay at home order has forced Muslims to focus on their individual fami-

Photo provided

DIGITAL CELEBRATION: Mohi Ahmed and children having Iftar, the meal to break fast at sunset, traditionally done with dates with the laptop in view on the kitchen counter. lies more than on the wider community.

“We have been getting on Zoom,” she said, “with my parents every evening before breaking fast for a discussion on a spiritual topic. Then we place the laptop right on the kitchen counter when it is time for Iftar [the meal that Muslims eat after sunset during Ramadan to break the day’s fast], so it feels like we are all together.

“We have also been doing the evening prayers which are usually done in a mosque, called taraweeh, at home together. There are a lot of Zoom educational classes that one can participate in as well.”

In several ways, however, sheltering at home has made this year’s Ramadan more meaningful from a spiritual point of view.

Suleyman pointed out that “Ramadan has

a lot to do with improving yourself, setting goals, and focusing on the important things in life. And I think fasting also makes you a little bit more empathetic to the actual struggles of people who are hungry and homeless, what they go through on a day to day basis.”

Nausheen’s husband, Syed Mohi Ahmed, believes that self-restraint is a character trait his family learns from fasting which applies directly to coping with the isolation most people are experiencing.

“Fasting in Ramadan,” he said, “generally involves abstaining from things that are usually permissible and enjoyed -- food and drink -- as a means of learning self-restraint through God consciousness. As a society in this pandemic, we are now individually

required to hold back from doing things that bring us pleasure to promote the good health of our neighbors. That self-restraint that our family has learned can now be deployed in service of our community.”

Suleyman wanted readers to understand that fasting from sunup to sundown, as far as he is concerned, is not a sacrifice. “There is a misconception,” he said, “that in some ways I am forcing myself to do something that is hard. But it is definitely not like that. It is one of the things that I look forward to every year.”

Nausheen and Mohi are both physicians.

Dr. Nausheen Achter is a cardiologist at Northwestern Medicine and Dr. Mohi Ahmed an oncologist at Advocate Medical Group in Libertyville.

Dr. Achter said the pandemic has affected her practice on many levels. “We are doing as much as possible remotely,” she said, “to promote social distancing, and prevent the spread of the virus to our most vulnerable patients. In my practice, we have switched our outpatient care to almost exclusively telemedicine for the past several weeks. As patients with both heart disease and cancer are at the highest risks for developing severe illness.”

Dr. Ahmed, an oncologist, said, “As devastating as this pandemic has been for society at large, the cancer community in particular continues to deal with an illness that deprives them of life and health every day. They are dealing with it even more so in this time of social isolation. I have lost a few of my cancer patients during this period of quarantine not to coronavirus, but to their cancer. The struggle that families go through after this death is usually mitigated by neighbors coalescing around them.

Families have been deprived of this source of solace in the midst of our quarantine.”

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Wednesday Journal, May 6, 2020

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BIG WEEK May 6 - 13

Virtual Pet Adoption Saturday, May 9, 11 a.m. to 1:15 p.m., Zoom The Animal Care League is showcasing adoptable dogs and cats. Those looking to give pets their forever homes can talk with foster families who are living with the animals.

Meet dogs from 11 a.m. to noon and cats from 12:15 to 1:15 p.m. To learn more and access video call info go to: facebook.com/Animal-Care-League-280577880811/

Fun Home

In Celebration of Mother’s Day

May 12 to 24, Stream via Vimeo See the musical staged at Victory Gardens Theater of Chicago during their 2017/18 season and watch the performance of Oak Park teen Leo Gonzalez. Fun Home, which won five Tony’s, is inspired by Alison Bechdel’s best-selling graphic memoir. Alison sets out to unravel the many mysteries of her childhood through a series of memories and conversations – from her coming out to her moving journey to acceptance. $20. More/to purchase: victorygardens.org/event/fun-home-streaming

Sunday, May 10 Mother’s Day was first proposed by abolitionist and poet Julia Ward Howe. In her 1872 Proclamation, she suggested observing the holiday as a day dedicated to peace and the importance of coming together during challenging times.

Explore titles on peace, suggested by Oak Park librarians and more: oppl.org/news-events/authors-books/incelebration-of-mothers-day-titles-for-peace

Mini-STEAM Projects Thursdays through May, 3 to 3:30 p.m., River Forest Library YouTube, Facebook and Instagram pages STEAM = science, technology, engineering, art and mathematics. Engage your kids with fun, educational projects each week at home with the help of your local library.

Mini-Story Time Daily through May, 10 to 11 a.m., River Forest Library YouTube, Facebook and Instagram pages Here is something to keep those babies, toddlers and preschoolers entertained – a story time just for them, with help from River Forest librarians.

Middle School Book Group: They Called Us Enemy Start reading now; virtual discussion Friday, May 29, 4 to 5 p.m., Zoom Meet virtually with students in grades 5 to 8 and share thoughts and opinions on the graphic memoir by George Takei. In it, Takei reveals the story of his family’s incarceration during the internment of Japanese Americans during World War II. The book is available through Hoopla with a library card. Register to receive meeting info: oppl.org/ calendar (go to the May 29 event).

Senior Salutations – OPRF High School students needed.

If you’re a high school student, Senior Salutations connects teens as pen pals with local senior citizens living in retirement homes to combat the loneliness and lessen the mental health consequences of prolonged isolation in both groups during this time and to foster intergenerational communication and empathy now and in the future. An initiative of Jackson Tanner and Eleanor Sigel. Sign up to be connected with a local senior citizen: https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSc_kpjQQrWF7G8WX_IzOb9OCAKq

NAMI Connection Support Groups The National Alliance on Mental Illness (NAMI) Metro Suburban provides support for those living with mental illness. Join by call-in or video chat.

Tuesdays, 6 to 7:30 p.m.

Meeting number 293 567 969, password: ConnectT Call-in number 312-535-8110, access code: 293567969 Saturdays, 12:30 to 2 p.m.

Meeting number 290 198 416, password: ConnectS Call-in number 312-535-8110, access code 290198416 Sundays, 6 to 7:30 p.m.

Meeting number 292 138 327, password: ConnectSu Call-in number 312-535-8110, access code: 292138327 More and to install Cisco Webex meeting app: namimetsub.org/recovery-programs/nami-connection

NAMI Virtual Drop-in Center

GriefShare

While the Oak Park Drop-in Center of the National Alliance on Mental Illinois (NAMI) Metro Suburban is closed, those living with mental illness can join others for discussions on a variety of topics, support and skill building, hosted by the Drop-in Center staff and guest speakers.

Daily, 2 to 3 p.m.

Meeting number 290260490, password: Daily2 Call in number 312-535-8110, access code: 290260490 Daily, 5 to 6 p.m.

Meeting number 297 135 209, password: Daily5 Call in number 312-535-8110, access code: 297135209 More and to install Cisco Webex meeting app: namimetsub.org/recovery-programs/the-drop-in-center

Tuesdays, 7 to 9 p.m., through July 28 Join a support group at Grace Lutheran Church, initially online, and in-person later when it is safe to do so. More: 708-366-6900, gracechurch@graceriverforest.org

Grief Journaling Workshops Thursday, May 7, 6 to 8 p.m., Zoom Have you experienced the loss of a loved one? Or, are you experiencing ambiguous loss (loss without closure, such as infertility or a loved one with Alzheimer’s) or anticipatory grief? Sessions begin with prompts followed by time to journal. At the end, there is time to share (optional). Resources for grief, where to get help, writing and more is provided. All welcome. Also, Sunday, May 24, 2 to 4 p.m. Register: oppl.org/calendar.

Wednesday Journal, May 6, 2020

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ART BEAT

Taking the pulse of local arts organizations

By MICHELLE DYBAL

W

Contributing Reporter

hile many local businesses are closed during shelter-in-place, arts organizations face a different kind of challenge. Those that put on performances — dance school, choirs, orchestras and theater companies — cannot fully function without a crowd, the very thing that is forbidden to ensure everyone’s safety during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Arts groups that teach as well as perform have retooled to instruct virtually, such as the Academy of Movement and Music and Pro Musica Youth Chorus, both of which teach young people in Oak Park. For performance-based groups like the Symphony of Oak Park-River Forest and Oak Park Festival Theatre, quarantine has put a big red X across many dates on the calendar.

Governmental help has been offered on both the state and federal levels to help offset the financial impact, but accessing funding is another matter. The Arts for Illinois Relief Fund opened in early April and was paused by April 15 because of the large number of applicants, both individuals and groups. It is currently raising more funds to fill the need and is open to new applicants May 4 to 11.

Among those applicants will be the Symphony of OP/RF which missed the first round. Their concerts, Musical Visionaries on April 20 at Symphony Center and Double Vision on May 31 at Concordia University, were both postponed to next season.

According to board President David Leehey, the Symphony did not have any financial liability with Symphony Center, home of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, “because all concerts have been closed down there.” However, that is the Symphony’s largest fundraiser, held biennially, so put-

ting it off means postponing funding raised this April.

“Naturally, in addition to taking live music out of everyone’s life, we had to refund ticket buyers for April 20 and will have to refund people who bought tickets for upcoming events unless they choose to apply [them] to a concert next year or donate the cost to us,” Leehey said.

The Symphony had a concert scheduled at Pleasant Home on May 3, one at Cheney Mansion on June 17 and an annual performance at Thursday Night Out on June 25 — now all cancelled.

“Plus, we always meet new orchestra and audience members at Day in Our Village,” said Cheryl Flinn, board treasurer, of one other loss the group is facing.

Pro Musica was up and running quickly with Zoom choir rehearsals for its four choirs featuring members from early elementary school through high school. However, their spring events were canceled. This included performing with the Symphony of OP/RF at the concert at Symphony Center and Pro Musica Café at Wire in Berwyn, which included a silent auction. According to Executive Director Karen Faust, financial losses were significant from these cancelled performances and fundraisers.

The youth chorus applied for a Payroll Protection Plan loan, set up by the federal Small Business Administration (SBA/PPP) to provide financial help during the pandemic.

“We sent in an online pre-application several weeks ago that got us in the queue to apply. Faust said. “Then we got a call from a banker [in late April] to apply over the phone. If approved, we would then send in the required documentation. During the phone application, we were told we were ‘not approved.’ This seems very strange to us since we meet all the requirements as set forth in the CARES Act.” Pro Musica re-applied during the second

round through PayPal. As of May 1, it had not received notification whether it was approved or denied. Meanwhile, the 30-yearold nonprofit is paying its five part-time staff members.

“The board voted to continue to pay them and keep all employed even though it has created some financial hardship for the organization,” Faust said.

But good news was received at the Academy of Movement and Music.

It employees a staff of nearly 50, mostly part-time, almost all women. They were being paid, and Academy families made donations if they were able, according to founder Stephanie Clemens.

On behalf of the Academy, Clemens applied for an SBA/PPP loan, an EIDL loan (Economic Injury Disaster Loan, another COVID-19 relief option, which, if successful, will not need to be repaid), and is moving forward on a mortgage deferment. A refinancing of the Academy’s mortgage on their building at 605 Lake St. may also be considered.

The first SBA/PPP loan did not go through. The second round began on a very busy Monday, April 27; reports came in of “computers crashing after two hours of non-stop applications from banks,” accord-

ing to Clemens. The next day, Clemens heard the news that the Academy’s PPP loan application was successful.

“I am stunned, relieved and immeasurably grateful!” Clemens said. “It will not change the way we are teaching now; it will just ensure that we can pay our teachers to continue. It is hard to charge full tuition to teach people in their kitchens, living rooms and bedrooms.”

There is no word yet on the EIDL loan.

Oak Park Festival Theatre has announced that its only summer outdoor play The Tempest, scheduled to preview on July 11, has been postponed until 2021. They have applied for an SBA/PPP loan and for grants through Arts for Illinois and the Illinois Arts Council. They are also appealing to would-be ticketholders and others for support.

“Each artist engaged for our postponed production of The Tempest will receive an honorarium for their commitment, regardless of the success of emergency relief funds raised,” said Bryan Wakefield, managing director.

In 46 years, the theater company rooted in Shakespeare has never gone without a summer production in Oak Park’s Austin Gardens.

Apartment living with congregate services

114 South Humphrey Oak Park, IL 60302

T

his property with its architecturally award-winning atrium, provides seniors and persons with disabilities with parking, library, laundry room, wellness center and other conveniences. A service coordinator is on staff to assist tenants who may need additional services. The units are studio and one bedroom, each with electric appliances, tile bath, and wall to wall carpeting. Modern fire and safety systems are installed in each apartment and common areas of the building. There are 8 accessible one bedroom units for the mobility impaired.

Photo by Mike Dutka

CLASS ACT: Academy of Movement and Music founder Stephanie Clemens (left) and JP Tenuta, ballet master, get ready to teach a Level 6 Ballet Class on Zoom.

The Oaks is owned and operated by the Oak Park Residence Corporation and is funded by the Department of Housing and Urban Development through the 202/section 8 Program. Residents pay approximately 30% of their monthly income for rent.

For additional information, please visit our web site at www.oakparkha.org or contact us at 708-386-5812.

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Wednesday Journal, May 6, 2020

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COVID-19 WATCH

Oak Park creates small business task force

By STACEY SHERIDAN Staff Reporter

The Oak Park Village Board agreed May 4 to establish an ad hoc small business taskforce through the Oak Park Economic Development Corporation (OPEDC). The Oak Park-River Forest Chamber of Commerce requested the creation of such a taskforce with the involvement of the OPEDC to more broadly support and assist local businesses experiencing significant hardships caused by the COVID-19 pandemic as well as providing direction onto how to safely reopen.

Due to time sensitivity and privacy concerns, the board opted not to make the taskforce a citizen commission.

“The whole point is that the task force needs to be able to move quickly. It needs to be able to meet freely,” said Trustee Deno Andrews. “And then there’s other issues too. Businesses are sharing sensitive and private information about their businesses that they might not want public.”

Establishing a task force not associated

FARMERS MARKET Opens May 30 from page 1 on Davis, assistant director of development customer services and recently named staff liaison to the Oak Park Farmers market commission.

The order addresses “social distancing and related requirements” for the Oak Park Farmers Market. The order should “serve as a guide for farmers market commissioners” as they work out additional details concerning market operations according to Cara Pavlicek, village manager.

Most notably, the Pilgrim Congregational Church parking lot that traditionally houses the farmers market will be reserved for “vehicular traffic only related to picking up and dropping off pre-ordered farmers market products.” The system for pre-ordering market provisions has not yet been established, but any such program is subject to village approval.

On street parking restrictions will be enforced to allow the in-person market to operate in a U-shaped design south of Lake Street. The in-and-out style market will minimize social interactions with vendors situated on North Scoville Ave., South Boulevard and North East Ave. Market shoppers will line up on the west side of Scoville north of Lake Street in a socially distant line to gain access to the market.

with a village commission, Andrews believes, would make the sensitive information brought forth by businessowners not subject to Freedom of Information Act requests.

Andrews also requested the taskforce have a membership representative of Oak Park’s racial diversity, as well as the diversity of business types in Oak Park — a goal shared by chamber personnel.

“I think the task force needs to have a very diverse voice so we can get the best understanding of what the needs are,” Andrews said.

Trustee Jim Taglia said that whatever the board decided regarding the taskforce, the focus should center on businesses with limited government bureaucracy and a commitment to moving forward with alacrity.

“Timeliness is extremely important right now. There are businesses that need guidance and help. It’s beyond what the chamber can provide,” Taglia said. “A group with expertise is exactly what we need.”

That was a sentiment with which Trustee Arti Walker-Peddakotla agreed. She also

noted the need for the taskforce to provide one centralized information hub for organizations.

Trustee Dan Moroney supported further collaboration between OPEDC and the chamber, saying the two organizations have worked well together.

OPEDC and the chamber worked together previously, just after the issuance of the initial shelter-in-place order, providing information and guidance on loan and grant applications for small businesses.

“Much of our work has been focused on immediate needs of small businesses,” said OPEDC Executive Director John Lynch in a phone call with Wednesday Journal. “That’s been great, but we all collectively need to start looking ahead and think about what we’re going to be doing to help businesses as things start to reopen.”

As the crisis continued and more businesses started to suffer dire financial straits, the need intensified for an established taskforce to address reopening issues.

“We’ve been advocating for this for about

five weeks because we’d like to plan for when our businesses reopen, or for the ones that are already open so they can follow the proper rules and regulations to keep everyone safe,” said Mary Ann Bender, chamber president, prior to the May 4 meeting.

Bender said the chamber hopes to achieve a number of things through the taskforce, including broadening access to personal protection equipment (PPE), rules and regulations for reopening and staying open, as well as a guide on how to safely return to work, complete with guidelines on protection, cleaning and the potential need for temperature-taking.

Her ideal taskforce includes the OPEDC members, a village trustee, someone from the village’s health department, stakeholders in the local business and nonprofit sectors, as well as two chamber representatives.

The board agreed during its May 4 meeting that a trustee presence would benefit the taskforce and named Deno Andrews chair, with Trustee Simone Boutet assisting the taskforce in a non-co-chair capacity.

A single point of entrance on Lake and Scoville will allow for a one-way traffic flow through the market with guests exiting on East and Lake. Signage will be posted throughout the market with social distancing and traffic flow guidelines.

All shoppers must maintain a distance of six feet from one another, and all booths will be placed at least six feet apart. Reusable bags will be allowed at the market, but customers will not be allowed to touch produce prior to purchase.

Additionally, all open sampling and chef demonstrations will be prohibited during the market. Special events like the corn roast, pie baking contest and stone soup will also be curtailed during the 2020 market season.

Donuts prepared at Pilgrim Church can be sold from the East side of Scoville Avenue The sale of coffee and other items will be prohibited.

“We are focusing on the basics and getting back to the core functions of the market -allowing residents to have access to fresh produce,” said Davis to Wednesday Journal.

In April, it was announced Davis would take over for Charley as staff liaison to the farmers market commission. The staff liaison provides “services and professional input into the work of the commission” according to the village’s procedural manual.

“I am excited to be working with the group,” said Davis, who mentioned via phone the commission would be meeting virtually on Thursday to focus on details for the modified farmers market. Meetings of all village commissions were cancelled in April.

Both Davis and Pavlicek are confident between 22 and 24 vendors will attend the 2020 farmers market as there have been in years past. They have indicated those utilizing SNAP and LINK benefits at the market will be able to continue to do so.

Tensions were high surrounding the farmers market modifications and lack of communication between village staff and the farmers market commission at the village board meeting held May 4.

Laura Lencioni, chair of the citizen’s commission for the Oak Park Farmers’ Market, offered a public comment at the start of the virtual meeting.

“The market budget must not be cut any further and in fact we need to add one or two paid assistants. We have been blocked in performing our duties and responsibilities to the board because we have been unable to meet with the market manager, unable to meet as a commission, and unable to review any plans under discussion,” said Lencioni in the statement.

During the meeting Trustee Susan Buchanan expressed concern about Lencioni’s statement.

“I think it is unacceptable that a chair of a commission needs to come in front of the board in public because she cannot get adequate communication from village staff,” said Buchanan.

“It’s really interesting to me that the commission doesn’t seem to have been involved in the health declaration,” Arti Walker Peddakotla, the village trustee who serves as liaison to the farmers market commission.

“It’s really interesting to me that, at this mo-

ment, we’re choosing to not value this commission that’s really done a lot of work and has a lot of knowledge in how this market can be run most effectively and efficiently.”

Both Davis and Pavlicek said they had done a lot to communicate with both the market manager and farmers market commission chair.

Trustee Deno Andrews suggested it would be “shortsighted” not to include the commission in decision making and referred to the group as a “productive partner.” He called to get the commission “back online and aid village staff as they have in the past.”

Additionally, Davis announced the paid farmers market assistant position has likely been eliminated for the 2020 market season in favor of utilizing existing staff.

“I have been honest with the chairperson and Colleen McNichols, the part-time market manager, that I right now am not authorizing the hiring of non-essential personnel and I cannot classify a farmers market part time assistant as essential at this time,” said Pavlicek.

Pavlicek, while answering questions, became emotional saying, “we’re trying our best.”

Mayor Anan Abu-Taleb went on to lecture the trustees saying, “Cara has been working every day since March 19, without a day off. And you guys sit here and find every opportunity to go against the village manager who has been protecting our community.”

No famers market commissioners were willing to speak on the record with Wednesday Journal about the 2020 farmers market season.

Wednesday Journal, May 6, 2020

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COVID-19 WATCH

Feds shoot $1M COVID-19 emergency grant to Oak Park The village of Oak Park will receive $980,107 in federal funds from the Community Development Block Grant Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security (CDBG CARES) Act through the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD).

“We have not been given official notice from HUD yet to spend the money. We just got notice of the grant award,” said Oak Park Development Services Director Tammie Grossman, who gave an overview of potential uses for the funds during a May 4 village board meeting. Grossman will return to the board at a later date with a more detailed proposal.

Grossman told the village board that staff recommends splitting the incoming financial aid in three parts. Staff also recommends keeping a small portion to pay for village administrative expenses.

The largest portion of the funds, $400,000, should go toward assisting lower income households with rent, mortgage and utility assistance for no more than three months – a CDBG requirement, under staff recommendations.

Staff recommends $300,000 go toward pro-

viding assistance to businesses to create and retain jobs for employees that are low to moderate income wage earners.

“We’re actually modeling this after several other CDBG community programs. A lot of companies have laid people off and so this would be a way for them to hire new people and bring them back to work and be able to pay their salary for a month or two,” Grossman said.

Trustees Deno Andrews and Arti WalkerPeddakotla agreed that village staff should include the newly created ad hoc small business task force in helping to distribute the recommended $300,000 sanctioned for job retention.

Staff recommends $162,107 go toward other village “traditional public services,” including funding non-profit organizations.

Grossman said she has had conversations with area non-profits who traditionally get CDBG funding.

“We believe most of their requests for funding could be funded using those additional public service dollars,” Grossman told the board.

The “traditional public services” funding

COVID-19 cases in Oak Park rise to 187 Cook County hits 1,913 COVID-19 deaths

By JAMES KAY Staff Reporter

With each passing day, the number of COVID-19 cases continues to grow in Oak Park. Director of Public Health Mike Charley has released daily announcements for the public on how the situation is progressing.

Since April 29, 23 Oak Park residents have tested positive for COVID-19, bringing the village’s total to 187 cases. Along with the newest cases, three people have died in the last week from what is likely caused by COVID-19. This marks the eleventh COVID-19 related death since the village started providing daily announcements on March 18.

According to the village, the first death that was reported this week was a man who was in his 70s. On May 1, Charley announced that another man in his 70s died along with a woman who was in her 50s.

The village also released information

on the positive cases within long-term care and assisted living facilities. So far, Belmont Village of Oak Park had two residents and four staff members test positive for COVID-19. Berkley Nursing & Rehabilitation Center had one resident and one staff member test positive for the virus while one resident died.

Brookdale Oak Park had five residents and five staff members test positive for COVID-19 while one resident died. Oak Park Arms had four residents and three staff members test positive.

Oasis of Oak Park has been hit the hardest by COVID-19 and has had 18 residents and two staff members test positive for the virus. Oasis also has had six residents who have died from COVID-19.

As it does with every daily announcement on this matter, the village stated that it cannot release further information regarding any of the cases due to privacy laws.

Based on information that was provided by Natalia Derevyanny, who is the director of communications at the Cook County Bureau of Administration, Cook County has had 1,913 COVID-19 infection deaths.

could not be used to help Housing Forward pay for isolated hotel rooms for people experiencing homelessness during the COVID-19 crisis.

“That would be part of the $400,000 for the rental and mortgage assistance money.

We believe that would actually allow Housing Forward to move those people from the hotels into stable rental housing for a threemonth period,” Grossman said. “CDBG rules only allow for a maximum rental assistance of three months.”

After three months, Housing Forward case managers would have to find other available resources to support their clients.

“We have a flexible rental assistance program that might be of assistance to them.

There’s a variety of case management services that Housing Forward can provide,” said Grossman. “The three months is an effort to get somebody on their feet.”

Per staff ’s recommendation, the remaining $118,000 would go toward administrative expenses, over which Trustee Simone Boutet expressed concern. Boutet said that money should go toward the community, instead of the village’s paid staff.

“It is common for municipalities, entitlement jurisdictions to keep a certain percentage of all funds for administrative expenses,” said Grossman. “We could keep up to 20 percent but we’re recommending a lower percentage.”

Trustee Jim Taglia disagreed with Boutet’s concern, citing the extra work staff has put in while the community grapples with COVID-19.

“There’s a good amount of money to go around,” Taglia said.

HUD has not yet directed the village to start distributing the funds, nor will the village receive the CDBG CARES money upfront.

“We’re a reimbursement community which means that we have to actually spend the money and then HUD reimburses us for the expense. We’re not actually going to get $980,000 in a bank account,” said Grossman.

The village shows HUD their eligible expenses and then HUD will give the village notice when the reimbursement funds come available. Grossman hopes that will occur within the next week.

Stacey Sheridan

Oak Park continues battle with COVID-19

Even with the implementation of numerous health orders, local and statewide, COVID-19 remains a threat. Like the rest of the world, the village of Oak Park continues to battle the virus and the novel challenges it has presented.

During a May 4 village board meeting, Joseph Terry, interim deputy fire chief for infectious control, stated that Oak Park has 187 confirmed COVID-19 cases and 11 deaths.

Eight of the 11 deaths were from long-term and assisted-living facilities.

“We continue tracking and tracing all calls, not just the calls to long-term care facilities,” said Terry.

COVID-19 has breached all five facilities in Oak Park that provide long-term and nursing care, as well as assisted living.

All five facilities have received official orders from Oak Park Public Health Director Mike Charley, Terry said. The official orders comprise non-negotiable requirements to contain and limit further spread of COVID-19.

“These orders also allow additional collaboration and approaches between the village and the facility,” he said, adding that the Oak Park Department of Public Health communicates daily with each facility.

“The health department is working very closely to ensure they have all [personal protection equipment] they need,” he said.

Like many other communities, securing personal protection equipment [PPE] has not been easy for Oak Park. However, the village has good relationships with suppliers, established over many years.

“There’s definitely some challenges,” Terry said. “Fortunately, through the fire department, we have several vendors we’ve used for many years, so we already have the network and the connections. That helps quite a bit.”

The village has also received some equipment from the national stockpile.

Residents looking to undergo COVID-19 testing must go through their doctors.

“First and foremost, contact your physician,” Terry said. “Testing is something that’s very important, but there are still parameters.”

To receive a test, people must exhibit symptoms. Terry said he could not speak on behalf of local physicians but believes the availability of testing seems to have improved.

“There are more tests available,” he said.

Oak Park has made some positive strides in the fight against COVID-19, with a strong turnout of volunteers helping the health department. The village has 52 trained search or medical reserve corps volunteers. An additional 29 volunteers have also signed up.

“This is definitely a positive,” Terry said.

Stacey Sheridan

8

Wednesday Journal, May 6, 2020

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Harmon spooks McConnell, grows a beard, plays Sorry

Backs Pritzker’s strong limits during COVID-19

By BOB SKOLNIK Contributing Reporter

Don Harmon is one of the most powerful politicians in Illinois but for the last seven weeks he has been working from home like most other people. In January Harmon (DOak Park) was elected president of the Illinois State Senate. But his first session leading the state senate has not been anything like he could have anticipated. The Senate has not met in two months because of the pandemic caused by the spread of the novel coronavirus virus.

So instead of presiding over the senate in Springfield Harmon has been hunkered down in his Oak Park home. He’s trying not to get in the way of the work of his wife Teresa, who is the managing partner of the giant Chicago based law firm Sidley Austin, and their three children, two of whom are in high school and one home from college.

Last month Harmon created a stir when he, writing on behalf of the 40 State Senate Democrats, sent a letter to the entire Illinois congressional delegation asking for at least $41.6 billion in federal aid for Illinois including $10 billion for Illinois’ woefully underfunded pensions. Republicans, including Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, immediately accused Harmon of trying to take advantage of the pandemic to get the federal government to bail out Illinois for decades of poor choices. Even liberal Chicago Tribune columnist Eric Zorn called Harmon’s letter “a political blunder for ages.”

But Harmon defended his letter pointing out the request for pension relief was only a part of the aid he was asking for. He said Illinois state tax revenues will be much reduced as a result of the economic slowdown caused by efforts to control the pandemic and the federal government is best positioned to help.

“Whenever there is an economic crisis in this country Congress is quick on the draw to dole millions of dollars out to Wall Street and big corporate interests,” Harmon said.

“I am not at all bashful about speaking up for the state of Illinois, for our first responders, for our public employees, for our retirees, and for the people that we serve. The letter was a broad request to Congress for relief from the profound economic consequences of the pandemic.”

Harmon, who in his letter also asked for $9.6 billion in direct aid for Illinois municipalities, noted that while state and local governments are mandated to balance their budgets the federal government can run a deficit.

“State governments and local governments are going to need help from the federal government, the only government that can successfully deficit finance an episode like this,” Harmon said.

Photo provided

HOME, NOT ALONE: State Senate President Don Harmon deals from his home office in Oak Park, but is sporting new growth, chin-wise, and also spending a lot more time with family.

Harmon said his request for pension relief was taken out of the context.

“The request I made for support for pension funding was not in any way a bail out,” Harmon said. “It’s a recognition that our revenues are going to be squeezed. . . I asked for many things. I asked for block grant funding to help us patch the general hole in our revenue stream. I asked for support for the unemployment trust fund that could easily run dry with all the claims for unemployment.”

Meanwhile on the homefront, Harmon said, “We’re running a virtual high school and a remote college from our house,” Harmon told Wednesday Journal in a telephone interview last week. “My wife is practicing law from the dining room table. My biggest challenges at home are trying to avoid making unscheduled appearances in AP Biology class and I’m finding that unplugging the router and counting to 10 before plugging it back in really does solve many of the world’s problems.”

Harmon said that when he wants to get work done and talk on the phone, he often goes to his nearby district office.

“I am lucky that I have my Oak Park district office so close to the house and it’s empty so I can even be more socially distant if I slip up here to North Avenue and I can get out from underfoot from the virtual high school,” Harmon said.

Harmon has taken advantage of his social isolation and lack of public appearances to grow a beard. He hasn’t shaved since March 17, the day of the Illinois primary election.

“I just didn’t shave for a few days and then I said, you know, it’s nice to give my face a break, nothing more than that,” Harmon said. “I didn’t need to be in many meetings or public appearances and in my job you don’t have too many chances to take three

days in a row off of shaving and it went from there.”

Although he has not been making public appearances Harmon and his senate colleagues have been working and meeting over the telephone as they try to develop a pared down legislative agenda that they can act quickly upon when the legislature does finally meet again.

“We’re not shirking our responsibilities,” Harmon said. “At this point we’re still developing the legislation we’ll be called upon to take up and we’re ready to work when there is work to be done that can be done as safely as we can do it.”

Harmon is in frequent contact with senate colleagues, meeting by telephone and video conferencing.

“We’re having caucus meetings by telephone,” Harmon said. “I’m talking to individual members on a regular basis. We have informal working groups set up to meet by telephone or on video platform to start parceling through legislative initiatives.”

Harmon said he hopes the legislature can meet sometime in May. The state budget is supposed to be approved by May 31. If that deadline is not met the budget and all other legislation passed after May 31 needs approval of 60 percent of the both houses of the General Assembly to take effect immediately.

“We are prepared to go back when there is a concrete plan both as to what it is we will vote on and how we do our best to keep people as safe as possible, not only members, but our staff, our families and frankly our communities,” Harmon said.

Harmon said he supports the stay at home executive order that has been issued and extended by Gov. J.B. Pritzker.

“A crisis like this calls for strong executive leadership and I think Governor Pritzk-

er has done an excellent job,” Harmon said.

Harmon said when the General Assembly convenes it probably will be a limited session focusing on essential tasks such as passing a budget and passing legislation designed to ameliorate the hardships caused by the pandemic.

“There is a legislative response but it’s one that can and should be done in due time,” Harmon said. “We can’t go to Springfield and make COVID-19 illegal. This is a medical scientific issue, not a legal one.”

For now, Harmon, who typically spends a good chunk of every year in Springfield away from his family, is enjoying the time with his family.

“It’s a challenge, there’s an element of Groundhog Day every day, but I am trying to revel in those moments of playing cards or Sorry with my youngest daughter who I’m sure would rather be out with her friends,” Harmon said.

The additional time with his children is the bright side of being stuck at home.

“I love it,” Harmon said of the additional time with his children. “I’m not sure if they like having so much time with me as I like having as much time with them. When the whole gang gets at the table and have a family dinner or play a card game, I just remind myself that this is not the norm and we’re doing a pretty good job of making lemonade out of these lemons.”

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Wild Ones grow grants for schools

Supporting native gardens and the healing they bring

By LUCIA WHALEN Contributing Reporter

While schools around the state will remain closed for the rest of the school year to prevent further spread of COVID-19, students at multiple District 97 Oak Park elementary schools can look forward to getting back outside in the fall to plant native gardens, thanks to a new gardening grant program through West Cook Wild Ones.

The non-profit awarded grants to 14 different schools, faith communities, and other organizations throughout Cook County this year through its Garden for Nature program. The program aims to involve young people in gardening native plants and creating landscapes that provide habitat for pollinators, bees, butterflies and birds.

Stephanie Walquist, vice president of the group, said there is an urgency to start these gardens, as native gardens are an important way people can make a positive impact on the environment, as many pollinator species are in steep decline due to habitat loss.

The Chicago area is an important place for migratory birds that fly thousands of miles north from South America each year and setting up native gardens provides a habitat for birds and other pollinators.

“One-quarter of bumble bees are at risk of extinction, and 40 percent of songbirds

Photo by Kevin J McCarey

WILD ONE: A Monarch butterfly in one of D97’s school gardens. have declined since the 70s. These gardens working together can hopefully turn around the trend,” Walquist said.

Out of the 14 organizations selected for the grant, four are schools in Oak Park and River Forest. Percy Julian Middle School, The Children’s School, Longfellow Elementary School, Gwendolyn Brooks Middle School and Lincoln Elementary School were all selected for the grant.

Though schools will be closed through the 2019-20 school year, grant recipients from educational institutions in the area hope to begin planting this fall.

Michael Youngberg, a special education teacher at Percy Julian Middle School, organizes the school’s Green Team. Youngberg started the club as a grassroots effort at Percy Julian in 2016. He worked with students

to start a garden project where a mud pit previously existed on Percy Julian’s campus. Youngberg and his students initially received money from Percy Julian’s Parent Teacher Organization, which helped to start a garden. However, the group quickly ran out of money due to the scope of the project.

Native plants cost more than most other garden plants, which is why the grants are so beneficial for the schools and other recipients. According to Youngberg, the grant arrived at the perfect time, and the Green Team plans to use their funds to purchase plants for native, butterfly and rain gardens.

Grown, BUILD Chicago Campus, 5100 W Harrison St., Chicago, to expand native plantings to provide pollinators for urban farm.

■ Eli Whitney Elementary School, 2815 S. Komensky Ave., Chicago, to increase biodiversity with native plants researched, chosen and planted by students.

■ Fuerza Youth Center, Corazon Community Center, 5339 W 25th St, Cicero, to expand a pollinator garden to support vegetable gardens.

■ First United Church of Oak Park, 848 Lake St., Oak Park, to expand a Memorial Garden with native shrubs and wildflowers while involving youth groups.

■ Gwendolyn Brooks Middle School, 325 S. Kenilworth Ave., Oak Park, to establish native landscaping to provide food and shelter for migrating birds.

■ Percy Julian Middle School, 416 S Ridgeland Ave, Oak Park, creating rain, prairie and pollinator gardens with plants chosen, planted and maintained by the school’s Green Team.

■ Lincoln Elementary School, 511 Park Ave., River Forest, to expand native gardens and develop tools to integrate them into curriculum and activities.

■ Austin

High School, 3250 W Adams Street, Chicago, toward a phased restoration of the campus to a monarch and wildlife habitat.

■ Oak Park Temple, 1235 N. Harlem Ave., toward a phased replacement of turf into a 6,000 square foot natural garden with signage for learning, gathering, reflection.

■ Proska Park, Berwyn Park District, 3001 Wisconsin Ave., to begin restoring the park’s wildflower garden.

■ The Children’s School, 200 S Oak Park Ave., to replace turf with prairie plantings to extend the school’s culture of care for the land.

■ Lake Katherine Nature Center, 7402 W Lake Katherine Dr., Palos Heights, to involve summer camp youth in planting and maintaining a pollinator garden.

■ Longfellow Elementary School, 715 Highland Ave, Oak Park, to create a pollinator garden in conjunction with a planned edible garden.

■ Rush Oak Park Hospital, 520 S. Maple Oak Park, Oak Park, to expand a small healing garden with native plantings by youth groups.

Youngberg said working in the garden and on sustainability issues that affect the community is an opportunity both for service learning and career development for his students.

“They realize how much is out there and how they can create a career out of this and feel good about themselves every day. I talk not just about the environment, but also about their transition towards secondary education,” he said.

Rush Oak Park Hospital received one of the grants, which will be used to buy more native plants for the hospital’s healing garden. Colleen Chierici is a nurse at Rush and member of the hospital’s Green Team. She said along with attracting pollinators to the area, the healing native garden, which contains Switchgrass, New England Aster, Butterfly Weed, and Purple and Pale Coneflowers, serves as a place of respite for doctors and patients coming in and out of the building.

Chierici said the garden is part of the Green Team’s mission to educate staff and visitors about the connection between human and environmental health. “[We are] raising awareness for the staff about the connection between human health and climate change, as well as the effect that healthcare systems can actually have on climate change.”

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D97 board approves final Lincoln plan

Action Report addresses problems of finding principal

By MICHAEL ROMAIN Staff Reporter

During a regular meeting on April 21, the District 97 school board unanimously voted to approve the final draft of the After Action Report produced in the wake of the resignation of former Lincoln principal Laura Zaniolo.

Zaniolo, who resigned in January for personal reasons, was the school’s fourth principal in four years. Her resignation prompted a robust conversation among both building- and district-level administrators, students, teachers, Lincoln families and community members that culminated in a Feb. 26 public meeting.

Oak Park equity consultant Reesheda Graham Washington facilitated the conversation and reported some of the results of an extensive evaluation, called an After Action Review, she conducted that was designed to delve into the reasons behind the principal turnover rate. Washington also authored the draft After Action Report.

Her report includes some of the recommendations she presented during the Feb. 26 meeting, where the consultant, who also owns the popular Live Cafe in Oak Park, laid out in frank terms some of the school’s and district’s challenges.

“There is a seemingly pervasive relational trust issue between teachers, parents, administrators, central office and the [school] board in all directions,” she said. “Work needs to be done by a third party to re-establish relational trust and find helpful ways to hold and litigate power.”

The After Action Report features a variety of actions the administration recommends pursuing “as we prepare to set the stage for the selection process of a new leader,” according to the document.

Recommendations include implementing a three-day team-building retreat in August that will allow for more professional development opportunities and building leadership teams; the establishment of a liaison for staff members “to give input and feedback about the district’s decisions”; providing more executive coaching and professional development support for building principals in the district; and facilitating two town hall meetings for the Lincoln community in order “to provide updates on recommendations/actions,” among other suggestions.

Another important aspect of the After Action plan, and an issue that was brought up repeatedly at the Feb. 26 meeting, was the need for additional resources for Lincoln’s growing student population.

Reesheda Graham Washington The plan includes a proposal for increased additional personnel at Lincoln, including social workers, psychologists, student support specialists and receptions. The D97 school board approved those staffing recommendations at its meeting on April 21.

“One area left uncovered in this review process was determining how our hiring processes could be improved,” D97 Supt.

Carol Kelley stated in a March 17 board memo on the After Action plan.

“Thus, in addition to the actions outlined above, I have asked our Sr. Director of Human Resources to do a deeper dive into our processes and recommend how we might improve our expectations and guidelines in preparation for our next principal searches.

As Wednesday Journal previously reported, Lincoln has had two permanent principals and one interim principal since 2017, when the D97 school board accepted longtime principal Cathy Hamilton’s retirement.

Ryan Gordon and Sheila Carter will serve as co-interim principals at Lincoln during the 2020-21 school year, when the search for a permanent superintendent at Lincoln will heat up. Kelley said she anticipates a new Lincoln principal will start on July 1, 2021.

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Hemmy the Huskie celebrates OPRF seniors, scholars In-person graduation tentatively set for Aug. 2

By MICHAEL ROMAIN Staff Reporter

Last month, when Gov. J.B. Pritzker announced that the physical campuses of all schools in the state would remain closed for the rest of this academic year, District 200 Supt.

Joylynn Pruitt-Adams vowed that her administration would “find a meaningful way” to celebrate the class of 2020. Now Pruitt-Adams’ administration is working to make good on that promise.

On May 9, every graduating senior at Oak Park and River Forest High School will get a yard sign delivered to their front lawns, district officials said. Susan Johnson, OPRF’s director of student activities, said the signs were designed

by OPRF visual arts teacher Val White.

“We’ve had over 100 faculty and staff members volunteer to deliver the signs between 11 a.m. and 2 p.m.,” Johnson said in an email, adding that residents might be able to catch sightings of Hemmy the Huskie around the community congratulating seniors.

The district also conducted a survey last month that polled graduation preferences. Officials said 553 students

and 607 parents/guardians responded to the survey, which yielded more than 550 individual comments.

“Based on being the top choice of both students and parents/guardians, graduation will be held in person on Sunday, Aug. 2, 2020, pending state and local social-distancing guidelines in place at that time,” said Karin Sullivan, D200’s executive director of communications and community relations, in a letter sent to families on April 23.

“We had 396 students and 428 parents/guardians select Aug. 2 as their first choice,” Sullivan explained. “The second choice for both groups was Dec. 20, while the third choice was a virtual ceremony on May 31.”

On May 4, Sullivan said administrators are still focused on the Aug. 2 date for an in-person graduation but cautioned that “with circumstances and directives constantly evolving right now, casting anything in stone isn’t possible.”

She added that in the “next month or two, we’ll have a better idea of how realistic that is. We’ll have a backup plan in case an in-person event in August looks unlikely.”

The virtual tributes haven’t stopped with graduating seniors. On April 28, the district held OPRF’s first-ever Virtual Honors Convocation in the form of a roughly 30-minute YouTube video that showed the names, photos and distinctions of dozens of honorees. The video ended with a brief message from Associate Supt. Greg Johnson. The virtual ceremony also included a 56-page commemorative program.

“I saw an article posted in the recently created Facebook

group for parents of the class of 2020 that described the plans for a virtual ceremony at a high school in Gulfport, Miss.,” Sullivan said, explaining the convocation’s origins.

“A couple of days later, I was on a socially distant walk with History Division Head Amy Hill, and we swung by Associate Superintendent Greg Johnson’s house just to say hello. The subject turned to school, of course, and out in the street in front of his house, we ended up kicking around ideas for our own virtual event. We took the concept to Dr. Pruitt-Adams and then the rest of the graduation team. Everyone like the idea and contributed great ideas. So it really was a joint effort.”

Once the administrative team provided direction, Jackie McGoey, the district’s communications specialist, worked on the convocation’s details for four days straight.

Susan Johnson said that building administrators on the Transformative Education Leadership Team “wanted to find a way to publicly recognize the students for their accomplishments and since an in-person ceremony would not be able to take place, the next best thing would be to have a video recognizing them individually. That way, at least they can share it out with members of their family, too.”

To watch the Virtual Honors Convocation, visit: https:// www.youtube.com/watch?v=UyK9BqWxJEI.

CONTACT: michael@oakpark.com

For D200, activists, COVID-19 hasn’t stopped hiring push Pleased with progress on minority hires, more challenges loom ahead

By MICHAEL ROMAIN Staff Reporter

The COVID-19 pandemic may have upended normalcy at Oak Park and River Forest High School, but education activists and administrators say the current crisis shouldn’t knock the district off-course from its goal of increasing minority representation among teachers to 35 percent and among all employees to 50 percent by 2024.

Burcy Hines and John Duffy, longtime Oak Park activists and members of the Campaign to Hire More Teachers of Color in District 200, agree that over the last few years the district has made significant strides toward this ambitious goal laid out in its Strategic Plan.

“In August 2017, the board made this commitment to hire a faculty that reflects the racial and cultural diversity of the school,” said Duffy. “That commitment must continue unabated, especially when our communities of color are being most harmed by the current public health and economic crisis.”

According to D200 data, the percentage of minority hires increased from the 201819 school year to the 2019-20 school year. In 2018-19, minorities comprised 54 percent of

all new hires and roughly 38 They don’t want to come to percent of faculty new hires.

Oak Park.’ … There has to be In 2019-20, minorities comsomeone sitting at the table prised 60 percent of all new who can not only make all of hires and 45 percent of facus accountable, but who has ulty new hires. the know-how of what’s out In 2018-19, African Amerithere.” cans in particular representThe data shows that the ed 33 percent of all new hires district may be slowly pushwhile in 2019-20, they were 48 ing against that historical percent of new hires. Blacks tendency. Karin Sullivan, comprise around 20 percent D200’s communications diof the student body at OPRF. rector, said that last year the JOHN DUFFY Black and Latinx teachers district hired two AfricanActivist comprise around 8 percent American math teachers and and 7 percent, respectively, of two Asian-Amercian science the total teaching population teachers.

Duffy said he hopes the at the high school.

Data suggests that the district’s actions district builds on its plans to develop and within the last two years have been paying support a Grow Your Own program in the off. Those actions include implementing a district.

Sullivan said the district has partnered Talent Management Plan in HR that prioritizes hiring diverse faculty and staff, making with Concordia University in River Forhiring committees more racially diverse, re- est on the Grow Your Own program, which quiring hiring committees to undergo anti- educates and trains aspiring teachers who bias training and more aggressively recruit- prefer to return to their hometown to teach.

“We had two students enrolled in the proing minority candidates, among others.

But despite the progress, the district still gram during this current school year, and as struggles to hire minorities as teachers in of now we have six enrolled for next year,” core subjects like English, math, science Sullivan said.

Duffy also hopes the district keeps workand history, said Hines.

“The excuse has always been the availabil- ing on changing the culture in the school to ity of the teachers in the core subjects,” she make it more welcoming for minority emsaid. “Historically, the concern at OPRF has ployees, which, he and Hines said, has hisbeen, ‘We’re looking, but we can’t find them. torically been an issue at OPRF.

“The more teachers of color feel they are empowered and respected and part of the culture, the more students will feel that.”

“The more teachers of color feel they are empowered and respected and part of the culture, the more students will feel that,” Duffy said.

Hines and Duffy said that, with the current administration, they’re more hopeful than ever that meaningful minority representation will eventually come to OPRF. “It’s a new day,” Hines said. “I’m pleased with the accountability. I really am. I just don’t want it to go away and I want this to be just as important as everything else, in spite of the crisis the country is in now. We still have to move forward. I’ve been waiting 30 years. We don’t want it to be another 30.”

Sullivan said that due to COVID-19, administrators aren’t able to attend live recruiting events, but that this setback “has no bearing on our commitment to hiring highly qualified minority candidates.”

CONTACT: michael@oakpark.com

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Oak Park nursing home workers ready to strike May 8

By MICHAEL ROMAIN Staff Reporter

Workers at 40 Chicago area nursing home facilities, including two in Oak Park — Oak Park Oasis, 625 N. Harlem Ave. and Berkeley Nursing & Rehab Center, 6909 W. North Ave. — could go on strike on May 8 to demand higher wages, hazard pay and adequate staffing levels.

“This crisis is not new,” said Greg Kelley, the president of SEIU Healthcare Illinois, which represents the frontline workers, who include receptionists, cooks, nursing assistants and other employees.

“Our members have been working in difficult circumstances for a long time,” Kelley said. “They’ve been underpaid, overworked and understaffed. COVID-19 has brought this reality to the forefront. It’s made a difficult job a dangerous job.”

The workers delivered the strike notices to facilities on Monday. Kelley said the vote to authorize a strike was “overwhelming.”

According to a worker at Oak Park Oasis who requested anonymity, 51 frontline workers at the facility plan on going on strike on May 8. Workers at Berkeley reached by phone on April 29 could not comment on the pending strike.

DONATION

$250,000 matching gift from page 1 The “Rapid Response and Recovery Fund,” established in March, has provided financial relief to local organizations providing services, resources and aid to vulnerable populations affected by COVID-19.

In April, the foundation released the fund’s first round of grants, dispersing a total of $260,000 to such organizations as New Moms, Thrive Counseling Center, Sarah’s Inn, Beyond Hunger and Housing Forward among others. Growing Community Media also received a $5,000 first-round grant.

Money raised in the challenge grant will go directly to the “Rapid Response and Recovery Fund.” The Hunts will match donations, dollar for dollar, up to $250,000.

The Hunts hope their pledge will encourage others to donate what they can to the fund, so that other local organizations can receive the necessary financial aid to continue serving the community.

“Oak Park and River Forest, they’re wonderful towns. Everybody pulls together,” said Ken Hunt.

COVID-19 has ravaged not only people’s health, but that of the world’s economy. The pandemic has plunged many non-profits into dire financial straits, despite the increased need for the services they provide.

“No one knows the landscape of this pan-

The worker at Oak Park Oasis, however, confirmed that they’re experiencing conditions similar to Tamika Haynes, a certified nursing assistant at Alden Debes Manor in Rockford.

“I’ve been on the job for 17 years and make only $16.76 an hour,” she said during a videoconference on April 29. “In most professions that require training and experience, you expect to get decent wages as the years go by. Not us. We’re just getting deeper in the hole. And I have a lot of coworkers who make less.”

According to the Illinois Department of Public Health, as of April 24, there have been 15 reported cases of COVID-19 and four deaths at Oasis Oak Park. The state did not show any reported COVID-19 cases at Berkeley.

In a statement released April 27, SEIU officials said the union members’ contract covering the 40 facilities is set to expire May 1.

“Workers were hopeful that the Illinois Association of Health Care Facilities would agree to a one-year agreement with modest and reasonable accommodations to address the extreme risks and challenges workers now face as a result of working on the frontline of a pandemic,” according to the statement.

The workers are calling for $15 an hour

and $16 an hour for CNA’s; a 50 percent hazard pay bonus for working during the pandemic; an additional 80 hours of paid sick leave for COVID-19 or related illnesses; better training; more personal protective equipment; and “provisions for continued health care coverage for any vulnerable workers who have to take leave from their job to protect themselves and their families.”

Kelley said that a federal mediator has gotten involved in the negotiations.

“Today is our first virtual face-to-face negotiation for some time,” Kelley said during Wednesday’s videoconference. “We’ve indicated that we’re prepared to meet as often as necessary to avoid a strike. As someone who has been on the strike line a bunch of times in normal circumstances, going out on strike isn’t easy. Going out on strike during pandemic is infinitely more difficult.”

Kelley said the union is “prepared to do what’s necessary over the next nine days to avert a strike,” but that the union is serious about the workers’ demands.

Bob Molitor, the CEO of The Alden Network of nursing homes who sits on the board of the Illinois Association of Health Care Facilities, wrote in a letter to state lawmakers that the association “offered an 11 percent one-year pay hike, stable employee

health insurance contributions, earlier access to sick days, paid sick time during the pandemic in addition to contractual sick leave, creation of a training fund, and more for certified nursing assistants, dietary, activity, laundry and housekeeping employees,” according to an April 27 Chicago Tribune report.

“We sincerely hope the union is not using this once-in-a-lifetime crisis to incite a walk-out and put our seniors at even greater risk,” Molitor stated in the letter.

First District Cook County Commissioner Brandon Johnson, whose district covers Oak Park, said during Wednesday’s videoconference that he stands with the front-line workers.

“We are as elected officials are calling upon the nursing home owners to settle this contract with the provisions that are needed to safeguard the workers and the residents,” Johnson said.

“The majority of nursing home workers are African-American, black women in particular. It’s clear that the higher risk factor of COVID-19 are people within my district.

The black community that has borne the brunt of not just this crisis, but others … We are calling on the leadership of these facilities do what’s right by workers.”

demic situation,” said Patty Hunt. “I think there’s going to be a lot of need out there for a long time and so we hope that this will be able to provide enough assistance to get us through the worst of this.”

The Hunts have committed to donating the entire $250,000 to the foundation’s fund, even if the matching challenge goal goes unmet.

“It would be our hope that [the foundation] raises more than $250,000 and they come to us and say, ‘Hey, you guys, we’ve got another $30,000 that maybe you ought to match,’” said Patty Hunt. “That would be a happy thing for us.”

The Hunts’ commitment and support has not gone unappreciated or unnoticed by the foundation.

“We are grateful to the Hunts for the generosity and care they have expressed by offering this challenge, and we remain committed to helping organizations who are stretched to their limits in providing help to at-risk populations such as the elderly, the socio-economically disadvantaged and those with health challenges,” said Tony Martinez, foundation president and CEO. The Hunts are no strangers to giving back. The first of his family to get a college degree, Ken Hunt donated $1.5 million to fund the full-ride Ken Hunt Running Back endowed scholarship at his alma mater, the University of Miami.

While a student, Hunt was a running back for the university’s football team until he got injured in his sophomore year. The university allowed him to keep his scholarship.

“For that reason, he’s always been very

grateful to those who gave him a lot of opportunities,” Patty Hunt said.

Living in Frank Lloyd Wright’s historic Arthur Heurtley House, the Hunts have opened their home to benefit the Chicago Academy for the Arts and the Frank Lloyd Wright Trust. Patty Hunt serves on the board of both organizations.

Patty Hunt credits Wright for making Oak Park the architectural hub it is today and appreciates the trust for preserving that.

“If he had not chosen to live here and work in these communities, it would be an entirely different place,” said Patty Hunt.

“We feel like it’s a very vibrant part of the community, which is why we support them pretty significantly.”

Like many others, the trust has also fallen on hard times, having to close Wright’s home and studio, as well as having to furlough some of its staff.

“That’s something the community should also support,” said Ken Hunt.

Patty Hunt volunteers with Oak Park Mutual Aid, a coalition of neighbors created in response to COVID-19 that provides food assistance, grocery and medication pick up, financial assistance, as well as resources to mental health services. Oak Park Mutual Aid serves those in Oak Park, as well as River Forest, Forest Park and other neighboring communities.

“There’s a tremendous amount of need right now in our community,” said Patty Hunt. “It’s been very rewarding to work with this Oak Park Mutual Aid group because we’re just people helping people.”

The Hunts established their charitable organization, called the T. Kendall Hunt Family Foundation over a decade ago. A lot of their philanthropic pursuits revolve around education, something particularly important to Ken Hunt.

“Largely we focus mostly on our philanthropies around education because that’s what Ken feels is so important and was able to lift him up out of a pretty poor financial situation,” Patty Hunt said.

The Hunts have a long history of working with the Oak Park-River Forest Community Foundation as well.

Ken Hunt was a member of the Entrepreneur Leaders in Philanthropy (ELP); ELP is a giving group established by the foundation. Patty Hunt serves on the foundation’s Women’s Leaders in Philanthropy, a group honoring woman and supported by women.

The Hunt family’s philanthropic endeavors also include ensuring the preservation of local history. A few years back, they issued a challenge grant to help the Historical Society of Oak Park and River Forest move to the historic Oak Park pumping station at Lake and Lombard. It also rebranded as the Oak Park River Forest Museum.

“It was pretty amazing to us how the community rose to the challenge. People came out of the woodwork to support that,” said Patty Hunt. “It was very rewarding to see how our challenge spurred so many people to invest in the community.”

The Hunts hope their foundation matching challenge will garner the same level of support from the community.

Wednesday Journal, May 6, 2020

OAKPARK.COM | RIVERFOREST.COM

13

SPORTS EXTRA

OPRF senior ‘Legend’ earns eSports scholarship

By JAMES KAY Sports Editor

When it comes to League of Legends, OPRF senior Drew Neiburger is in a league of his own.

With the rise of eSports over the last decade, colleges have started to invest in the realm of gaming by offering scholarships to prospective students who know their way around the sticks. After rising to the top .005 percent in North America for League of Legends players, Neiburger has accepted an offer to be a part of Illinois State University’s League of Legends eSports team.

“I was never competitive until I started playing video games,” said Neiburger.

“Since then, I’ve fallen in love with League [of Legends]. I was really bad at first but then I started to get better and realized I was really good at it. It’s really cool to see colleges invest in it and get to the point where they can offer scholarships.”

League of Legends is an online computer game that features two teams that try to destroy each other’s bases. It has become one of the most popular video games in the world and has millions of daily users.

Neiburger was first introduced to the game in 2013 when he was at a friend’s house for a sleepover. After falling in love with the

Drew Neiburger game, Drew and his brother Levi started an eSports team at OPRF, which is a part of the Illinois High School Esports Association and found other programs in the area to compete against in tournaments.

Eventually, he made his way onto different teams and tried out for a semi-professional team called “Fruition ESports” which consisted of players who were really good at the game but didn’t have competitive experience. Despite their inexperience, they ended up winning the first tournament they played together, which opened Neiburger’s eyes to what he could do with eSports.

“Once we won, I thought to myself, ‘wow, I

really accomplished something,’” said Neiburger. “That was kind of like a little dopamine hit. Like, I want to do that again. So I kept playing in tournaments with a team and I went from team to team.”

One notable gaming event for Neiburger on “Fruition eSports” came when they faced Maryville University which, according to Neiburger, is considered one of the best college teams. Before every game is played, there are predictions set for how the teams will perform in the match. Neiburger’s team had a one percent chance of winning in a best of five series. However, they ended up taking two games from Maryville and almost pulled off the upset.

As he started to build up his profile as a gamer and practiced League of Legends more, Neiburger and his parents butted heads over how much time he was spending on the game.

However, his mother, Barbara Dolan, reached a point where she gave him the responsibility of managing his own priorities.

“I used to say, ‘there has to be limits,’ or ‘no, you can’t play after 7 o’clock at night,’” said Dolan. “It was a constant battle. I ended up getting so frustrated that I ended up going to a conference that’s message was, ‘Let go. It’s their life.’ When I got back, I was able to let go and he told me about his athletic scholarships for eSport athletes.’”

Since their incipient conversations

around the opportunities eSports could provide Neiburger, the family supports him by watching the live streams of his matches.

Dolan said they watch the streams after Neiburger is done with them so that the internet connection is only being used by him.

“It’s been amazing watching him become a great player, but also now has phenomenal hand eye coordination,” said Dolan. “The game has helped him to the point where he can type 100 words per minute.”

While the terms of his scholarship are still being worked out, Neiburger is going to be joining an Illinois State team that has put resources towards its program (including a computer lab for the gamers, hiring of coaches and five other players who have scholarships). He’s hoping his story will show people that there is opportunity in eSports and that the stigma attached to gaming doesn’t represent the actual experience and lessons that come from it.

“I like telling people about the scholarship because I want people to know that video games aren’t useless,” said Neiburger. “I’ve gotten good at being a leader and having a loud voice to communicate to people about what I want from them. I’m really good at getting on people’s good side and making sure not to tick them off. It’s kind of ironic, but a video game where I don’t talk to people has gotten me people skills.”

CELEBRATE MOTHERS and SHOP LOCAL oprfchamber.org #workingtogether

Remember that kids will not have homemade gifts from school this year.

Purchase a gift card/certificate from your favorite local shops! Remind kids to make a special card to show how much they love her. oprfchamber.org

Celebrate mothers! #shoplocal

14

Wednesday Journal, May 6, 2020

OAKPARK.COM | RIVERFOREST.COM

paid advertisement

These local restaurants are all OPEN during the current shelter-in-place order Check out their menus online, call them for delivery, carry-out, or curbside pick-up.

Now is the time to support local business!

Barclay’s American Grille

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Blackout Baking Co. (office) 842 N Harlem Ave, River Forest Bite-size gourmet cookies Our Menu: Blackoutbakingco.com Order from our website for FREE local delivery or nationwide shipping. Always accepting orders.

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Buzz Café 905 S. Lombard Ave, Oak Park Breakfast, Lunch & Dinner + Sweets, Snacks & Desserts served ALL DAY! Our Menu: Thebuzzcafe.com For Carry Out, Curbside Pick-up or FREE Delivery call 708-524-2899 Deliver also available with Uber Eats 7am - 7pm, 7 days a week

Counter Coffee Air Roasters

7324 Madison Street, Forest Park countercoffee.com FRESH Coffee, Eco-Friendly, Air Roasted each day in store, hand crafted beverages, and pastries (gluten free & vegan options available). Whole bean coffee and single use pods roasted for you when you order!

Mobile order online at Countercoffee.com, call ahead, and walk-in available. We can ship coffee to all 50 states. 708-689-8896 Open daily from 7am - 4pm

Cucina Paradiso 814 North Blvd, Oak Park Italian Menus: Cucinaoakpark.com For Pickup, call 708-848-3434, curbside pickup is available For Delivery go to DoorDash or Grubhub Every night 4pm – 9pm

Eastgate Café 102 Harrison, Oak Park

La Notte Ristorante Italiano 118 N Marion St, Oak Park

Q-BBQ 124 N. Marion St, Oak Park

American Comfort Our Menu: Eastgatecafe.net For Curbside Pick-up and Delivery, call 708-660-9091 Delivery is also available on Grubhub 12pm - 8pm; closed Monday

Fine Authentic Italian Our Menu: LaNotte-op.com For Pick-up and Delivery, call 708-948-7576, or text 773-817-2858 or order online Delivery also available on UberEats and Doordash 2pm - 9pm daily Limited time offer -$100 Gift Certificates for just $80

BBQ Our menu: Q-bbq.com For Pick-up and Delivery, call 708-628-3421 or order online. Open every day 11am - 8pm Delivery available with ChowNow and DoorDash NOW OFFERING FAMILY PACK SPECIALS! Go online or call for more info

George’s Restaurant

145 S. Oak Park Avenue, Oak Park Our Menu: Georgesoakpark.com/menu Serving breakfast and lunch for pick-up. One soup per day. All items won’t be available. Call ahead for availability.

For Pick-up call 708-848-4949; Delivery available through Door Dash and Postmates 8am - 3pm Monday - Sunday

Grape Leaves Restaurant 129 S Oak Park Ave, Oak Park Mediterranean, Moroccan and Lebanese cuisine Our Menu : Grapeleaves.us For Pick-up and Delivery, call 708-848-5555 We also partner with Grubhub, UberEats, Postmate.

Sunday - Thursday 12-8pm Friday and Saturday 12-9pm

Happy Apple Pie Shop

226 Harrison, Oak Park happyapplepie.com Sweet and savory pies, special orders Our menu is posted on our Facebook page and Instagram, or call us.

Call 708-606-0037 to arrange for No touch take-out, Curbside Pick-up, and Free Delivery Wednesday-Friday 11:30am to 6pm, Saturday Noon5pm.

Jerusalem Café

1030 Lake St., Oak Park Our Menu: Jerusalemcafeoakpark.com/menu Middle Eastern cuisine For Pick-up and Deliver call 708-848-7734 Delivery is also available through Uber Eats and DoorDas. 11am – 9pm Daily

Kettlestrings Tavern

800 S. Oak Park Ave Contemporary American Our Menu: Kettlestringstavern.com/eat For Curbside Pick-up, call 708-613-5044 Delivery is available through GrubHub Mon 3pm - 8pm; Tues - Thurs 3pm-8pm; Fri - Sat 11am–8pm; Sunday 10am-8pm

Mexican Republic Kitchen

7404 Madison St., Forest Park Mexican Cuisine Our Menu: Mexicanrepublickitchen.com/s/order For Curbside Pick-up order online at our website or call 708-689-0850 Delivery available via Uber Eats, Grubhub or Doordash. Tuesday- Sunday 3:00pm-8:00pm Daily Specials Everyday

Old World Pizza 7230 W North Ave, Elmwood Park Pizza, Burgers, Pasta Our Menu: Originaloldworldpizza.com For Pick-up, Curbside Pick-up, Delivery and Contact-less Delivery call 708-456-3000, or fax 708-456-4580 Mon 3:30pm – 9pm; Tues – Thurs 11am –9pm; Fri & Sat 11am – 10pm; Sun 11am – 9pm

O’Sullivan’s Public House 7244 W. Madison Street, Forest Park Modern American/Pub Food Our Menu: Osullivanspublichouse.net Call 708-366-6667 to order Carry-Out and Local Delivery (No Delivery Fee) Daily Specials posted on Facebook @osullivanspublichouseFP Delivery also available on GrubHub Available Daily 11am – 10pm

Puree’s Pizza & Pasta 1023 Lake St, Oak Park Pizza, pasta, sandwiches, panini, wraps Our Menu: Pureespizzaandpasta.com/ For Curbside Pick-up, take-out and Delivery, call 708-386-4949 Available Daily 11am – 9pm

Scratch Restaurants Scratch Kitchen & Lounge 733 Lake Street • 708-434-5643 District Kitchen & Tap 220 Harrison • 708-434-5289 American/burger/sandwich/salad/mac n cheese Our Menu: Scratchfp.com For Pick up/curbside (rear entrance), call 708-434-5643 Sun - Thurs 11am - 12am; Fri - Sat 11am - 1am

The Little Gem Café 189 N Marion St. Oak Park American Bistro Our Menu: Thelittlegemcafe.com/menu For Pick-up and Delivery, call 708-613-5491 Tues - Sun 3pm - 9pm (closed Mon) Delivery is also available from Doordash

Trattoria 225

225 Harrison Street Our Menu: trattoria225.com Italian/ Vegetarian/ Seafood For Pick-up and Delivery call 708-358-8555 or use Grubhub 5pm – 8pm Monday- Saturday

Tre Sorelle Ristorante 1111 Lake St., Oak Park Homemade Pizza, Italian cuisine Our Menu: Tresorelleoakpark.com For Curbside Pick-up and Delivery call 708-445-9700 Delivery also available with Grubhub, Uber Eats Mon - Thu 11am - 9pm; Fri 11am - 10pm; Sat 3pm - 10pm; Sun 3pm - 9pm

Starship Restaurant 7618 Madison St., Forest Park Gourmet sub sandwiches, homemade soups, catering and individually wrapped items for safe distribution Our Menu: Starshiprestaurant.com For pick-up and delivery, call 708-771-3016 or order online Mon thru Sat. 8am - 9pm, Sunday 11am - 6pm

Each of these restaurants paid a very nominal fee to participate in this ad. Thank you for supporting these local businesses!

Wednesday Journal, May 6, 2020

OAKPARK.COM | RIVERFOREST.COM

! o G ! o p T U s d k o c i o P G bside

15

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16 Suitcases

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108 N. Marion St, Oak Park 708-628-3677

1800 S. Harlem Ave, North Riverside 708-386-3366

Specializing in contemporary women fashion, accessories and gifts.

New and Nearly New Furniture and Decor Purchase online or call (708)386-3366 for appointment.

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Offering: Online Shopping, Concierge Service, Virtual Shopping Parties You can order online or call 708-628-3677.

We offer Curbside Pick-up, Free Local Same Day Delivery and shipping throughout the US. Hours: Mon-Sat 11-5 Take 20% off your entire purchase use code SPRING20

Al-Mart Furniture & Bedding 7045 W. North Ave. Oak Park 708-383-5909 Almartfurniture.com

Bedroom Furniture, Sofas, Sectionals, Desks, Book Cases, Dinettes, Recliners, Mattresses and all other home furnishings and accessories.

Order on our website or call us at 708-383-5909 or email us at almartfurniture@gmail.com to schedule a showroom appointment. For curbside pick-up: Pull into the alley behind our store and we can load into your vehicle. We are also offering free delivery to your front door on most items. Hours: 11 AM to 5 PM Extra 20% off everything we carry!

Bead In Hand 145 Harrison Street, Oak Park 708-848-1761 Beadinhand.com

We have DIY bead kits for sale on our website, including kits for Mother’s Day gifts.

Kits are available now!

Orders can be placed on our website Curbside Pick-up is available 1-3pm daily except Tuesdays and Sundays, and at additional times as needed. Customers can knock on our door or call from their car and we’ll bring their items out.

CarefulPeach Boutique 1024 North Blvd, Oak Park 708-383-3066 CarefulPeach.myshopify.com

Wine, bath and body, jewelry, home goods, kitchen and hostess gifts, puzzles and childrens items, all with a French Flair!

Call our shop, direct message us on Facebook or Instagram, and order thru our Shopify website.

Curbside Pick-up is available: Just give us a call when you are outside, and we will bring your package to your car, all touchless! We also offer free local delivery to Oak Park, River Forest and Forest Park Hours: Mon-Sat 10:30-6, Sun 12-5 Buy a case of wine, even mixed, 15% off! Check out our 25% OFF Daily Peachy Items on our website or social media.

Divineconsign.com

Curbside pick-up is available. Just pull up and call us.

Hours: Tues - Sun 1-5

Edible Arrangements 107 N Marion St, Oak Park 708-848-4840 Edible.com

Fruit baskets, chocolate strawberries, fruit smoothies, balloons, cookies and cheesecakes

Order on our website or call us. Pay for your order online or by phone, then call when you arrive and we will bring it out to you. We also offer next day free delivery (except holidays) Hours: 9-6 Mon thru Fri. 9-5 Sat and 10-3 Sunday (For Mother’s Day we are open Sat and Sun 7-7)

Fitzgerald’s Fine Stationery 111 North Marion Street, Oak Park 708-445-8077 Fitzgeraldsstationery.com

Greeting Cards, Stationery and Gifts

Call in or email your order to colleen@fitzgeraldsstationery.com, or shop on our online store.

When you arrive, knock on our front door or call us and we will bring your order out to you.

Complimentary local delivery (Oak Park, River Forest, Elmwood Park, Forest Park)

Garland Flowers 137 S Oak Park Ave, Oak Park 708-848-2777 GarlandFlowers.net

Flowers, loose and arranged, green plants, blooming plants, garden plants

Order by phone or online Call when you arrive and we will bring your order out to you. We also deliver!

Hours: Mon – Sat 9-3 Beautiful selection of Mother’s Day arrangements and plants

Lively Athletics 109 N. Oak Park Ave, Oak Park 708-358-0605 Livelyathletics.com

Athletic apparel and shoes for women, athletic shoes for kids

To order: Call us, email us, Facebook message us... anything! We’re so excited to take your order!

For curbside pick-up, pull up outside our store and give us a call. We’ll run your purchase to your car, or leave it right outside our door. Hours: Mon-Sat 10-5, Sun 12-5 $5 off any curbside shoe purchase (adult or kid) with code WednesdayJournal

Oak Park Jewelers 101 S. Oak Park Ave., Oak Park Oakparkjewelers.com

Jewelry store

These local retailers are all OPEN during the current shelter-in-place order Check out their offerings online, call them for curbside pick-up.

Now is the time to support local business!

Call 708-383-9695 or email info@oakparkjewelers. com to set up a virtual appointment and/or arrange curbside pick-up.

Local Delivery is also available.

Hours: Tues – Fri 11-4

Olive & Well 133 N. Oak Park Ave, Oak Park 708-848-4230 Oliveandwell.com

Olive oils, balsamic vinegars, and related products

Call us to place your order and arrange for pick-up.

When you are outside, call us and we can bring out your order.

Hours: Mon, Wed, Fri, Sat 11-3

Sear’s Pharmacy 1003 Madison St, Oak Park 708-386-6304 Searsrx.com

Prescription Medications, Over-the-counter medications, Vitamins

Call ahead with order and payment info. Call when curbside, and we will bring your order out to you.

We also offer Delivery Hours: Mon-Fri 9-7; Sat 9-2; Sun Closed

Paulson’s Paint 7400 Madison St, Forest Park 708-366-4288 Paulsonspaint.com

Paint, Tools and Sundries (including Emulsifying Agents and Denatured Alcohol to clean and sanitize)

Open regular operating hours under the Paint Store exemption from the Shelter-In-Place Order as an Essential Business. Customers can come into the store which is cleaned and sanitized repeatedly throughout the day. Our staff has also been directed to wait on customers from a distance of ten feet.

We are also taking phone orders and can bring the materials to the curbside or our parking lot. We have been spraying boxes and cans with alcohol sanitizer for immune-compromised customers.

Hours: Mon - Wed 7:30-5:30; Thurs 7:30-8:00; Fri 7:30-5:30; Sat 8:00-5:00; Sun 10:00-3:00 Multiple sales and specials are ongoing. Benjamin Moore Aura and Regal Select gallons are on sale and the purchase of one gallon gets lower sale pricing on the New Corona Pro-Pack brush/roller combos.

Only She 115 N. Oak Park Ave., Oak Park 708-406-6717 Onlyshe.com

Women’s clothing boutique

Go to our website and click on “shop looks.”

Check out our BOX IT BABY! Program -- we pay shipping coming and going, and we charge after you have made your selections. Call the store anytime and leave a message—we will respond. Email us at info@onlyshe.com, we will send pictures. You can also contact us on facetime, skype, what’s app, and zoom.

Call to arrange Curbside Pick-up beginning May 4th.

Hours: Mon - Friday 11-3 20% off entire store

Sugarcup Trading

Sugarcuptrading.com

A whimsical well curated children’s boutique specializing in fashion, accessories, books, specialty toys and gifts.

Offering: Online Shopping, Concierge Service, Virtual Shopping Parties You can order online or call 708-524-5336.

We offer Curbside Pick-up, Free Local Same Day Delivery and shipping throughout the US. Hours: Mon-Sat 11-5

Team Blonde Boutique, Eco Spa, and Salon 7442 W. Madison, Forest Park 708-771-5590

Teamblonde.com Clothing, gifts, jewelry, handbags, bath & body products, hair care products To order, go to our website, email us at blondes@ teamblonde.com, or call. We offer curbside pick-up and delivery. For curbside pick-up, pull up to our front or back door and call to let us know you arrived.

Hours almost anytime, by appointment.

Mention this ad for 15% off your first curbside purchase

Ten Thousand Villages 121 N Marion St, Oak Park 708-848-4572 land-line 708-737-3156 mobile

Tenthousandvilllages.com/oakpark

We are a cultural gift shop selling an assortment of fair trade items from jewelry, home decor, musical instruments, planters, garden accessories, cards, coffee, tea, chocolate, wall decor, clothing.

Look online, then call the store to place an order. You can also DM us if you see something you like through our Facebook or Instagram pages.

Curbside pick-up is at our side door on Westgate.

Call us when you arrive.

Hours: Tues, Fri and Sat 10-4pm

Trends Consignment Boutique 810 North Blvd, Oak Park 708-434-0801 Trendsoakpark.net

Women’s clothing & accessories

Shop on our website and through our social media posts.

If you have a special request, virtual shopping appointments are also available. Join us for our LIVE shopping parties on Facebook.

Tues-Thurs at 8pm. When you have placed an order, you can request curbside pick-up by emailing Amanda@trendsoakpark.com. Curbside pick-up is available Monday-Friday starting at noon

Tulipia Floral Design 1044 Chicago Ave, Oak Park 708-524-1323 Tulipiafloraldesign.com

Floral arrangements and gifts

Order on our website or call us at 708-524-1323 . For curbside pick-up, call upon arrival and we will bring out your order. We also deliver. Hours: 10-5

110 N. Marion St, Oak Park 708-524-5336

Each of these businesses paid a very nominal fee to participate in this ad. Thank you for supporting these local businesses!

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Wednesday Journal, May 6, 2020

OAKPARK.COM | RIVERFOREST.COM

C R I M E

Bedroom intruder alerts sleeping man A sleeping man woke up to a male intruder in his bedroom, at 3:25 a.m., May 1 in the 400 block of South Kenilworth Avenue.

After confronting the intruder, the man was struck by the intruder with an unknown object. The intruder then fled with the man’s computer.

At 10:30 a.m., the man discovered his 2016 Audi A6 was stolen. Police recovered the vehicle at 4:32 a.m., May 2, in the 1100 block of Madison Street in Maywood.

Police describe the intruder as being a black man, around 5 feet 10 inches to 6 feet 2 inches in height and weighing 200 lbs. He was wearing a dark colored hooded sweatshirt. The estimated loss of the computer is $1,000.

Aggravated vehicular hijacking

A Chicago woman was opening her car when a man with a knife approached her from behind; the woman threw her keys into the car, then the man pushed to her to the ground and drove off in her white 2019 Chevrolet Trax at 9:45 a.m., April 27 in the 500 block of South Cuyler Avenue.

Chicago police recovered the vehicle in the 3400 block of Walnut Street, Chicago, without an apprehension. The police report describes the man as being black with a dark complexion, between 18 to 25 years in

age, 5 feet 11 inches and of medium build.

He was last seen wearing a red jacket with a gray hood and blue jeans.

Theft

■ The catalytic converter was cut out of a 2009 Honda CRV in the 400 block of South Maple Avenue between 7 a.m., April 18 and 4:30 p.m., April 25.

■ A 2012 Kia Sportage had its catalytic converter cut from it between 4 p.m., April 19 and 9 a.m., April 26 in the 200 block of South Maple Avenue. Unknown loss.

■ Someone entered a closed, but unsecured construction site and took 113 sprinkler heads, all in their original boxes, between 7 a.m., April 27 and 7 a.m., April 29 in the 6000 block of North Avenue.

Vehicle theft

■ Someone removed a 2017 Ford Focus, possibly using a spare key, between 8 p.m., April 27 and 6:30 a.m., April 29 in the 900 block of South Garfield Street. Estimated loss is $12,000.

■ Someone entered an unlocked 2004 Nissan Quest, peeled the steering column and damaged its ignition in a failed attempt to steal the vehicle between 9 a.m., April 27 and 12 p.m., May 1 in the 300 block of North Lombard Avenue.

Recovered stolen vehicle A stolen white 2017 Toyota Prius was recovered in the 1100 block of Westgate Street at 10:03 a.m., April 29; the Prius was reported stolen Sept. 10 from the 900 block of North Boulevard.

was broken into between 4:30 p.m. and 9:10 p.m., April 27. In the last two cases, the estimated damage for both is $500.

■ Someone damaged the plastic bag covering the damaged window of a vehicle in the 1100 block of Westgate Street between 1 a.m. and 10 a.m., April 28.

Burglary

Criminal damage to property

Someone broke a glass window and entered True Discount Food Mart, 1155 Garfield St., then removed an unknown number of lottery tickets at 3:21 a.m., May 1.

A man was observed knocking over garbage cans and stationed safety barriers at 2:30 a.m., May 2 at Oak Park Elementary School District 97, 260 Madison St.; a flowerpot was thrown against the door and four small bushes were pulled out of the ground.

The estimated damage is unknown.

Burglary to motor vehicle

■ Five cars were discovered with their driver’s side windows broken and their interiors ransacked in the 1100 block of Westgate Street on April 27. The first break in occurred between 1 a.m. and 9:30 p.m.; Nothing was taken. Estimated damage is $400.

The second break in occurred between 2:30 p.m. and 9:15 p.m. As in the first instance, nothing was taken from the vehicle and the damage is estimated at $400.

The third vehicle was broken into between 4 p.m. and 6:50 p.m. Nothing was removed and the estimated damage is unknown.

The fourth vehicle break in is believed to have occurred between 12:01 a.m., March 15 and 9:56 p.m., April 27, while the fifth vehicle

■ These items, obtained from the Oak Park Police Department, came from reports April 27-May 1 and represent a portion of the incidents to which police responded.

Anyone named in these reports has only been charged with a crime and cases have not yet been adjudicated. We report 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 physical description of the suspect as they seek the public’s help in making an arrest.

Compiled by Stacey Sheridan

Keep practicing, listening, and sharing the gift of music.

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Wednesday Journal, May 6, 2020

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Homes

Rush University Medical Center’s butterfly-shaped tower is central to the highway and the el, and is uniquely situated to handle a medical crisis like the current Covid-19 pandemic.

Photo by James Steinkamp

Rush University Medical Center design aids in COVID-19 treatment

By LACEY SIKORA

I

17

Contributing Reporter

n the wake of the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001 and the following anthrax scares, Rush University Medical Center in Chicago used those tragedies to inform its campus-wide transformation.

The vision was to create a medical campus that could not only handle the traditional medical needs of one of the country’s largest cities, but which could also adapt and respond to unique circumstances that might not be an everyday occurrence. A team that included medical professionals, architects and philanthropic development worked together to bring that vision to life.

Oak Parker Sarah Finnegan, director of development at

Thrive Counseling Center, was the associate director of development at Rush during the fundraising and planning stages of the project.

She recalls that after 9-11, thinking outside the traditional hospital box was a large part of the redesign of the Rush campus.

“Rush is at the intersection of a highway and an el line,” Finnegan said. “It is a place that people could get to relatively easily if there was a mass tragedy in the Loop.”

Architect Jerry Johnson, who was one of the Perkins & Will architects who worked on the project, says their design was aided greatly by Rush’s Office of Transformation.

“The medical center set aside doctors and nurses to participate in the planning process,” Johnson said. “They understood what was happening in every corner of the building. That decision by Rush made a huge difference, turning something that was ordinary into something that was extraordinary.”

Dr. Dino Rumoro, professor and chairman of the Depart-

ment of Emergency Medicine and acting dean of the Medical College at Rush, was a key part of the Office of Transformation.

His vision was to create a campus that was prepared to respond to terrorist attacks, bioterrorism or a deadly pandemic.

“In 2006, not everyone was thinking about this,” Johnson said. “Rush was interesting because other emergency departments might try to cover one of these issues, but Rush was the first to say they would take on all of these issues.”

Rumoro recalls that he had just started at Rush in June of 2001 and had been asked to chair the emergency disaster response team. After 9-11, he says that job was like diving into the deep end of the pool, and fears of smallpox and anthrax attacks informed the campus planning process.

As the architects came up with a scheme that would deliver maximum flexibility for different uses, it was clear that the innovations would not be cheap. A sizable donation See RUSH UNIVERSITY on page 20

18

Wednesday Journal, May 6, 2020

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Wednesday Journal, May 6, 2020

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RUSH UNIVERSITY

Designed for emergencies from page 17 from the McCormick Foundation as well as grants from the Departments of Defense and Energy and private donations helped make their visions a reality.

Finnegan notes that the entire campus redo came with a price tag of roughly $1.2 billion, with the main tower costing about $650 million. She credited Oak Park resident and recently retired Rush CEO Larry Goodman for guiding the entire project from concept to completion.

When it came to the design of the main hospital building, the 14-story, butterfly-shaped tower, Rumoro says there were three key requirements.

“We wanted to add surge capacity of at least 20 percent, an area for mass decontamination and specialized air flow to help stop the spread of respiratory illness,” Rumoro said.

The tower’s Brennan Pavilion was designed to be easily transformed from an open admitting area to a triage space.

The columns of the room open to reveal mechanicals, and the room can be shut off to the public.

“Once the skeleton is there, all we need to add is cots and recliners, which is what we’ve done now,” Rumoro said.

“We’re using this room for part of our pandemic response.”

The arrangement, he said, is key for the hospital separating likely COVID-positive patients from other patients needing emergency services.

As another part of the surge capacity, each of the of the rooms in the three emergency department pods has the capability of housing two patients if necessary, building in 100-percent surge capacity in the ER. The ambulance bay was created to be an area of mass decontamination. Johnson says that the 5,000-square-foot port was enclosed with the idea that it could have a dual use.

It not only provides protected entrance to the hospital via ambulance, but also in the event of an industrial incident, it could be an area where people and vehicles can be hosed down. A 10,000-gallon holding tank underneath the bay provides a safe receptacle for water runoff.

Rumoro said staff have been able to adapt the ambulance bay for the current crisis. It has been converted to a COVID intake area for arriving patients who are likely positive with space to separate patients’ chairs and has its own air

Image by Steve Hall

BEING PREPARED: The Brennan Pavilion at Rush can be transitioned from a welcoming entry into a triage area for patients. exchange.

The third element Rumoro pushed for, the specialized air flow, is particularly useful today. Each of the three emergency pods have separate air flows, and each pod has an anteroom for staff to change into the personal protective equipment (PPE).

Rumoro notes that when they are seeing 70 to ninety 90 a

Image by Steve Hall

SAFETY FIRST: Ante-rooms with glass doors allow space for medical professionals to change into PPE before entering patient rooms.

day who might be COVID-19 positive, it takes a simple flip of a switch to make the entire emergency pod go to a negative air flow. Instead of roughly six air exchanges per hour, the rooms experience roughly 18, expelling airborne particles more rapidly.

Rumoro said he thinks this negative air flow, along with a good supply of PPE, has likely made it easier for critical healthcare workers to do their jobs during the COVID-19 crisis.

“We have PPE for our staff, and in reality, you don’t need a space suit to treat this disease,” Rumoro said. “Just telling our staff that the COVID patients will be in a pod with negative air flow makes them feel at ease.”

Johnson notes that even though 99 percent of the time Rush functions as a nicely equipped emergency department, the current crisis reveal how visionary the Rush team who worked on the plan was.

“They have it under control’” Johnson said. “They’re really, really prepared, and it’s a source of pride for our firm to be associated with this.”

For Rumoro all that planning is finally bearing fruit.

“This is our first time with a truly infectious disease, using all the bells and whistles,” he said.

He notes that only time will tell how to best address a disease like COVID-19, but he believes the design of Rush has aided the city’s response to the disease.

“It’s been helpful because we’ve been able to treat and accept a larger number of COVID patients because we have this infrastructure,” Rumoro said. “Some of this is the confidence of the team, saying ‘I work in a place where I feel protected and feel comfortable coming to work every day.’ If we provide a safe place to work, staff will feel like they can go in and continue to perform their ethical duty.”

VIEWPOINTS

DEADLINE FOR SUBMISSIONS IS FRIDAY 5 P.M. Call Viewpoints editor Ken Trainor at 613-3310 ktrainor@wjinc.com

C O N S C I O U S

A G I N G

A close shave and welcome change When we are no longer able to change a situation, we are challenged to change ourselves.

L

Viktor Frankl

ast week I noticed I was running low on shaving cream. In the old days — and I don’t mean the ’60s — I would have tucked that away in the back of my mind and, eventually, I would have remembered to buy some more shaving cream, probably as I was already standing in the checkout line somewhere or perhaps as I was already driving past a local Walgreen’s.

However, there are two difficulties with the above scenario: First, what I nowadays tuck away in the back of my mind sometimes just gets stuck there.

Second, in this time of flattening the curve, I don’t go shopping in public.

As chance would have it, I was about to fill a prescription online and have it delivered to my front porch. I managed to get shaving cream included with that Rx delivery, but the selection was pretty thin since most of the familiar shaving cream was out of stock online. No Gillette Foamy, no Edge, no Barbasol.

I was forced to purchase oatmeal-based shea butter shaving cream, something I’d never even heard of before. Who knew? And guess what? It works really, really well! One of the smoothest, most comfortable and enjoyable shaves I’ve ever experienced.

I started to think, with regret, about how many thousands of shaves I’d had with the old, clunky, mainstream Gillette stuff. And about how few shaves I might have left with my newdiscovery shave cream. I wished I’d known about this stuff years ago, and look what I’ve missed out on! Too bad this discovery came so late in my life.

But wait, I thought, even if I get just a few years or even just a handful of outstanding shaves out of this, they each feel so smooth and easy and bring a smile to my face. It’s better to have the experience than never at all.

I realized that the value is not in how long we get to savor an experience but in knowing the possibility of such experience exists. It’s never too late to have a really smooth shave!

This is the opportunity that aging affords us. Indeed, this is one of the gifts we can give to ourselves if we age with intention.

And I was grateful that I had to order some weird shaving cream online because of the pandemic. I appreciated that, even with its horrific downside, a crisis can provide both danger and opportunity.

Oh, and here’s three more things I no longer take for granted: ■ I have health insurance so I can get an affordable prescription.

■ I have a home to have the Rx and shave cream delivered to, and where I can shelter-in-place.

■ I have a pension and a credit card to pay for the delivery.

Stay tuned: The Wabi Sabi Film Festival is going digital! Our April 24 screening of the documentary Alive Inside at Classic Cinemas’ Lake Theatre in downtown Oak Park had to be postponed because of shelteringin-place. Later this month, Growing Community Media and A Tribe Called Aging will present Alive Inside online, free to the community, immediately followed by a ZOOM group discussion. Stay tuned for details. And don’t forget the Wabi Sabi Film Festival’s July 24 screening of the powerful documentary GenSilent.

MARC BLESOFF

Wednesday Journal, May 6, 2020

21

Remembering Barbara Mullarkey p. 24

More than chocolates and flowers

S

heltering-in-place has cancelled our annual events but given us lots of time to be thoughtful and write:

What I want for Mothers Day is a New New Deal.

I want a president with vision and compassion like FDR, whose public works programs kept millions of families from starving (including my dad’s family). I want a savvy woman like Frances Perkins, FDR’s Secretary of Labor, whose relentless efforts pushed through the sweeping social programs that still protect working people today: the 40-hour work week, Social Security, workers compensation, unemployment compensation, to name just a few (Elizabeth Warren, Stacey Abrams, I am channeling you).

Isn’t it time we insist that our taxes take care of us instead of being spent on corporations, militarism and disregard for the planet? Hasn’t the pandemic taught us how essential universal health care is, now that millions of the unemployed have lost their insurance? Don’t we need a Green New Deal to put people to work and ensure our children can continue to live on this planet? Wouldn’t good affordable child care, extended family leave time, paid sick days and a livable minimum wage help all caretakers?

Let’s reclaim Mothers Day by committing to work for change that brings peace to our lives. Read — see the list of titles on peace compiled by the Oak Park Public Library at oppl.org/peace-titles. Join the League of Women Voters (who sponsor many of our events) and speak out on the issues that are important to you. Vote.

Help rebuild a nation that cares for all of its people.

Diane Scott is a former Oak Parker and member of Mothers and Others For Peace https://www.facebook. com/MothersAndOthersForPeace.

MOTHERS AND OTHERS FOR PEACE One View

Mothers Day 2020

We are on an epic journey affecting all habits, all people, all countries, and all economies as we endure a viral pandemic. As in the 1870s after the U.S. Civil War, when women were concerned with preventing international warfare, today we are concerned as to the causes of war: inequalities, consumerism, and inattention to the common good.

In this sixth year, Mothers and Others For Peace (MOFP) honors Mothers Day History Day, the Saturday before Mothers Day, proclaimed in 2016 by state Senator Don Harmon in the Illinois General Assembly.

Sen. Harmon gifted every legislator with a copy of the Julia Ward Howe Proclamation to All Women to Protest War. To me, Mothers Day will always mean Mothers Day History Day and Julia Ward Howe’s call to women to protest war. Consumerism and impulsiveness contradict Abraham Lincoln’s “better angels of us all.” We can learn how to spend wisely with the common good of all humanity and the earth as our guide.

Mary Rose Lambke Oak Park

A New New Deal Usually at this time of year I work with Mothers and Others For Peace, figuring out new ways we can spread the word about Mothers Day’s peaceful origins.

Over the last few years we have hosted a lecture on women’s activism, a rally with speakers in Mills Park, and flower-making, peace book discussions and displays at the Oak Park Public Library. Each year we hope to nudge the focus of Mothers Day away from excessive consumerism toward a day to act to bring peace into our lives.

But this year as we shelter in place, our events are on hold. Can we use this screeching halt in our routines — this time that writer Arundhati Roy calls “a portal, a gateway between one world and the next” — to be thoughtful about what might truly benefit mothers (and others) on Mothers Day. Because this year we need a lot more than chocolate and flowers.

Is there any doubt our safety nets in the U.S. have collapsed? Rev. William Barber said, “Pandemics spread through the fissures of our society caused by inequality.” We have only to look at the growing numbers of unemployed, the long lines at food pantries, the disparity in deaths from the virus along lines of race to see those fissures becoming wider and more evident.

Feeding the seeds of peace In May 2018, I viewed the exhibit “Back to Our Roots” at the Oak Park Public Library. This exhibit was sponsored by the group Mothers and Others For Peace with support of the League of Women Voters of OP-RF. It told the story of how Mothers Day began with Julia Ward Howe’s Mothers Day Proclamation of 1870, which called on women of the world to unite for peace.

The exhibit posed a striking question: “What can you do to feed the seeds of peace?” More than 200 visitors posted multicolored sticky notes with comments ranging from the personal to the communal: “Listen with an open heart,” “Love and forgive each other,” “Work with and support groups that promote justice for all,” “Take care of the environment so the world can be healthy,” “Vote for leaders who work for peace,” and “Each do what one can do where you are with your gifts.”

See PEACE on page 24

22

V I E W P O I N T S

Wednesday Journal, May 6, 2020

O U R

V I E W S

Making love real in the world

M

ost of my life, I’ve been on the trail of true love. Lately the search has intensified due to sheltering-in-place, social-distancing and self-quarantine.

With the unexpected luxury of more time, I’ve been working my way through my DVD and CD collections, which, being American art forms, heavily tilt toward romance. Also because I’ve been a romantic since falling madly in love with Snow White after a trip to the movie theater when I was 5.

My DVD journey began with Shakespeare in Love, wherein Queen Elizabeth, holding court, proposes a wager: “Can a play capture the very truth and nature of love?” she asks. Shakespeare accepts the challenge and begins writing the immortal Romeo & Juliet, a torrent of romantic language the like of which had never been heard by human ears before (or maybe since). “She doth teach the torches to burn bright! It seems she hangs upon the cheek of night like a rich jewel in an Ethiope’s ear; Beauty too rich for use, for earth too dear! … Did my heart love till now? Forswear it, sight! For I ne’er saw true beauty till this night.”

Just words, perhaps, but according to the film, based on the symbiotic relationship between real life and the imagination known as “lived experience.”

After the play’s debut, even the crusty queen admits that Will has won the wager. He and his lover’s torch burned brightly, but all too briefly. Star-crossed indeed. Ah, you might say, they loved, but it was only for a moment. Is that the very truth and nature of love?

The Bard turns such stinginess on its head. It was only for a moment, he says, but they loved.

My cinematic journey continued with Robin & Marian (Sean Connery and Audrey Hepburn, who capture the very truth and nature of aging love as they choose not to live happily ever after, together engineering a romantic end to their love story), followed by Bridges of Madison County (Clint Eastwood and Meryl Streep conduct a clinic on falling in love, with a codicil on the enduring nature of true love), Out of Africa (Streep and Robert Redford underscore how true the love that cannot last can be) and coming full circle with West Side Story, Sondheim and Bernstein’s modern retelling of Shakespeare’s fortune-forsaken lovers, whose love blazes brightly, but is cut short by the petty hatreds and societal shortcomings holding them hostage.

None of these stories have happy endings. Nonetheless, all capture the very truth and nature of love.

Yet all are works of the imagination. Does true love exist in the real world, beyond art’s creative crucible?

In the pandemic’s crucible, we are seeing love’s mettle tested. Relationships, confined to home, endure stressors that probe for cracks and weaknesses.

What are we learning? What advanced degrees in love are we earning? I live alone, but, judging by numerous entries in the dozens of small notebooks carried in my back pocket for the past 20 years, I’ve given this fair thought. Combing through, I found some advice about keeping love alive.

“I believe that unarmed truth and unconditional love will have the final word.” (Martin Luther King Jr.) “The way to handle a woman is to love her, merely

love her, simply love her, love her, love her.” (Merlin, as recalled by King Arthur, in Camelot) “How could you ever be happy with a man who would treat you as if you were a perfectly normal human being?” (Oscar Wilde) “The love we hold back is the only pain that follows us.” (Audrey Hepburn as an angel in the film, Always) “Fate is kind. She gives to those who love the sweet fulfillment of their secret longing.” (Jiminy Cricket, “When You Wish Upon A Star”) “Do something excellent in her presence.” (From the film, The Tao of Steve) “Now that we are one, which one shall we be? Shall we be you or shall we be me?” (Jerome Kern, Ira Gershwin) “Courage doesn’t always roar. Sometimes courage is the quiet voice at the end of the day saying, ‘I will try again tomorrow.’” (Mary Anne RadmacherHershey) “Where your treasure is, there will your heart be.”

(Luke 12:32) “If that’s not love, what is?” (Fiddler on the Roof) “You have to be willing to let go of the life you planned in order to make room for the life you’re meant to live.” (Maria Shriver, AARP magazine) “Ring the bells that still can ring. Forget your perfect offering. There is a crack in everything. That’s how the light gets in.” (Leonard Cohen) “Every new beginning is some other beginning’s end.” (Seneca … and the song, “Closing Time” by Semisonic) If that’s not love, what is? Good question. Marriage and romance, sadly, are not synonymous, but they intersect. Romance frequently leads to marriage but marriage too infrequently leads to romance. If you work at it, though, they overlap. Less anger, more kindness. More credit, less critique. More faith, less fear. Less self-interest, more selfless interest.

On my walks, I pass a house with a sign in front, written in multicolored chalk: “There is no place like home.

There is no place like home.

There is no place like home.”

The lesson Dorothy learned by being blown all the way to Oz, we are learning staying home during this crisis. For better and for worse, there is no place like home. We have the opportunity to discover how true our love is — for each other, our neighbors and our fellow Americans.

There are two kinds of love — internal and external. Internal love exists at the level of feeling and potential. If it doesn’t spill over, however, if we can’t bring love into the world and turn it into a verb, it’s like a tree falling in the forest. Love only becomes real and tangible when we show it. You don’t really love someone unless you’re actually, actively loving them. As Martin Buber wrote, love happens “between” an I and a You. During this crisis, people have found many ways to show true, if less romantic, love. I helped a friend of mine this past weekend make soup to deliver to friends who suffered a terrible loss from this disease.

Many sicknesses afflict this country. Love is the antidote to all of them, but we are the ones who will bring this cure to the world.

We are love’s antibodies.

KEN

TRAINOR

S

Farmers Market friction

ooner or later, tensions were going to surface in Oak Park over the extended COVID-19 restrictions. It hasn’t been over schools closing for the year, though that has been a difficult challenge for teachers, parents and students. Didn’t happen over the park district closing playgrounds, though there are, on our random nice days, certainly antsy kids who want to swing and climb. Didn’t happen over the prolonged closing of restaurant dining rooms because, well, it just makes sense.

But over the past two weeks as we’ve tried to read the tea leaves over just how “essential” the Oak Park Farmers Market really is during a pandemic, it has seemed clear that the market was a point of friction. That became clearer Monday night at the virtual village board meeting.

A raft of local events have been cancelled in April, May and through June under the rightful orders of the administration of village government. Plainly, from the village manager on down, people are working hard in this pandemic. But they are doing it, partly by necessity and partly by choice, with limited input from the elected village board, from appointed commissioners whose meetings were all cancelled in April — and without the usual transparency which is reflected in local reporting.

So while almost all events have been deep-sixed, village officials were reluctant to put the kibosh on the Farmers Market while also being tight-lipped about their plans for fresh food in hard times.

Finally on Monday the word came down through the new chain of command that the market would open May 30, would be radically altered to build in essential safety measures, and that, starting this week with the basic structure already locked down, staff would again talk to the volunteer Farmers Market commissioners.

Multiple village trustees — Boutet, Walker-Peddakotla, Andrews — chided village officials for the lack of communication to this point. In turn they were chided by Mayor Anan Abu-Taleb who stood up for the hard-working village manager, Cara Pavlicek.

We appreciate the hard work, too. But listening and adapting during a crisis is also part of leadership.

And we’d urge the manager to ease up some on the lockeddown communications strategy. It’s starting to chafe.

V I E W P O I N T S S H R U B T O W N

by Marc Stopeck

Wednesday Journal, May 6, 2020

W E D N E S D A Y

JOURNAL of Oak Park and River Forest

Editor and Publisher Dan Haley Senior Editor Bob Uphues Staff Reporters Michael Romain, Stacey Sheridan, Maria Maxham Viewpoints Editor Ken Trainor Sports/Staff reporter James Kay Columnists Marc Blesoff, Jack Crowe, Doug Deuchler, John Hubbuch, May Kay O’Grady, Kwame Salter, John Stanger, Stan West, Linda Francis Staff Photographer Alex Rogals Design/Production Manager Andrew Mead Designers Mark Moroney, Javier Govea Business Manager Joyce Minich Advertising Design Manager Andrew Mead Advertising Designers Debbie Becker, Mark Moroney Marketing Representatives Marc Stopeck, Lourdes Nicholls

Dear Huskies: This just in …

I can’t believe it. OPRF High School has decided to place construction trailers and trucks on the OPRF baseball diamond for two consecutive years. Such a decision would not allow any home baseball games, nor allow the hosting of any conference playoff games and the boys will be practicing mostly off campus for two years. This is ridiculous! And the field was already in tough shape the past several years.

Wait, this just in, it’s not the baseball diamond; it’s the varsity turf football/soccer field. What?!

Wait, wait, this just in, it’s the girls softball fields. No way!

No, this just in … it’s the basketball court in the Field House. What’s going on?!

OK, I finally have the true story. No need to worry.

It’s just the tennis courts. Go on with your summer as planned and stay well. Whew, that was a close one.

So, the point here is not that the tennis team is any more or less important than any other sport or activity. The point is, no single program should be brushed aside for two years.

Arguably, the tennis program has been brushed aside for many more years, considering the condition that the

courts have been in for some time. Our school has had the opportunity in the past to step up and do what is right for the tennis program and they’ve taken a pass.

OPRF High School talks a big game about unintended consequences, putting all students first and disproportional impacts of decisions. It seems those values do not apply in this case. The selective use of taglines, values and policies is a slippery slope for any institution or community.

Of particular note, the construction company originally wanted to use the west field for staging the trailers. We should want to learn more about that plan to see how we might even improve on it and reduce the student impact.

We also just spent over $102,000 on the tennis courts two years ago (still under warranty for three more years).

Now the construction company will have a pricey private parking lot for two years while our student athletes are displaced.

It would be great to see all of our athletic program leaders rally on behalf of each other. We might even be able to figure out a seasonal approach to reduce the impact to any single program. Who knows, it could increase the morale and school spirit when students return to campus.

Our school should actually want to do this and it should not be left to teams to plead to stay on campus and represent their school.

Go Huskies! All of you.

Ross Lissuzzo River Forest

Sales & Development Mary Ellen Nelligan Circulation Manager Jill Wagner Front Desk Carolyn Henning, Maria Murzyn Chairman Emeritus Robert K. Downs

About Viewpoints Our mission is to lead educated conversation about the people, government, schools, businesses and culture of Oak Park and River Forest. As we share the consensus of Wednesday Journal’s editorial board on local matters, we hope our voice will help focus your thinking and, when need be, fire you to action.

In a healthy conversation about community concerns, your voice is also vital. We welcome your views, on any topic of community interest, as essays and as letters to the editor. Noted here are our stipulations for filing.

Please understand our verification process and circumstances that would lead us not to print a letter or essay. We will call to check that what we received with your signature is something you sent. If we can’t make that verification, we will not print what was sent. When, in addition to opinion, a letter or essay includes information presented as fact, we will check the reference. If we cannot confirm a detail, we may not print the letter or essay.

If you have questions, email Viewpoints editor Ken Trainor at ktrainor@wjinc.com.

LETTER TO THE EDITOR

A successful strategy at The Arms

We have our 83-year-old cousin at Oak Park Arms. At the very beginning of this virus, they decided to keep everyone in their rooms and deliver food three times a day to the residents. It was difficult but they managed. They also would not let any visitors come into the Arms. We would pick up our cousin and take him to doctor appointments. We could

Advertising Sales Marc Stopeck

not enter the building. I think this was a good strategy, although very daunting for the residents. However, they are all doing OK it seems, and I applaud the staff for being so conscientious, and especially the director, Mr. Moses.

Mila Tellez Oak Park

‘ONE VIEW’ ESSAY

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■ Must include first and last names,

■ One-sentence footnote about yourself,

municipality in which you live, phone number (for verification only)

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Email Ken Trainor at ktrainor@wjinc.com or mail to Wednesday Journal, Viewpoints, 141 S. Oak Park Ave., Oak Park, IL 60302 708 613 3300

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Wednesday Journal, May 6, 2020

V I E W P O I N T S

We are better because of Barbara

Illinois is counting on you

During these disturbing times, it is difficult to imagine what it will be like to gather again in worship, celebration, and bereavement.

While that future remains elusive, the need for strong communities, good schools, safe roads, and fair representation will remain the same.

The results of Census 2020 will indeed shape our future.

Think of your community: Census results help determine how money is allocated to prevent child abuse and to provide housing assistance for older adults, to show where schools, clinics, food assistance, and community mental health services are needed, to fund libraries.

Business owners will use 2020 Census data to make critical decisions.

Think of your local schools: Census results help determine how money is allocated for the Head Start program, school lunches, grants that support teachers, and for special education.

Think of your morning commute: Census results influence highway planning and con-

struction, as well as grants for buses, subways, and other public transit systems.

Think of your government: The results of this once-a-decade count determine the number of seats each state has in the House of Representatives and is used to draw congressional and state legislative districts.

While these are unpreceded times, it is more important than ever that we do our part to ensure a fair census count so that when this is behind us, whatever that may look like, Illinois will have the resources needed to strengthen and rebuild our state.

If you haven’t done so, please take a few moments to complete the census. You can respond in English by calling 844-330-2020 or in Spanish by calling 844-468-2020; to respond online or for help in other languages, go to https://2020census. gov/en/ways-to-respond.html.

Stay safe, stay strong and please be counted!

Beverly Graham

President, League of Women Voters OP-RF

The real pandemic is taxes Our community has an affliction that threatens to destroy Oak Park as we know it. It is threatening the existence of our businesses. It will undoubtedly chase people out of our town, as they learn to deal with its crushing economic effects.

This menace appears to be unstoppable despite many people’s best efforts.

I am, of course, talking about the ceaseless hoovering of money by our taxing bodies.

District 200 — the most shameless of a group that also includes District 97 and the Park District of Oak Park — plans to continue its irresponsible construction capital program even though the taxpayers of Oak Park are facing a once-in-century financial hardship due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

Add this to the major slap in the face taxpayers

received when taxing bodies helped themselves to a windfall at the shuttering of the village TIF, it as if these organizations have not one concern that they are going to kill the goose that laid the golden egg.

There were plenty of empty commercial spaces in Oak Park before the pandemic as restaurants in particular struggle with tax increase after tax increase. There is a very real possibility that our fancy new Lake Street will look like a ghost town when the ribbon is cut on the project. The taxing bodies of Oak Park need to open their eyes, put on their masks and observe what they are doing to our town before it is too late.

Don Anderson Oak Park

Being truly and completely thankful In gratitude to the nurses, doctors, and other health-care providers who watch over us during this time.

In gratitude to the grocery store workers, the delivery people, and the warehouse employees who keep essential goods flowing to our homes.

In gratitude to the restaurant owners, chefs, and employees who provide delicious, nourishing food.

In gratitude to the EMTs, firefighters, and police officers who put themselves on the front lines addressing this crisis.

I have so much gratitude to all of these people and more who risk their own health and that of their families in doing their parts, so the rest of us can do our part, which is to stay home and physically distanced from others.

Sometimes gratitude can simply be an emotional exercise — I feel a certain way toward you because you did something for me or others. But in this case, our gratitude needs to be backed by a moral force. To live out this moral gratitude, we

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must express all of its aspects: emotional, mental, and physical. We must feel the feelings, but we also must understand our connections, and how we exist in reciprocal relationships with one another. We must speak the words of respect and support, but we also must offer policies of respect and support — living wages, sick leave, health care — and the finances to support those policies.

To live our moral gratitude, we must make our emotional expression both physical and concrete.

So until we are ready to fulfill all of these aspects of gratitude, I don’t want to hear us offering our thanks. Because feeling the feelings without taking the actions was never appropriate. Now it is clear that it is a moral failure.

Let us live out true thanks, true gratitude, and take the actions that naturally flow from our feelings. Let us express our moral gratitude in emotions, in thoughts, in policies, in finances. Let us be truly and completely grateful.

Jim Schwartz Oak Park

I want to add to the chorus of gratitude about the wonderful Barbara Mullarkey, whom we lost last week. Barbara was true citizen of the entire village.

She was someone a lot of folks in town knew as a relentless, indefatigable activist, who was truly committed to making things better for everyone.

If Barbara was advocating for something, and I wasn’t there yet, I knew it was a sign that I should be. Certainly those in government charged with oversight and action about an area of her concern knew that things could get uncom-

fortable. It is a testimony to the character of our population and the commitment of my fellow public servants that, when Barbara was on the case, it was time to take it seriously, even if it made things more difficult to do so.

She strove to elicit the best of all of us. I will miss her and will try to lift up her spirit as an enduring, essential element of what Oak Park is as a community. We are better for her having been among us.

To a life well lived

of Oak Parkers.

A remarkable networker, Barbara was also a person who contributed and cultivated a sense of community everywhere she was involved. Her lifelong work and specific accomplishments will be detailed by the people who know them better than I do.

But I do know that, beside all of the work Barbara accomplished on many fronts, she loved her family so very much.

It was always interesting to hear what her children were doing. Her accomplished children always stood out as a credit to her. She spoke of her grandchildren with such affection, too, and delight. Barbara’s was a life very well lived, in every sense of the word.

“Barbara Alexander Mullarkey, 84, died at her Oak Park home on April 15, 2020.”

The obituary of Barbara Mullarkey was very sad news to read this past week.

Barbara was such an important voice in Oak Park and could have won “The Institutional Memory Award of All Time” in Oak Park, if only we had one.

Her lifelong history as a native Oak Parker helped with that institutional memory, unique and pretty much unmatched in the village. She was a tireless advocate for healthy living, good transparent government, and a healthy village environment — advocating constantly for a better quality of the environmental life

PEACE from page 21 I was so impressed with the exhibit, I joined the group. Their mission of making peace spoke to me. Our celebration of Mothers Day for Peace at the library is stalled because of COVID-19. The question asked in 2018 is even more relevant today and so I ask, “What can you do to feed the seeds of peace?”

Kathleen Perry River Forest

Models for peacemaking I was welcomed into a group called Mothers and Others For Peace a few years ago. The founder was inspired by Julia Ward Howe, who created Mothers Day as a day for women to advocate the end of warfare and to promote peace.

This original, now alternative way to celebrate the holiday has been with me all along, a chrysalis of inspiration to shape Mothers Day differently this year.

I will begin by celebrating the women who have emerged as leaders in promoting cooperation and healing

Eric Davis

Trustee, Oak Park Township

Christine Vernon Oak Park

— the female mayors of our towns, the women scientists who grasp the community implications of their data, the female leaders of countries like Germany and New Zealand who combine clarity, competent preparation and caring communication to inspire trust in their leadership.

I will celebrate our original Mother, Earth or Gaia, who is re-emerging in our conscious awareness as clear skies, fish swimming in the canals of Venice, wild birds returning to a healthier more nourishing environment after years of absence. I celebrate the blooming of the Feminine archetype we see in fathers returning home to nurture and educate their children, and leaders of all genders who are sharing their feelings more openly.

We see it in the creativity of groups forming online to offer music, drama, and art to soothe our souls. We see it in the growing recognition of all the women who are, and always have been, essential: health-care providers, teachers, food-service workers, factory workers, child-care workers, and volunteers who make masks at home for anyone who needs them.

Marilyn Myles Oak Park

Wednesday Journal, May 6, 2020

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The calm amid the current chaos

W

ith one month remaining of the 2019-20 school year, eLearning goes on for the nearly 1,200 students of Fenwick High School.

Admittedly, virtual classrooms have a vastly different look and feel than the ones that have stood the test of time for 91 years in our hallowed halls at 505 Washington Blvd., but our Dominican brand of education continues nonetheless.

I am proud to report that a combination of Fenwick students, teachers, nurses and alumni are donating personal protective equipment (PPE) — N95 masks, gloves and face-shield frames — to local hospitals and first responders. Numerous shield frames are being manufactured on our school’s 3D printers.

We Friars are a resilient and resourceful lot.

Remember, the Dominican Order first opened Fenwick’s doors during the late summer of 1929.

Those visionary friars weathered the stockmarket crash and the Great Depression that soon followed. This COVID-19 storm, too, shall pass, expedited by modern medicine, of course, and also by faith and prayer, which are as powerful today as they were nine decades ago.

Returning students, faculty and the administration alike look forward to reuniting this coming August — and to welcoming our incoming Class of 2024. Also, the new Michael R. Quinlan ’62 Parking Center will be completed this summer. We are extremely grateful that the village of Oak Park has allowed our construction contractor to continue working during the health crisis. The village has been a valued partner in helping Fenwick to provide safe, accessible, on-site parking for our students and staff, while taking nearly 300 cars off of nearby streets, which I know our neighbors will appreciate.

Social distancing is love In the meantime, my thoughts turn to St. Catherine of Siena (1347-1380), whose feast day is celebrated April 29. This great Dominican spiritual leader (named Doctor of the Church by Pope Paul VI in 1970) taught that all growth in virtue — and, conversely, all descent into vice — comes about in and through our relationships with one another. As she says, “Every virtue has life through charity.” Succeeding at love produces virtue; vice is a failure to love.

Simply put, the good we do for one another redounds to our own good; failing to do good hurts ourselves as much as our neighbor. At this time, our own good and the good of others means that we must maintain socialdistancing. We must continue to shelter in place out of love for those most vulnerable to the virus’ ravages. In the end, our compliance with the directives from local and state government is an act of loving social solidarity. We give witness to the fact that we need each other by our willingness — for now — to be apart.

Once this pandemic comes to an end, I’m sure our communal celebrations will be all the more heartfelt, all the more appreciative of the bonds of friendship and citizenship that make us who we are.

Rev. Richard Peddicord, O.P., is concluding his eighth year as president of Fenwick High School.

REV. RICHARD PEDDICORD One View

O B I T U A R I E S

Hugh Halverstadt, 81 Expert on managing church conflict

Rev. Dr. Hugh Fleece Halverstadt, 81, one of theological education’s foremost experts on managing church conflict, died on April 14, 2020 in Davidson, North Carolina, where he had moved in March from his home in Oak Park.

Described by his former colleagues at McCormick Theological Seminary in Chicago as good-humored, wise, supportive and always authentic, he taught in the seminary’s DMin program from 1982 until his retirement in 2001.

Prior to that, he was pastor at Presbyterian churches in HUGH HALVERSTADT Tuscaloosa and Union Springs, Alabama, and interim pastor of Second Presbyterian Church, Nashville, Tennessee — pastoral stints that provided material for his classic book, Managing Church Conflict, which advocates an ethical process of conflict management calling for respectfulness, assertiveness, accountability and a focus on the larger common good.

He was a retired minister of the Chicago Presbytery and a regular worshiper at Fourth Presbyterian Church, Chicago, where he counseled the personnel committee and guided its Lilly Pastor Residency. He served the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) extensively as trainer, presenter, consultant and faculty member from 1988 through his retirement at McCormick in 2002. He also served on the ethics committee of the Chicago Transit Authority.

He completed a PhD in Religion in 1973 from Northwestern University, after obtaining an MDiv from Union Theological Seminary in Tennessee and a BA from King College (now King University) in Bristol, Tennessee.

Born in 1939 in Atlanta, Georgia, to James Andrews Halverstadt and Charline Fox (Fleece) Halverstadt, he was raised in the Belgian Congo (now Democratic Republic of the Congo) by his missionary parents who served the American Presbyterian Congo Mission from 1946 to 1966. He was active in Chicago’s refugee resettlement programs at Heartland Alliance and RefugeeOne, a reflection of his love and knowledge of central Africa.

In 1965 he married Barbara Ann Hornby, which ended in divorce. Their two sons, Peter Breen Halverstadt and David Andrews Halverstadt, predeceased him. In

2002, he married R. Craig Endicott in a same-sex union in Oak Park. Their union culminated in marriage in 2014 when the state legislature approved same-sex marriage. The couple were longtime residents of Oak Park and “snowbirds” on St. Simons Island, Georgia.

Extended survivors include Endicott and his two stepsons, Seth James Killian and Peter Arthur Killian; Barbara Doak Halverstadt, widow of Hugh’s son, Peter; the mother of Craig’s stepsons, Mary Jane (Killian) Endicott; and the mother of Hugh’s sons, Barbara (Hornby) Halverstadt.

Services will be held later this year at Fourth Presbyterian Church.

Hugh Halverstadt can be honored with gifts to RefugeeOne (donor link at refugeeone.org); Fourth Presbyterian Church at 126 E. Chestnut, Chicago 60611, and McCormick Seminary, 5460 S. University Ave., Chicago 60615.

Barbara Lordan, 70 Active volunteer, antique collector

Barbara Ryan Lordan, 70, of Oak Park, died on April 28, 2020, due to respiration complications from a stroke in 2005. Born on April 1, 1950, she was married to Gerald Lordan. They have been residents of Oak Park since 1982.

She graduated from St. Patrick High School in Watertown, Massachusetts in 1968, received her BA from Northeastern University in Boston, and her MBA from Dominican University in River Forest. She was a technical sales representative for Eastman Kodak and was active with professional associations in Chicago BARBARA LORDAN for both Typography and Lithography. She was also active with the Center for Progress in Independent Living in Forest Park and used her French language skill as a volunteer with Crossroads Africa in the Ivory Coast. Her hobbies were gardening, furniture restoration, and antique collection.

Barbara was the mother of Brendan Lordan and Erin Lordan; the sister of Michael (Marianne) Ryan and William (Leonie) Ryan and the late Mary Ryan (Edmund) Radz; the daughter of the late Francis Ryan and the late Agnes (O’Toole) Ryan.

A celebration of her life will be held in Oak Park and in Watertown at a later date. When available, service information will be updated at: drechslerbrownwilliams. com. In lieu of flowers, donations to Catholic Charities of Chicago (catholiccharities.net) are appreciated.

Robert P. Gamboney Funeral Director

Read Step 1. le . Recyc Step 2

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26

Wednesday Journal, May 6, 2020

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Wednesday Journal, May 6, 2020

OAKPARK.COM | RIVERFOREST.COM

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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 22, 2020, at 10:00 AM at Riverside Brookfield High School, 160 Ridgewood Road, Riverside, Il 60546---Due to the Pandemic this meeting will be held via Zoom. The purpose of this meeting is to discuss how students with disabilities, who attend private schools or are home schooled within the district boundaries, will be served by District 208 during the 2020-21 school year.

Parents and private school administrators who would like to attend should contact Sheila Jercich, Director of Special Education, at jercichs@rbhs208.net Zoom invitation will be forwarded prior to the meeting.

847-888-9999 •• 630-876-0111 630-876-0111 847-888-9999

Published in RB Landmark 5/06, 5/13/2020

PPE

LEGAL NOTICE The Village of Oak Park will receive sealed Proposals from qualified consultants at the Public Works Center, 201 South Blvd., Oak Park, IL 60302 Monday through Friday, 7:30 a.m. to 4:00 p.m. local time until 3:00 p.m. on Tuesday, May 26, 2020 for the following: Village of Oak Park REQUEST FOR PROPOSAL FOR THE DEVELOPMENT OF A RISK AND RESILIENCE ASSESSMENT/EMERGENCY RESPONSE PLAN Bid Number: 20-126 Proposal forms may be obtained from the Village of Oak Park website, http://www.oak-park.us/ bid. Proposal documents may be viewed at the Public Works Customer Service Center at 201 South Boulevard, Oak Park, Illinois between the hours of 7:30 a.m. and 4:00 P.M.. Information is also available from the contact person, Water and Sewer Superintendent, James Eggen, jeggen@oak-park.us . All questions must be submitted in writing via e-mail. The deadline for questions is 12:00 P.M. on Thursday, May 21, 2020. Any addenda for this bid will be issued by 3:00 P.M. on Friday, May 22, 2020.

The successful bidder will be required to provide a certificate of insurance as set forth in the bid package. This contract shall not be subject to the provisions of the Prevailing Wage Act (820 ILCS130/1 et seq.).

The Village of Oak Park reserves the right to issue proposal documents and specifications only to those vendors deemed qualified. No proposal documents will be issued after 4:00 p.m. on the working day preceding the date of proposal opening. All Bidder’s are required to check the Village website for any Addenda issued by the Village. For more information call the Public Works Service Center at 708.358.5700.

Published in Wednesday Journal May 6, 2020

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PUBLIC NOTICES

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VILLAGE OF RIVERSIDE, ILLINOIS NOTICE OF PUBLIC HEARING

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Notice is hereby given to all interested persons that a public hearing before the Planning and Zoning Commission of the Village of Riverside will be held on Wednesday, May 27, 2020 at 7:00 p.m., or as soon thereafter as the business of the Planning and Zoning Commission may permit, to consider an application for a variation from Section 10-7-3(F)2(a) (Fence and Wall Location in Residential Districts) of the Village of Riverside Zoning Ordinance to allow a 4-ft aluminum fence in the street yard in the R1-A Single-Family Residence District.

Due to the ongoing public health emergency, and based on the authority provided by Executive Order 2020-07, issued by Governor Pritzker on March 16, 2020, as most recently extended by Executive Order 2020-33, dated April 30, 2020, and in accordance with Executive Order 2020-32 issued by Governor Pritzker on April 30, limiting public gatherings and suspending the Open Meetings Act physical presence requirement, this meeting will be conducted electronically. It will be streamed live via Zoom and on Riverside Television, where it will be available on YouTube’s Riverside TV channel. The Zoom Meeting ID and access code will be made available on the Village’s website prior to the hearing. Video of the public hearing will subsequently be posted and made available to the public on the Village website.

Application No.: PZ20-001 Petitioners: Shelly & Bart Richards Property commonly known as: 711 and 715 Arlington Road PINs: 15-25-416-029-0000, 15-25-416-030-0000 The variation is sought from the following Section of the Riverside Zoning Ordinance: Section 10-7-3(F)2(a) (Fence and Wall Location in Residential Districts), which states that fences and walls shall be prohibited in street yards, except where the street yard adjoins a nonresidential use or along 26th Street, 31st Street

or York Road, subject to further review by village staff.

The Petitioners seek this variation to build a 4 ft. aluminum fence that encroaches approximately 12.5 ft. into the required street yard from Lindberg Road.

Copies of the variation application are available for inspection at the office of the Village Clerk, 27 Riverside Road, Riverside, Illinois 60546.

Copies may also be obtained by emailing the Village’s Community Development Director Sonya Abt at sabt@riverside.il.us or by telephone at 708-447-1241 ext. 238, or the Village Clerk at 708-447-2700 at any time prior to the meeting.

Public comments are welcome on the proposed variation that is the subject of the Public Hearing when received by email or in writing by the Village Clerk prior to 4:00 p.m. on the day of the meeting. Emailed comments may be sent to Community Development Director Sonya Abt at sabt@riverside.il.us. Written comments may be submitted via U.S. mail or in the dropbox outside of Township Hall to the attention of Village Clerk Cathy Haley at 27 Riverside Road, Riverside, Illinois 60546. Emailed and written comments timely received will be read into the record during the public hearing. While emailed or written comments are encouraged, public comment may also be made during the hearing by participating through Zoom. The Zoom Meeting ID and access code will be made available on the Village’s website prior to the hearing. If you have questions regarding communication to the Commission during the meeting, please contact Community Development Director Sonya Abt at 708447-1241 ext. 238.

The public hearings may be continued from time to time without further notice, except as otherwise required under the Illinois Open Meetings Act. Dated this 6th day of May, 2020.

Jill Mateo, Chairperson Planning and Zoning Commission

VILLAGE OF RIVERSIDE, ILLINOIS NOTICE OF PUBLIC HEARING Notice is hereby given to all interested persons that a public hearing before the Planning and Zoning Commission of the Village of Riverside will be held on Wednesday, May 27, 2020 at 7:00 p.m., or as soon thereafter as the business of the Planning and Zoning Commission may permit, to consider an application from the Village of Riverside for text amendments to the Village of Riverside Zoning Ordinance regarding Planned Unit Developments.

Due to the ongoing public health emergency, and based on the authority provided by Executive Order 2020-07, issued by Governor Pritzker on March 16, 2020, as most recently extended by Executive Order 2020-33, dated April 30, 2020, and in accordance with Executive Order 2020-32 issued by Governor Pritzker on April 30, limiting public gatherings and suspending the Open Meetings Act physical presence requirement, this meeting will be conducted electronically. It will be streamed live via Zoom and on Riverside Television, where it will be available on YouTube’s Riverside TV channel. The Zoom Meeting ID and access code will be made available on the Village’s website prior to the hearing. Video of the public hearing will subsequently be posted and made available to the public on the Village website.

The Village of Riverside is proposing text amendments to add a new Chapter 13 (Planned Unit Developments) of the Zoning Ordinance (Title 10). These amendments include the creation of procedures and requirements for Planned Unit Developments to allow flexibility in the application of the standards of this zoning ordinance based upon procedural protections providing for detailed review of individual significant proposals that are in the public interest and provide a public benefit, adding Planned Unit Developments as Special Uses in Sections 10-4-5 (Use and Bulk Requirement Tables) Table 2: Residential District Permitted Uses and 10-5-9 (Use and Bulk Requirement Tables) Table 4: Business Districts Permitted Uses and make such other conforming chang-

Published in Landmark May 6, 2020

NOTICE OF PUBLIC MEETING The Oak Park and River Forest High School District 200, located at 201 N. Scoville will conduct a Timely and Meaningful Consultation Meeting which will take place remotely via video/telephone conference on Thursday, May 14, 2020 at 4:00 p.m.

The purpose of the meeting will be to discuss the district’s plans for providing special education services to students with disabilities who attend private/parochial schools and who are home schooled within the district for the 2020-21 school year. If you are the parent of a home-schooled student who has been or may be identified with a disability and you reside within the boundaries of Oak Park & River Forest High School District 200, you are urged to attend.

If you have would like to join the meeting, please email Dr. Kennedi Dixon at kdixon@oprfhs.org or Marilyn Thivel at mthivel@oprfhs. org to request the Google Meet information.

Published in Wednesday Journal 5/6, 5/13/2020

OakPark.com | RiverForest.com

PUBLIC NOTICES es to other sections of the Village of Riverside Zoning Ordinance as may be necessary.

Application No.: PZ20-002 Petitioner: Village of Riverside Text Amendments will be Applicable Throughout the Village Copies of the proposed text amendments are available for inspection at the office of the Village Clerk, 27 Riverside Road, Riverside, Illinois 60546. Copies may also be obtained by emailing the Village’s Community Development Director Sonya Abt at sabt@riverside.il.us or by telephone at 708447-1241 ext. 238, or the Village Clerk at 708-447-2700 at any time prior to the meeting.

Public comments are welcome on the proposed text amendments that are the subject of the Public Hearing when received by email or in writing by the Village Clerk prior to 4:00 p.m. on the day of the meeting.

Emailed comments may be sent to Community Development Director Sonya Abt at sabt@riverside.il.us.

Written comments may be submitted via U.S. mail or in the dropbox outside of Township Hall to the attention of Village Clerk Cathy Haley at 27 Riverside Road, Riverside, Illinois 60546. Emailed and written comments timely received will be read into the record during the public hearing. While emailed or written comments are encouraged, public comment may also be made during the hearing by participating through Zoom. The Zoom Meeting ID and access code will be made available on the Village’s website prior to the hearing. If you have questions regarding communication to the Commission during the meeting, please contact Community Development Director Sonya Abt at 708447-1241 ext. 238.

The public hearings may be continued from time to time without further notice, except as otherwise required under the Illinois Open Meetings Act. Dated this 6th day of May, 2020 Jill Mateo, Chairperson Planning and Zoning Commission

Published in Landmark May 6, 2020

NOTICE TO CONTRACTORS Notice is hereby given by the President and Board of Trustees of the Village of River Forest, Cook County, Illinois, that sealed bids will be accepted for: 2020 Street Improvement Program This project includes the replacement of curb and gutter, sidewalk and driveway aprons, hot-mix asphalt surface removal, frame/lid adjustment, resurfacing, and other associated work.

The bidding documents are available for download starting Friday, May 1, 2020 at: www.vrf.us/bids Bids must be submitted by Wednesday, May 20, 2020 at 10:00 a.m. at: Village of River Forest 400 Park Avenue River Forest, IL 60305

ALL BIDS SHALL BE DEPOSITED IN THE GREEN DROP BOX IN FRONT OF VILLAGE HALL. The bid proposals will be collected at 10:00 am and opened at that time. Due to COVID19-related closures, Village Hall is not currently open to the public. The bid opening will be live-streamed on the Village’s YouTube channel at www. youtube.com/villageofriverforest.

Proposals will be considered not only on the basis of cost, but also on past performance, experience and ability to perform the work.

No bid shall be withdrawn after the opening of the Proposals without the consent of the President and Board of Trustees of the Village of River Forest for a period of thirty (30) days after the scheduled time of the bid opening.

The Village of River Forest reserves the right in receiving these bids to waive technicalities and reject any or all bids.

Published in Wednesday Journal 5/06/2020

28

Wednesday Journal, May 6, 2020

OAKPARK.COM | RIVERFOREST.COM

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