Wednesday Journal 071520

W E D N E S D A Y

July 15, 2020 Vol. 40, No. 50 ONE DOLLAR @oakpark @wednesdayjournal

JOURNAL of Oak Park and River Forest

Good old days

ALEX ROGALS/Staff Photographer

Kids march in a parade to Longfellow Elementary School for their first day on Wednesday, Aug. 22, 2018, on Jackson Boulevard

D97, D200 REOPENING PLANS DIVERGE

High school likely to go remote while elementary schools could do mix of inperson, remote for 2020-21

By MICHAEL ROMAIN Staff Reporter

Oak Park and River Forest High School students will likely start the upcoming 2020-21 school year learning from home while elementary and middle school students in District 97 should expect to be in class for a few days out of the week. Administrators in District 97 and District 200 outlined the tentative plans, which are subject to change, at two separate virtual

meetings held July 9.

During a special meeting, District 200 Supt. Joylynn Pruitt-Adams laid out a reopening plan that calls for more remote learning next school year, but the experience will be much different than the remote learning that closed out the last school year, she said.

“We had to confront some sobering limitations,” Pruitt-Adams said at Thursday night’s meeting.

The superintendent said any in-person learning would be restricted by daily temperature and symptom screenings conducted by personnel, face coverings would be mandatory and building capacity would be capped at 20 to 30 percent of students on campus at one time. PruittAdams added that opening for in-person instruction would also mean an addition-

al $1.8 million in unanticipated expenses for the district.

“As we confronted the constraints,” she said, “it became painfully clear that bringing students and staff back safely simply isn’t feasible.”

In an email sent to families July 13, Pruitt-Adams emphasized that the remote learning plans the district is developing for the fall “will NOT be what students experienced this last spring,” adding that there are some important changes ahead.

Those include a “set schedule of class periods,” “mandatory student attendance,” “a requirement for each class to meet via videoconference (such as Google Meet or Zoom) for 30-100 minutes per class per week,” “letter grades” and “academic support services.”

See SCHOOLS on page 9

D97 SUPT. MISSES MADISON POST Supt. Carol Kelley comes in second for top job in Wisconsin Page 10

COPS IN SCHOOLS

OPRF ends school resource officer program; D97 might follow Page 3

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Wednesday Journal, July 15, 2020

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Wednesday Journal, July 15, 2020

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Why are police in schools?

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ast week, the District 200 school board voted to remove school resource officers from Oak Park and River Forest High School. As of this writing, on Monday evening, District 97 was considering a similar action. The recent movement got me thinking about how police ended up in schools in the first place. And as with much else in this country, the origins involve race.

“As de jure forms of segregation were dismantled by the efforts of civil rights leaders, white residents turned to violence and vandalism, which spilled over into newly integrating schools,” according to a 2017 report on the origins of school resource officers authored by the American Civil Liberties Union. “In 1948, the Los Angeles School Police Department had its genesis as a security unit designed to patrol schools in increasingly integrated neighborhoods.”

In 1957, William Jansen, New York City’s Superintendent of Schools, “condemned as unthinkable a grand jury recommendation that a uniformed city policeman be assigned to every public school in the city,” according to a New York Times article published at the time.

The proposal was made by “a special grand jury investigating lawlessness in public schools in Brooklyn,” which had asked police to “‘patrol the corridors, the stairways and the recreation yards’ of schools throughout the city to help prevent outbreaks of violence.”

By 1967, the ACLU wrote, “fictionalized news reports published by local and national media demonized young people

intelligence in order to conduct of color as ‘roving bands various enforcement measures of Negro youth taking over like tactical raids on minority certain areas and terroriz[ing] students suspected of possessing residents’ and maintaining marijuana. ‘continual youth warfare.’”

By the 1980s, according to As Black students tried sociologist Christian Parenti, finding their footing in poor Black and Brown New York educational spaces that City students had mastered “an were either separate and unofficial, unacknowledged unequal, or racially hostile, curriculum on how to be public officials blamed them searched, scanned, ID’d, detained, for deteriorating schools interrogated, and expelled.” and “suggested that a In the 1990s, the school resource closer relationship between officer program had evolved schools and law enforcement Commentary and smoothed some of its rough would result in student edges, thanks in large part to the accountability.’”

Justice Department’s “Cops in Schools” Throughout the 1960s and 1970s, school program, which “gave out $750 million officials, politicians and law enforcement authorities expanded police presence to hire 6,500 new school-based police,” in schools, which corresponded with according to sociologist Alex S. Vitale. “a broader shift toward viewing youth In 1999, the Columbine High School through the lens of criminal justice,” with shooting happened, which prompted more Black and Brown young people classified as calls for police in schools to ostensibly “delinquent” or “potentially delinquent.” prevent more school shootings from The Omnibus Crime Control and Safe happening. Of course, more shootings have Streets Act of 1968 offered federal grants nonetheless happened. through the Law Enforcement Assistance That reality, however, doesn’t take away Administration in order to encourage the from the fact that many cops in schools implementation of programs that prodded have “worked hard to maintain a safe young people to have “respect for law and environment for students” and “act as order,” which is how Congress put it at the mentors and advisors,” Vitale writes. They time. have become, in many instances, guidance President Richard M. Nixon’s “War on counselors with guns and bullet-proof vests.

Drugs” would amplify the law-and-order And this is where things get slippery, message and treat schools in Black and because if I go down this very reasonable, Brown communities as extensions of technocratic path any further, I start the drug-infested streets. Police would becoming dangerously complacent in pose as high school students, gathering Orwellian territory, where nice, smiling

MICHAEL ROMAIN

school resource officers are not the police; and where the notion of juvenile delinquency, formed by racist hysteria and in reaction to Blacks asserting their rights to live and learn, is not why police are in schools in the first place.

It takes Paul Goodman, that classic New York City mensch, to keep me appropriately maladjusted.

Delinquent youth, Goodman wrote in 1956, are “not taken seriously as existing, as having, like oneself, real aims in a real world.” Instead, they are a “problem” and “the emphasis is on their ‘background conditions,’ which one can manipulate; they are said to be subject to ‘tensions’ that one can alleviate.

“The aim is not to give human beings real goals that warrant belief, and tasks to share in, but to re-establish ‘belonging,’ although this kind of speech and thought is precisely calculated to avoid contact and so makes belonging impossible. When such efforts don’t work, one finally takes some of the [youths] seriously as existing and uses force to make them not exist.”

The problem, then as now, is society, not the youth — a society, Goodman wrote, “lacking in honest public speech” and “the opportunity to be useful,” that “thwarts aptitude and creates stupidity” and “corrupts ingenious patriotism” and “corrupts the fine arts” and “shackles science,” that “has no Honor” and “no Community.”

Our schools, institutions designed to reproduce this society, too often reflect the worst of its values. And no degree of community policing will correct this flaw — only true education can do that.

D200 votes to end school resource officer program

By MICHAEL ROMAIN Staff Reporter

Oak Park and River Forest High School’s school resource police officer program is now a thing of the past. During a special meeting on July 9, the District 200 school board voted 6-1 to terminate an Intergovernmental Agreement with the village of Oak Park that governed the SRO program.

Board member Craig Iseli was the only board member who voted against terminating the agreement. Iseli had expressed support for D200 Supt. Joylynn Pruitt-Adams’ recommendation for a 1-year moratorium on the SRO program.

The superintendent said at Thursday’s meeting that a moratorium would allow the district to gather data on “incidents that would require SRO intervention while the district, community, and police department work collectively to develop a vision of what we would want the SRO position to look like if we decide to keep it.”

“I think the superintendent came to the

right conclusion,” Iseli said, adding that he believes that students building relationships with the school resource officer at OPRF is important. School resource officers are sworn members of the Oak Park police department.

But most board members were frustrated that there is no hard data already available for a program that’s been in place since 1999 — the year the Columbine High School shooting took place in Colorado, prompting schools across the country to bring police officers onto campuses as a preventative measure.

Pruitt-Adams said the school resource officer’s role has evolved since then and was now more focused on building relationships with students and being a conduit between the police department and the high school, particularly in emergency situations.

Along with the officer, who patrolled the halls in full uniform, an Oak Park police squad car was often parked outside of the high school in order to deter potential criminal activity and threats.

Sara Dixon Spivy, school board president, added that she didn’t see how much data the

district will get about the program from the upcoming 2020-21 school year, which could be another academic year that includes the majority of students learning outside of the classroom due to COVID-19 restrictions.

Most of the board members who spoke out against the SRO program said that they were not against school resource officers, per se.

Spivy even said that her Black stepson who attends OPRF has had “nothing but good interactions with the SRO.” Terminating the agreement, they said, had more to do with getting rid of a program that they don’t believe comports with the restorative justice and racial equitycentered direction the school is going in.

“If we are creating a restorative system then we need to do things differently,” said board member Gina Harris, who said that as an educator herself she’s worked directly with “amazing SROs.” Harris added that, despite the lack of quantitative data regarding the SRO program, there is plenty of anecdotal evidence provided by Black and Brown

students who have complained about feeling “policed” while in school.

Board member Jackie Moore said there hasn’t been much evidence that the presence of a police officer at OPRF has prevented a school shooting or a similar major threat. She also questioned how deeply relationships between the SRO and students can be cultivated when the position has such high turnover.

Supt. Pruitt-Adams said that in the roughly four years she’s been at the district, she’s seen three separate SROs at OPRF. Some board members explained that the SRO’s training has always been as a police officer and is determined by the Oak Park Police Department — not the district.

Moreover, any professional development that the school would recommend the SRO undergo, such as restorative practices training, has been strictly voluntary, Spivy said.

The agreement between Oak Park’s village government and District 200 was for $155,163.

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BIG WEEK July 15-22 In Person Tours at Hemingway Birthplace Home Saturday July 18 and 25, top of each hour from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m.

Learn about the home, the author’s family, his early years and more. Printed translations are available for most foreign languages. $15; $13, seniors/students with valid ID; free, children under 10. 339 N. Oak Park Ave. Or for those in quarantine or living long-distance, Live Virtual Tours of Hemingway’s Birthplace are Wednesdays through Sundays, 1 and 3 p.m., on Google Meet. Join a knowledgeable docent on a live tour at Ernest Hemingway’s Birthplace Home in Oak Park while interacting with visitor questions along the way. Up to 15 may join each live tour. $15; $5 each additional viewer. Tickets/more: hemingwaybirthplace.com/admissions

Libraries are scheduled to open Wednesday, July 22, Oak Park Public Library, Main Branch The Main Library (not Maze or Dole branches) is scheduled to move to Phase 2, “open with specific capacity limits and some onsite staff for materials, technology support. Public computer use by appointment only.” 834 Lake St. More: oppl.org/news-events/announcements/oak-park-public-libraryclosure-faqs-current-updates Monday, July 27, River Forest Public Library More: riverforestlibrary.org/2020/07/06/library-reopening-on-july-27. 735 Lathrop Ave.

Get the Dirt Sing up now for Thursday, July 23, 7 to 8 p.m., Zoom with the Friend of the Oak Park Conservatory Get your garden questions answered virtually in this live Q&A session filled with advice and tips from the Conservatory’s master gardeners and Director of Horticulture. Plus, learn what to be doing in your garden right now. Come with your questions or submit in advance by emailing operations@fopcon. org. Free. Register: pdop.org

Pleasant Home Open for Tours Fridays, 2 to 4 p.m.

Take a self-guided tour of the main floor of the historic home. Free. The home is also open for self-guided tours on Saturdays and Sundays, 2 to 4 p.m. $5.

Saturdays and Sundays, Noon and 1 p.m.

Learn from a docent-led tour that covers the first and second floors of the home. $10; $8, seniors/students 18+ with I.D.; $7, ages 6 through 18; free, 5 and under and Illinois teachers. Tour sizes are limited to 8. More: pleasanthome.org/tours. 217 Home Ave., Oak Park.

Mutt Strut July 17 through 19, virtually with the Animal Care League (ACL) Join in raising funds to provide medical care, food, enrichment and more for the homeless animals of ACL by taking part in the 5K (3.1 mile) walk or run anywhere you choose with or without your fur friend. Prizes will be awarded to top fundraisers. $23.25 to participate. Register: muttstrut5k. itsyourrace.com/register

Hotel to Home Project Housing Forward is moving 110 individuals and families from hotels to permanent homes. Community support is needed to put together necessary household items to make an empty apartment into a home, such as linens and towels, dishes, cleaning supplies, etc. Either shop from the Target registry, find items yourself and arrange for a drop off, or create your own campaign and involve others you know. More: housingforward.org/House-to-Home

Casting an Historic Vote Monday, July 20, 1:30 p.m., Zoom with Nineteenth Century Charitable Association Prior to 1920, American women were denied the vote in most elections. The path to women’s suffrage was infused with competing ideologies and widely diverse stakeholders. Historian Jeanne Schultz will speak on the topic. Register: nineteenthcentury.org

Queerios Summer Meetups Saturdays, 2 to 4 p.m., Zoom through the Oak Park Public Library Queerios is an LGBTQ+ positive group for those in in grades 6-12. It is a way to get together, discuss different issues, share favorite books, support activism and more. In partnership with OPRF High School’s A Place for All and the Rainbow Tribes of Julian and Brooks Middle Schools.

July 18 Mask of Shadows and other teen LTBTQ+ books discussion August 8 D&D and Honey Heist virtual tabletop gaming Register: oppl.org/calendar

Memory Café Tuesday, July 24, 2 to 4 p.m., Zoom Join for conversation and enjoyable activities at this welcoming place for individuals living with memory changes along with their families and friends.

Sponsored by Senior Services of Oak Park and River Forest Townships, with support from the River Forest Library. More: riverforestlibrary.librarymarket. com/events/memory-cafe-zoom-1

Wednesday Journal, July 15, 2020

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ART BEAT

Surviving our secrets

Using photos to help heal sexual abuse

By SANDY KELLY SAMESHIMA Guest Author/Photographer

Surviving Our Secrets is a photographic journey of women and girls who have experienced sexual violence and harassment. As a photographer, I have always been interested in how a portrait of someone can tell an emotional story. I wanted to offer survivors an opportunity to speak through their photographs. These raw portraits were taken by me as survivors shared their stories in the small studio I set up for this in my Oak Park home. Some women told their stories with their eyes or their hands, others by the expressions on their faces. The photographs and the order they are placed on their page illustrate each women’s story.

After the #MeToo movement began, I felt inspired to speak about my own childhood trauma of incest along with a desire to connect and help other women who have been sexually abused. Also, I wanted to help children and adult survivors that may feel alone and scared because of their current or past sexual abuse. I remember how alone I felt as a child. I wanted to create something to help others feel less lonely through their healing journey.

For a variety of reasons, it may be difficult for some survivors to tell their story in words. It may be due to a legal reason or maybe they are not ready to share all the details.

A photograph allows a survivor to have control over the situation by expressing only what they are ready to express during their session. It also allows for a survivor to remain anonymous by only showing their hands or the back of their head, which I did for one survivor. She still had the freedom to speak without disclosing herself.

In the beginning of the photo sessions, I shared my survivor story and why I wanted to create this book. I told survivors I wanted them to feel safe and that we could stop if they began to feel uncomfortable. It was important to me that the women felt in control during these sessions. We laughed to-

gether and we cried together as they told me their stories.

Along with the photos, each survivor had the opportunity to include a statement, quote or mantra on the bottom of her page, along with her name and what happened. While some declined, most were interested, contributing things like, “No longer afraid to speak,” and “Survivor of molestation and rape.”

One thing I did discover is that even though my survivor story is so different than theirs, the feelings we are left with after the abuse are remarkably similar. Often, I witnessed extreme emotion being released as they talked about their past abuse.

I would offer to stop the session because I was concerned about their wellbeing, but they wanted to carry on as they knew this book could make a difference in another survivor’s life. I cannot say enough about the bravery and courage of these survivors. These women are amazing!

Some of us have met since the book was published and it is an amazing feeling being with these women and experiencing their power! A few of the survivors shared with me that being in this book has given them the courage to pursue some of their lifelong dreams.

And, we all laughed when some shared that they originally had no intention of telling me their entire story and were planning to come in for just a few photographs. However, after arriving they felt a sisterhood in that space and decided to share. I feel so honored that they trusted me.

Meeting them has helped me heal tremendously. I set out to help these survivors, but they ended up helping me.

Because many of us are interested in helping other survivors we created a group called Project SOS and plan to offer discussion-panel events to share personal stories of healing

and moving forward after sexual assault and abuse. It is recommended for survivors, loved ones and friends of survivors, teachers and educators, healthcare workers, first responders and law enforcement. We had an event planned at the Oak Park Public Library in April; however, we had to reschedule for 2021.

After the survivors in the book shared with me what a positive and healing experience it was for them, I decided to start offering these photo sessions to other survivors and publish a series of these books. The first book was possible because of these very courageous survivors and everyone else who listened, supported and generously offered their talents to me.

I also have a photography business.

I am passionate about photography and genuinely enjoy connecting with my clients while I capture memories for them to enjoy now and in the future. I offer socially distant with mask sessions for portrait, family, head shot, high school senior and special needs photography sessions.

To order “Surviving Our Secrets,” or learn more about Sandy Sameshima Photography, go to sandysameshimaphotography.com. A portion of the proceeds from the book will be donated to the #Metoo movement. Survivors interested in participating in a future publication, can email Sameshima at survivingoursecrets@gmail.com.

Courtesy Sandy Sameshima

STORIES TOLD: Photographer Sandy Sameshima (above), created Surviving our Secrets, a book that tells the stories of survivors of sexual abuse through photos.

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Wednesday Journal, July 15, 2020

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ethinking policing in Oak Park ought to be right in the sweet spot of this allegedly progressive burg. Instead it feels like we are fully stuck out of fear that we lack the capacity to have a rational and invigorating conversation on how we can do community-based policing better.

A fractured Oak Park village board is rightly held responsible for this mess. Talking past each other. Talking over each other.

Everyone is exasperated and defensive.

Pretty pathetic when the opportunity to do good is so ripe. But the personalities are strong and trust is pretty well shot.

But if Oak Park is serious about equity, it has to look critically at policing. One place to start would be with the April project from an activist group called Freedom to Thrive Oak Park. It wrote “An Analysis of Policing Policy and Budgets in Oak Park, Illinois.”

The banging sound you hear is Mayor Anan Abu-Taleb and several trustees pounding the semi-circular desk in horror that a project with the fingerprints of Trustee Arti Walker-Peddakotla all over it could be used a launching pad to a discussion.

Well before Minneapolis police killed George Floyd on the street setting off a

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Starting point on policing

worldwide rethinking of how racism and policing intersect, Walker-Peddakotla raised hackles by saying Oak Park needed to reimagine community safety.

Too much policing, not enough social services is the nut graf in this story.

A legitimate discussion for certain. Derailed by the unnecessary self-labeling of the movement as “Defunding Police.”

I didn’t read the report when it was issued in April. But I did read it this weekend. It’s only 25 pages and, in examining four key areas of local police effort it gives high marks in one, credit for progress in another, a fair whacking in a third and in the fourth, a lot of budget assumptions that I really have no way to assess.

The report says Oak Park is well ahead of the curve in keeping vile federal immigration raids out of the village and not permitting local police to work as the handmaiden of ICE. It says that Oak Park’s general order on use of force is fairly progressive but needs

some updating. It is highly critical, as I am, of Oak Park’s transparency in policing the police, in creating legitimately independent citizen oversight of the police force.

This is a real problem and one that has been made worse

by Oak Park leadership’s choice in past years to undercut local oversight authority as it relates to discipline and farming it out to a third-party arbitrator.

This report could be a starting point for the conversation that has to take place openly, genuinely, somewhat informally as most good listening happens. It is a discussion I hope gets launched as Police Chief LaDon Reynolds returns this week from paternity leave – and congratulations to the chief and his family.

Instead we are waiting, I think, maybe, for some sort of request for proposal for a consultant to be hired. The board doesn’t know what it wants the consultant to do.

They just want to avoid a self-conflagration at the board table. Not a sufficiently worthy

DAN HALEY

goal to avoid just getting started. Doesn’t help that despite Walker-Peddakotla’s Indian heritage or Abu-Taleb’s Palestinian roots that this is an all-white village board.

Oak Park’s two school boards have for generations now been much stronger in building racially diverse boards and facing up imperfectly to issues of race and equity.

Talked last week to Colette Lueck, a former village trustee, chosen by Abu-Taleb to serve on the semi-neutered Board of Fire and Police Commissioners. Always straightforward, Lueck said the key to “reforming the police is to understand the power of the union.” That would be the Fraternal Order of Police lodge.

In a different moment and coming at it from a different perspective, Lueck said she spent her eight years on the village board asking why Oak Park had so many police officers. “I never got an answer,” she said.

Her concern was not over-policing. It was how to justify the cost when crime was quite low and police and fire pension costs were eating the village’s operating budget alive.

“I just wanted a discussion,” said Lueck.

It’s the same now. We need a discussion.

Local breweries release Black is Beautiful beer

Kinslahger offers a Jamaican tropical stout for a cause

By MELISSA ESLMO Oak Park Eats Editor

In early June, as protests following the death of George Floyd erupted across the country, the brewers behind hyper-local Kinslahgher began asking what they could do to help.

“Our research led us to Weathered Souls Brewing in San Antonio, Texas,” said Kinslahger co-owner Keith Huizinga. “The brewery was spearheading a collaboration under their Black is Beautiful label.”

Founder and head brewer, Marcus Baskerville, of Weathered Souls started the Black is Beautiful initiative to raise awareness for the injustices people of color face daily. The collaborative effort has been embraced globally and today stout beers sold under the label are intended to raise funds for police reform and legal defenses for those who have been wronged.

Huizinga and his business partners Steve Loranz and Neal Armstrong jumped on board and turned recipe development over to their lead brewer, Russhane Dawkins Weathered Souls provided a recipe for a stout base but urged participating breweries to put their own spin on it noting “the sky is the limit as far as creativity” on their website.

Dawkins opted to brew a beer that was

ALEX ROGALS/Staff Photographer

BREWING FOR A CAUSE: Russhane Dawkins, lead brewer at Kinslahgher, behind the bar at the Roosevelt Road brewery with his Jamaican-influenced stout. both true to Kinslahger’s passion for lager fermented beers and gave a nod his own Jamaican roots -- Dawkins emigrated to the United States from Jamaica 10 years ago.

“Having Russhane take the lead on this felt natural.” said Huizinga. “It was a great way to get him more involved in the recipe development process and brew a beer he had a personal connection to.”

Tropical stouts, sold under popular Dragon and Jamaica brands in Jamaica, are not fruit based, but are a style of extra-stout popular in the Caribbean. Guinness, a well-known stout beer, is low in alcohol, dry and light

despite its dark color. By contrast a tropical stout is sweeter, richer in body and higher in alcohol content. Kinslahger’s Black is Beautiful Beer has an abv of 6.0 percent.

While Weathered Souls Brewery is donating their proceeds to the Know Your Rights Camp, other breweries crafting a beer as part of the collaboration are free to direct their proceeds toward a local organization of their choosing that supports equality and inclusion.

Dawkins, who has a personal connection to the organization, suggested Kinslahger donate proceeds to The Chicago Lawyers

Committee for Civil Rights. Established in 1969, the organization, uses the power of law to give a voice to people most impacted by civil rights issues including discrimination, racism, and economic oppression. Ten dollars from the sale of each four pack will be donated to The Chicago Lawyers Committee for Civil Rights.

“Having a can of beer in someone’s hand with this label on it will keep this subject on people’s minds long after the protests subside,” said Huizinga.

Kinslahger’s Black is Beautiful Tropical Stout is available for curb side pick-up and local delivery via their website. Additionally, it is sold at Flapjack Brewery in Berwyn and Exit Strategy in Forest Park.

More than 1,000 brewers from around the world have joined the effort including One Lake Brewing in Oak Park.

“Our brewery is situated on the boarder of Chicago and Oak Park,” said One Lake co-owner, Kristen Alfonsi. “We want to use our craft to keep the momentum of the Black Lives Matter Movement going.”

One Lake is brewing a black beer based on Weathered Souls recipe now and it will be available in six weeks on draught on their rooftop or in crowlers to go.

One hundred percent of the profits from the sale of One Lake’s Black is Beautiful Beer will go toward My Block My Hood My City, a Chicago based non-profit whose mission is to provide “underprivileged youth with an awareness of the world and opportunities beyond their neighborhood.”

Wednesday Journal, July 15, 2020

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Wise Cup uses pop ups to prop up business COVID and construction have inspired creativity at local coffee shop

By MELISSA ELSMO Oak Park Eats Editor

Lake Street construction and the COVID-19 outbreak have brought an onslaught of challenges to Wise Cup owners, Naveen and Shivangi Sandal. The Oak Park residents remain optimistic their coffee shop, 1018 Lake St., will make it through this difficult time thanks to being on a first name basis with their customers and hosting popup meals featuring regional Indian fare.

Despite being denied a federal PPP loan, Wise Cup has managed to retain all employees throughout the pandemic. The owners streamlined their menu and reduced their hours of operation to help control costs and keep their staff on site.

To further complicate matters, the ongoing street construction project compromised their outdoor seating area and many of the shop’s regular customers worked in the office building surrounding the shop and are now working from home. Additionally, the Sandals are not comfortable opening their diminutive shop for indoor dining due to safety concerns.

“We have to be resilient,” said Naveen Sandal. “Financially this has been terrible, but we are heartened when our regulars come in. We refer to our customers as neighbors. To us it’s all about community.”

Photo by Melissa Elsmo

DOUBLE WHAMMY: Between COVID and Lake Street construction Naveen and Shivangi Sandal’s Wise Cup has had to be resourceful.

Now, more than ever, creativity is vital to the survival of Wise Cup. While Naveen Sandal is American born, Shivangi Sandal is Indian born. When she first arrived in this country, she would fatigue on American food and long for a taste of home. She tried restaurant after restaurant but had the same lackluster experience

at most every establishment.

“I was fresh off the boat and I just kept saying this isn’t Indian food,” laughed Shivangi.

“Most Indian restaurants serve Americanized Punjabi food,” said Naveen. “Most people don’t fully understand the breadth of diversity in Indian cuisine.”

When the newlyweds opened Wise Cup three and half years ago, in addition to offering traditional coffee, pastries and breads (fun fact, you can get Daly Bagels at Wise Cup), the Sandals outsourced a smattering of Indian dishes for their menu.

Flavorful potato and pea samosas and yogurt-based mango lassis are among the regular menu items that inspired Wise Cup’s Indian pop up meals.

The first Saturday of every month, Wise Cup offers a pre-ordered menu of regional Indian street food dishes for carryout. Meals sell out quickly and customers are given strict pick-up windows to ensure social distancing is maintained throughout the day.

The menu rotates from month-to-month and features an array of regional Indian dishes. Past menus have included summer specials like samosa chaat featuring stewed chickpeas topped with a golden samosa and topped with chutney, yogurt, onions, and tomatoes. Creative lentil flights and garlic naan satisfy curious diners, while Wise Cup’s roti tacos bring a taste of Calcutta to Lake Street.

In August Wise Cup will offer dishes from Mumbai for pre-order. Pav bhaji, a popular vegan stew of assorted vegetables including cauliflower, peas, peppers and Indian spices, is set to be on the menu. Interested parties can call the shop or follow Wise Cup on Facebook and Instagram to learn how to place an order.

“We have repeat customers who have been very satisfied,” said Naveen. “People can pick up their meal and bring it home or enjoy it in the outdoor dining space on Westgate.”

OPen for Business in Oak Park

Business recovery task force launches marketing campaign

By STACEY SHERIDAN Staff Reporter

The Business Recovery Task force has launched a summer marketing campaign to draw customers to Oak Park businesses. Titled, “Oak Park is OPen for Business,” the marketing campaign is the latest development from the Business Recovery Task force, established by the Oak Park village board May 4.

“We’re trying to communicate it’s good to be open,” said John Lynch, Oak Park Economic Development Corporation (OPEDC) executive director.

The task force was created to preserve the business community in Oak Park and help curtail the negative economic impact of the COVID-19 virus. Village Trustee Deno Andrews leads the task force, which is made up of local business owners, the OPEDC, senior village staff and the Oak Park River Forest Chamber of Commerce.

“From very early on in our taskforce meetings, one idea that rose to the surface, particularly from business owners,

was that it would be nice to get some support around promotion – promoting that businesses are operating, building goodwill in the community and reminding people that they rely on community support,” said Lynch.

Other task force initiatives include increasing the outdoor dining opportunities for restaurants and looking into forgivable small business loans. Another task force initiative is the health and safety pledge available on the chamber’s website. Business owners can take the pledge to show commitment to employing safe practices. The Business Recovery Task force has also started a rewards program for people who patronize local businesses.

The “OPen for Business” campaign was announced July 6 via press release from OPEDC and utilizes social media, public relations, window clings, advertising and email to encourage people to shop and support local businesses in Oak Park’s 11 business districts.

“The idea of simple window stickers or window clings, something of that nature, was something that the group rallied behind as a relatively low-cost way of promoting the businesses as well,” said Lynch.

According to Lynch, OPEDC is footing the bill for the campaign, which costs around $5,000. The majority of the cost comes from production of the window clings, which have

been given to businesses in each district. The window clings all carry the slogan, “It’s good to be open.” The same slogan features in the campaign’s advertisements running in Wednesday Journal.

“For some businesses they were closed for a period of time, not all were, but for everybody, it’s good to be operating,” said Lynch.

The slogan was also chosen because the wording also signifies the Oak Park community’s dedication to being inclusive and equitable.

“There’s a lot of energy right now around equity and inclusion and we wanted to support that effort as well,” said Lynch. “Oak Park is an open community. It’s a community that, not only are we open for business, but we welcome all types of people and businessowners and customers.”

While it’s still new, the campaign has been well-received by the Oak Park business community, Lynch said. Many businesses, particularly retailers, have stuck the clings to their window.

“We’d love to see them in office windows as well, but we also know that some of those folks are still working remotely,” said Lynch. “We’re just hoping that over the next couple of weeks, if people do return to work, we’ll see these clings all around town.”

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Wednesday Journal, July 15, 2020

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Hair Cuttery gets a perm…anent closure

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People will have to find somewhere else to get a quick and affordable haircut in Oak Park, as the national hairstyling chain Hair Cuttery has permanently closed its Oak Park location at 1010 Lake St., following corporate financial troubles.

“We were very sad,” said Mayra Briseno, the location’s manager. “We worked in that location for years.”

The 13 stylists that worked there had developed very close relationships with their clients, many of whom started getting haircuts there as small children.

“We really bonded with a lot of our clients and we really love everyone that’s supported us over the years,” said Olivia Ochoa, the as-

sistant manager. “We don’t want to let them think we abandoned them.”

In what was believed to be a temporary closure, the Oak Park Hair Cuttery shuttered its doors March 19 under the village’s shelter-in-place order. Shortly after, Hair Cuttery’s parent company, Creative Hairdressers Inc., filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy April 23.

The location’s closure became official May 13, but the company gave the location’s staff little time to prepare.

“They literally called me a day before and told me that the salon was going to close and I needed to let my salon professionals know that they all had to like get their stuff by the next business day,” said Briseno.

HC Salon Inc. acquired Creative Hairdressers Inc. following its bankruptcy declaration.

Briseno had worked at the Oak Park Hair Cuttery for nine years. Ochoa worked there for six years. Neither expected the salon would close.

Although Hair Cuttery no longer employs Briseno and Ochoa, the two have not severed ties with each other professionally. They’ve decided to start their own independent salon. Roots and Cuttery will open in August at 6910 W. 16th St. in Berwyn, not far from Oak Park.

They hoped to find a vacant space in Oak Park but were unsuccessful in their search.

Briseno and Ochoa don’t intend to get too settled in Berwyn; they plan on moving their salon to Oak Park when a suitable location becomes available.

“We’re in Berwyn,” said Ochoa. “But we’re going to make our way back to Oak Park.”

Lake & Lathrop project sees progress

By MARIA MAXHAM Staff Reporter

The mixed-use development at the corner of Lake and Lathrop in River Forest has seen progress, as necessary soil remediation and electrical rerouting are underway, two steps that must be taken prior to construction of any kind on the property.

According to Village Administrator Eric Palm, the Illinois Environmental Protection Agency (IEPA) gave approval of the remedial action plan and associated documents that allow the developer to commence remediation at the project site. Demolition debris has been removed in anticipation of that beginning soon.

But before the soil remediation can begin, electrical poles must be removed from the property, a process that requires ComEd to bury some lines and complete service transfers on some surrounding buildings.

“The underground work is completed,” said Palm, “and ComEd has to complete service transfers on some of the existing buildings so the utility poles on the property can be removed. Once the poles are removed, that will clear the way for the remediation contractor to begin work.”

A permit for the project hasn’t yet been issued to the developer, Lake and Lathrop LLC, for the four-story building with commercial use on the ground level and residential above, but Palm said he anticipates that happening “once some additional items are submitted.”

“The village has been reviewing building plan permit submissions and has been exchanging plans and comments which is typical for a project this size,” said Palm. “We are pleased with the progress made by the developer thus far and look forward to the commencement of the remediation as well as the beginning of construction.”

Once the permit is issued, the developers will have 15 months to complete the construction.

Fitness studio moving to North Avenue

By JAMES KAY Sports Editor

After 25 years occupying its location at 711 Madison St., Oak Park, Bodyworx Fitness Multiplex is taking its training equipment and smoothies to 6201 North Ave. According to Judith Alexander, who is the chairwoman of The North Avenue District, the location will open up at some point this month.

“We were delighted that they chose that location,” said Alexander. “Some people were telling me they think it would be a good place for a fitness center. We think it is a fabulous addition to our district.”

One of the reasons Alexander believes Bodyworx will thrive in this area is because other fitness-oriented businesses on North Avenue that have done well on Oak Park’s northern border.

Master S.H. Yu Martial Arts, which had been stationed in Oak Park since 1994, and Orangetheory Fitness, which has had a location in Oak Park since 2015, have done well for themselves on North Avenue.

“Those two places showed that this is a good place for fitness-oriented businesses to be a part of,” said Alexander. “[The location at 6201 North Ave.] is a bit smaller than Master Yu’s space, but it is much easier and convenient to find parking than it is like in a place like downtown Oak Park.”

The owners of the Bodyworx location in Oak Park did not respond to the Journal’s inquiry as to why they made this move.

Bodyworx will take over the space once occupied by a succession of grocery stores, most recently Oak Park Market. After opening up in 2018, the market folded in 2019 after not enough customers came to the store.

“Oak Park Market was funded correctly,” said owner Angelo Palvios in an interview with Oak Park Eats in February of 2019.

“We opened with no debt and a paid-off inventory. The lack of its success was due to the lack of Oak Park shopping support.”

Alexander said the location wasn’t the best spot for a niche food store like Oak Park Market.

“I am sure you’ve noticed the trend of grocery stores getting bigger and bigger,” said Alexander. “That’s why most people don’t want to go from store to store. For example, I was talking to one nearby resident and he said, ‘Well, I wanted a certain kind of pasta. And they didn’t have it, so I never went back.’

“So we were thinking, as much as we love having the market there, it just wasn’t big enough.”

Wednesday Journal, July 15, 2020

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9

SCHOOLS

Setting reopening plans from page 1 The high school’s model diverged from that of the elementary and middle schools, with D97 administrators presenting their hybrid approach to board members during a special meeting held last Thursday morning.

District 97 Supt. Carol Kelley said the district’s plan combines in-person and remote learning, with the more than 5,700 students who attend its 10 schools split into two groups in order to reduce density in the buildings.

“Group A would attend school on Monday and Tuesday, Group B would be onsite Thursday and Friday, and Wednesday would be remote learning for all students to allow for a thorough cleaning of all buildings,” Kelley said in a July 10 statement, adding that special needs students will have the opportunity to receive on-site learning four days a week.

In an email statement, Amanda Siegfried, D97’s communications director, said that while the district doesn’t plan on “taking requests from parents for specific classes/ cohorts, we are going to make every effort to keep siblings on the same schedule.” Scheduling, Siegfried said, is “one of our top priorities.”

At the D200 meeting, Supt. Pruitt-Adams said scheduling is a major factor that explains why the high school can’t as easily go to a hybrid model. She said that each of the high school’s roughly 3,400 students has their own schedule, meaning 3,400 separate schedules for administrators to manage.

The superintendent’s recommendation reflected the work of the Reimagine Education OPRF 2020-21 Steering Committee, an entity that was created after the pandemic forced schools across the state to close in March.

The steering committee mostly includes administrators. Sheila Hardin, an OPRF math teacher and president of the Faculty Senate, also sits on the committee.

Pruitt-Adams said in a board memo that the committee “conducted two surveys of students, faculty, and families to get specific feedback on their remote learning experiences.” The surveys received around 2,400 responses, she said. In addition, OPRF’s Special Education department organized focus groups of 15 parents and staff designed to discuss their experiences with remote learning.

Back in June, when Gov. J.B. Pritzker announced that all regions of the state would enter Phase 4 of his reopening plan, the Illinois Department of Public Health and the Illinois State Board of Education released joint guidance allowing for local school districts to decide whether to resume in-person learning, remote instruction or a blend of both.

Pruitt-Adams, along with other members of the steering committee, said that their research and analysis showed that a blended

model would have meant significantly less instructional time for students and less instructional flexibility for teachers.

She said the steering committee will work to “shore up the plan” before bringing it back to the board, which will vote on a resolution that charges administrators to implement a reopening plan and to make changes to the plan, if needed.

Technically, ISBE had given superintendents across the state the latitude to make decisions on reopening without board approval, but Pruitt-Adams said that she wanted board support nonetheless.

The district is also planning a virtual town hall to allow community members the opportunity to discuss the reopening arrangements before the school year starts

More on D97’s reopening plan District 97 administrators announced their plans after conducting a range of community outreach initiatives, including two separate surveys administered to families and staffers between June 30 and July 6.

The family survey, administered July 1 through July 6, garnered 3,307 responses representing 4,995 students, or roughly 88 percent of the district’s current enrollment.

Roughly 66 percent of respondents said that they either “strongly agree” (33 percent) or “somewhat agree” (33 percent) with the statement: “I would be comfortable having my child(ren) return to school in a hybrid model (part-time) in the fall, if the state’s health and safety guidelines are met.”

Roughly 71 percent of respondents were either “strongly” (50 percent) or “somewhat” (21 percent) comfortable with allowing their children to return to school fulltime in the fall, provided health and safety standards are met.

Some 29 percent of parents were either “strongly” or “somewhat” comfortable with returning to full-time remote learning.

Around three-quarters of District 97 families surveyed said they are likely to send their children back to school regardless of whether the district implements a full-time or hybrid model.

But district administrators ultimately determined that returning students to school full-time was not a viable option. Administrators said they anticipated that around 958 students would not return to classrooms full-time.

But even with those parents opting out of the full-time model, the district would still need to add 77 new teachers and classroom spaces in order to comply with the state’s social distancing guidance, at a cost of $5.8 million, Gina Herrmann, the district’s senior HR director, said at the July 9 meeting.

That figure doesn’t include classroom setup costs, expenses related to additional personal protective equipment, custodial costs and the cost of hiring more substitute teachers, Herrmann said.

Even more pertinent to their decision, administrators said, is the health and safety of students, staff and other personnel, particularly substitute teachers who tend to be older and thus more vulnerable to COVID-19 than their much younger students.

The district’s survey of 613 staffers indicated that half of the respondents “do not feel comfortable with” full in-person learning while 41 percent said they’re “willing to see how it works.”

By comparison, 67 percent of surveyed staffers said they “willing to see how” the hybrid model of in-person and remote learning works while 18 percent said they “do not feel comfortable” with the option.

Siegfried said the district will be able to accommodate the learning plans of students with special needs “based on families’ needs/preferences.”

Siegfried said the district is also planning to offer a “remote only option” for all parents who do not want to send their children

back to school at all, but the district is still in the “early stages of planning and will need to determine the number of students who would be utilizing this option in order to secure appropriate staffing.”

Kelley said the Illinois State Board of Education leaves school reopening decisions to district superintendents, so no board vote is required; however, the district is still working on its reopening plans. And given the swiftly changing nature of the pandemic, those plans, Siegfried added, are subject to change.

“This plan is based on what is true today,” said Siegfried. “We know that the conditions surrounding the pandemic and the guidelines we receive from the state continue to evolve daily.

“Although we are moving forward with our plans to operationalize the hybrid model for the start of school this August, we are also working to develop a more robust remote learning plan for all students. Our movement between these plans will be tied o the status of COVID-19 and Restore Illinois (our current plans are dependent on being in Phase 4).”

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Wednesday Journal, July 15, 2020

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County commissioner could prompt police defunding Brandon Johnson’s Justice for Black Lives resolution could affect how county spends public safety funds

An excerpt of from the resolution, which you can find in full at cook-county. legistar.com:

By MICHAEL ROMAIN Staff Reporter

First District Cook County Commissioner Brandon Johnson, who represents Oak Park and parts of River Forest, has co-sponsored the Justice for Black Lives resolution.

The resolution states the county “shall redirect money from the failed and racist systems of policing, criminalization, and incarceration that have not kept our communities safe, and will instead invest that money in public services not administered by law enforcement that promote community health and safety equitably across the county, but especially in Black and Brown communities most impacted by violence and incarceration.”

Those areas and public services include housing, health care, mental health, restorative justice, job creation, public transit, eviction/foreclosure and minority contracting.

“This resolution is the first step in a series of measures designed to bring justice, equity and equal protection under the law in the second largest county in the nation,” Johnson said in a joint statement he released with five other cosponsors of the resolution.

Although the resolution is largely ceremonial and non-binding, it could nonetheless have an impact on the county’s budget process, Johnson said.

According to the resolution, “across the country, spending grows on traditional law enforcement and incarceration with no correlation to metrics of

File Photo

MAKING HIS CASE: Cook County Commissioner Brandon Johnson argues for changes in how Cook County government spends money on policing and justice. success such as clearance rates or sense of safety.

“For example, despite a 50 percent decrease in the number of people incarcerated in the Cook County Jail between 2013 and 2020, the Cook County Department of Corrections budget grew 26 percent over the same time period.”

Around $780 million of the county’s $6.2 billion FY 2020 budget was allocated for the offices of the sheriff ($619 million) and state’s attorney ($161.5 million), according to county data available online. That does not include other areas related to the courts and public safety, such as the money that goes to the circuit court clerk, which is responsible for

keeping court records.

A spokesperson for Cook County Sheriff Tom Dart’s office told Injustice Watch, a nonprofit journalism outlet based in Chicago, that the sheriff “has invested in “programs and staff that address mental health, substance abuse disorders, poverty, opioid intervention, prostitution, homelessness, and violence as public health issues rather than just matters for law enforcement to address.”

The resolution, which passed the Cook County Board of Commissioners’ Criminal Justice Committee in June, could come up for a vote at the board’s next regular meeting on July 30.

“WHEREAS, throughout the history of the United States, policing, criminalization, and incarceration have been used as tools of violence and retribution against marginalized groups seeking safety, especially Black people; and “WHEREAS, policing was in part developed as a tool to preserve the institution of slavery in the 1700’s, focusing on chasing down runaway slaves and shutting down slave revolts, grew into a weapon to disrupt labor uprisings in the 1800s,and matured in the 1900s to be used as the single most effective tool in repressing the civil rights movement; and “WHEREAS, policing has a troubled history in Cook County, most conspicuously visible in the decades-long collaboration by the Cook County State’s Attorney’s Office and members of the judiciary in prosecutions enabled by disgraced Chicago Police Commander Jon Burge and his associates’ terrorization, torture, and wrongful conviction of more than 150 Black people over dozens of years, thereby permanently damaging the lives of thousands of accused people, their family members, and Black communities at large …”

“WHEREAS, all actors in the Cook County justice system, from the State’s Attorney’s Office to the Chief Judge, Clerk of the Circuit Court, and Public Defender have no choice but to collaborate with rank and file law enforcement officers that have successfully resisted calls and efforts to acknowledge the inherent racial bias in policing and reduce the violence experienced

by Black people, ending all past efforts at reform unsuccessfully […]”-

D97 supt. doesn’t get Madison top job

Carol Kelley had been in running for top spot at Madison Metropolitan School District in Wisconsin

By MICHAEL ROMAIN Staff Reporter

District 97 Supt. Carol Kelley is staying put, at least for now. Kelley was one of two finalists in the running to helm the Madison Metropolitan School District in Wiscon-

sin, but officials in that district announced Friday that they had selected a former employee, Dr. Carlton D. Jenkins, instead, according to a report by WMTV, a local NBC affiliate in Wisconsin.

Last month, the Capital Times, a Wisconsin online news site, reported that Kelley had been one of 33 candidates who applied for the superintendent position some twoand-a-half months after another candidate from Texas declined to accept the position after deciding “to remain in his district to help deal with the fallout from the COVID-19 pandemic,” the digital publication noted.

Kelley, who was hired as D200’s superintendent in 2015, came to Oak Park public schools after serving as a superintendent in New Jersey for three years.

At the time, the district’s communications director, Amanda Siegfried, said the district was aware that Kelley was a finalist for the Wisconsin position, but that the “administration and planning team remain focused on the important work ahead as we prepare for the 2020-21 school year in Oak Park.”

Carol Kelley

Wednesday Journal, July 15, 2020

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PPP loans a lifesaver for 100 Oak Park businesses

Two dozen River Forest loans approved

By STACEY SHERIDAN Staff Reporter

The U.S. Small Business Administration released a list July 6 of all the non-profits and businesses in the country which received $150,000 to $5 million in Paycheck Protection Program (PPP) loans. According to that list, Oak Park had 96 non-profits and businesses, while River Forest had 22.

The list of Oak Park recipients includes a wide variety of organizations, from dental offices and advertising agencies to nursing homes and churches. As previously reported, Growing Community Media (GCM), the non-profit which publishes Wednesday Journal and other community publications, received a PPP loan of $242,500.

PPP loans are designed to give businesses the ability to make payroll and retain its employee base during the COVID-19 crisis. The Small Business Administration can fully forgive PPP loans if recipients use the funds strictly for payroll costs, interest on mortgages, rent and utilities. At least 60 percent of the PPP loan must be used for payroll.

The list organizes recipients by an amount range of PPP funds given but does not include the actual amounts each organization received. Out of the Oak Park businesses and non-profits listed, 67 received PPP loans within the range of $150,000 to $350,000, including the Oak Park Arms retirement community.

Moses Williams, Jr., executive director of the Arms, 408 S. Oak Park Ave., said the PPP loan “helped tremendously” and was strict-

ly used for payroll.

“I think that was the intent of the government to try to make sure people were able to work in these desperate times,” said Williams. “These are still dire times because there are so many unknowns.”

The Oak Park Arms is now free of COVID-19 cases, according to Williams. The Oak Park Arms only had six resident and three staff cases, he said.

Despite their good track record, Williams said people are worried about moving loved ones into assisted living communities.

“I think that when consumer confidence comes back, you’ll find people moving back into these types of environments,” said Williams. “But all I can tell you is that there’s been a lot of skepticism about doing so right now.”

According to Williams, the Arms has seen increased operating expenses and decreased occupancy as a result of COVID-19. With the PPP loan, the Oak Park Arms was able to retain 78 jobs, 100 percent of its workforce.

Thrive Counseling Center, Oak Park Temple and Poor Phil’s restaurant and bar were among the 67 organizations that received loans within the $150,000 to $350,000 range.

Twenty-one of Oak Park’s recipients fell within the range of $350,000 to $1 million, including The Oak Park River Forest Infant Welfare Society (IWS), which provides medical, dental and social services to families who can’t afford private care.

IWS Executive Director Peggy LaFleur said the PPP money was “enormously helpful.”

Two-thirds of IWS patient visits are dental. From mid-March until the end of May, IWS had to close its dental practice. “We project that in that period, we missed what would have been 1,200 visits in dental,” said

ALEX ROGALS/Staff Photographer

Maya del Sol restaurant, 144 S Oak Park Ave., Oak Park

“I don’t know what would have happened if we didn’t get that PPP loan. It was invaluable.”

MERRY BETH SHEETS

Hephzibah, executive director

LaFleur. “In medical, we did continue to operate, but it was greatly reduced.”

Many IWS patients are on Medicaid, the reimbursement of which LaFleur called “lousy.” IWS greatly subsidizes its operations through philanthropy.

Upon reopening its dental practice at a limited capacity to prevent COVID-19 spread, IWS had to buy new protective equipment for its staff. While necessary for health and safety, the new equipment came with a hefty price tag.

“I don’t know what would have happened if we didn’t get that PPP loan. It was invaluable,” said Sheets. “We have about 34 different levels of part-time to full-time, but we retained everybody.”

Mayor Anan Abu-Taleb, an owner of Maya del Sol restaurant, said the business had received a PPP loan within that $350,000 to $1 million range.

“It’s an extremely helpful program for the businesses,” said Abu-Taleb. “What the federal government did with that sense of urgency was brilliant.”

With the PPP loan, 41 jobs at his restaurant Maya Del Sol were retained.

Trinity High School and Grace Lutheran School in River Forest both received PPP loans within the range of $350,000 to $1 million as well.

Five Oak Park recipients received PPP loans of $1 to $2 million, including Hephzibah Children’s Association. Fenwick High School and PCC Community Wellness Center were the only two Oak Park organizations that ranked in the highest bracket of $2 million to $5 million.

“We’re using the money for the same purposes that any small business is using the money for, which is our payroll,” said Merry Beth Sheets, Hephzibah’s executive director.

Hephzibah Children’s Association provides child welfare and family services, including foster care, an adoption program and daycare for families of all income levels.

“It really was critical for us when the

11

pandemic hit back in early March to really think about how we can continue to keep our staff employed, and keep our children and families receiving the services that they need,” said Sheets. “When a crisis like this hits, families and kids need more care and more support than ever before.”

“We have a large contingent of our employees who don’t have a work from home option. And not only do they not have a work from home option, but they were working in a congregate care setting, which is considered a high-risk environment,” said Sheets.

With the closure of schools, Hephzibah ceased its afterschool and childcare services. The PPP loans allowed the association to keep those staff members on the payroll.

“It was our entire afterschool and childcare staff who would have been out of jobs,” said Sheets.

With the PPP loans, those employees were able to transition to providing arts and craft lessons and other programming to the children in the group home – something the kids look forward to and helps establish a new sense of routine.

“It really helped us stabilize our workforce, continue to have the staff who our children know and trust here, providing them with the best possible care and help us keep our doors open and our lights on.”

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SPORTS EXTRA

OPRF soccer player raises $540 for BLM causes

Lions, Huskies put rivalry aside

By JAMES KAY Sports Editor

When OPRF soccer player Quincy Martin saw the same Black Lives Matters posts circulating around social media, he wanted to shake things up to enhance the cause. After days of brainstorming, he landed on a three on three soccer tournament.

“I wanted to bring authenticity and something new to the movement,” said Martin. “I felt like soccer is a low to medium risk sport and, since I know a lot of people who play, it made too much sense to put the tournament together and raise money for Black Lives Matter.”

On July 6, players from various high schools (including OPRF’s rival Lyons Township) convened at Ridgeland Commons and raised $540. Of that, $400 went to two Black Lives Matter organizations, Black Lives Matter Chicago and My Block My Hood My City, while $140 went to Martin’s friend, Jazmin, whose father recently died

due to complications with COVID-19.

While Martin considered the event to be a success, there were a few hurdles he had to jump through to get the tournament off the ground. Initially, he started making calls around town to see if he could reserve space on OPRF’s football field and the Lake Street Field across the street from the school. Since the IHSA is still working with the Illinois Department of Health to let schools use their facilities safely, Martin was turned away.

Eventually, Ridgeland Common said he could use their field but then there was the issue of safety and making sure people weren’t spreading COVID-19 at the tournament. Martin decided it would be best to test everyone’s temperatures before they could participate and wore plastic gloves when handing out plastic bottles of water for each participant so they didn’t have to share.

“We didn’t want to add to the problem,” said Martin.

What he didn’t expect was the amount of unfamiliar faces that ended up showing up.

One of Martin’s former teammates, Zaahir Hall, rallied players from opposing schools to join the tournament.

“Before the tournament started, I tried to have as many teams written down so I knew who was going to show up,” said Martin. “So in my phone, I had five teams that expected to be there. 12 [teams] ended up showing up and I saw these [LTHS] kids arrive and I was like, ‘wait a second.’”

Dating back to last season on Oct. 1, the Lions and Huskies played a contentious conference bout that ended with LTHS winning on eight rounds of penalty kicks on OPRF’s turf (it was the Lions’ first win there since 2013).

But the tournament wasn’t about a rivalry (for the most part).

“That [Oct. 1] game was definitely the most intense soccer game I’ve ever been a part of,” said LTHS player Jack Luttrell.

“But going into this tournament, I felt it was great for the OPRF and LT communities to show we can stand together and support the Black Lives Matter movement.”

His teammate in the tournament and on LTHS soccer, Cameron Labbato, echoed a similar sentiment.

“It was pretty funny because we had a lot of teams [at the tournament] rooting against us,” said Labbato laughing. “But

this was a great opportunity to get out there and play with the boys and promote the cause of the Black Lives Matter. That’s what this was about.”

Jason Fried, OPRF’s boys soccer head coach, attended the event as a member of the community since high school programs can’t convene until the IHSA can move to Phase 4.

“I am really proud of and appreciative to see so many players and other young adults in our community taking the initiative to organize [Black Lives Matter] events where we can unite, support one another,” said Fried in an email.

As for future plans, Martin plans on organizing another tournament to raise more money for Black Lives Matter movements and his friend Jazmin after the success of this past event.

“I am definitely going to do it again,” said Martin. “I want to give [Jazmin] more money this next time around because contributing to Black Lives Matter means supporting Black lives and she has been through a lot. So I will do this again at some point and hopefully next time we will raise more money.”

IHSA revises Phase 4 guidelines

Illinois athletic programs see spike in COVID-19 cases

By JAMES KAY Sports Editor

After getting approval from the Illinois Department of Health to move forward with its Phase 4 Return to Play guidelines, the IHSA sent an updated version of the guidelines to high schools after a statewide spike in COVID-19 cases in athletic programs.

Along with removing activities involving contact and limiting the number of spectators, the IHSA is requiring everyone partici-

pating in team-oriented activities to wear a mask. Michael O’Brien of the Chicago SunTimes reported that the IHSA is not applying this rule to athletes and coaches who are social distancing during outdoor practices.

The IHSA released this statement this afternoon: “Due to an increase in positive cases of COVID-19 among high school teams around the state, the Illinois High School Association (IHSA) and Illinois Department of Public Health (IDPH) are jointly collaborating to modify the IHSA’s Phase 4 Return to Play Guidelines.

“The modifications place greater restrictions on coaches and student-athletes in order to prevent the spread of COVID-19. Im-

portant changes include limiting physical contact and an increased usage of masks.

The former restricts schools from conducting contests against other schools in most sports, including football.

“The IHSA is working with the IDPH to update the guidelines, and will send to its membership, the media, and post on the web as soon as they are approved.”

Before the guidelines’ revisions were announced, Oak Park and River Forest High School had already implemented a more cautious variation of Phase 4 compared to the IHSA’s initial plan. The school was allowed to do this because the initial guidelines for Phase 4 stated, “Local school administra-

tion determines the permitted activities at their school.”

On July 6, the school sent an email to student-athletes and their families informing them that “skin-to-skin contact during activities” were not allowed. OPRF will also not allow spectators at events or practices.

The only change that OPRF will have to make is enforcing anyone participating in indoor activities must wear a mask. Karin Sullivan, the school’s communications spokesperson, said the new guidelines have been communicated to all OPRF coaches.

Fenwick High School, Trinity High School and the IHSA did not return Wednesday Journal’s request for comment on this situation.

Wednesday Journal, July 15, 2020

OAKPARK.COM | RIVERFOREST.COM

13

Black Lives Matter mural defaced, quickly repaired

Painted over to say “ALL LIVES MATTER”

By STACEY SHERIDAN Staff Reporter

Oak Park’s Black Lives Matter street mural on Scoville Avenue was defaced during the night of Tuesday, July 7 by unknown vandals who painted over certain letters to make the mural read, “ALL LIVES MATTER.” “It’s disheartening to wake up to this,” said Cullen Benson, who conceived the idea for the mural and organized its execution with Cortlyn Kelly and Franka Del Santo.

Crews from the Oak Park Public Works Department were at the scene early Wednesday morning and have since power washed most of the damage away. What can’t be removed will be repainted as soon as possible.

The Oak Park Police Department is investigating the incident, Oak Park spokesman David Powers confirmed.

“Police are actively investigating the incident and will release more details as they become available,” Powers told Wednesday Journal.

According to Benson, police are checking nearby security cameras to see if the footage contains any shots of the vandals.

Groups of volunteers helped paint the

brightly colored “BLACK LIVES MATTER” message, which was completed and unveiled at the end of last month. The Oak Park Area Arts Council funded the project.

The vandals painted over the “B” and “L” in “BLACK,” making the two letters blend in with the surrounding dark asphalt. The “C” and “K” were also covered with black paint. In their place, the vandals painted in white “LL.” “They had this planned out by painting over letters to create the word ‘ALL’ out of ‘BLACK,’” said Benson.

The phrase “all lives matter” is commonly used as a refutation and criticism of the Black Lives Matter movement, but many believe the phrase dismisses racial inequity and systemic racism in American society.

The act of vandalism did not shock Benson or the other organizers. They had expected it might happen, but it still disappointed them.

“We all know that this is the world that we live in,” he said. “We hoped that someplace like Oak Park wasn’t subject to something like this, but it was always something that we had to consider.”

Some of the unwanted additions to the mural did surprise Benson, however.

“On each letter they put a little smiley face, which is quite weird,” he said. “They put on a couple of letters ‘love you.’”

Benson’s mother Mak Flournoy took to

ALEX ROGALS/Staff Photographer

QUICK FIX: The Public Works department and police officers look over the defaced Black Lives Matter mural Facebook to express her own sadness that the mural her son and others helped to create was damaged.

“Their Black Lives Matter mural was a gift to Oak Park and yet last night, someone decided that they needed to take their hate fueled time, to deface it,” Flournoy wrote.

Flournoy also wrote she was angry that she had to explain to Benson’s ten-year-old

sister “why it is that Black people, Blackness, and Black beauty continue to be erased from history.”

The Oak Park village board of trustees recently committed to protecting the mural.

Prior to the vandalism, the board passed a motion on July 6 directing village staff to prepare actions to preserve and protect the mural should it be vandalized.

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d us n e S . n sio a t) c s c e o d e n h o t f ark t so m o s. r s n a u , r e e p y l f e e e r h h p t n YOU ca dest (or, if you y Journal over your fon s of Wednesda ears? y e h t r e v e ith you o w d e memori y a t hat has s image t r o le ic t r ere an a • Was th t page? n o r f e h t Journal? o on t y o a h d p s e s ’ n d ur chil the Wed g in r e v li • Was yo e hter? about d g y u r o la t s h it le w or howl e a notab , v ll a e h h s u a o y • Do you mad e d a m t tha erience n p o x o e t r r a u c o / y acted /column p r e im t t s le a h A l • y Journa a d s e n d that We y a w r e h orest? t F r e iv R • Any o d k Park an a O in g livin u!

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Wednesday Journal, July 15, 2020

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15

C R I M E

Two men show semiautomatic in carjacking An Oak Park resident was the victim of an aggravated carjacking when two men, one with a black semi-automatic handgun, approached the resident and demanded the resident’s keys and cell phone at 10 p.m., July 10 in the 400 block of Wisconsin Ave. The two men then left the scene in the resident’s silver 2018 Nissan Sentra and were last seen driving north on Wisconsin Avenue. The estimated value of the loss is $14,600

Burglary

■ Someone entered the victim’s residence through an unlocked door and took cash from inside between 9 p.m., July 6 and 9 a.m., July 7 in the 1000 block of Pleasant Street. The estimated loss is $1,500.

■ Someone took a black and green men’s road bike and a blue mountain bike from a residential garage with an unlocked side door in the 800 block of Wesley Avenue between midnight and 8 a.m., July 8. Estimated loss is $250.

■ Someone took two cell phones from an unlocked car in the 7100 block of Roosevelt Road at 3:49 a.m., July 9. The estimated loss

is $400.

Motor vehicle theft

■ Chicago

police recovered the red 2015 Toyota Camry reported stolen from the 800 block of South Kenilworth Avenue on June 24; the vehicle was found at 10:33 a.m., June 3 in the 3900 block of Flournoy Street in Chicago.

■ A black 2018 Ford F-150 was taken from the 1100 block of South Maple Street between 9 p.m., July 6 and 7:45 p.m., July 7. Estimated loss is $35,000.

■ A white 2013 Hyundai Santa Fe was removed from the 900 block of South Grove Avenue between 5 p.m., July 7 and 9 a.m., July 8. Estimated loss is $10,000.

■ Someone took a Silver 2010 BMW 328XI, possibly using a spare key left inside the vehicle, at 5:03 a.m., July 11 in the 600 block of Forest Place. The estimated loss is $17,000.

■ A red 2007 Ford Fusion was taken from the 800 block of North Austin Boulevard between 3:38 and 5:05 a.m., July 11. The estimated loss is unknown.

Compiled by Stacey Sheridan

Oak Park reaches 361 positive COVID-19 cases Since March 18, the village of Oak Park has kept its residents updated on how the coronavirus pandemic has impacted the community. However, midway through June, Oak Park Public Health Director Mike Charley stopped daily announcements since there have been less COVID-19 cases in the community.

On June 15, Charlie reported that 311 residents had tested positive for COVID-19 since March 18. However, over the last month, there have only been 50 positive cases from Oak Park residents, amounting to 361 total cases. Throughout that time period, there haven’t been more than three positive cases per day.

After the village saw 23 people who tested positive for COVID-19 die, there have been three fatalities since June 15 from residents that contracted the disease. A resident at Berkeley Nursing and Rehabilitation Center, a woman in her 90s, was the 24th fatality in Oak Park. The 25th and 26th COVID-19-related deaths were men in their 60s. One of them

was a resident at Oasis of Oak Park which, like Berkeley Nursing and Rehabilitation Center, is an assisted living care facility.

Based on the most recent info provided on the village’s website, long-term care facilities in Oak Park have seen little change over this past month.

Since March 18, two residents and four staff members tested positive for COVID-19 at Belmont Village along with two resident fatalities. Berkeley Nursing & Rehabilitation Center has had three residents and one staff member test positive for the virus while one resident died. Brookdale Oak Park has had seven residents and seven staff members test positive for COVID-19 while one resident has died. Oak Park Arms has had six residents and three staff cases along with one resident fatality. Oasis has had 23 residents and six staff members test positive for COVID-19. Eleven residents at Oasis have also died due to COVID-related complications.

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Wednesday Journal, July 15, 2020

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Toting up COVID costs, RF seeks federal, county payouts

By ROBERT J. LIFKA Contributing Reporter

River Forest village officials took the first step toward requesting reimbursement for expenses related to the COVID-19 pandemic July 13, unanimously approving an intergovernmental and sub-recipient agreement with Cook County at the virtual village board meeting that evening.

Cook County Board President Toni Preckwinkle announced July 8 that 134 Cook County suburbs will share about $51 million under the Coronavirus Aid, Relief and Economic Security (CARES) Act. Village Administrator Eric Palm said River Forest officials also plan to request reimbursement from the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), which will reimburse eligible expenses on a 75 percent basis.

“We are working on submitting reimbursement for both FEMA public assistance and CARES Act funding,” he said. “Our plan is to submit to FEMA first, and then submit to the CARES Act through the county on

Eric Palm any remaining eligible expenses.”

Although village officials said they hope to receive $100,941 from Cook County through CARES Act funding, Palm said the figure was reached by using a formula provided by Cook County and village officials do not have a breakdown of that total.

Eligible categories include medical expenses; public health expenses; payroll expenses for public safety, public health, health care, human services, and similar employees whose services are substantially dedicated to mitigating or responding to the COVID-19 public health emergency; expenses of actions to facilitate compliance with COVID-19-related public health measures; expenses associated with the provision of economic support in connection with the COVID-19 public health emergency; and any other COVID-19-related expenses reasonably necessary to the function of government that satisfy the fund’s eligibility criteria, excluding costs associated in conducting Coronavirus Relief Fund Single or Program-Specific audits.

Palm also said village officials do not have a dollar amount yet for the request for reimbursement from FEMA but hope to submit the first round of requests “in the next couple of weeks.”

Allocations to each municipality were determined under a formula that county officials say will prioritize areas with the more dire financial and public health needs.

Factors include the immediate needs of the municipality to respond to the pandemic, municipal population, municipal medium income and municipal public health statistics.

The suburbs’ share of the $51 million is about 12 percent of the total $429 million coronavirus relief fund given to Cook County under the CARES Act. But the federal aid comes with the condition that local governments may only use it for direct expenses related to the pandemic, such as reimbursements for personal protective equipment or other costs incurred responding to the pandemic. Lost revenue from sales, amusement and other non-property taxes throughout the coronavirus outbreak cannot be offset by CARES Act funding.

MORE ONLINE

In age of Zoom, River Forest crafts policy on public comments.

www.OakPark.com

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

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Wednesday Journal, July 15, 2020

VIEWPOINTS

17

Peeing back layers of racism p. 24

Always there, phenomenal women now seen

am a phenomenal woman. Birthed, loved and raised by phenomenal women. Taught, mentored, and befriended by other phenomenal women. Led and followed by yet more phenomenal women. Some might think of this as self-aggrandizement. Woman, traditionally, are supposed to wait for compliments; compliments that usually focus on characteristics that are of value to others. It is exciting to witness so many women, young and old, embrace their worth and unapologetically stand in their glory.

The presence of it is not new. It has always been there. But women, particularly women of color, are finally claiming their space for themselves and not just for others.

So much of what makes Oak Park a pleasant place to live involves the vision and free labor of women. The more I learn about how Oak Park works and what it takes to have good schools and a good quality of life, the more women I get to know. That is not to say that men do not play a role in the leadership of the community. However, the important work that so often ensures that things actually get done and improve have involved women seeing a need and stepping in to fill it; particularly when it involves our children. Women have done the primary work when our systems have fallen short. School volunteers and PTOs, P!NG, Kuumba Kids, APPLE, and DivCo are a short list of efforts that help to make reality the promise of what Oak Park could be.

The pandemic has also shown the extent to which women are on the front lines of serving those most in need in our hospitals, shelters, food pantries, child care centers and schools. They are leading efforts to keep people safe. They are leading social and racial justice movements and calling out the injustices perpetrated by individuals and systems.

But more importantly, many are doing the work to create the world we want to see. I have no doubt that the women on D200’s Board of Education at Oak Park and River Forest High School are the reason why the Student Resource Officer contract was ended.

We are seeing women increasingly seek positions of power and control in which they can make the decisions and allocate the resources needed to make change. It seems it will be up to women to reimagine a country and a community in which the ability for one group to thrive doesn’t rest upon the need to stand on the backs (or kneel on the necks) of another. More women of color are giving themselves permission to vocalize their personal aspirations and pursue opportunities that put them out front and not just behind the scenes; and many are doing it in a way that serves others as they serve themselves. Many are doing this while still working in and out of the home, raising

LINDA FRANCIS

See FRANCIS on page 22

The virus of white supremacy A poem to my white kindred who carry it too: If I’m feeling unwell, a white man protected by thick layers of privilege, then I know that I can’t know what Black people are feeling these days and all those days before.

But something is off, and I can speak to that.

Energy is low, like there’s lead in my legs.

Earlier this week I went for a test, suspecting I’d been exposed, and when it came back negative, that no, I wasn’t carrying coronavirus, I reconsidered what it was that I felt …

I know that I’m sick with acute grief and anger for the police killings and the systems that have always killed our Black community, yes.

And with something else, something more chronic, that has always been buried in my cells.

I’ve only known for some years exactly what it was:

JOSH PARKER One View

the virus of white supremacy.

Our virus.

A retrovirus older than this country.

And I’m a carrier.

I write this to my white siblings, parents, grandparents, and ancestors who have carried the virus in their bodies, too.

Who have been shaped, no … warped by it, and who have passed it to me.

The virus of white supremacy has so many insipid symptoms that we keep invisible and “normal”: the lie of our superiority; the endless, entitled physical and material privileges; the worship of the individual over the collective; the apathy and excuses for the suffering of others; and the strict code of race-silence we obey …

These, and so many more, have allowed the virus be passed down, consciously and unconsciously, through the generations nearly unchecked for over 400 years.

Black and Indigenous people know the virus best, and have always known it for what it was — a sickness — subjected to its violent flares since the beginning.

They’ve tried to tell us over and over and over again.

See PARKER on page 22

18

Wednesday Journal, July 15, 2020

O U R

Rim to rim, agony to ecstasy

V I E W S

Schools rejecting cops in the halls

P

olice reform is coming to Oak Park. Interestingly it is coming through the school districts not the village government.

Last week the school board at Oak Park and River Forest High School voted 6-1 to end its pact with village hall to provide a full-time school resource officer. The District 97 elementary schools will have a similar discussion at a board meeting this week over whether to continue having one SRO in each of the two middle schools. We expect they will also end that connection.

Oak Park’s village board took up this topic recently and, inevitably, tabled it pending action by the school districts. Clearly the village can’t and would not seek to impose an in-school presence against the direction of the schools.

Issues of discipline and security in our public schools are fully bound together with the welcome but complex discussions of equity in our schools. Clearly the long-time approach to discipline in the schools was unfair and landed like a brick on Black and Brown students. Both districts have actively, and with many bumps, moved to remake discipline in a restorative rather than a punitive model.

Having armed police officers in the hallways just does not mesh with that worthy effort. And that it does not mesh in the schools offers grist for a wider conversation on how we police young people of color, young men of color particularly, in our village.

Part of the change in approach at OPRF has been in how its large security staff was trained and deployed. For decades, students of all colors at that school have complained that it felt like perpetual lock down. The armed police officer, no matter how well intentioned, only added to that sense of being under watch.

We have no doubt that the school districts and the police department will work cooperatively to create rapid response to emergency situations in the schools and that police will continue to have a presence around these schools mornings and afternoons as students hustle in and out.

If D97 follows the path of the high school, the Oak Park police department will have three officers without immediate assignment.

That is another opening in what should be a positive discussion of how community policing works in our village. These are opportunities not threats.

Schools split on reopening

W

V I E W P O I N T S

hile the two school districts may follow a similar path on SROs, they are actively diverging on fall plans to reopen in the face of this ghastly COVID-19 pandemic.

OPRF is headed to a virtual fall semester for almost every student. The elementary and middle schools are planning for a hybrid that would have most students in class on a staggered schedule two days per week. All students would have one day of “remote learning” on Wednesdays.

We give credit to both districts for their sincere and effective outreach to parents, students, faculty and staff to gauge their comfort levels with various options. Not surprisingly there was high interest in the surveys. Not surprisingly there was not a consensus view. And, certainly not surprising, now that the schools have declared their intentions there is a welter of conflicted responses on social media.

Everyone is emotionally bushed, financially stretched, profoundly worried. Parents are frustrated by the full-time virtual path at the high school. Parents are on edge over sending their young kids into a school building even with a reduced class size and stepped up cleaning just two days a week.

The only clamor we don’t hear locally is from parents or teachers who want full-time, in-school classes restored.

All of this is, of course, subject to change since we’ve all learned we don’t have nearly full control of this virus. We have at best the power to influence its course if we have the determination to stay safe.

Afoot and light-hearted I take to the open road, Healthy, free, the world before me, The long brown path before me leading wherever I choose.

Henceforth I ask not good-fortune, I myself am good-fortune, Henceforth I whimper no more, postpone no more, need nothing, Done with indoor complaints, libraries, querulous criticisms, Strong and content I travel the open road. ...

Walt Whitman

W

I’m accustomed to in my annual suburban life cycle. The snatches of shade we found seemed, at the time, like God’s greatest miracle (after icy streams). We collapsed into our bunks at Phantom Ranch, exhausted from 12 hours on the trail and after drinking our weight in cold lemonade long into the evening.

The next day, after a session of guiltfree breakfast gluttony, we crossed the Colorado River and began the long climb up Bright Angel trail toward the South Rim, pushing our bodies to maximum mechanism.

My son was actually appreciating — even awed by — the surrounding grandeur, and generally fulfilled my fondest fantasies of father-son bonding.

Our hiking ensemble featured a full range of characters, including 72-year-old “Wild Bill” Davis, an Oblate priest from San Antonio, who sprinted the final hundred yards of the hike with fists held high.

Hiking the Grand Canyon at 72 is amazing enough, but this guy actually postponed prostate cancer surgery for a week in order to join the expedition. A longtime rabble-rouser, he spent the last few miles accosting every South Rim tourist who crossed our path. “Are you an American?” he asked. “Then write your congressman. This trail is a disgrace.”

He was right. Deeply rutted, the step up to each timber was much higher than necessary for weary hikers. You could see where federal funding cutbacks have caused corner-cutting.

After one lengthy break, Davis pulled on his pack and shouted, “That’s enough ecstasy. It’s time for some more agony.”

He was right again. Hiking the Grand Canyon is about going rim to rim, agony to ecstasy. It doesn’t fit in the comfortable middle where we live our riskaverse lives. This was the hardest thing I’ve ever done.

There’s something to be said for that. On the final few switchbacks, I looked back on how far we’d come and felt something I haven’t felt for awhile — a deep sense of pride. And more than a little ecstasy.

Two weeks later, the tingle hasn’t subsided.

KEN

TRAINOR

Song of the Open Road

ould that it were so. Most of us have sworn off the open road during our confinement. So I thought you might like to live vicariously, as I relive vicariously a couple of my past journeys. This one took place in July of 2003:

Rim to rim. Has a certain rim, I mean ring, to it.

What did I do on my summer vacation this year? I hiked the Grand Canyon — rim to rim.

So did my son — and 12 others. It was somebody’s idea, and we tagged along.

Hiking the Grand Canyon was nowhere near the top of my list of things to do before I die. It wasn’t even on the list.

Now it’s near the top of my list of accomplishments.

I’d been wanting to do something “outdoorsy” with my son for many years and this seemed a perfect opportunity. We piggybacked onto a group of priests, nuns and friends who take trips like this every year. They had hiked the canyon 21 years ago in their prime. Now they wanted to do it again. One wonders what one is capable of at 51, but these folks were even older, which made the whole adventure sound doable.

Late July isn’t the optimal time for such an excursion. The bottom of the canyon gets a tad hot — 115 degrees hot — with virtually no shade. We started on the North Rim, which feels much more like a national park, and hiked down, down, down the North Kaibab Trail through layer upon geological layer of brown, then red, then green sedimentary rock for some 5 miles.

After lunch and a liberal dousing in the ice-bucket cold of Roaring Spring at Cottonwood Campground, we faced seven waterless miles beneath a blazing afternoon sun. This kind of thing is officially contraindicated by National Park personnel, who try to scare people out of the hike or at least into over-preparation.

We fit the latter description. Slathered thick with sunblock and each lugging a gallon of water (mixed with electrolyte powder, which tastes terrible when warmed by said sun), we single-filed across the sagebrush and cactus, scattering lizards, but, happily, no snakes (though I did pack a snakebite kit just in case).

I felt exposed, even endangered — not something

To undergo much, tramps of days, rests of nights, To merge all in the travel they tend to, and the days and nights they tend to, Again to merge them in the start of superior journeys ...

To look up and down no road but it stretches and waits for you, however long but it stretches and waits for you ...

All parts away for the progress of souls, All religion, all solid things, arts, governments — all that was or is apparent upon this globe or any globe, falls into niches and corners before the procession of souls along the grand roads of the universe ...

Forever alive, forever forward.

Forever forward indeed.

V I E W P O I N T S

Six weeks in, kids are blowing us away

R

esults from our first virtual summer reading program: ■ 5,100 challenges completed; 2,000 books read, in 285,000 minutes.

■ 975 readers, 11,000 prize beads earned … and counting!

Six weeks into Oak Park’s new virtual summer reading program, kids are blowing us away with their enthusiasm and determination.

Adults know that kids who read at least 20 minutes a day during the summer lose fewer skills before school starts up again. Kids know that reading can be fun, and that’s what’s important to them. That’s what will make them lifelong readers and learners.

Also fun? Delivering all those prize beads to reward our readers! Oak Park Public Library staff have already delivered more than 11,000 beads, and we plan to deliver 5,000 more in July. Prize delivery will continue through the summer, and you can still sign up for the program online through Aug. 31.

Need reading ideas?

Of the top 12 books logged by Oak Park participants this summer, the first and last Harry Potter books make a strong showing. Who doesn’t want to find themselves in a magical world, helping to save the day?

Gorgeous graphic novel and Newbery Honor winner Roller Girl by Victoria Jamieson also has risen to the top, encouraging kids to find out who they are and to navigate the pressures of friendship and growing up — while being on a roller derby team.

You can find more recommended books for babies through rising ninth-graders at oppl.org/kids-lists.

SHELLEY HARRIS & GENEVIEVE GROVE

Wednesday Journal, July 15, 2020

W E D N E S D A Y

JOURNAL of Oak Park and River Forest

Editor and Publisher Dan Haley

One View

Staff Reporters Michael Romain, Stacey Sheridan, Maria Maxham Viewpoints Editor Ken Trainor

Ways to use your library this summer

Sports/Staff reporter James Kay

Imagine Your Story runs through Aug. 31. Participating families track their reading and activities with an easy-to-use, cloud-based platform called Beanstack, accessible from anywhere through an app and web browser.

Kids age 3 through rising ninth-graders are encouraged to read, be read to, or listen to audiobooks for 20 minutes a day to help us reach our community goal of 450,000 minutes read, as well as participate in activities around their home and community. Sign up at oppl.org/summer.

On July 22, the Main Library only will reopen for selfservice, including selecting and checking out materials, with limited hours and capacity, social distancing, and face coverings required. Please note that no program signups or prize pickups will happen in person.

If you’re not ready to visit in person, you can keep using your digital library, which offers massive amounts of content you can safely check out with your library account. And you can continue to pick up your physical materials on hold at the Main Library, contactfree. Get all the details at oppl.org.

Shelley Harris and Genevieve Grove are children’s librarians SUBMITTED at the Oak Park Public Library.

READING WONDERS: Sarah Yale, manager of the library’s community engagement,

delivers prizes for great readers including the young gentleman admiring his beads.

Helping seniors and other isolated folks

Dear friends, Recently, the Chicago Tribune featured an article concerning the difficulties seniors and other isolated folks have in securing their minimal needs.

River Forest represents a shining example of helpfulness and caring for its residents. President Cathy Adduci and her administration’s task force have provided for our needs and more. I am one of those who has benefitted from this service.

Ms. Helen Kwan, the dispatcher, and her kind and generous helper-shoppers offer every service with warmth and concern. What a unique pleasure to live

Senior Editor Bob Uphues

in a village where folks really care.

Although I am troubled by our nation’s leadership, an evil, racist, hateful threesome — President Trump, Attorney General Barr, and Senator McConnell, I feel my fears will be overcome by the responses of good people, similar to our River Forest folks.

Thanks to you who have given me help, hope and security.

Gratefully,

Harriet Hausman River Forest

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 Designers Debbie Becker, Mark Moroney Marketing Representatives Marc Stopeck, Lourdes Nicholls Advertising Sales Marc Stopeck 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.

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V I E W P O I N T S

Wednesday Journal, July 15, 2020

D O O P E R ’ S

M E M O R I E S

The downside of being imaginative

M

y family moved to Oak Park when I was very young. The house we moved into was much larger than the apartment we had rented in Chicago, and I was afraid to go to the basement and to the attic in the house.

The basement was dark even with the lights on, and there were many storage recesses where I believed the bogeyman could hide.

I also believed that an evil man lived under the basement stairs in the coal bin.

One time I was in the basement alone and someone mistakenly turned off the ceiling light and locked the door.

I ran up the stairs as fast as I could go and pounded on the door until my mother unlocked the door and let me into the kitchen. I was certain that the coal-bin bogeyman would get me.

I knew the attic was dark, and I believed villains hid in there. I succeeded in making every excuse possible to not enter the attic.

My fear was also fueled by some older neighborhood kids who told me that the room above the garage was haunted by the deranged uncle of a former owner, and they said that they had seen his ghost frequently wandering our yard in the dark of night brandishing a butcher knife.

My grandfather once told me that the wife of a former owner had shot and killed her philandering husband on the front porch. I believed the story, and, for all I knew, it was a true story and the husband’s ghost was afoot.

With this in mind, I kept my eyes open and was ready to run if I saw a specter.

I felt better when my grandmother berated my grandfather for telling me a story that she believed was absolute nonsense and was meant to scare me.

My grandfather denied any ulterior motive and said he told me the story because it dealt with the history of the house.

Within a few months I began to believe there were no bogeymen, ghosts or crazed killers in our midst. I attribute this to the fact that a family member would escort me to the so-called scary places and show me that all was OK. In the basement I looked inside the coal bin and all I saw were large chunks of coal that in a few months my uncle and I would be using to stoke the furnace.

In the storage room I saw shelves filled with preserves and not with ghouls.

In the attic, my grandmother took me into each alcove, and I saw only trunks. However, I jumped about a foot in the air when I saw a headless figure wearing a wedding gown standing in a corner.

My grandmother told me the gown had been hers, and she preserved it by placing it on the mannequin, so I revved up my courage and touched the mannequin a couple of times and, of course, the figure did not move.

I believe that I was a kid who had a vivid imagination, and it took my entire family to adjust my thinking.

JOHN

STANGER

The Green Line, minus masks My husband and I traveled on the Green Line train on Wednesday, July 8, and noticed that most people traveling on the train were not wearing facial coverings or masks. As we pulled into each station going toward downtown, more and more people getting on the train were not wearing masks. We also noticed many CTA employees not wearing masks. Luckily, the train was not crowded, and we were able to keep our distance from those not wearing masks.

We have always taken public trans-

portation whenever possible, but have not traveled much since the pandemic outbreak. We are very impressed with the cleanliness of the trains, and the large signs at the train stations, spelling out the requirements for taking precautions when riding the trains. I hope the CTA can begin enforcing their requirement that their employees and riders wear face coverings so that my husband and I will feel more comfortable riding public transportation again.

Theresa Czarnik Oak Park

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Unlearning our racist education I was 4 years old in 1949 when the musical South Pacific appeared on Broadway. It won the Pulitzer Prize for Drama in 1950.

Skip ahead to 1961. I was selected to join the high school musical that year: South Pacific. We had some exceptionally talented high school juniors and seniors in the cast, and the show became a “hit.” Our 3-year-old Proviso West High School in Hillside didn’t have an auditorium large enough for the production, so we rehearsed and presented five sold-out performances at the Proviso East auditorium in Maywood.

The song that encapsulated the theme of the musical play was “You’ve Got to Be Carefully Taught,” sung by Lt. Cable from “Mainline” Philadelphia to his wartime sweetheart, Liat, a young, local Polynesian woman. Cable introduces the song in a line of dialog about racism that it’s “not born in you! It happens after you’re born.”

You’ve got to be taught to hate and fear You’ve got to be taught, from year to year It’s got to be drummed in your dear little ear You’ve got to be carefully taught.

Of people whose eyes are oddly made And people whose skin is a different shade You’ve got to be carefully taught.

You’ve got to be taught before it’s too late Before you are 6 or 7 or 8 To hate all the people your relatives hate You’ve got to be carefully taught, You’ve got to be carefully taught.

The Broadway production ran for more than 1,900 performances. In 1953, when the show toured Atlanta, Georgia, a group of legislators introduced a bill outlawing any entertainment having “an underlying philosophy inspired by Moscow.”

State Representative David C. Jones claimed that the song implicitly justified interracial marriage — a threat to the American way of life.

There are no genetic bases for racism that I know of. We know where it comes from, where it lives, how it survives. We know how it’s taught.

We are still learning why it’s taught. And how it must be un-taught.

Let’s get to work.

Dean Yannias

You’ve got to be taught to be afraid

Oak Park

Why no Rec Center referendum?

A

2014 survey of 618 or 1.1 percent of Oak Park residents is still cited by the Park District of Oak Park (PDOP) as justification for building a Rec Center, partly with donated funds.

Only a referendum confirms true interest and justification. Unelected park district Executive Director Jan Arnold said, “The project will only go ahead without hiking property taxes or going to referendum.”

Why no referendum?

Phase One, $18 million, won’t be funded entirely by private money as promised. PDOP has already set aside $5 million of taxpayer money.

Oak Park Township is contributing $1.5 million in property tax money. The bankrupt state of Illinois is donating $875,000 in tax money. The park district requested a $2.5 million PARC grant from the state; if obtained, that’s $9,875,000 in tax money for a rec center to be built “without tax money.” Phase One would be built 55 percent from tax money, assuming no cost overruns.

How much more tax money for Phase Two? Phase Two includes a pool. How many pools do we need? We have Ridgeland, Rehm, FFC, YMCA. Better and cheaper to cover Ridgeland Common, expanding pool usage 400% from 3 months to 12. District 200 still dreams of its own enormous $68 million, 600-seat aquatic center (how do we finally force the PDOP and D200 fiefdoms to cooperate on a pool to taxpayer benefit?).

Yes, 1 acre of land along Madison was generously donated to the PDOP. What is the opportunity cost of not redeveloping it into affordable and/or market housing paying property taxes in perpetuity?

A rec center becomes a permanent PDOP budget obligation. What if PDOP is wrong that it can permanently self-sustain via 100 percent

user fees? Who takes on this risk?

The board and executive director?

Property taxpayers, no one else.

The park district has been admittedly reluctant to raise fees.

Example: free daycare for families with income up to $100,000 (median income in Oak Park is $87,271). An organization with a “free things” mindset can be trusted to ensure the structure is supported solely by user fees?

Last fall, PDOP, which annually votes for levy increases, accessed $315,000 in expiring TIF money despite an already ample budget. As PDOP’s Diane Stanke explained, “Of course we are good stewards of our tax dollars here and we always want to use our tax dollars as best we can to benefit our community, so we’ve come up with three different ways in which we’re going to spend that $315,000 to benefit our community.”

A board and executive director with a mindset of first acquiring unneeded revenue and then finding new ways to spend it can be trusted with building a facility that will never require property tax money to operate?

Given the scope and long-term risks of this project, the residents of Oak Park are owed a referendum. Taxpayers need to vote on this long-term risk. If it fails, we still have PDOP facilities and services (which include needbased scholarships) and various private recreation options in town.

Lastly, financial reverberations caused by COVID will linger in the village for years. Better that the PDOP refocuses on repurposing it’s already ample budget, maximizing current assets and resources.

The board and executive director are not the proper ones to decide this issue; the taxpayers are.

Jack Powers is a resident of Oak Park.

JACK

POWERS One View

V I E W P O I N T S

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The pursuit (of happiness)

‘A

black man was killed by Minneapolis police last night.” The news broke my writing concentration. “The name of the man has not been released. More information later.” My heart pounded my chest.

Minneapolis! Oh dear God, let it not be Elliott or Carl! What am I saying? Let it be someone else ... someone else’s? Why anyone?

Remorse filled me. My pulse raced.

What a selfish thought!

Trying to gather my thoughts and write with unsteady fingers, my brain switched back to the sound of the TV. Write … listen … write … listen. Try … wait … try … wait.

Call someone to find out if the boys are all right? Where are their phone numbers? I’ll wait for pictures, then I’ll see for myself.

Write … listen … write … listen. Try … wait … try … wait. The battle raged within. My neck muscles stiffened.

Shall I call Antonia? Can I find her phone number? I hate to interrupt her work just to ask. She is in Hopkins. I think Carl or Elliott live or work in Minneapolis. I’ll wait for pictures.

Listen … write … listen … write.

No, I don’t want to upset anyone else because of something I heard. I need to be sure. I need to see or hear for myself who was killed before causing concern.

Heart pounding, I abandon writing. My eyes are glued to the TV. Blindly watching without perceiving. Filtering views without processing. Scanning to capture a familiar image.

“We have received video from a bystander at the scene.”

There it is, but there’s an officer in the way, talking to the videographer.

I scream at the television. Move, so I can see

One View

O

n the evening of May 30, I spent several hours watching TV coverage of the burning of Chicago.

It was not a calming, reassuring broadcast. News coverage stopped shortly after 10 p.m. But with the TV off and the lights out, the graphic images continued to flash before me.

I could not go to sleep. My emotions were churning, and my mind struggled to make sense of the burning and the destruction. I have seen similar grieving during past decades but never found logic in looting, arson, and destruction as relief of grief ’s pain.

It was another protest gone bad. It was an act of pure violence and a venting of destructive emotions. Gangs of perpetrators who seemed ignorant of any lessons of the past, opportunely spilled out into the streets spreading a toxic mix of greed, anger and hate.

The looters executed their missions with military precision. They even drove up U-Haul trucks to the targeted stores to load what they could not carry. The scenes seemed like an organized insurrection and brought back memories of the 1968 riots in response to Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s assassination that became known as the Holy Week Uprising. Fifty years later, those recollections still cast a shadow upon Dr. King’s memory.

Like the French Bastille Day, the current-day riot is a revolt against decades or even centuries of systemic, socioeconomic oppression. Violence may be a catharsis of pent-up frustration and anger, but seeking justice does not justify burn-

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LEAGUE OF WOMEN VOTERS OF OPRF One View

local taxes while the lowest and the middle income earners pay a rate twice as high, up to 14 percent.

The state of Illinois has a revenue problem, not a spending problem. Under both Democratic and Republican leadership, years of an inadequate state tax structure led to underfunding K-12 education, dropping from paying half of the costs down to one-fourth, resulting in the most inequitable school system in the nation, where a family’s zip code determines the quality of a child’s education and local property owners shoulder an increasing burden.

Years without a state budget, on top of

ing and looting cities and towns.

The destructive riots do a great disservice to the grieving for Mr. George Floyd, and undermine the validity of the intended protests against police brutality.

And there is the other half of the dichotomous tumult of the week. Upstaged by the pyrotechnics of the looting and burning, tearful thousands marched peacefully, genuinely grieving and protesting a man’s wrongful death.

The crime is a deep wound to our nation’s soul.

As the nightly violence and destruction enveloped our cities and towns, the majority of policemen on the front lines showed considerable restraint. President Trump’s response to the events of the week was a Bible-thumping photo op, and a threat to invoke the Insurrection Act. He called for a forceful domination of the streets, and reminded us that he’s the “law and order president.”

Announcing his candidacy for President of the United States, Joe Biden called out: “Ousting Trump is not enough. America must have a rebirth of morality.” Joe is right. Ousting Trump is achievable. Letting Trump be Trump in the campaign may serve as a catalyst.

A rebirth of morality may seem an impossible dream for America. Morality cannot be legislated and rightful protests have become opportunities for riots, looting and arson. But the embryo of the rebirth of our nation’s morality is in the hearts and minds of the millions of peaceful, tearful marchers. It must be embraced and nurtured to its full gestation. The potential for America’s greatness is in its growth and maturation.

FRED NATKEVI One View

Graduated-rate is the only fair income tax

e are supporting the fair tax amendment on the November ballot precisely because, as Richard J. Willis wrote, “simple fairness dictates that the government must not raise taxes on families struggling to pay their bills.” [‘Fair tax’ or ‘blank check’, Viewpoints July 8].

A Yes vote on the constitutional amendment removes two sentences that locked the state into an antiquated, unfair, flat income tax. New, graduated tax rates have been set by the legislature to take effect only if the voters approve the change.

The fair tax will mean that only those earning over $250,000 will see any increase in their state income taxes. Families struggling to pay their bills, along with 97 percent of taxpayers, will see a tax reduction or pay the same as they do now. That sounds fair to us.

The fair tax will mean ending the injustice of having the highest income earners pay about 7 percent of their income in state and

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America’s turmoil and potential

who lies behind your feet!

The officer moves.

O thank you, I can see now.

The black man’s lips are large, not as narrow and fine as Carl’s or Elliott’s. What a relief !

He is trying to say something, but the side of his face is mashed against the street by the knee of another officer pressing his neck.

“I can’t breathe,” he says. “Momma, I’m dying.”

I watch him die. TV showed it to the world.

I tremble.

What a relief, heavenly Father, that he wasn’t one of my grandchildren! Thank you!

Thank you! He was someone else’s grandson, son, husband, father.

A sense of relief sweeps over me. Remorse strikes again. He was not mine! Shock! He was somebody’s. He was someone else and I’m glad he wasn’t mine?

This must be how Elliot and Carl’s mother must feel. Is this a fear that black women must experience every time their black husband, son, or grandson goes out the door?

How terrible to have to live under these conditions in a country that proclaims in its founding document: “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.”

Fauntie Wilcoxon is a former Oak Park Arms resident and a member of the Oak Park Writers Group. As a white grandmother of biracial grandsons, this is what she experienced when she learned of George Floyd’s death. She is a retired missionary to Argentina, nurse educator, medical transcriptionist and editor, clergywoman and widow of a clergyman.

FAUNTIE WILCOXON

Wednesday Journal, July 15, 2020

the inadequate state tax structure, led to the undermining of mental health care, domestic violence shelters, drug and alcohol addiction treatment, child welfare services, developmental disability support, and senior services for our most vulnerable families.

Higher education has been gutted, environmental protection neglected, and health-care delivery systems strained under both Democratic and Republican leadership, traceable to decades of an inadequate state tax structure.

Now with COVID-19, many families are hard-hit by illness, job losses, and housing and food insecurity. The fair tax asks only those who have annual income above $250,000 to pitch in to help those who need stabilization and support services as we move into a healthier economy.

So we need additional revenues in our state as we continue to work to repair the state’s fiscal condition. By adopting a graduatedrate income tax — the same taxing structure used by the majority of other states and the

federal government — with rates comparable to many of our neighboring states, we can begin to re-invest and re-build Illinois without asking any more from 97 percent of Illinois taxpayers.

The League of Women Voters is a nonpartisan political organization that does not support candidates for office. We are voter rights advocates who encourage the informed and active participation of citizens in government and work to increase understanding of major public policy issues. LWV of Illinois has been a proponent of the graduated-rate income tax since the 1970s.

Ann Courter Oak Park

Jane Hastings River Forest

Judith McDevitt River Forest Members of the League of Women Voters Illinois fair tax advocacy group Editor’s Correction: Last week we incorrectly identified Richard Willis as the local GOP committeeman. The GOP committeewoman is Linda Tibensky. We regret the error.

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V I E W P O I N T S

Wednesday Journal, July 15, 2020

FRANCIS

Phenomenal women from page 17 children and caring for elders.

Women of color are often questioned in ways that are not used for men. Women can make mistakes or not be well suited for positions just as men have been. But you seldom hear folks questioning whether even

poorly performing men should be paid their salaries, have the intelligence for the job, or care about their constituents. Men who forcefully advocate their position are fervent and dedicated; women who do the same are labeled shrill and unreasonable.

Luckily, many women of color no longer care what they are called by those who would see them fail. We will support each other, bind each other’s wounds and continue the work that must be done.

2020 has turned into a trying year in many ways, from the wide-spread deaths

PARKER from page 17

They’ve seen our spirits are sick.

They’ve wanted us to get better.

To do better.

To be better.

But we’ve refused.

Maybe what’s most dangerous is that so many of us feel asymptomatic, denying the ravages of the virus all around us.

Racism in my neighborhood? No, not here. Maybe there.

Racism in me?! No, no, not me. Maybe them.

The stigma of carrying the virus, publicly owning it, is the unspeakable shame we fear most, and so we deny it, busy-body ourselves in other matters, rationalize the suffering of others, and withdraw into numbness.

Social distancing isn’t new for us, no — we’ve practiced it around Black people for years to distance ourselves from the violent toll the virus takes on their community.

From our complicity in it.

We can’t get better if we don’t know we’re sick and the virus is as deeply embedded in our bodies as it is in our systems.

Just as no corner of our life is untouched by white supremacy, no system in this country — education, health, “justice,” and on and on — is either.

They’re all sick too, stemming from diseased roots.

We must remember that this 400-year pandemic, is endemic.

It’s ours.

Maybe we start by getting quiet.

Quarantine our defensiveness, denial, and doubt.

Lock it away, and not just for two weeks.

The virus wants us reactive, flustered, apathetic, and busyminded.

It thrives in that mess.

But in the quiet we can listen, look, remember, and trust what comes up: Can you listen to the folks surging to attack the virus?

Can you hear the calls for justice for George, Brionna, Ahmaud,

OAKPARK.COM | RIVERFOREST.COM

to the economic hardships felt by individuals and businesses. It has also laid bare the inequities and faults within our public and private systems. This provides us an opportunity to create the systems change required to have communities that work for everyone.

Women have been driving the changes we need to see in federal and local policy and it would be beneficial to have more women of color involved in local government. However, it is a challenge. Our village governments are not structured for the participation of the full time employed;

and millions of others?

Can you see the virus in your life, in every place you look, every choice you’ve made?

Can you see it in your own weary face, hollow and drained by the fear and the lies?

Can you remember our history to know that it’s always been here?

Can you trust your instincts to resist the unnatural, callous pull into apathy?

These weeks so many white folks have poured into the streets and into the feeds.

So many of us sound ready — all of a sudden, for most — to take action and find solutions and do and do and do, as if others haven’t been ready, as if there was a quick cure for this sickness.

True, some medications might mask the symptoms: good intentions or the right book or the right words or protests or posts or poems.

But no, these alone won’t make us better …

And we won’t take right action if we only situate the problem out there with the “racists” and the “corrupt institutions.”

Some of us place the blame for suffering on Black people themselves; the most wretched way of removing ourselves.

Others of us depend on Black suffering to fuel our purpose and give our lives meaning as fixers, as saviors.

No, all this feeds the insatiable virus and buries it deeper within …

Doing and taking action will not only be ineffective, but harmful, without the shifts from within to guide them.

If we can’t see that Black liberation also means our liberation; that Black humanity also means our humanity — that our fates are intertwined and have been for so many years —

hence the reason why so many have been those of wealth and business folks who can determine their own hours or have supports at home. It will most likely take women to reimagine political participation in a way that is much more efficient and inclusive. Based on the women with whom I have had the pleasure to work, I have no doubt that they are up to the task.

I have also birthed a phenomenal woman. And I look forward to her and her generation continuing the work; but finally, on their terms.

then we act from the wrong place.

And even as more of us see the symptoms, there’s still no easy cure.

The virus is hardy, cloaked, deeply embedded and will continue looting Blacks of their lives and livelihoods, and slowly seeping the humanity from our spirits.

We’ll still pass the virus on to our children, a fear that catches in my throat.

So, what if we slowed down to speed up, white friends?

Understood there’s no bypass to absolve us; that each of us must fight the virus of white supremacy, and we can begin with the sickness in our hearts, minds, bodies, and the symptoms in our lives.

This is where “the work” of systems change starts, of spirit change.

Then we may know how to listen to Black and Indigenous leaders, to our own humanity calling, and action will become clear.

Let it begin here, or begin again, now, no matter who or where you are.

And yes, it will take time, so there’s no time to lose.

My white kindred, in our work together, let’s: Invite all, no exemptions; Invite compassion, for self and others; Resist denial and defensiveness when it comes; Resist shame from paralyzing us; Continue opening our minds, hearts, wallets, everything; Continue feeling without judgment; Reflect on our relationships with the Black people in our lives; Reflect on what we think to be true about them; Break the cycle of forgetting and apathy; Break the unspoken contracts of white silence with each other; Trust in the process of inner work; Trust in Black leadership to guide us in the outer work; Fuck up inevitably; Fuck it and keep going.

And finally, let’s refuse the comforting call when the virus tries to lure us back into forgetting this moment — because it will.

V I E W P O I N T S

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Stepping stone: The case for Joe Biden

see Joe Biden as the stepping-stone candidate. Biden was not my first choice during the primaries (that position went to Mayor Pete Buttigieg). Nor was he my second choice. At the time, Biden seemed to me a middle-of-thepack compromise candidate, with nothing particularly good or bad about him.

But as time went on, it became clear who our nominee would be. Biden’s sweeping victory in South Carolina was followed by a string of endorsements, which I call “the moderate consolidation.” Former candidates who shared many policies and values with Biden, notably Buttigieg, Sen. Amy Klobuchar, and former Rep. Beto O’Rourke, all endorsed Biden within the period of a few hours.

The following Tuesday was the first hint of the power of unity, as Biden swept 10 of the 15 Super Tuesday states and territories — states like O’Rourke’s home state of Texas and Klobuchar’s home state of Minnesota were previously believed to be toss-ups at best, yet the endorsements pulled Biden over the top.

Fast forward, and America is in the midst of a pandemic. A sudden and simultaneous dual disaster of a health crisis and economic crisis has changed everyday life as we know it. However, in the middle of all of this, comes a second series of high-profile endorsements. Over the span of a week, senators Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders endorse Biden, and are joined by former President Barack Obama. The former were the most progressive Democratic candidates for president this past cycle, and Obama is lauded by Americans of all political affiliations.

These endorsements marked “the liberal consolidation,” the unifying of the Democratic Party behind Biden, seemingly a fully united front against President Trump. Many conservative NeverTrumpers and centrist politicians often critical of the President currently remain on the fence. Luckily, if there is any person who could convince them to join the fight against Trump, it’s Joe Biden.

Biden is seen by many as a moderate Democrat. His policies are closer to the center in comparison to many of his former competitors. It is this perception of moderateness and willingness to compromise to the political center that could earn the support of conservative politicians such as former Republican Rep. Justin Amash, a vocal Trump critic; and former Ohio Gov. John Kasich; respected Sen. Mitt Romney, who voted for the removal of Trump from office in February; and other politicians who have

publicly stated their difficulty deciding between Trump and Biden, such as Sen. Lisa Murkowski. This potential “conservative consolidation” would all but ensure a Democratic victory in November, as the conservative politicians would be able to convince their constituents to support Joe Biden.

However, it is important to note that Biden is more than a unifier: he is a stepping stone to a more progressive future.

You may have noticed that I spoke of the “perception of moderateness” that could earn the support of conservatives. I phrased it this way purposefully, because one of Biden’s greatest strengths is his ability to mask progressive policies in moderate rhetoric. While his policies are admittedly less ambitious than those of his other previous competitors, come January 2021 he will be the most progressive president in recent history, advocating new reforms previously seen as radical — supporting everything from a $15 minimum wage to Senator Warren’s bankruptcy plan would have seemed like all but political suicide just a decade or two ago. Biden also has a history of fighting for progressive reforms, notably for Black Americans. Biden was a co-sponsor of the Civil Rights Act of 1990 that aimed to protect Blacks from employment discrimination, and his current plan for Black America vows to tackle wealth disparities and expand access to high-quality education, among other things.

Donald Trump, on the other hand, was quoted in 1991 as having said that he hated having Black accountants, and that “laziness is a trait in [Blacks].”

And as president, Trump has appeared to more vocally oppose a Black football player kneeling on the ground than a police officer kneeling on the neck of George Floyd.

So for those of you who, like me, are fed up with the regressive policies of President Trump and want a more progressive candidate, I encourage you to take comfort in the fact that electing Joe Biden as president will be a stepping stone toward a new progressive future, normalizing what may have otherwise been seen as radical rather than common sense, and laying the groundwork for a new era of progressivism.

Tim Mellman is a rising junior at OPRF High School. This essay was previously posted on bidenwarroom. com, the website for Biden War Room, a group he is volunteering with. The link to the version with cited sources is https:// bidenwarroom.org/article/5/testimonialtuesday-the-stepping-stone-philosophy.

TIM

MELLMAN One View

Wednesday Journal, July 15, 2020

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Reminders of our shameful past Dear friends, The statues placed in our parks, libraries, military posts, and other public areas should represent heroes of our society and notables whom we respect. Certainly members of the Confederacy are not our proud historical leaders, and I firmly agree with removal of these statues. But I do not agree with their destruction. Slavery, the Civil War, and the Confederacy were significant, however shameful, parts of U.S. history.

I strongly believe these sculptures should be preserved in museums as a reminder of our “white nationalism” deviation from the Constitution. Unfortunately, our history books never adequately revealed our checkered past — our cruel treatment of Native Americans, our centuries of racism, and the effects of slavery.

We cannot relive or alter that ugly history, but we can learn from it, and hopefully stop a present-day repeat of this behavior. Our 2020 society does not represent a nation de-

voted to equal representation for all under the law. One person, one vote is not afforded to all, and strangers are unwelcome in our land as we forget our own backgrounds as descendants of strangers.

I believe being reminded of our past is the way in which we establish a “just” society under the guidance of our Constitution. Without that history, we will surely fall prey to autocracy (like Trump’s leadership) instead of our democracy. Holocaust museums are examples of society gone mad when not curbed by educating people about the past.

Perhaps today’s massive protests will alert our nation of our past mistakes and set us on the correct course to civil rights for all.

Let us use those Confederate statues as reminders of a shameful past, and a hopeful, reformed future.

Harriet Hausman River Forest

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V I E W P O I N T S

Wednesday Journal, July 15, 2020

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We’ll always have Paris (in our future)

e had planned to celebrate our 30th wedding anniversary in Paris. It would have been a blast but the Great Recession forced us to scale back our plans. We ended up celebrating in downtown Chicago, “The Paris of the Midwest.” We vowed to go to France for our 40th.

So we renewed our passports and booked our flights and hotel rooms to celebrate our anniversary on July 11. This time, finances weren’t a problem. The pandemic, however, prompted European countries to ban American tourists.

It looks like we’ll be celebrating our anniversary in New Buffalo, Michigan. There’s nothing wrong with that. Strolling a Lake Michigan beach can be just as romantic as walking along the Seine. However, I also wanted us to renew our vows. I was fortunate to find them in a drawer.

“I, John, take you Diane to be my soulmate and the light of my life for as long as I live.”

“I, Diane, take you, John, to be my life

I

OAKPARK.COM | RIVERFOREST.COM

partner and the center of my universe.”

“I promise you, Diane, to cook all the meals, if you promise to clean the kitchen.”

“I will take care of the laundry, John, and never want to catch you near the washing machine.”

“In the event we have children, Diane, I promise to never help with the kids late at night or early in the morning, so that I can be well-rested and a good provider for the family.”

“In the event we have children, John, I will never yell at them for playing basketball in the basement, football in the living room, or soccer in the kitchen.”

“Diane, I will never buy you an appliance as a gift. I will also refrain from buying you clothes and will only purchase jewelry you have pre-approved.”

“John, I will continue to buy you polyester

shirts until disco runs its course. I will then buy you western shirts, skinny jeans and boots for your ‘urban cowboy’ phase.”

“I promise to never use the silent treatment as a weapon, Diane, and will always loudly express my feelings.”

“If we do have a disagreement, John, I will avoid the use of words like ‘never’ and ‘always’ because those kinds of statements are rarely true.”

“I will buy us a large house, Diane, and promise not to attempt any home repairs. You can trust me with cutting the grass, watering the flowers and taking out the garbage, but that’s about it.”

“I will cuddle late at night, John, and take care of all financial matters, including filing the taxes.”

“Diane, I will continue to exaggerate my stories, spout misinformation and make really dumb jokes.”

JOHN RICE

“I will pretend to be interested in your stories, John, and I will chuckle politely at your jokes.”

“I pledge my support, Diane, in sickness and in health, especially if you pity me when I only have a cold.”

“I will stick with you, John, during good financial times and bad. I will never tell you to get a real job just because you’re selfemployed.”

“From this day forward, I will stick with you, Diane, because you have really good health insurance.”

“John, I read that 48 percent of marriages end within 20 years but I’m betting we’ll be together more than twice that long. It won’t seem that long, though, assuming you’re not home for lunch.”

“Diane, you will have kisses for lunch and kisses for dinner. If you’re still hungry, we can order Chinese.”

“Don’t go changing, John, to try and please me. You never let me down before.”

“Diane, I’ll take you just the way you are.”

Peeling back the layers of racial bias

t was 1967. Our grade school basketball team at St. Mary of Celle in Berwyn had just lost a game to an African-American team from a school in Chicago. My coach, Gary, told me that despite our loss, I had played my best game of the season. I had performed, he said, focused and intense.

He complimented my rebounding and defense in particular. I thanked him. Then, after hearing the coach’s praise of me, one of the guys on our team, Charlie, conjectured cynically about why I had really played with such intent: “That’s because he hates ’em!”

Charlie’s remark jolted me, and I responded, “No, it’s just that they were really good. It fired me up.” Despite the animosity expressed by Charlie, the game had in fact been hard-fought, clean and respectful. They had won because they were just a better team.

The summers were getting hot in the city — politically hot. Not far from our neighboring Oak Park and Cicero, in Chicago’s West Side, rioting had erupted, both in 1966 and ’67. Whites argued over what to do to protect their towns, and how to respond to coming pressures at the national level to make racial integration a goal of federal policy.

I left for college in 1971. That was the last full year I lived in Berwyn. Oak Park was going to work with the provisions of fair housing legislation. Berwyn was more circumspect in its formal policymaking, but a couple of well-organized citizens groups, with the support of some officials, were vigorously opposed to integration.

People in each community would see the other’s stance as threats. Little did I know

that in three years I would return to the area — to help Oak Park.

“Open Up Berwyn.” That’s what the document was titled.

It was 1974. Now 21 years old, I had begun my two-day-a-week internship with Oak Park’s Community Relations Department (CRD).

I had earned my B.A. in three years, and was now in graduate school at UIC, studying Community Development and Planning. While in the CRD office one day, I noticed a list sitting on a desk that the Community Relations Commission had just compiled. The document enumerated the commission’s strategic priorities. The one at the top read, “Open Up Berwyn.”

My hometown across Roosevelt Road was the target of the agency now training me. Realty testing was one of CRD’s main tactics deployed against Berwyn’s closed posture. Posing as home buyers, CRD staff had documented how realtors drew on racial references in their sales language to steer white people to determinedly white suburbs, and Black people to Oak Park.

In fact, I stumbled into one variant of this practice in my parents’ home. My mom and dad had put their Berwyn house on the market. I was visiting with Mom one day when her realtor happened to be sitting on the couch. While explaining in an upbeat tone about how she would market my parents’ bungalow, the agent matter-of-factly related how she reminded prospective buyers that Oak Park was becoming a riskier place to move because of the way it was changing. As best I can remember, my mom, who had been attend-

RICH

KORDESH One View

ing Mass at Ascension Church in Oak Park and liked the community, muttered something awkward like “Ohhh …” And then the agent moved onto other matters pertinent to home selling.

I was sitting off to the side, listening, and thought, “Well, there it is. That’s how it happens.” The next day, back in the CRD office, I related the incident to Kris Ronnow, the CRD director, and my supervisor. He asked me if I would be willing to write it up in a complaint that the village attorney would review. I said sure, and I did.

A couple of weeks later, my mom called, sounding agitated. “Richard, what did you do?” She explained that her realtor had just called, very upset, stating that “your son” had filed a complaint against her agency, referencing what she had said in the living room. Now all of their staff would have to attend training. That’s often what the village negotiated when a complaint stuck: mandated training for real estate personnel in how to sell properties without racial bias.

I told Mom that, yes, I had done so, and explained why. She said she understood, but remarked, “That poor woman!” And that’s all the conversation I remember having about the matter with Mom or Dad. Realtor monitoring was actually not my assignment in the CRD. Rather, I was tasked with helping citizens create a forum in which they could discuss their concerns about the coming change. Most of the neighbors I met embraced the goal of racial diversity; some regretted the vil-

lage’s getting out ahead of other suburbs in pursuing it.

What came of the effort was a fledgling group, led by a Presbyterian pastor in the area, the “Beye-Whittier Community Council.” Folks were holding small group meetings at Dole Branch Library when I finished my internship in May 1975. I don’t know how long these forums lasted, at least under that name.

Twenty years later, I returned as a father of four to buy a house in Oak Park.

My wife, Maureen, and I raised our kids in a Victorian near Lake and Elmwood. One of my children attended Beye Elementary School; the others, Longfellow. One of them now owns a home in northeast Oak Park. Another teaches fifth grade in Berwyn.

Oak Park and Berwyn took different paths to diversity; each made progress in its own way.

Berwyn’s now longtime mayor had been a grade school classmate of one of my sisters at St. Mary’s. The affirmative statement about diversity on his city’s website shows how far the place has come.

I share these memories as another march flows past my apartment in Chicago’s South Loop. George Floyd’s murder in Minneapolis demands a deeper reckoning with the continuing reality of racism.

There is the obvious, flatly-stated hatred, as reflected in Charlie’s remarks after our basketball game. There are the veiled, thinly-disguised variants, evidenced by the realtor’s remarks in my mom’s living room.

Racial bias wears other masks, and hides in deeper layers, in me and around me, that I’m still trying to peel back.

OAKPARK.COM | RIVERFOREST.COM

Sr. Maureen Sauer, 85

Minister of music in Oak Park, River Forest Mary Therese Sauer, 85, died on June 19, 2020. Born on Sept. 15, 1934, in Des Moines, Iowa, she finished grade school and enrolled at Notre Dame High School in Chicago where she met the Sisters of Notre Dame de Namur.

Drawn by their simplicity of spirit, Mary Therese felt called to join the community. She entered at Mt. Notre Dame in Reading, Ohio on Sept. 8, 1952. As a novice, she was given the name Sister Maureen, and she would be known as Maureen for the rest of her life.

With the other novices, she prepared to teach and spent seven years teaching 5th-, 6thand 7th-graders. By then, her superiors had recognized her special gift for music. She was given a year to focus on finishing her B.A. in Music and earn a certification to teach piano.

Assigned to Notre Dame High School, Chicago, she taught religion, music and singing.

While in Chicago, she helped develop an innercity choir.

In 1975, Maureen began 22 years of service as minister of music at St. Catherine of Sienna-St. Lucy Parish in Oak Park. Both the neighborhood and parish were racially diverse in an era when integration was a huge issue. She was part of a group of four Sisters of Notre Dame who formed a community in the neighborhood called “Julie House” for the foundress of the Sisters of Notre Dame de Namur. Two of the Sisters were African American and two were white. Together, they lived as witness to the diversity of the Body of Christ and the Notre Dame value of unity in diversity.

She continued to minister at St. CatherineSt. Lucy until she was called to serve on the Ohio Province Leadership Team. Then she returned to Chicago. In 2000, she began 16 years of service in music ministry at St. Luke Parish in River Forest. Rehearsing multiple choirs, planning liturgies and playing for liturgies of all types, filled her days and evenings.

She also taught voice to undergraduates at near-by universities and gave private lessons regardless of her students’ ability to pay. Maureen also served as a vocal specialist for the

O B I T U A R I E S Chicago Archdiocesan Cantor Training Program and did extensive work as a presenter for GIA Publications and the National Association of Pastoral Musicians.

Maureen also sang with the Lyric Opera Chorus and other groups in Chicago, simply for the joy of singing. She enjoyed music and singing so much she once said she couldn’t imagine ever retiring or doing anything else.

“I am blessed to know the goodness of God in my ministry to God’s people through music.

Music is a way for me to pray. Can there be a greater gift?”

Mike Shanahan, 64 Furniture craftsman, designer

Clark Michael “Mike” Shanahan, 64, of Oak Park, formerly of Owosso, Michigan, died on July 1 of COVID-19 complications.

Born in Owosso on July 12, 1955 to Clark and JoAnn (Kelley) Shanahan, after his early years in Durand, he moved with his family to Owosso where he attended Owosso public schools.

He left Owosso to attend the Farallones Institute in California. While there, he met a group of French architects, whom he would later join in a design/build venture in Paris, working as a cabinet and furniture designer and builder.

His first night in Paris, at the age of 22, Mike met the love of his life, Marie-Hélène Roudaut, who would become his wife of 42 years.

He would go on to have his own woodworking shops in and around Paris. A craftsman with a finely-honed aesthetic, and a natural engineer, his clients included Chanel; the actress Delphine Seyrig (at whose home he met Samuel Beckett); the Manufacture Nationale des Gobelins (where he helped restore an 18thcentury loom); and a small alimentary business in St. Maur, for which he made a truffle washer. His porte-cochère (coach gate) for the courtyard building, which also housed his first shop, can still be seen in Paris. He greatly admired French culture, and later on in life received a B.A. from UIC in French.

In the U.S., he was the primary designer and craftsman in the transformation of a 1930s barn into a residence for his parents. In Chicago, he produced work for the Museum of Contemporary Art, and Tigerman and McCurry, among others.

An excellent cook, he was also a passionate advocate for racial, social, environmental, and economic justice. This led, as his friends and family can attest, to many fine and memorable meals, followed by lively and enlightening discussions.

He adored his family, and was enthralled with his grandchildren. He loved nothing more than taking his first grandchild, Elliot, on walks, hand-in-hand.

Mike was predeceased by his parents. His survivors include his wife, Marie-Hélène Shanahan; his children, Matthieu Shanahan (April Paulson); Claire (Matthew) Senn of Brookfield, and their children, Elliot and Louise; and Alice (Carlos) Robles-Shanahan of Chicago, and their child, Oliver. He is also survived by his siblings, Kathleen Shanahan (Joseph Hlavacek); Thomas Shanahan (Mariann Watson); Matthew Shanahan (Carla Weiler of Oak Park; and Susan (Jeffrey) Phillips of Owosso.

Due to the pandemic, the memorial will be held at a date and place to be determined.

Any contributions in his name can be made to Black Lives Matter, the Poor People’s Campaign, or the Cornell Lab of Ornithology.

Mike’s life and death are a reminder to us all to put public safety and the common good ahead of our individual wants.

Kyrian Good, 34 Foodie, chef at Sox park

Kyrian Darleen Good, 34, of Oak Park, former resident of Forest Park, died on Saturday May 30, 2020.

A foodie, she played piano by ear, was a fan of David Bowie, the Princess Bride, Doctor Who, Labyrinth, Marvel comics, KYRIAN GOOD cooking shows, craft beer, all kinds of music, was an avid reader and loved bookstores, a connoisseur of tea, and an animal lover, and her favorite dessert was cheesecake.

She worked at White Sox stadium for the 2019 season as a supervisor of the kitchen behind home plate. As a chef, she loved that job

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Wednesday Journal, July 15, 2020

25

and often brought leftovers to homeless people she would see on her way home.

Kyrian Good is survived by her beloved daughters Ever Mae Good, Fey Marie GoodDahmani, and Brynmawr Effie Good; her mother, Susan Bohanon; her uncle, Mark Bohanon; her grandfather Jack (Karen) Bohanon; her dog, Achilles; and numerous aunts, uncles, and cousins in Kansas. Her grandmother, Elisia Rattazzi preceded her in 2017.

Please contact her mother, Susan Bohanon, for service information.

Mary Louise Donlin, 81

Music lover and gardener Mary Louise “Weezie” Donlin (nee Salg), 81, of River Forest, died on July 4 2020. Born in Oak Park on July 12, 1938, she grew up in Oak Park, attended St Giles Grade School and graduated from Trinity High School MARY LOUISE in 1956 and Barat ColDONLIN lege in 1960. A homemaker and volunteer, she had a green thumb, was a music lover, patriot, and avid sports fan, and loved entertaining at their home in River Forest and spending time at their farm in Baraboo, Wisconsin. She will be sorely missed but never forgotten.

Weezie Donlin was the wife of the late Terence James (Terry) Donlin, whom she married on June 3, 1961, the mother of Mary Brigid “Molly” (Steve) Dee, Terence James “TJ” Donlin, Susan Greta (Ed) Dunphy, Annie (Armin Wigger) Donlin and Michael (Annette) Donlin.

A private Mass was celebrated on July 8 at St Giles Catholic Church in Oak Park. Interment took place at Queen of Heaven Cemetery Hillside.

Donations to UCP Sequin Services Cicero, https://ucpseguin.org, and Misericordia, https://www.misericordia.com, are appreciated.

Arrangements were handled by Ahern Cremation and Funeral Services.

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Wednesday Journal, July 15, 2020

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HAPPY KIDD’S WEST INC. 6928 W 16th St Berwyn, IL 60513 We are seeking a Director and 2 teachers. Director must be qualiďŹ ed and have Associate’s degree or equivalent. Teachers must be director or teacher qualiďŹ ed. Mon. thru Fri. working with Infants to 6 yrs old. Compensable salary negotiable based on experience.

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MEDICAL SERVICE MANAGER Dr. David Cavazos, D.C. LLC. Seeks Medical Service Manager.

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BETTY’S DAYCARE IS HIRING! We are looking for a qualiďŹ ed Assistant Director (also looking for qualiďŹ ed teachers and assistant teachers), must have a bachelor in Early Childhood Education. experience with Head Start is a plus. email resume to: bettydaycaremr.evans@hotmail. com or call 773-261-1433 Betty’s Daycare Academy Inc. 5725 W. Chicago Ave. Chicago Il. 60651

River Forest D90 has openings for Temporary Daytime Custodians starting August 25, 2020.

Responsible for cleaning of buildings and grounds, as assigned. A strong work ethic, interpersonal skills and custodial experience is required. Salary commensurate with experience.

For consideration, please send resume to Pam Jenkins, HR Specialist at jenkinsp@ district90.org.

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Find The Best Employees With Wednesday Classified!

Call 708/613-3333

River Forest D90 has an opening for a 2nd Grade Teacher for Willard Elementary School.

Qualifications: Valid Illinois Professional Educator License with Elementary Grade School Endorsement. Successful Teaching Experience is preferred. A Master’s Degree is preferred.

Job Duties: The teacher will be responsible for teaching the curriculum and working cooperatively with colleagues including: grade level teammates, the Student Services Team, other faculty and support staff. The teacher will be responsible for building relationships with students, supervising and managing the class, effectively teaching the curriculum to meet the individual needs of students, evaluating individual student’s progress, and communicating progress with children and parents.

Application Procedure: Interested candidates should complete the online application available at district90.org. Please do not send hard copies of supporting documentation, i.e., cover letters, resumes, licensure, etc. to River Forest Schools District 90; instead, upload these materials onto the online job application system for proper processing.

River Forest Public Schools District 90 Student Support Services - Vacancies for the 2020-2021 School Year For detailed qualifications requirements and job duties, please visit our website at https:// www.district90.org/about/ employment for our complete list of employment opportunities.

District 90 is seeking qualified and experienced student support educators for the following positions: • Special Education Support Teacher (Willard Elementary School) • Special Education Multi-Tiered Systems of Support Coordinator (All D90 Schools) • Speech and Language Pathologist (Roosevelt Middle School)

General Qualifications: Valid Illinois Professional Education License with endorsement in field of study, a Master’s Degree is preferred and successful teaching experience with students in a classroom setting is preferred.

General Duties: Provide excellence in education by developing and implementing activities that encourage students to be life-long learners. Possesses knowledge of District policies and regulations relating to areas of responsibilities. Create an environment that is conducive to learning and appropriate to the developmental maturity and interests of each student.

Application: Apply online at www.district90. org. Application Procedure: Interested candidates should complete the online application available at district90.org. Please do not send hard copies of supporting documentation, i.e. cover letters, resumes, licensure, etc. to River Forest Schools District 90; instead, upload these materials onto the online job application system for proper processing.

Advertise in Wednesday Classified. Call 708/613-3342

ROOMS FOR RENT AUSTIN CLEAN ROOM With fridge, micro.

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OFFICE SPACE FOR RENT THERAPY OFFICES FOR RENT Therapy ofďŹ ces for rent in north Oak Park. Rehabbed building. Nicely furnished. Flexible leasing. Free parking. Free wiďŹ ; Secure building; Friendly colleagues providing referrals. Shared waiting room; optional Conference. Call or email with questions. Shown on Sundays.

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CEMETERY PLOTS 2 WOODLAWN CEMETERY PLOTS (2) Side by side Woodlawn Cemetery plots. Birchwood Section Lot 415 Part 4 Graves 3&4 unit D. $4,000 for both, includes transfer fees. I will meet at Woodlawn for transfer of deeds. Contact: 847-858-7726

ITEMS FOR SALE BUMPER POOL TABLE $29.00 708-488-8755 LENOX CHINA 5 piece place settings Lenox china, Tuxedo pattern IRISH CARDIGAN Men’s size large.

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Wednesday Journal, July 15, 2020

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PUBLIC NOTICES PUBLIC NOTICE STATE OF ILLINOIS COUNTY OF COOK VILLAGE OF FOREST PARK I, VANESSA MORITZ, CLERK OF THE VILLAGE OF FOREST PARK, DO HEREBY STATE, that on Monday, July 27, 2020, at 6:45 PM at the Forest Park Village Hall, 517 Desplaines Avenue, Forest Park, Illinois, a public hearing will be held to consider the proposed adoption of the Appropriation Ordinance for fiscal year 2020-2021 for the Village of Forest Park. At the public hearing, all interested persons may provide comments concerning the appropriation of the sums of money the Village of Forest Park deems necessary to defray all its necessary expenses and liabilities. The appropriation document will be available for public inspection no later than July 17, 2020, in the Village Clerk’s Office at the Village of Forest Park, 517 DesPlaines Ave., Forest Park, Illinois.

Dated this 15th day of July, 2020 Vanessa Moritz Clerk, Village of Forest Park Published in Forest Park Review 07/15/2020

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LEGAL NOTICE Notice is hereby given of the availability of funding from a Village of Oak Park Business Assistance Loan Program using $300,000 in federal CARES Act Community Development Block Grant-Corona Virus funding. The program is focused on helping small Oak Park businesses that have been negatively impacted by the outbreak of COVID-19.

Oak Park Business Assistance Loans up to $5,000 each will be available to registered local businesses with 10 or fewer employees and average annual gross business receipts of less than $2,000,000. To be eligible, businesses must have experienced a 30 percent or more loss in revenue due to the COVID-19 outbreak. If the business retains at least one full-time-equivalent low or moderate income employee for the first three months after receipt of loan funds, the loan will be forgiven. Funds can be used for operating expenses including payroll and rent. Funds cannot to be used for equipment purchases, construction or expansion-related costs. Businesses that are chains or franchises are not eligible.

Participation in the Oak Park Business Assistance Loan Program requires the completion of an application form. All applications must be complete with signed and dated documents. Additional, more detailed information about the loan program, including the application form, can be found on the Village’s website at www.oakpark.us/covid19businessloan.

Loan applications may be submitted electronically to Business@ oak-park.us beginning at 9 a.m., July 28. No program applications will be accepted prior to this time and date. Loan applications submitted before this time and date will not be considered and must be re-submitted. Applications will be considered on a first-come firstserved basis for 30 days. Contact Jeff Prior with any questions or comments at jprior@oak-park.us.

Published in Wednesday Journal July 15, 2020

PUBLIC NOTICES

PUBLIC NOTICES

NOTICE OF VIRTUAL NEIGHBORHOOD MEETING Date: Tuesday, August 4, on ZOOM Virtual Meeting Service www.Zoom.us About Zoom: It’s free for you to view! Watch it from your phone, tablet or computer, live when at the meeting time or later as a recording. Or alternatively, dial in just like a conference call.

Time: 7:00 pm to 8:00 pm Virtual Location (will feature video presentation and drawings of the project): Zoom Invite Link: https://us02web.zoom. us/j/3124378292?pwd=N1BxOEd1SEhreVF3dGNDQWNmYitlQT09 or request link by email to Tim.Pomaville@AmbrosiaHomesInc.com Meeting ID: 312 437 8292 Meeting Password: ambrosia

Alternatively, just dial in like a conference call: Call 415-762-9988 at the time of the meeting. Use the meeting ID and Password above.

Subject Property Address(es): 261 Washington, Oak Park, IL Proposed Development: New construction, 5 story, 28-unit apartment building with 28 on-site parking spots Purpose of Meeting: Pre-Planned Development Submittal Discussion To submit comments call or email Contact: Tim Pomaville, Ambrosia Homes, 312-437-8292, Tim.Pomaville@AmbrosiaHomesInc. com If you can’t make the meeting: We will record it and post it on YouTube for you to watch later!

Published in Wednesday Journal July 15, 2020

REAL ESTATE FOR SALE

REAL ESTATE FOR SALE

IN THE CIRCUIT COURT OF COOK COUNTY, ILLINOIS COUNTY DEPARTMENT CHANCERY DIVISION NEWREZ LLC D/B/A SHELLPOINT MORTGAGE SERVICING Plaintiff, -v.JUANITA J. EDWARDS Defendants 2018 CH 05854 301 48TH AVENUE BELLWOOD, IL 60104 NOTICE OF SALE PUBLIC NOTICE IS HEREBY GIVEN that pursuant to a Judgment of Foreclosure and Sale entered in the above cause on February 3, 2020, an agent for The Judicial Sales Corporation, will at 10:30 AM on August 6, 2020, at The Judicial Sales Corporation, One South Wacker Drive, CHICAGO, IL, 60606, sell at a public sale to the highest bidder, as set forth below, the following described real estate: Commonly known as 301 48TH AVENUE, BELLWOOD, IL 60104 Property Index No. 15-08-229-0010000 The real estate is improved with a single family residence.

Sale terms: 25% down of the highest bid by certified funds at the close of the sale payable to The Judicial Sales Corporation. No third party checks will be accepted. The balance, including the Judicial Sale fee for the Abandoned Residential Property Municipality Relief Fund, which is calculated on residential real estate at the rate of $1 for each $1,000 or fraction thereof of the amount paid by the purchaser not to exceed $300, in certified funds/ or wire transfer, is due within twenty-four (24) hours. No fee shall be paid by the mortgagee acquiring the residential real estate pursuant to its credit bid at the sale or by any mortgagee, judgment creditor, or other lienor acquiring the residential real estate whose rights in and to the residential real estate arose prior to the sale. The subject property is subject to general real estate taxes, special assessments, or special taxes levied against said real estate and is offered for sale without any representation as to quality or quantity of title and without recourse to Plaintiff and in “AS IS” condition. The sale is further subject to confirmation by the court.

Upon payment in full of the amount bid, the purchaser will receive a Certificate of Sale that will entitle the purchaser to a deed to the real estate after confirmation of the sale.

The property will NOT be open for inspection and plaintiff makes no representation as to the condition of

the property. Prospective bidders are admonished to check the court file to verify all information.

If this property is a condominium unit, the purchaser of the unit at the foreclosure sale, other than a mortgagee, shall pay the assessments and the legal fees required

by The Condominium Property Act, 765 ILCS 605/9(g)(1) and (g)(4).

If this property is a condominium unit which is part of a common interest community, the purchaser of the unit at the foreclosure sale other than a mortgagee shall pay the assessments required by The Condominium Property Act, 765 ILCS 605/18.5(g-1).

IF YOU ARE THE MORTGAGOR (HOMEOWNER), YOU HAVE THE RIGHT TO REMAIN IN POSSESSION FOR 30 DAYS AFTER ENTRY OF AN ORDER OF POSSESSION, IN ACCORDANCE WITH SECTION 15-1701(C) OF THE ILLINOIS MORTGAGE FORECLOSURE LAW. You will need a photo identification issued by a government agency (driver’s license, passport, etc.) in order to gain entry into our building and the foreclosure sale room in Cook County and the same identification for sales held at other county venues where The Judicial Sales Corporation conducts foreclosure sales.

For information, examine the court file, CODILIS & ASSOCIATES, P.C. Plaintiff’s Attorneys, 15W030 NORTH FRONTAGE ROAD, SUITE 100, BURR RIDGE, IL, 60527 (630) 794-9876 THE JUDICIAL SALES CORPORATION One South Wacker Drive, 24th Floor, Chicago, IL 60606-4650 (312) 236SALE You can also visit The Judicial Sales Corporation at www.tjsc.com for a 7 day status report of pending sales.

CODILIS & ASSOCIATES, P.C. 15W030 NORTH FRONTAGE ROAD, SUITE 100 BURR RIDGE IL, 60527 630-794-5300 E-Mail: pleadings@il.cslegal.com Attorney File No. 14-17-05268 Attorney ARDC No. 00468002 Attorney Code. 21762 Case Number: 2018 CH 05854 TJSC#: 40-1864 NOTE: Pursuant to the Fair Debt Collection Practices Act, you are advised that Plaintiff’s attorney is deemed to be a debt collector attempting to collect a debt and any information obtained will be used for that purpose.

Case # 2018 CH 05854 I3152386

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REAL ESTATE FOR SALE

REAL ESTATE FOR SALE

REAL ESTATE FOR SALE

IN THE CIRCUIT COURT OF COOK COUNTY, ILLINOIS COUNTY DEPARTMENT CHANCERY DIVISION U.S. BANK NATIONAL ASSOCIATION AS LEGAL TITLE TRUSTEE FOR TRUMAN 2016 SC6 TITLE TRUST Plaintiff, -v.EDILBERTO V. VERZO, MARCELINA C. VERZO, UNKNOWN OWNERS AND NONRECORD CLAIMANTS Defendants 2019 CH 05533 300-302 NORTH CUYLER AVENUE OAK PARK, IL 60302 NOTICE OF SALE PUBLIC NOTICE IS HEREBY GIVEN that pursuant to a Judgment of Foreclosure and Sale entered in the above cause on January 23, 2020, an agent for The Judicial Sales Corporation, will at 10:30 AM on August 5, 2020, at The Judicial Sales Corporation, One South Wacker Drive, CHICAGO, IL, 60606, sell at a public sale to the highest bidder, as set forth below, the following described real estate: Commonly known as 300-302 NORTH CUYLER AVENUE, OAK PARK, IL 60302 Property Index No. 16-08-107-0090000 The real estate is improved with a single family residence.

Sale terms: 25% down of the highest bid by certified funds at the close of the sale payable to The Judicial Sales Corporation. No third party checks will be accepted. The balance, including the Judicial Sale fee for the Abandoned Residential Property Municipality Relief Fund, which is calculated on residential real estate at the rate of $1 for each $1,000 or fraction thereof of the amount paid by the purchaser not to exceed $300, in certified funds/ or wire transfer, is due within twenty-four (24) hours. No fee shall be paid by the mortgagee acquiring the residential real estate pursuant to its credit bid at the sale or by any mortgagee, judgment creditor, or other lienor acquiring the residential real estate whose rights in and to the residential real estate arose prior to the sale. The subject property is subject to general real estate taxes, special assessments, or special taxes levied against said real estate and is offered for sale without any representation as to quality or quantity of title and without recourse to Plaintiff and in “AS IS” condition. The sale is further subject to confirmation by the court.

Upon payment in full of the amount bid, the purchaser will receive a Certificate of Sale that will entitle the purchaser to a deed to the real estate after confirmation of the sale.

The property will NOT be open for inspection and plaintiff makes no representation as to the condition of the property. Prospective bidders are admonished to check the court file to verify all information.

If this property is a condominium unit, the purchaser of the unit at the foreclosure sale, other than a mortgagee, shall pay the assessments and the legal fees required

by The Condominium Property Act, 765 ILCS 605/9(g)(1) and (g)(4).

If this property is a condominium unit which is part of a common interest community, the purchaser of the unit at the foreclosure sale other than a mortgagee shall pay the assessments required by The Condominium Property Act, 765 ILCS 605/18.5(g-1).

IF YOU ARE THE MORTGAGOR (HOMEOWNER), YOU HAVE THE RIGHT TO REMAIN IN POSSESSION FOR 30 DAYS AFTER ENTRY OF AN ORDER OF POSSESSION, IN ACCORDANCE WITH SECTION 15-1701(C) OF THE ILLINOIS MORTGAGE FORECLOSURE LAW. You will need a photo identification issued by a government agency (driver’s license, passport, etc.) in order to gain entry into our building and the foreclosure sale room in Cook County and the same identification for sales held at other county venues where The Judicial Sales Corporation conducts foreclosure sales.

For information, examine the court file, CODILIS & ASSOCIATES, P.C. Plaintiff’s Attorneys, 15W030 NORTH FRONTAGE ROAD, SUITE 100, BURR RIDGE, IL, 60527 (630)

794-9876 THE JUDICIAL SALES CORPORATION One South Wacker Drive, 24th Floor, Chicago, IL 60606-4650 (312) 236SALE You can also visit The Judicial Sales Corporation at www.tjsc.com for a 7 day status report of pending sales.

CODILIS & ASSOCIATES, P.C. 15W030 NORTH FRONTAGE ROAD, SUITE 100 BURR RIDGE IL, 60527 630-794-5300 E-Mail: pleadings@il.cslegal.com Attorney File No. 14-19-04111 Attorney ARDC No. 00468002 Attorney Code. 21762 Case Number: 2019 CH 05533 TJSC#: 40-1758 NOTE: Pursuant to the Fair Debt Collection Practices Act, you are advised that Plaintiff’s attorney is deemed to be a debt collector attempting to collect a debt and any information obtained will be used for that purpose.

Case # 2019 CH 05533 I3152479

For information call Mr. Joseph R. Ziccardi at Plaintiff’s Attorney, Ziccardi Law Offices, 77 West Washington Street, Chicago, Illinois 60602. (312) 372-3477.

INTERCOUNTY JUDICIAL SALES CORPORATION intercountyjudicialsales.com I3152055

IN THE CIRCUIT COURT OF COOK COUNTY, ILLINOIS COUNTY DEPARTMENT CHANCERY DIVISION IL LENDING LLC, A FOREIGN LIMITED LIABILITY COMPANY; Plaintiff, vs.

PALAJI BROTHERS & POLLAK INVESTMENTS, LLC, A FOREIGN LIMITED LIABILITY COMPANY, AND ANY UNKNOWN OWNERS & NON-RECORD CLAIMANTS; Defendants, 19 CH 14294 NOTICE OF SALE PUBLIC NOTICE IS HEREBY GIVEN that pursuant to a Judgment of Foreclosure and Sale entered in the above entitled cause Intercounty Judicial Sales Corporation will on Tuesday, August 4, 2020 at the hour of 11 a.m. in their office at 120 West Madison Street, Suite 718A, Chicago, Illinois, sell at public auction to the highest bidder for cash, as set forth below, the following described mortgaged real estate: P.I.N. 16-05-106-031-0000.

Commonly known as 6 LeMoyne Parkway, Oak Park, IL 60302.

The mortgaged real estate is improved with a single family residence. If the subject mortgaged real estate is a unit of a common interest community, the purchaser of the unit other than a mortgagee shall pay the assessments required by subsection (g-1) of Section 18.5 of the Condominium Property Act. Sale terms: 10% down by certified funds, balance, by certified funds, within 24 hours. No refunds. The property will NOT be open for inspection

IN THE CIRCUIT COURT OF COOK COUNTY, ILLINOIS COUNTY DEPARTMENT CHANCERY DIVISION NATIONSTAR MORTGAGE LLC D/B/A MR. COOPER Plaintiff, vs.

ELENA F. MARROQUIN A/K/A ELENA FIGUEROA INDIVIDUALLY AND AS GUARDIAN FOR CHRISTIAN MARROQUIN AND NICHOLAS MARROQUIN, JP MORGAN CHASE BANK, N.A., MARIELENA SANTANA INDIVIDUALLY AND AS PERSONAL REPRESENTATIVE FOR THE ESTATE OF RICCARDO A. MARROQUIN A/K/A RICCARDO MARROQUIN, UNKNOWN OWNERS AND NONRECORD CLAIMANTS Defendants, 17 CH 954 NOTICE OF SALE PUBLIC NOTICE IS HEREBY GIVEN that pursuant to a Judgment of Foreclosure and Sale entered in the above entitled cause Intercounty Judicial Sales Corporation will on Monday, August 3, 2020 at the hour of 11 a.m. in their office at 120 West Madison Street, Suite 718A, Chicago, Illinois, sell at public auction to the highest bidder for cash, as set forth below, the following described mortgaged real estate: P.I.N. 16-07-420-011.

Commonly known as 425 S. EAST AVE., OAK PARK, IL 60302.

The mortgaged real estate is improved with a single family residence. If the subject mortgaged real estate is a unit of a common interest community, the purchaser of the unit other than a mortgagee shall pay the assessments required by subsection (g-1) of Section 18.5 of the Condominium Property Act. Sale terms: 10% down by certified funds, balance, by certified funds, within 24 hours. No refunds. The property will NOT be open for inspection.

For information call Mr. Ira T. Nevel at Plaintiff’s Attorney, Law Offices of Ira T. Nevel, 175 North Franklin Street, Chicago, Illinois 60606. (312) 357-1125. 17-00157 INTERCOUNTY JUDICIAL SALES CORPORATION intercountyjudicialsales.com I3152051

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Wednesday Journal, July 15, 2020

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Property transfers p. B10

July 15, 2020

Homes

Powered by the Oak Park Area Association of Realtors

Battle erupts over rezoning Home Avenue historic property Developers open to talks with neighbors

By LACEY SIKORA Contributing Reporter

O

n the 300 block of South Home Avenue in Oak Park, the COVID-19 pandemic delayed but didn’t end a heated debate over proposed new development and increased density in Oak Park’s Ridgeland Historic District.

The controversy centers on two lots -- 327 S. Home Ave., site of a former single-family home long ago converted to four rental units, and, 329 S. Home Ave., which is vacant green space.

For many neighbors, the first hint that the area was the site of a proposed 16-unit development came in March when a village sign announced public hearings on the developer’s request for a zoning change.

The property sold in August 2019 for $785,000, to Mazola Home Ave. LLC, a development company managed by Claudia Mazola, a real estate

broker affiliated with New West Realty in Chicago, which is managed by former Chicago Alderman Ted Mazola.

River Forest architect John Schiess is designing the project. Schiess has been involved with many local developments, including the Oasis townhouse project on Chestnut Lane, located behind the proposed Home Avenue development.

Now though the tensions are not just between neighbors and the developers. Instead Ted Mazola said Monday that Schiess had “misrepresented” what current zoning allows to be built. In an R5 district only a two-flat can be constructed.

The original plan developed with Schiess called for 16 units plus the renovated four-flat next door.

Mazola, who said he has always wanted to meet directly with neighbors, said he would plan a meeting and “listen to their concerns.”

He said he understands the size of any project will now be notably reduced but that he would ask neighbors to support “building something more than a deuce (two-flat).”

Original plans for the vacant parcel of land See HOME AVE. on page B4

ALEX ROGALS/Staff Photographer

AT ISSUE: Neighbors are at odds with a developer who sought to build an L-shaped 16-unit development that would occupy greenspace (inset) and wrap around the home at 327 S. Home Ave. (above).

July 15, 2020 ■ Wednesday Journal/Forest Park Review

B1

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800 S Oak Park Ave, #3S Oak Park | $205,000 Swati Saxena

1138 Washington Blvd, #3 Oak Park | $185,000 Saretta Joyner

337 S Maple Ave, Unit 32 Oak Park | $160,000 Bobbi Eastman

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B2 View more at OakPark.com/Real-Estate ■ July 15, 2020

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COLDWELLBANKERHOMES.COM Oak Park 114 N. Oak Park Avenue, Oak Park | 708.524.1100 The property information herein is derived from various sources that may include, but not be limited to, county records and the Multiple Listing Service, and it may include approximations. Although the information is believed to be accurate, it is not warranted and you should not rely upon it without personal verification. Real estate agents affiliated with Coldwell Banker Realty are independent contractor sales associates, not employees. ©2020 Coldwell Banker Realty. All Rights Reserved. Coldwell Banker Realty fully supports the principles of the Fair Housing Act and the Equal Opportunity Act. Owned by a subsidiary of NRT LLC. Coldwell Banker and the Coldwell Banker Logo are registered service marks owned by Coldwell Banker Realty LLC.

July 15, 2020 ■ Wednesday Journal/Forest Park Review

B3

ZONING

Neighbors oppose from page B1 called for an L-shaped building that would wrap around the rear of the existing building at 327 S. Home Ave. The combined total number of units in the two buildings, 16, exceeded the current zoning allotment, which necessitated a public hearing and Oak Park Plan Commission approval.

Craig Failor, Oak Park’s village planner, says the Plan Commission’s April 2 hearing had to be cancelled due to the pandemic, and says the village is awaiting guidance from the governor on when and how to resume public meetings.

According to Failor, the developer had sought a zoning map amendment, not a variance. Currently 327 and 329 S. Home Ave., like the rest of the homes to the north and east on the block, are zoned R5, or two-family.

The four-unit apartment building at 327 S. Home Ave. was grandfathered in. To the south, is a multi-unit condominium building, zoned R7, the highest class of multifamily. The developers sought to change the zoning for the lots to R6, on the lower end of multifamily zoning, which would allow their development to accommodate the proposed 16 units.

In addition to the new L-shaped building, plans called for the existing four-unit building to be altered, including adding a front porch and two front dormers, so the architectural styles of the two buildings matched.

And after getting pushback on the proposal during a meeting of the Historic Preservation Commission on June 17, developers are considering changing direction, though Schiess said all options remained on the table.

Earlier this month, Schiess told Wednesday Journal that he wanted to work within existing zoning and advocated for a smaller development, an eight-unit building, at 329 S. Home Ave.

RENDERINGS COURTESY OF JOHN C. SCHIESS

NEW LOOK: The site plan (above) initially showed a new multifamily structure would be located to the south of the existing two-story home, while facade renderings (below) showed the existing home’s facade would be modified to match the style of the new construction.

However, after acknowledging that the existing zoning designation of R5 prohibits any dwelling larger than two units, Schiess said, “My recommendation to the developers is to work with the neighbors. It’s not my call. I laid out all of the options and the developers will decide.”

Prior to the June 17 meeting, the Historic Preservation Commission received one letter signed by 35 neighbors and 18 other letters in opposition to the initial proposal.

After the meeting, neighbors mounted an opposition campaign via their Facebook page Preserve Home Avenue and a petition on Change.org. Many of those opposed say that they are not anti-development but that they are against a development of this size in an historic district.

Heinz Schuler, who has lived in his 1890sera home on the block for 13 years, is one of those neighbors opposed to the project. He states that he is not anti-development and would welcome a scale-appropriate two-flat on the vacant lot, but he believes that the

B4 View more at OakPark.com/Real-Estate ■ July 15, 2020

proposed project is too large for the street.

“It’s not in the character of the homes on the block. It’s massive,” Schuler said. “We’re looking at 16 units on two residential lots.

It’s nothing like any of the homes we have on the street.”

Schuler also believes that granting the zoning amendment would set a bad precedent. “The argument from the developer is that this could create transitional zoning,” Schuler said. “If they do that here, what’s to stop it from happening in other areas in the village? If the village values the historic districts, to allow developers to chip away at that is concerning.”

Neighbor Charles Watkins, who lives directly across the street from the proposed development is also opposed.

“I think everybody is opposed to it as far as I know,” Watkins said. “People are up in arms, and I think justifiably so.”

He also cited the developer’s lack of ties to the Oak Park area, stating, “It strikes me as a cash-grab kind of development. It’s purely

money-driven.”

Watkins, along with Schuler, also points to the 2014 Envision Oak Park Comprehensive Plan, which was meant to inform landuse decisions in the village. Among other things, that plan states that “village government should ensure that historic development is properly preserved, and new development appropriately complements the existing character of the community.”

The Historic Preservation Commission is involved in the process, said Susie Trexler, historic preservation urban planner for the village, because the commission is tasked with “consider[ing] the long-term compatibility of the proposed zoning action” with other structures within a given historic district.

In addition, the commission applies the village’s Architectural Review Guidelines in discussing proposed new buildings’ design.

At the June 17 meeting, historic preservation commissioners voiced their opposition to the proposed zoning changes.

Commissioners also considered the proposed design, discussing the streetscape, the size and scale of the proposed building, the style, the roof design, the external walkway and whether it is appropriate to attach the new building to the rear of the historic building at 327 Home Ave. Many of the commissioners expressed concerns about the new building abutting the existing condominiums next door, as well as extending the front setback 25 feet closer to the street than 327 S. Home Ave. and neighboring houses.

At the meeting, Schiess pointed out that the size of the proposal met current site setback requirements and argued that the streetscape remained the same.

Interviewed after the virtual meeting, Schiess says he and the development team contend that a transitional zoning classification of R6 makes sense. He added that the project’s design complements the historic neighborhood.

“Out of the gate, I thought this was a really good fit,” Schiess said.

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Laura Gancer Lisa Grimes Dan Halperin Sharon Halperin Greg Jaroszewski Vee Jaroszewski Noa Klima Jack Lattner

1210 N ELMWOOD • OAK PARK OPEN SUNDAY 13

Iris McCormick Vince McFadden Elizabeth Moroney Colleen Navigato John Pappas Rosa Pitassi Sue Ponzio-Pappas Jenny Ruland

Laurel Saltzman Laurie Shapiro Tom Sullivan Debbie Watts George Wohlford Nancy Wohlford Randy Ernst • 773-290-0307

1225 N EUCLID • OAK PARK OPEN SUNDAY 13

NE W LIS TI NG!

629 S RIDGELAND • OAK PARK

N E W L ISTIN G!

LIGHTFILLED HOME with hardwood floors and central air throughout! Welcoming foyer, large LR that opens to the DR. Kitchen has table/family room area. 4 BRs, 3 full baths. Dry finished bsmt rec room + addl guest room/office & laundry room.

Neutral decor is move-in ready! ....................................... $429,000

BEAUTIFUL SIDE ENTRANCE COLONIAL with 4 BRs, 2 full & 1 half baths features a spacious center family room, cooks’ kitchen with mud room, gas fireplace, built-in shelving & art glass windows. Beautiful woodwork & hardwood floors throughout.

Finished LL. Front & back heated walkway...................... $639,000

CLASSIC CHARACTER & VINTAGE CHARM are found throughout this 3BR/2.5BA side entrance Dutch Colonial home in Historic Oak Park. Expansive LR with crown moldings, fireplace with builtin bookshelves, hardwood floors, first fl den/office, eat-in kitchen.

Finished rec room in bsmt................................................. $525,000

WONDERFUL OPPORTUNITY! Large Foyer with an Art Glass Window and Built-In Bench, LR features 2 Stained Glass Windows.

DR has 2 Built-Ins and 5 more matching Stained Glass Windows.

Enclosed back porch. Wide Lot accommodates a side drive leading to a two-car garage ............................................................$299,950

221 KEYSTONE • RIVER FOREST

1130 LATHROP • RIVER FOREST OPEN SUNDAY 112

1131 FRANKLIN • RIVER FOREST

1414 FOREST • RIVER FOREST

PRI CE RED U C E D! BEAUTIFUL, CLASSIC HOME offers everything for today’s modern living. Custom-built home has the highest quality finishes. No detail was missed. Brick and stone exterior, wrap around porch, eleven-foot ceilings and oversized windows. LL has 2,000 feet of living area. ........................................................................$1,385,000

RIVER FOREST HOMES

STUNNING CUSTOM BUILT HOME on a corner lot. The elegant interior offers fine detail and wonderful space throughout. Impressive foyer, beautiful staircase, serene master suite, two laundry rooms, fully finished impressive LL. Offers incredible value and luxury from top to bottom! .........................................................................................$1,895,000 BURMA BUILT BUHRKE HOUSE combines Tudor revival & chateau style architecture elements. Gorgeous décor and impeccable attention to detail and care found in house and landscaped grounds, extends to fabulous in ground pool and patios. Perfect for entertaining. ................................................................................................ $1,795,000 COMPLETE REIMAGINATION of a 1923 Burma built Estate Home into a totally redone 2020 beautiful house. Top of the line highest quality throughout. Features 5 bedrooms, 4 full and 2 half baths, a fireplace, vaulted ceiling, family room, 1st FL office, mudroom. LL has 2 large family/game rooms......................................................................$1,549,500 ELEGANT CRAFTSMANSHIP can be found throughout this 5 BR French Normandy home. Sophistication is evident from the moment you walk in the door. Impressive foyer, formal LR with fireplace and built-in benches, family room, separate formal DR, updated kitchen, home office. ..................................................................................$1,199,000

STATELY HOME situated on an oversized lot with circular drive and attached garage. This home boasts an expansive LR with 8.5’ ceilings and fireplace, formal DR, 1st FL fam rm, and kitchen with breakfast room. Hardwood floors, library, lots of storage, impressive lower level. .................................................................. $990,000

PRICE REDUCED FABULOUS MOVEIN READY custom home built in 2003 offers 4 BRs, 2 full/2 half baths. Features include an open floor plan, Butler’s pantry connecting kitchen with the LR/DR combo, fam rm w/wood burning fireplace, 1st FL private office built for 2. This house has everything you need and want! .................$1,150,000 ELEGANT HOME located on a picturesque River Forest block!

This stately 5 BR, 3 full/2 half bath home includes four floors of living with two finished family rooms, a large study and three fireplaces.

Large sun-drenched rooms with elegant cove molding and windows.

In-ground outdoor pool. ............................................................... $879,000 LOVELY SPLITLEVEL HOME offers newly refreshed contemporary style and wonderful space. Home offers three bedrooms, three brand new bathrooms, beautiful front entryway, vaulted ceiling family room, sun room, game room, deck, spectacular backyard, attached two car garage. .......................................................................................$609,000 STUCCO BUNGALOW located in central RF. This move-in ready home offers 4 bedrooms, 2 full baths and retains its vintage detail such as hardwood floors, beamed ceiling, and original woodwork while offering a modern and contemporary feel. First floor living and finished basement......................................................................................... $549,000

LOVELY BRICK HOME offers wonderful space with beautiful views of the spectacular lot! Original details with two story foyer and hardwood floors throughout. This elegant home is beautifully constructed and large enough to accommodate family and friends for years to come..............................................................$1,299,000

OAK PARK HOMES

THREE STORY GRAND VICTORIAN on 100 x 218 lot in heart of the FLlW district. 6 BRs, 2 Full BAs, 3 fireplaces, many historic details including double front entry doors sourced from the Historic Pullman Estates section of Chicago.............................................................$650,000 CLASSIC ROW HOUSE with 5BRs, 4BAs completely updated with stunning architectural detail including restored and preserved woodwork, art glass, elaborate molding, trim, oak floors, soaring ceilings, grand rooms, contemporary mechanicals, amenities. .............$598,000 CLASSIC OAK PARK HOME on a large corner lot in the Harrison Arts district. This four BR, three BA home boasts four levels of living space. Tall ceilings, hardwood floors, vintage leaded glass windows, updated kitchen with breakfast bar. Finished 3rd floor, newly finished basement......................................................................................... $549,000 PRICE REDUCED MEDITERRANEAN INFLUENCE HOME offers 5 BR’s/2BA’s, 2 story LR with WBFP, beamed ceiling, French doors and 1920’s terra cotta tiled floor. New finished basement. Yard has patio and charming pergola. Tasteful decor thru-out. .......$519,000 CLASSIC AMERICAN 4 SQUARE offers sunroom, art glass windows, built-in bookshelves that surround decorative fireplace, beamed ceilings and built-in hutch in DR, kitchen with breakfast bar and family room, hdwd flrs on both levels. Make this home your own!....$347,000

CONTEMPORARY HOME with 3 bedrooms, 3-1/2 baths. 1st floor features include an expansive foyer, unique bamboo floors, multi-faced gas fireplace, office, updated kitchen & family room.

2nd FL includes a laundry and office/or nursery. Finished basement. In-ground pool. Great updates. ..............................$789,000

TWO BEDROOM BUNGALOW in Historic Oak Park has hardwood flooring and natural trim work throughout. The spacious living room leads to the formal dining room with built-in buffet. Granite counters in the eat-in kitchen has access to the adjoining 3 season porch/den/ home office. .....................................................................................$239,900 DUTCH COLONIAL with rehab already started, gutted. Originally 2 bedroom, but now open to new floor plan and added bedrooms and bath. Could be a flip or a great home to live in. ..........................$185,000

CONDOS/TOWNHOMES/2 FLATS

PRICE REDUCED RIVER FOREST 3BR, 2 full/1 half BA. $455,000 RIVER FOREST 2BR, 2BA. Open concept floor plan.............$269,000 OAK PARK Two Flat ...................................................................$530,000 PRICE REDUCED OAK PARK 3BR, 2 full/2 half BA......... $439,000 OAK PARK 3BR, 2 full/2 half BA. East facing balcony............$419,900 OAK PARK 3BR, 2 full/1 half BA. Exceptional vintage beauty!$299,000 OAK PARK 3BR, 2 full/1 half BA. Assigned parking space. .. $289,000 OAK PARK 1BR, 1BA. Great space!............................................$174,000 OAK PARK 1BR, 1BA. Vintage building....................................$124,500 NEW LISTING FOREST PARK 1BR, 1BA. ..........................$102,500

Shop for homes online at GagliardoRealty.com July 15, 2020 ■ Wednesday Journal/Forest Park Review

B5

OAK PARK

2 BR, 2 BA .....................................$249,900 Martha Murphy • 847-977-3546

OAK PARK

OAK PARK Beautiful unit in one of Oak Park’s most popular condominium buildings.

Go to 151Kenilworth.com

2 BR, 2 BA ..................................................................................................................... $174,000 Steve Scheuring • 708-369-8043

Newly updated brick 4-Square with remodeled kitchen and pristine bamboo, oak and maple floors!

OAK PARK

4 BR, 2 BA ..................................................................................................................... $459,000 Steve Scheuring • 708-369-8043

3 BR, 2 BA .....................................$350,000 Denise Sacks • 708-217-2111

PRICE REDUCED!

OAK PARK

3 BR, 2.2 BA ..................................$439,000 Gagliardo Realty Associates • 708-771-8040

7375 West North Avenue River Forest, Illinois 60305 708.771.8040

OPEN SUNDAY 1 - 3 P.M. 1210 N. ELMWOOD AVE

OAK PARK

OAK PARK

Updated & vintage, fireplace, five car garage, lovely double lot & near downtown!

4 BR, 2 BA ..................................................................................................................... $599,000 Michele Strimaitis • 312-375-9561

OAK PARK

3 BR, 2.1 BA ..................................$459,000

Main floor central family room plus nicely finished dry basement with flood control!

4 BR, 2.1 BA .................................................................................................................. $639,000 Laurie Shapiro • 708-203-3614

Michael Dmyterko • 708-212-8933

7375 West North Avenue River Forest, Illinois 60305 708.771.8040

Want to see your listings in Distinctive Properties?

Contact Marc Stopeck at 708.613.3330 or marc@oakpark.com B6 View more at OakPark.com/Real-Estate ■ July 15, 2020

OAK PARK

2 BR, 2.1 BA ..................................$515,000 Bob Royals • 312-607-0801

OAK PARK

OAK PARK OAK PARK

4 BR, 4 BA .....................................$599,000

Ideal work from home, 2 home offices!

Grand 4K sq. ft. home has central air, 2 fireplaces, 3rd floor master suite & new garage!

4 BR, 3 BA ..................................................................................................................... $649,000

4 BR, 3 BA ..................................................................................................................... $699,000

OAK PARK

OAK PARK

Located on a grand almost half acre lot in the heart of beautiful River Forest!

Spectacular estate home located in beautiful central Oak Park was designed by the famous firm of Tallmage & Watson.

Jeanette Madock • 708-228-4557

Erica Cuneen • 708-220-2025

Erica Cuneen • 708-220-2025

OAK PARK

6 BR, 4+ BA ...............................$2,000,000 Kathy & Tony Iwersen 708-772-8040 or 708-772-8041

RIVER FOREST

4 BR, 3.1 BA ..................................$797,000 Kathy & Tony Iwersen 708-772-8040 or 708-772-8041

5 BR, 3.1 BA .................................................................................................................. $878,000 Steve Scheuring • 708-369-8043

6 BR, 5.2 BA .................................................................................................................. $890,000 Steve Scheuring • 708-369-8043

Want to see your listings in Distinctive Properties?

Contact Marc Stopeck at 708.613.3330 or marc@oakpark.com July 15, 2020 ■ Wednesday Journal/Forest Park Review

B7

PRICE REDUCED!

RIVER FOREST

4 BR, 2.2 BA ...............................$1,150,000 Gagliardo Realty Associates • 708-771-8040

7375 West North Avenue River Forest, Illinois 60305 708.771.8040

RIVER FOREST

4 BR, 4.1 BA ...............................$1,375,000 Donna Barnhisel • 773-418-9137

7375 West North Avenue River Forest, Illinois 60305 708.771.8040

RIVER FOREST

5 BR, 5 BA .................................$1,385,000 Gagliardo Realty Associates • 708-771-8040

7375 West North Avenue River Forest, Illinois 60305 708.771.8040

Now in our Second Century of Service RIVER FOREST

6 BR, 7.1 BA ...............................$1,895,000 Gagliardo Realty Associates • 708-771-8040

OPEN SUNDAY 11 - 1 P.M. 700 COLUMBIAN AVE

OAK PARK Casually elegant estate home fully renovated by architect/owner with massive kitchen/great room.

6 BR, 2.1 BA .................................................................................................................. $999,000

To find a local expert, go to oakparkrealtors.org

Kevin Wood • 773-382-4310

7375 West North Avenue River Forest, Illinois 60305 708.771.8040

House Hunting?

Find a Realtor.

Find a home.

Get a list of Open Houses.

Every week, every day in

B8 View more at OakPark.com/Real-Estate ■ July 15, 2020

Opportunity

(op ‘er-too’-ni-te) noun.

Applying persistence to the possibilities.

A chance for advancement.

Tom Carraher redefines the essence of real estate service.

This Weekend ADDRESS

OFFICE

LISTING PRICE

TIME

512 Clarence Ave, Oak Park . . . . . . . . . . . . . Baird & Warner Oak Park/River Forest . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .$335,000 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .1-3

It isn’t often you find someone who has the vision and knowledge to find and create opportunities where others saw none.

MULTIFAMILY

TOWNHOMES

SINGLE FAMILY HOMES

2044 N. 77th Court, Elmwood Park . . . . . . Baird & Warner Oak Park/River Forest . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .$423,500 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .1-3 217 N. Grove Ave. UNIT B, Oak Park . . . . . . @properties. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . $459,000 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .12-2 783 S. Mitchel Ave, Elmhurst . . . . . . . . . . . . @properties. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . $500,000 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .12-2 1225 N. Euclid Ave, Oak Park . . . . . . . . . . . . Gagliardo Realty Associates . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .$525,000 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .1-3 1216 N. Euclid Ave, Oak Park. . . . . . . . . . . . . @properties. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . $610,000 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .12:30-2:30

Tom Carraher finds ways to help you capitalize on the myriad advantages that come from making the right move at the right time.

1210 N. Elmwood Ave, Oak Park. . . . . . . . . . Gagliardo Realty Associates . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .$639,000 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .1-3 900 Franklin Ave, River Forest . . . . . . . . . . @properties. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .$749,000 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .1:30-3:30 151 Bloomingbank Rd, Riverside. . . . . . . . . . @properties. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . $1,075,000 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .1-3

Call Tom Carraher at 708-822-0540 to achieve all of your real estate goals.

ADDRESS

OFFICE

LISTING PRICE

TIME

7310 Circle Ave, Forest Park. . . . . . . . . . . . . Baird & Warner Oak Park/River Forest . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .$360,000 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .12-2

ADDRESS

OFFICE

LISTING PRICE

TIME

1130 Lathrop Ave, River Forest . . . . . . . . . . Gagliardo Realty Associates . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .$999,000 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11-2

Tom Carraher

This Directory brought to you by

Realistic Expectation–Proven Results

mrgloans.com

Providing financing for homes in Oak Park and surrounding communities since 1989.

Conventional, FHA, and Jumbo mortgages Free Pre-approvals

7544 W. North Avenue Elmwood Park, IL 708.452.5151

Mortgage Resource Group is an Illinois Residential Mortgage Licensee.

NMLS # 207793 License # 1031

7375W. West NorthAve. Avenue 7375 North River Forest, Illinois 60305 River Forest 708.771.8040 708.771.8040

http://tomcarraher.realtor.com

July 15, 2020 ■ Wednesday Journal/Forest Park Review

B9

P R O P E R T Y

T R A N S F E R S

Oak Park home sells for $1,190,000

The following property transfers were reported by the Cook County Recorder of Deeds for April 2020. Where addresses appear incomplete, for instance where a unit number appears missing, that information was not provided by the recorder of deeds.

OAK PARK ADDRESS

PRICE

SELLER

BUYER

101 S Harvey Ave 711 Madison St 814 S Austin Blvd 638 Harrison St 309 Linden Ave 400 Forest Ave 638 N Kenilworth Ave 210 Home Ave 722 Iowa St 728 N Grove Ave 200 S Ridgeland Ave 304 S Euclid Ave 178 N Euclid Ave 724 S Elmwood Ave 612 Clarence Ave 209 N Ridgeland Ave 230 S Kenilworth Ave 142 S Scoville Ave 6332 Roosevelt Rd 1201 N Oak Park Ave 721 Ontario St C21 742 N Ridgeland Ave 512 S Ridgeland Ave 1145 S Humphrey Ave 839 S Ridgeland Ave 734 Home Ave 730 S Oak Park Ave 735 N Cuyler Ave 1139 S Elmwood Ave 820 S Lyman Ave 535 S Lyman Ave 156 N Oak Park Ave 16 1024 Pleasant St 6 1108 S Scoville Ave 1163 Home Ave 1157 S Cuyler Ave 737 S Maple Ave 1100 N Humphrey Ave 1170 S East Ave 417 S East Ave 519 South Blvd 169 N Grove Ave 2A 333 S Oak Park Ave 1S 220 S Maple Ave 40 239 S Maple Ave 2352 344 Wisconsin Ave 3442

$3,705,000 $2,000,000 $1,410,000 $1,300,000 $1,190,000 $1,100,000 $1,050,000 $1,003,000 $870,000 $725,000 $717,000 $639,000 $595,000 $575,000 $560,000 $525,000 $525,000 $505,000 $475,000 $470,000 $470,000 $467,500 $456,000 $450,000 $434,000 $427,000 $420,000 $405,000 $400,000 $395,000 $389,000 $385,000 $377,500 $375,000 $350,000 $340,000 $337,500 $309,000 $295,000 $290,000 $285,000 $280,000 $280,000 $271,000 $242,000 $240,000

237-239 S Blvd Llc Essec Foley Family Ltd Ps 814-820 S Austin Llc 638-642 W Harrison Llc Kralovec Michael J Moore Heather L Ballard David Morris Michael C Moroney Michael S Perkins Steven Hamilton Robert Gold Andrea M Tr Friesema Willem F Hartman Todd W Cocchiola Justin P Aharon Sharone King David J Tr Cheng James C Tr Perez Araceli Moton David R Jr Gearen John Vaughn Deborah Smith Thomas W Mulyono Henky Rolock Joshua Woods Thomas P Slavin Konstantin Tr Cozzi Kenneth J Cantafio John P Manus John Mac Wohlwend Jonmarke C Hou Jenny Hsiu-Chin Swisher Michael D Loentz Elizabeth A Joseph Peter John Monathan Kathleen M Beckman Philippa L Thomas Willie E Young Alesha Kayton Donna Tr Mccay Julia A Phillips Scott B Slupik Bernadette Tr Viveros Samid Fulton Leslie P Gibson Kyle Anthony

Greenplan S Blvd Llc Ah Oak Pk Llc Greenplan 814 Austin Llc Greenplan Harrison Llc Mccarthy Timothy Moore Heather L Trust Milburn James Arquette Kelly Frank Robert E Tr Knight Adam Niedospial Nicholas Davidhizar Benjamin L Steeves Cathryn Pauline Mbekeani Nyemba Lee Cameron S Grossman Joshua M Tryba Mark V Hammerschmidt Andrew Scot 6332 Roosevelt Rd Llc Frank Eric G Cozzi Kenneth J Turnmeyer Erin U &i Rental Llc Washington Joi D Vanderbilt Jacqueline Adams Jeremy Costello Emily A Blum Matthew P Mannix Elizabeth Lauren Kuszak Tr Edgerton John M Macoun Mark Holmes Lucy H Cordero Francisco Rouse Jonathan W Gibson Kyle Anthony Goldbeck Amy M Rossi Kayla Franta Denise Butler Michael Peter Urban Elizabeth Whelan Chad Berens Paul J Mcgee David Gertz Joshua L Murphy Michelle Waite Ian

B10 View more at OakPark.com/Real-Estate â&#x2013; July 15, 2020

309 Linden Ave., Oak Park

OAK PARK ADDRESS

PRICE

SELLER

BUYER

930 Ontario St 4C

$216,500

Holmes James E Tr

Agharkar Amal Sudhir

200 Home Ave 3A

$205,000

Bhalla Shaifali

Moore William F

222 N Grove Ave 2B

$200,000

Pallares Amalia

Berg Joseph B

423 N Humphrey Ave

$175,000

Prendiville John R Adm

Greenplan 423 Humphrey Llc

500 Washington Blvd 101

$160,000

Pullen Joseph A

Williams Lisa Danyell

841 N Lombard Ave

$150,000

Deutsche Bk Natl Trust

52Nd Ave Llc-841 Lombard Llc

228 N Oak Park Ave 2D

$149,000

Goebel Lauren

Short Kristen

408 S Lombard Ave 1231

$129,000

Clemens William E S

Young Lisa

645 Garfield St 6433

$129,000

Kandow Kevin Riley

Kaspar George

647 Garfield St 6473

$125,000

Hou Samuel

Perez Sofia

817 Lake St 8172N

$116,500

Arrivo Anthony

Galan Olga Y

406 Wisconsin Ave 103

$113,000

Anderson John C Tr

Chicago Title Land Trust Co Tr

940 Washington Blvd 9403E

$85,000

Hunter Kathy

Ray Christina M

1009 Garfield St

Unknown

Cook County Clerk

Cook County

1114 N Austin Blvd

Unknown

Judicial Sales Corp

Us Bk

FOREST PARK ADDRESS

PRICE

SELLER

BUYER

521 Beloit Ave

$335,000

Chicago Title Land Trust Co Tr

Fish Seeker Llc

418 Thomas Ave

$322,500

Blanco Jospeh L Tr

Pfaff Ian

7322 Randolph St

$317,000

Paulon Geraldine E Tr

Pintea Teodor

7521 Brown Ave 404

$273,000

Caamano Manuel Alejandro Longo Buscaroli Monica

7601 Madison St

$270,000

Koca George R

Jjmg Grp Llc

251 Marengo Ave 7FS

$240,000

Denk Joseph J

Senger Peter

1015 Ferdinand Ave

$220,000

Biggins Paul W

Brown Felicia

1128 Thomas Ave

$215,000

Stephens Tai J

Barrera Pedro E Rodriguez

820 Lathrop Ave

$170,000

Kwiatkowski Rose

Warrior Const Inc

314 Lathrop Ave 308

$110,000

Gist Everett T Ind Adm

Clark Jonathan T

7432 Washington St 602

$98,000

O Neal Arthur

Owens Julius

P R O P E R T Y

T R A N S F E R S JUST LISTED

RIVER FOREST ADDRESS

PRICE

SELLER

BUYER

550 Forest Ave

$1,650,000

Mcgovern Bldr Inc

Lefevour John T

7823 Greenfield St

$1,075,000

Chicago Title Land Trust Co Tr Ashe Anthony R

547 Monroe Ave

$905,000

Plancon Amanda

Aplington Michael

540 Keystone Ave

$902,500

Ashe Anthony R

Bruffey Michael

1114 Forest Ave

$830,000

Frantzen Gary T

Osswald John

910 William St

$645,000

Przyborowski Carl

Ramli Wesam

912 Bonnie Brae Pl

$615,000

Ramli Wesam

Hedrick Carlyle Paff

715 Bonnie Brae Pl

$610,000

Curatolo Paul

Rane Aniket

7575 Lake St 3A

$520,000

Hunt David J Tr

Winikates James Tr

7575 Lake St 3C

$500,000

Johnson Jeanna B Tr

Johnson A Ferdinand Trust

1436 Bonnie Brae Pl

$495,000

Dogulas Andrew J Tr

O Connor John R Jr Tr

15 Thatcher Ave

$470,000

Burns Thomas

Anderson Sean

18 Ashland Ave

$455,500

Chicago Title Land Trust Co Tr

Arauz Guillermo

1419 Bonnie Brae Pl 4D

$209,000

Milone-Mclaughlin Pamela J

Brown James E

407 KENILWORTH, OAK PARK

$2,000,000 :: 6 BED :: 4.5+ BATH Fabulous renovated Victorian with coach house & pool.

MOVE-IN READY

900 FRANKLIN, RIVER FOREST

$797,000 :: 4 BED :: 3.5 BATH Brick Colonial home. New kitchen & baths.

KATHY & TONY IWERSEN 708.772.8040 708.772.8041 tonyiwersen@atproperties.com

7823 Greenfield St., River Forest

July 15, 2020 â&#x2013; Wednesday Journal/Forest Park Review

B11

189 S. Oak Park Ave., Oak Park, IL 60302 (708) 386-1400

HomesInTheVillage.com

Featured Listings for This Week River Forest $849,900 4BR, 3.1BA Patti x124

Oak Park $679,000 4BR, 2.1BA Patti x124

River Forest $458,000 3BR, 2.1BA Jane x118

Oak Park $450,000 Multi unit Laurie x186

Oak Park $429,000 3BR, 3BA Laurie x186

Oak Park $428,800 4BR, 2BA Kyra x145

Chicago $274,900 5BR, 3BA Elissa x192

Cicero $249,900 4BR, 2BA Maria x117

Cicero $214,900 Multi unit Maria x117

Oak Park $194,999 3BR, 2BA Laurie x186

201 S Taylor Ave Oak Park 5BR, 4.1 BA...$849,000 Marion x111

Open Sun 1-3 pm

2415 East Ave • Berwyn Berwyn $299,900 4BR, 1.1BA Maria x117

Properties of The Week

Open Sun 12-1:30 pm

439 Home Ave 3S • Oak Park Oak Park $218,800 2BR, 1BA Kyra x145

Erika Villegas,

Managing Broker/Owner

Mike Becker

Elissa Palermo

Laurie Christofano

Kyra Pych

B12 View more at OakPark.com/Real-Estate ■ July 15, 2020

Marion Digre

Maria Rodriguez

Morgan Digre

Linda Rooney

Leticia Cruz

Kris Sagan

1712 N 72nd Ct Elmwood Park 4BR, 2BA...$389,000 Harry x116

Jane McClelland

Patti Sprafka-Wagner

Sharon O’Mara

Harry Walsh