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V I E W P O I N T S
Wednesday Journal, November 30, 2016
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OAKPARK.COM | RIVERFOREST.COM
‘Cleopatra’ comes alive, thanks to our hosts
hanksgiving may have passed but I want to express my gratitude to the Forest Park businesses and residents who participated in the “Local Authors Series,” helping to promote the historical novel The Ghost of Cleopatra. The series was the brainchild of my colleague Joe (I just call him Joe) Chomiczewski. He lined up the venues and faithfully videotaped the readings. Our first reading was an impromptu event at Amy’s Wine House. The place was packed. Some were there for the book, others came to hear the musical stylings of Tam & Dan.
There was also a family who had no clue what they had gotten into but were good sports about it. Next up was Shanahan’s. Tim and Radana Shanahan served food and drinks in the back room. There was a good turnout and a very diverse crowd. They ranged in age from 13 to 80. I could see the 13-year-old wasn’t feeling well and feared we’d lose him. But he rallied and later told his mom they should go to more events like this. At Yearbook, we were competing against the Cubs, so the turnout was small. However,
NOTICE OF PROPOSED PROPERTY TAX INCREASE FOR OAK PARK SCHOOL DISTRICT NO. 97, COOK COUNTY, ILLINOIS I. A public hearing to approve a proposed property tax levy for Oak Park School District No. 97, Cook County, Illinois for 2015 will be held on December 6, 2016 at 7:00 p.m. at the Board of Education Meeting Room, 260 W. Madison Street, Oak Park, Illinois 60302. Any person desiring to appear at the public hearing and present testimony to the taxing district may contact Dr. Alicia Evans, Assistant Superintendent for Finance and Operations, 260 W. Madison Street, Oak Park, Illinois at (708) 524-7623. II. The corporate and special purpose property taxes extended or abated for the year 2015 were $53,130,148. The proposed corporate and special purpose property taxes to be levied for 2016 are $53,927,100. This represents a 1.47% increase over the previous year’s extension. III. The property taxes extended for debt service for 2015 were $8,210,790. The estimated property taxes to be levied for debt service for 2016 are $7,931,413. IV. The total property taxes extended or abated for 2015 were $61,340,938. The estimated total property taxes to be levied for 2016 are $61,858,513. This represents a .84% increase over the previous year’s total levy.
Noel Eberline and Jef Anderson provided cheese, crackers and wine and our intimate group enjoyed the evening. The actual reading took 15 minutes but there was so much interest, the discussion lasted for 90 minutes. A local woman told me she was hooked on three levels: Native American history, art history and Egyptology. The tour continued to Francesca’s Fiore, where Gabriela Barker arranged for us to eat pasta and salad in a private room. Again the audience was diverse, with listeners coming from Austin and Oak Park. They enjoyed the food and wine and the Q&A stretched into coffee and tiramisu. There were two repeat-listeners in the crowd, so I read a fresh section for them. Patrick O’Brien, owner of Scratch Deli and Café, was equally accommodating but we learned that it’s tough to get a turnout on the eve of a presidential election. We plan to go back at a more opportune time. The turnout was better at our second reading at Amy’s Wine House. Mark and Amy Storey treated us well and the crowd listened attentively. After Manager Dennis Miller accommodated our reading at FatDuck on Nov. 29,
we still have one gig left. We’re being hosted, on Dec. 8, in the private room at Big Boss, which just held its lavish Grand Opening, at Desplaines & Madison. Owner Paul Duen and master chef, Jasmine Lee, will provide listeners with a variety of Asian food. We’re looking forward to another good crowd, and Joe claims he’s not tired of the reading yet. That’s because our story contains so many areas of interest, including African American and local history. Though it’s an epic story, spanning continents and centuries, much of the action takes place right in Forest Park. It’s also an unusual book, containing first-person narration by sculptor Edmonia Lewis, her statue, “The Death of Cleopatra,” and the Queen of the Nile herself. My co-author Gail Tanzer and I geared the book toward the teenage and young adult crowd. This genre largely consists of books about vampires and the end of the world. We thought young people today need a true story that is uplifting. In fact, our teenage test reader, Maura Flanagan, found the book to be “insightful and inspiring.” I want to thank Maura and hope her comment will be on the jacket of the book someday.
JOHN RICE
Something’s rotten in TIF request
Where’s a Marc Stopeck Shrubtown cartoon when you need it? Clearly some people straight out lied in an attempt to squeeze an extra $100,000 from the village of Oak Park. An Aug. 5 article by Timothy Inklebarger says, “The developers of the 21-story Vantage Oak Park building have requested that the village board approve paying them $100,000 in public funds to seal the deal on a lease for a restaurant to open in their ground floor space at the corner of Lake and Forest.” The article goes on to indicate that Michael Glazier, a representative for WDF-3 Wood Park Owner LLC, a joint venture between Golub and Wood Partners, from Golub & Company LLC, forwarded an initial request for TIF funds to the Oak Park Economic Development Corporation (OPEDC) indicating the subsidy was needed in order to obtain a fully executed lease from Cooper’s Hawk. According to the article, “[OPEDC] held closed-door meetings on the proposal beginning as early as March” and that “OPEDC’s executive board voted to forward a letter of recommendation to the Oak Park Village Board of Trustees to approve the TIF request.” Tim McEnery from Cooper’s Hawk refuted this claim and revealed that a fully executed lease had already been signed and
that Cooper’s Hawk was not a party in WDF-3 Wood Park Owner LLC’s TIF request. The article further reveals that public discussion of the $100K TIF request happened at the Aug. 1 meeting of the village’s Contract Review Committee (CRC) which forwarded the agenda item to the full board of trustees (OPBOT) for discussion later that same day. “That item was placed on the board’s consent agenda, which is a list of agenda items that are not discussed openly and do not involve a roll call vote.” Now, after little public movement (but clearly movement behind the scenes) on the $100K TIF request, we hear that WDF-3 withdrew the request to “preserve their relationship with the [Oak Park] community.” Really? Everyone (WDF-3, CRC, OPEDC, and OPBOT) appears to want to quickly move on from this potentially embarrassing situation of lies and implied conflicts of interests. There’s future economic self-interest to do so. If the word “lies” bothers you, perhaps we can agree on the word “misrepresentation.” This situation stinks and I do not believe WDF-3 deserves any more business until they come clean.
Ken Woods Oak Park