Excuse us for a moment while we rant.
Your regularly scheduled semi-rational editorial will follow.
Eighteen months shot to hell while certain Oak Park village trustees led us down their, “We know better than anyone else–citizens, colleagues, staff, consultants” path to the phoenix-rising nonsense of “Saving the Colt.” OK. Now we know. The obsolete, Dryvit-clad, money-sucking, Hair Cuttery-holding Colt Building can indeed be saved. For $15 million freaking dollars.
Even the sillies who got us to this depressing, time-wasting, angst-inducing place in the history of our put-upon downtown seem to be convinced that $15 million is too much. Now are you sure about that, Trustee Milstein? Or would you like more time to change your mind?
Now, the measured view
Sure, time has been wasted studying the future of the Colt Building. It’s regrettable but it is done. So, now, what’s next?
The village board last week rejected the absurdly expensive plan to restore the Colt. It also rejected the only other proposal it had received, an over-large, under-interesting mixed-use behemoth. Both good decisions.
The good news is that there is no need to start over completely. In place are the original Crandall Arambula Greater Downtown Master Plan and, where it comes to the key Lake Street block, the notably improved plan created 18 months ago by the citizen steering committee. Let’s take the Swiffer to that document and sort out the execution plan.
The so-called superblock needs a holistic plan that includes a north-south street, eventually a parking garage, and, happily calls for the opening of Westgate and Marion, which is already underway. The plan could also include discussions with the owners of the Shops of Downtown Oak Park (Gap, Old Navy, et al.) but from our vantage point such discussions should not slow forward movement.
In praise of commissioners
Colette Lueck has stepped down as chair of the Oak Park Plan Commission, an advisory body she served admirably for nine years. It has been a tough stretch what with multiple go-rounds on the Whiteco project and the perpetual debates over new development projects. Lueck has been a thoughtful and clear-headed leader. She is the personification of the type of individual Oak Park needs to–and often does–attract to its critical advisory commissions.
She will be missed and we will wait her eventual re-emergence, perhaps on the village board.
Go ahead, call 911
Oak Park police received 4,000 additional calls from citizens last year. And Rick Tanksley, the village’s top cop, says, “Keep calling.”
While Oak Park’s overall crime rate inched up by 3 percent last year for all incidents, crime dropped in several key and worrisome categories including burglary (down 20 percent), auto theft (down 41 percent) and aggravated assault and battery, (down 29 percent).
We are also pleased to see the department’s emphasis on making drug arrests–think west suburbanites buying on the West Side and ingesting in our hometown. The department went from 10 to 65 such arrests last year. Also, for a second year there has been a needed focus on DUI arrests. Those rose by over 100 percent last year.
Tanksley knows that more calls to 911 reporting anything out of the ordinary translates into more cops dispatched and more opportunistic crimes thwarted. So don’t hesitate.