According to the Village of Oak Park, “Village Manager Tom Barwin has launched a new blog to share the observations and insights garnered from his many years of grass-roots, community-building experience. Called MissionMainStreet, Barwin’s blog will delve into ideas, issues and developments – both local and global – important to Oak Park and beyond. Readers are invited to post comments on the site and engage in lively discussion.”
The blog site (missionmainstreet.tumblr.com, which takes you to the village’s Facebook site) explains, by way of introduction, that “Tom Barwin currently serves as the manager of the highly diverse, transit-rich, Village of Oak Park, Illinois.”
“Transit-rich,” now there’s an adjective.
He also has a vision: “His goal is to help Oak Parkers and others build high quality-of-life, economically vibrant, healthy communities, rooted in a heartfelt vision that citizen-to-citizen and community-to-community communications and collaborations around the world are the surest & fastest path to a truly sustainable planet & lasting world peace.”
Anyway, here’s a sample of the Barwin blog under the heading The “new” re-localized neighborhood economy:
“While each of our leafy, grid-organized neighborhoods is served by high quality elementary schools, exceptional parks, modern libraries, handsome churches, CTA transit and CTA/PACE bus lines, they are also served by one of our 11 convenient business districts.
“To become aligned with our sustainability and shop local initiatives, the village’s Community and Economic Development staff and partner agencies recently began to refocus business recruitment efforts on infilling our 11 business districts with any missing goods and services our residents need on a regular and ongoing basis.
“This effort is a partnership between the Village of Oak Park and the OPDC, Oak Park Development Corporation. Loretta Daly, heads the village’s business retention and red tape cutting team and OPDC CEO Sara Faust heads up our business recruitment and business finance efforts. Both are anxious to hear from citizens who have insights or leads for retaining, growing, incubating, or recruiting quality new businesses.
“Our Health Department is also hopeful that the shop local campaign is successful because it will increase the number of our residents who could start walking or biking to our stores.
“To recap, success with the “new” re-localized economy is a community building trifecta because:
a) shopping local = supporting local jobs and the local tax base
b) shopping local = using less gas and reducing local noise and air pollution
c) shopping local = more exercise!
“Leafy” and “grid-organized.” The man has a way with adjectives.
It’s also interesting to hear that the village has a “red tape cutting team.”
Barwin posted this photo on his blog with an entry about smart meters.