I join the chorus of residents denouncing the ill-considered decision by the village trustees to implement leaf-bagging. The majority of the trustees took the wrong lesson from an isolated incident and imposed its will on Oak Park residents without meaningful community input or consensus-building.
Good news: a 5-2 vote is now a 4-3 vote; one more trustee, overcoming stubbornness, will reverse the decision.
Oak Park residents will not tolerate the bad choice of trustees and will ultimately remove the recalcitrant trustees, engage in civil disobedience (magnifying the mess that the trustees have created), or take some other action.
Excuses about the LRS contract, too late to switch back to leaf collection, etc., will not be accepted. I call for another vote at the next village board meeting. Time for the remaining trustees to acknowledge the will of the people and set aside leaf-bagging.
Bruce Martin, Oak Park