WednesdayJournal_092425 by Wednesday Journal

J URNAL

Oak Park limits village hall parking lot access after

Oak Park has closed two entrances to village hall’s parking lot to deter ICE presence on proper ty

By BRENDAN HEFFERNAN Staff Reporter

Oak Park’s village government has limited access to Village Hall’s parking lot after U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents accessed the site.

The village confirmed to Wednesday Journal this week that on Friday, Sept. 12 at approximately 10:45 a.m., multiple ICE agents were in the parking lot of Village Hall, where members of the Oak Park Police Department approached and briefly spoke with the ICE agents present in the parking lot. The federal agents left the property after about 15 minutes “without issue,” according to village staff.

The village announced Friday, Sept. 19 that the village was restricting access to the parking lot.

Jersey Barrier and tra c cones block an entrance to the Oak Park Village Hall parking lot in response to federal ac tivities on immigration, Sept. 19.

Oak Park also cancels its Hispanic Heritage event

By LEAH SCHROEDER Contributing Reporter

In April, Pilgrim Cong re gational Church of Oak Park partnered with the Oak Park Area Arts Council to begin planning for a multicultural arts festival to celebrate Hispanic Heritage month in October

Permitted vehicles must use the northernmost entrances closest to Village Hall to both enter and exit the parking

“In order to ensure that the Village Hall parking lot is used only by Village of Oak Park staf f and those community members requiring services from Village Hall, beginning today and until further notice, the two southern-most entrances into the Village Hall parking lot closest to Adams Street will be closed,” the village said in a statement. “The parking lot at 123 Madison St. is restricted for use only by vehicles of village employees and persons with business within Village Hall.

The event was slated to feature a variety of Hispanic artists, musicians and dancers and raise money for the arts council’s Of f the Wall fund, designed to support young adult artists of color impacted by reduced arts funding.

TODD BANNOR

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River Forest couple with expired visas deported to Slovakia

Described by neighbors as ‘good people, good friends’

By DAN HALEY Interim Editor

On the afternoon of Sept. 11 federal agents detained two River Forest residents who had alle gedly overstayed work visas and quickly deported them to Slovakia, their country of origin.

While ICE has now twice denied any role in the action, it is uncertain what agency the multiple officers re presented. On Sept. 22, Elizabeth Ray, a spokesperson for U.S. Customs & Border Protection, said, “CBP Chicago did not commence until Sept. 16. The below incident was not us.”

The agents were described by a neighbor of the couple who lived in the same apar tment building in northeast River Forest as wearing military gear, carrying rifles, with three of the four agents fully masked.

The witness, who reached out to Wednesday Journal and asked that her name not be used, said her encounter began with heavy knocking on her second-floor apar tment door. “No one knocks on my door,” she said. She asked who was there and the response was, “Police.”

When she opened the door there were four agents and her neighbors’ small dog. She was told her neighbor had been detained and, as a courtesy, they were deliv-

ering the dog to her. “Will you take the dog or not?” the officer asked. When she asked who had detained her neighbor, the agent said, “We can’t tell you that.”

Another neighbor, who also contacted the Journal but asked not to be identified, described the couple as “Good people. Good friends. These are not rapists or robbers or the worst of the worst. They are hardworking people who pay taxes.”

He said the husband worked as a craftsman laying hardwood floors. “That is hard, sweaty work. Not many Americans want to do that work.”

At the request of neighbors, Wednesday Journal is not naming the couple as they continue efforts to settle their affairs in Illinois. The couple were transported to O’Hare Airport where they were placed in holding cells and told they would be quickly deported. The intervention of a social service agency resulted in the woman being able to provide a list of essential items they could take with them if they could be retrieved quickly. Phones, laptops, passports and other small things were delivered back to the airpor t before they were put on a flight to Europe.

Mostly, both neighbors said, the couple are concerned about being reunited with their dog who was described as being “precious and little and shaking like you wouldn’t believe.” The current hope is that another friend can fly with the dog in October and return him to the couple.

On entering the couple’s apar tment, the first neighbor said that lunch was laid out on the table – hard boiled eggs and salami –and that the woman had been in the shower.

She described the couple as “being very well loved” in the neighborhood, a place they have lived for better than 10 years. Both neighbors estimated them to be in their mid-30s to early 40s.

They came to America on legal work visas, which eventually expired. They worked unsuccessfully to get an extension during President Donald Trump’s first term. “In the second term,” a neighbor said, “they were afraid to approach anyone in the government.”

Asked why they immigrated to America 12 years ago, the second neighbor said, “Why does anyone come to America? A job. Education. Opportunity. Now you’d be a fool to come to America.”

The couple have now been back in Sl ovakia for a week. Neighbors and friends have been able to talk with them and continue to work on the logistics of selling of f the couple’s truck and shipping some items to them in Europe.

“They are very upset about how it went down,” said the second neighbor. “But they are handling it better than I am. They’re freer now than they were when they were here,” he said.

“How the hell can this happen in this country? This is not the America I grew up in, that my parents grew up in,” he said.

Oak Park passes resolution calling for ban on mask-wearing by law enforcement personnel

Board also heightens penalties for impersonating enforcement o cers

By BRENDAN HEFFERNAN Staff Reporter

Oak Park’s village board approved a resolution calling for state and federal law makers to prohibit law enforcement personnel from concealing their identities in public.

The resolution affir med the village ’s sta-

tus as a welcoming sanctuary community for undocumented immigrants, while advocating for higher levels of government to lay out new restrictions for masked law enforcement agents. It also asked that enforcement agencies operating in the community remain unmasked.

The board passed the measure without

discussion via its consent agenda at Tuesday, Sept. 16’s meeting.

“The Village of Oak Park urges the United States Congress, the Illinois General Assembly and other lawmakers to adopt legislation, within the scope of their respective authority, to prohibit law enforcement

WEDNESD AY

JOURNAL

of Oak Park and River Forest

Interim Executive Director Max Reinsdorf

Senior Audience Manager Stac y Coleman

Sta Repor ter Brendan He ernan

Viewpoints Editor Ken Trainor

Real Estate Editor Lacey Sikora

Contributing Editor Donna Greene

Columnists Marc Bleso , Nicole Chavas, Jack Crowe, Vincent Gay, Mary Kay O’Grady, John Stanger, Josh VanderBerg

Shrubtown Cartoonist Marc Stopeck

Design/Production Manager Andrew Mead

Editorial Design Manager Javier Govea

Designers Susan McKelvey, Vanessa Garza

Senior Media Strategist Lourdes Nicholls

Marketing & Adver tising Associate Emma Cullnan

Development Manager Mary Ellen Nelligan

Circulation Manager Jill Wagner

Operations Associate Susan Babin

Social Media and Digital Coordinator Maribel Barrera

Special Projects Manager Susan Walker

Chairman Emeritus Robert K. Downs

Senior Advisor Dan Haley

BOARD OF DIRECTORS

Chair Eric Weinheimer | Treasurer Nile Wendor f Deb Abrahamson, Mary Cahillane, Steve Edwards, Judy Gre n, Horacio Mendez, Charles Meyerson Darnell Shields, Audra Wilson

Housing Forward cuts ribbon on 40-b ed emergency shelter

Facility near intersection of Austin and South Boulevards is expected to open later this month

By BRENDAN HEFFERNAN Staff Reporter

Housing Forward celebrated the opening of a new 40-bed emergency overnight shelter in Oak Park with a ribbon cutting last week.

Expected to begin housing clients next month, the new shelter at 112 S. Humphrey Ave. will open as the only of its kind in the western Cook County suburbs, said Lynda Schueler, Housing Forward’s executive director

“We do not shun or criminalize the poor and the vulnerable or outcast,” Schueler said. “We are not that community, we will never be that community, and that is why we are here today.”

The new emergency shelter project has been supported by significant public investment. Housing Forward received a $250,000 grant from Cook County for the shelter and Oak Park pledged $366,000 to support the project.

“Housing is a fundamental human right,” said Oak Park Village President Vicki Scaman. “Oak Park has long reco gnized that homelessness requires collabo-

ration across all levels of government, including local investment.”

“I embrace the opening of this shelter not only as a building, but as a beacon of hope and humanity,” she said.

Housing Forward served more than 2,500 individuals and families experiencing housing insecurity or homelessness last year across 26 suburban communities including Oak Park, Maywood, Forest Park, Brookfield, Berwyn and Cicero. Housing Forward opened its first permanent supportive housing development last year with the 16-unit Broadview Le gacy Apartments complex.

Since 2023, the agency has run a 20-bed emergency shelter out of St. Catherine-St. Lucy‘s for mer rectory building — a few blocks south of the new shelter.

The new shelter is complete with a small commercial kitchen where volunteers can work preparing meals for Housing Forward clients. The new shelter will also allow clients to stay later into the morning than its predecessor at St. Catherine -St. Lucy, where clients had to leave by 6:30 a.m.

The shelter is named after Pat Anderson, a long-time volunteer who helped found the organization in 1992 when it was known as Tri-Village P.A.D.S. She recalled an interaction with a man living on the street in Forest Park now more than 30 years ago that inspired her to get to work supporting people experiencing homelessness.

The man had asked her if he could earn money by working at her house, but at the

time she lived in a small room “hardly bigger than a closet” at Rush Oak Park Hospital. Instead, she said she gave the man a sandwich and then she felt a calling.

“It wasn’t an audible voice, but it was very close saying ‘Pat, I want you to build a shelter for the homeless,” she said. “All in all, let’s just praise God because He took over.”

The shelter’s opening comes as Housing Forward is impacted by new financial uncertainty after the Trump Administration proposed a $27 billion cut to federal funding for housing assistance programs. Schueler told Wednesday Journal earlier this year that as much as 25% of the organization’s operating budget is at risk as a result of the cuts.

In uncertain times, local governments need to work together to fill gaps for vul-

nerable residents, said Tara Stamps, Cook County commissioner whose district covers the West Side of Chicago, Oak Park and Proviso Township.

“At this particular time in American history we are so for tunate to be Illinoisans, to live in Cook County, where our leadership still believes in democracy and encourages us to be defenders of said democracy,” Stamps said. “For those at Cook County government, Housing Forward, local organizations, our state partners, amazing volunteers and everybody in between — I say thank you and congratulations for this amazing edifice. This space is not just a place, it’s a new beginning, it’s a moment to take a break, it’s an opportunity to pause, it’s knowing where I’m going to eat.”

“If we don’t get housing right, none of the other stuf f really matters.”

Hispanic Heritage Month event canceled due to recent ICE activity

The ‘¡Viva! Festival’ planned for Oct. 11 at Oak Park Village Hall has been canceled

By BRENDAN HEFFERNAN Staff Reporter

Oak Park has canceled its governmentsponsored Hispanic Heritage Month festival over concerns that the event will draw attention from U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents.

Oak Park’s annual ¡Viva! Festival was set to be held on Oct. 11 on the south lawn at Village Hall, but was canceled as village officials and event volunteers considered

“the ongoing presence of federal immigration agents throughout the re gion,” the village announced Monday, Sept. 22.

“The Village’s Diversity, Equity and Inclusion Office announced the decision after receiving thoughtful input from the

committee of community volunteers who help coordinate the ¡Viva! Festival, which requested to put the safety, dignity and well-being of festival attendees, vendors See

BRENDAN HEFFERNAN

Housing Forward CEO Ly nda Schueler cuts the ribbon with a pocket knife at a new emergency overnight shelter located at 112 Humphrey St. in Oak Park. e new shelter, named for Pat Anderson (far le ), w ill have room for 40 beds and a small commercial kitchen.

Oak Park trustees hear recommendations from taskforce on homelessness

Public restroom downtown, continued suppor t for emergenc y housing and ECHO-led street outreach among suggestions

By BRENDAN HEFFERNAN Staff Reporter

A village-organized taskforce for med to help Oak Park address chronic homelessness has provided a set of recommendations to the village board.

Over the last several months, a village organized “Unhoused Taskforce” has gathered regularly to provide a set of recommendations for how the village gover nment can better use its resources to support people experiencing homelessness in the village The village board heard a presentation on those short-term and long-term recommendations at its meeting Tuesday, Sept. 18.

“Following the board’s conversation about possible ways to address issues of homelessness and its impact on the wider community in winter 2024/2025, village staff convened a small group of stakeholders representing diverse members of the community to collaborate on shared goals and actions for a holistic and compassionate approach to addressing the needs of both unhoused residents and the wider Oak Park community,” village staff wrote of the taskforce. “The taskforce included individuals with lived experience of homelessness, Oak Park residents, representatives from local non-profits and taxing bodies, as well as members of the business community This diverse representation ensures that the strategies reflect multiple perspectives and the unique needs of the community.”

The taskforce’s short-term recommendations included supporting the operation of non-profit Housing Forward’s emergency shelters, which could lose out on state funding in 2026. The taskforce recommended that Oak Park should step in if state funding doesn’t come through.

The Maywood-based agency is set to open

a new expanded emergency shelter with 40 beds at 112 S. Humphrey Ave. in Oak Park in the coming weeks. The village supported that shelter’s creation with more than $314,000 in village funds authorized by the village board in February, in addition to $250,000 provided by the county

Another recommendation was empowering ECHO — the village’s recently created alternative response program — to lead revamped street outreach efforts to help connect people living on the street with available resources. They also recommended funding an account for ECHO to pay for rideshare transportation to help people to access medical care, housing opportunities and mental health counseling

The taskforce also asked the village board to support the construction of a new public restroom in Downtown Oak Park.

Other recommendations for the village included further standardizing Oak Park’s policies around clearing homeless encampments that impact businesses or violate cleanliness or drug use standards, collaborating with other taxing bodies to support rental assistance programs and continuing community education programs related to homelessness

While Tuesday’s presentation session did not include any action items for the board to vote on, several village trustees said that they hoped to have more detailed sets of infor mation to consider when village staff brings measures based on the taskforce’s recommendations back to the board for approval.

“I think it would be helpful to us, even if the presentation is very top line with bullet points, if they were accompanied by memos that provide a far greater level of detail on recommendations, the data supporting it, the outcomes we expect,” said Trustee Brian Straw. “These recommendations came out of expert analysis, so I do greatly appreciate all the work that went into making these recommendations, but I do want to concur with (Trustee Jim Taglia’s) comments that with the sheets we have, it does make it hard for us to give a lot of nuanced, detailed feedback.”

https://mail.google.com/mail/u/1?ui=2&ik=9fd6f24f86&attid=0.0.5&permmsgid=msg-f:1841095929217032180&t h=198ce2fe3a661ff4&view=fimg&fur=ip&permmsgid=msg-f:1841095929217032180&sz=s0-l75-ft&attbid=ANGjdJ_omypPzJpBrOZG6rZnJ-0I2EhQz9yOAjz8F9XplnKLmjG6mQooUDQ01d92_6XAwDd1yM1tKwnw-fF9rifqWOjwG3IAe8j1KX-G5MvKn0Ag94s_dcQh2jAXyEk&disp=emb&realattid=ii_melroy205&zw https://mail.google.com/mail/u/1?ui=2&ik=9fd6f24f86&attid=0.2&permmsgid=msg-f:1841095929217032180&th =198ce2fe3a661ff4&view=att&disp=safe&realattid=f_melrpu416&zw A showcase and fundraiser

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Preservation Commission overruled on Arcade bldg.

By BRENDAN HEFFERNAN Staff Reporter

needs to work on its process to avoid a repeated waste of both developer and commissioner time.

The author of four acclaimed poetry collections—including Be Holding: A Poem, winner of the PEN American Literary Jean Stein Award, and Catalog of Unabashed Gratitude, recipient of the National Book Critics Circle Award and Kingsley Tufts Poetry Award—Ross is as beloved for his warmth and humor as for his extraordinary craft.

Poem,

Unabashed Gratitude,

Oak Park’s village board has opened the door to a high-rise development project that had been blocked by the Historic Preservation Commission four times.

National Book Critics Circle Award and Kingsley Tufts Poetry Award—Ross is as beloved for his warmth and humor as for his extraordinary craft.

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His bestselling essay collections, The Book of Delights, Inciting Joy, and The Book of �More) Delights, invite readers to find beauty and connection in the everyday. In this special evening, Ross will share selections from his work and offer reflections that linger long after the last line is read.

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The village board voted 6-1 to overrule Oak Park’s Historic Preservation Commission and allow for the development of a 10-story residential property in the current parking lot of the Boulevard Arcade Building at 1035 South Boulevard. The development would have four floors for parking beneath six residential floors with 24 luxury units. Other approvals are still needed.

Trustees in favor of the development said that the new construction would support the board’s goal of creating more housing density.

“Housing is something we definitely need in this village,” said Trustee Derek Eder. “The need for housing is there, and this is an opportunity to build more.”

The exterior of the building will feature an art deco design that evokes Oak Park’s architectural heritage.

The Boulevard Arcade Building was designed by Oak Park architect E.E. Roberts in 1906 as a one-story, one-tenant commercial building. In 1922, the building was remodeled and a second floor added by Chicago architect Arthur Jacobs who created a multitenant shopping area in the building. The building was designated an Oak Park Historic Landmark in 2007. In 2008, it was restored to its 1922 exterior appearance, with restoration of the original 1906 cast iron posts and replication of transom glass windows.

The new development is led by Architect John Schiess and Sachem Building LLC.

The developer’s most recent appearances before the Historic Preservation Commission had only been made to get the opportunity to appeal that body’s decision to the village board after they had missed an earlier deadline to appeal the commission’s objections. On Aug. 28, the commission rejected a design concept for the property identical to packages it had previously denied.

“The fact that this has gone through four hearings and still needs to go through even more, I don’t know why they even want to build anything here,” Trustee Cory Wesley said. “That’s a problem that we at this board need to fix. We can’t have people waiting a year before they know if they can actually build something. I think that’s going to cost us development that we could otherwise use.”

The trustees heard from community members who supported and opposed the development concept. Opponents of the development — most of whom lived directly adjacent to the property — said that the new building would create traffic safety problems in the area and that overruling the Historic Preservation Commission would be rewarding developers who ignored the commissioners’ expertise.

Residents supporting the development spoke of the village’s need for more housing opportunities, telling trustees that the community’s current housing stock fails to meet demand

The development had been opposed at previous hearings by representatives of the Oak Park River Forest Historical Society, Landmark Illinois and Thrive Counseling Center, which is adjacent to the proposed project.

“The applicant’s proposal is wholly out of sync with Oak Park’s architectural review guidelines,” Kendra Parson, Landmark Illinois’ advocacy manager wrote in a letter read into the record by a resident. “It goes against preservation standards in almost every way.”

Trustee Chibuike Enyia — the only board member to vote against the project — was one of several trustees to bring up the fact that the development is currently one unit short of triggering a requirement that the developers pay into Oak Park’s affordable housing fund

The development will be the subject of public hearings again when the developer must go before the Oak Park Plan Commission. Before overruling the commission’s denial, several trustees said that the village

“It’s going to be hard to get my vote on something (that doesn’t contribute to the affordable housing fund) because that is where I want to see a significant growth in Oak Park,” he said. “That affordable housing fund needs to have contributions to it on a consistent basis and if we’re going to say that we’re open to development there needs to be standards there.”

D97 search begins to replace superintendent

RFPs issued for a search rm to nd a new leader by July 2026

By GREGG VOSS Contributing Reporter

Oak Park School Elementary School District 97 is now in the throes of a new superintendent search, with the stated goal of identifying and hiring a leader who reflects the district’s values and puts students first.

The district distributed an RFP (request for proposals) for a superintendent search firm Sept. 15, with an Oct. 3 deadline to submit proposals. The search is necessary because for mer superintendent Dr. Ushma Shah resigned Aug. 15 under undisclosed circumstances

“The search firm will assist the district with posting and advertising the position broadly,” said Dr. Griff Powell, who with Dr. Patricia Wer net were named co-interim superintendents for the 2025-26 school year. Their tenure began Sept. 15.

“Once the position is posted, it will be open to all qualified candidates, including current superintendents, who may apply directly through the process facilitated by the firm,” Powell said, adding the new superintendent should begin no later than July 1, 2026.

Board of education president Cheree Moore said her cohort’s discussions will be focused going forward.

“Over the next few weeks, we’ ll be talking together about what our schools need most right now and how to make sure we’re prepared for the changes and opportunities ahead, particularly as we navigate changes at the federal level,” she said. Make no mistake. October and November are going to be very busy months for Moore and the rest of the board, along with Powell and Wernat. For example, Powell said that with the Oct. 3 RFP deadline, the board will hold a special business meeting Oct. 7 to discuss the submitted proposals

He added that along with re gularly scheduled board meetings, there will be several special meetings to work with the selected search firm to design and carry out the search process, “which will include robust and inclusive community eng age-

ment ef forts.”

Moore agreed.

“Our goal is to have a robust and inclusive engagement process that ensures all voices are meaningfully heard,” she said, adding that working with the search firm to identify methods like surveys, for ms and focus groups will be crucial.

Moore said the community has been clear about the what it wants in a new superintendent.

“Community members have shared that they want a strong leader will who will keep students at the center of every decision and uphold the district’s core values,” she said. “They are also looking for someone who can guide the district thoughtfully through times of change while supporting our students, staff and families.”

Powell said at the Sept. 18 board meeting that the district is bit behind in the search process. Districts typically begin the process when they have advanced notice, such as when a superintendent retires.

Neve r theless, Powell is convinced of one thing

“While the timing of the resignation means our process is starting later than in some districts, we are still confident we’ ll be able to find an outstanding leader,” he said.

Moore added that while the timing of Shah’s resignation wasn’t ideal, there are some positives.

“One positive aspect of this process is it gives us an opportunity to reflect on the district’s process and prioritie s, and to eng age our community in shaping the future,” she said.

agents from c public and to fication when enforcing the la tion said. “The law enforcement to not wear face their identities, and to provide their names and identify their Last week, passed a bill that seeks to ban federal im migration agents during raids.

The resolution tion and Customs focused deport in an operation ald Trump as Wednesday Journal week on reports that in River Forest on that ICE agents Park Village Hall on Frida An ICE spokesperson agency had made any ar River Forest in an email to Journal.

State officials ha cies have coordinated little with enforcement, with Illinois Gover nor JB Pritzker saying this week that ICE agents wearing masks exasperates that problem.

“When they (local law enforcement) see skirmishes going on, they don’t know if those are real ICE officials, especially if they’ re wearing masks and in unmarked cars and aren’t car rying or showing their identification,” Pritzker said Tuesday.

Oak Park’s village board also passed an ordinance on Tuesday that increased the penalty for impersonating a law enforcement officer or firefighter in the village and amended previous

al law enforcement official or firefighter, or, with the intent to deceive, use or wear in public or imitate any of the signs, signals or devices adopted and used by local, state, or federal law enforcement officials or firefighters, or to wear in public the uniform or badge adopted or used as the uniform or badge of any local, state, or federal law enforcement organization or firefighting organization. A person who violates this Section is guilty of a misde-

TODD BANNOR

Masked ICE agent outside boarded-up Broadv iew Detention Center on Sept. 5.

Roosevelt Middle School nabs Apple honor

By GREGG VOSS Contributing Reporter

The Three P’s: Planting, Pavers & Planning

Planting: Many think autumn is too late to install landscape plantings—but it’s actually one of the best times. Here’s why:

1. As plants prepare for dormancy, they try to gain energy and nutrients to survive the winter. Instead of using this energy to grow up, that energy goes below ground, enabling better root establishment and a hardier plant come next spring.

2. Cooler air means less stress from heat, and soil stays moist longer.

Moist soil = happy roots and plants!

3. With fewer pests active and reduced disease, plantings have a healthier start and are less likely to encounter problematic pests and pathogens.

Pavers: Autumn is also an excellent time to spend outdoors with family and friends. Looking to entertain or simply enjoy the crisp air? A patio and fire pit are an excellent way to enjoy nature and cozily extend your living space. There’s plenty of season left, and these projects can be completed even into early winter.

Planning: Don’t think you’re ready for a new landscape project? That’s OK! Now is the perfect time to start planning for your landscape or hardscape project for next season. Gather ideas, prepare designs and select materials—be prepared so your project receives priority in the spring.

Only two schools in the entire state were named last week Apple Distinguished Schools, honoring innovation, leadership and educational excellence using technology

Roosevelt Middle School in River Forest was one of them.

Apple has three pillars for the award: Inspire, Imagine and Impact with technology

Roosevelt staff spent the better part of two school years honing its entry, which culminated in a three-minute video that showcased the school’s intentional use of technology in the classroom.

“When I got the news the other day, it was the validation of technology,” Roosevelt principal Tina Steketee said. “There is a big lens on technology You can be purposeful about technology in the learning space.

“It’s not an extra. It has value in learning.”

It was the second year in a row that a River Forest School District 90 school was named an Apple Distinguished School. Last year, Willard Elementary School was one of 32 winners.

All District 90 students from pre-K through eighth grade use Apple iPads, while all teachers use iPads and laptops. But that is in no way the whole story.

In STEM, or science, technology, engineer-

ing and mathematics, students use different technological tools and coding to bring physical prototypes of their ideas alive for engineering design challenges. It’s also used as an inclusive tool to support home language learning

In the area of humanities, students explore key themes in literature and non-fiction texts using digital tools. They’ll prepare scripts and create iMovies of scenes from books as complex as J.R.R. Tolkein’s “The Lord of the Rings.”

You’ll also find technology a big part of world languages, where students will create and watch audio/visual messages from their pen pals in France, thus bridging the physical and language gap between the two countries. Art classes use tech to create avant-garde images of everything from selfportraits to stills.

“In a nutshell, the theme for our video was to be intentional, know what your goal is,” Steketee said. “We talk about tight goals and how do you get there, and technology is a vehicle to get there. You need to know that purposeful learning first.”

But it’s important to note that in each of those areas, tech is merely a tool that complements traditional learning approaches.

Kevin Martin, director of technology for District 90, said the district focuses on “a purposeful use of tech,” not passive

“We purposefully decide,” he said. “We don’t want kids to passively look at iPads all day. There is executive functioning, kids checking assignments. It’s more about how they are interactive.”

Katie Brennan, an instructional technology specialist at Roosevelt, said technology can also show the value of other methods of learning

“When we think about technology, we look at students as lifelong learners … how they learn,” she said. “(They) engage in coding and recognize that they can do those things outside of the iPad. What are those skills they need, and that includes face-to-face (communication).”

Another aspect to consider is the fact that the video emphasizes balance between tech and non-tech pursuits. Martin said that last year Roosevelt instituted no-screen lunch and recess.

“That’s true during other times of the day,” he said. “PE is screen-free. It’s time to move your body.”

Next month, Apple will release a directory with all the schools nationwide that were named Apple Distinguished Schools, and each school’s video.

“We become a great network of local, national and international schools, like-minded schools and districts that are using similar tools,” Martin said.

District 90 teachers plan ‘inf ormational picketing’

By GREGG VOSS Contributing Reporter

River Forest Education Association staf f are planning an “informational picketing” session from 3:30-4 p.m. on Sept. 30, a few hours before the final mediation session between River Forest School District 90, its teachers and a third party mediator regarding a new contract.

Picketing will be held near the district administration building at 7776 Lake St.

“Our goal is to raise awareness in the River Forest community that our contract has expired,” RFEA co-presidents Lauren Baiocchi and Cindy Crannell said in prepared statements to Wednesday Journal.

“We have been working without one since Aug. 15, and we believe it’s important to make the community aware of this reality.

“Informational picketing is meant to

reach the public as well as the district. We want our community and our administration to understand how important it is to us to reach a fair contract as soon as possible.”

Following a mediation session Sept. 8, RFEA reviewed the district’s supposal –a non-binding conceptual offer – related to compensation. According to an email sent to RFEA members following that session, “the supposal did not represent the significant movement that we would have expected from the district at this stage in the bargaining process.”

Current and for mer district employees, students and community members spoke in the public comment portion of the Sept. 16 Board of Education meeting re garding the contract negotiations.

Baiocchi and Crannell said the main theme was concern about teachers leaving

the district due to financial reasons.

“One moment that stood out was when a community member turned to us and of fered a heartfelt apolo gy,” they said. “She said she hadn’t realized our salaries weren’ t keeping pace with neighboring districts and had assumed that, because River Forest has high taxes, our teachers are well compensated.”

The district has been mum about the negotiations, electing not to comment as a way to support productive negotiations. Baiocchi and Crannell have said a strike is the last possible resort, as teachers would rather be in classrooms with their students

“Our hope is that (picketing) reinforces to the board that we are united and committed to reaching a fair ag reement, while also raising awareness among community members about the urgency of resolving this contract,” they said.

Scott McAdam Jr.

Oak Park Wins

We are thrilled to announce that the Park District of Oak Park has received the 2025 Gold Medal Award for Excellence in Park and Recreation Management — the highest national honor in our field.

Your support, participation, and passion for what we do is the reason we are here.

We’re deeply proud to serve an engaged and forward-thinking community.

Thank you, Oak Park!

ART BEAT

New play revisits the saga of OPRF’s Nazi

Madison

By KEVIN BRY Contributing Artist

Street Theatre premieres a new readers theater project

As part of its new Readers Theatre Project, Madison Street Theatre (MST) is premiering my new one-act play, In re Reinhold Kulle. The staged reading will feature a dozen local performers.

The Nazis, like our Greatest Generation, have mostly passed on, now. But if you were once talking to someone of a certain age who spoke with a German accent, you might have wondered

What if I were to tell you not only that I knew a Nazi, but so did many of my high school classmates and teachers. And we really liked the guy!

As Wednesday Journal has covered, and as detailed in a recent book by a for mer Oak Park and River Forest High School teacher (Our Nazi by Michael Soffer), Reinhold Kulle

was the head custodian of the night shift at my alma mater, Oak Pa rk and River Forest High School, back in the 1970s and early ’80s. Attending OPRF, I participated in both sports and theater after school, so I often ran into him, and we for med something of a social friendship. He had a quick and warm smile, and would usually say something like “Not making a mess, are vie?” or “Behafe yourzelf.” I’m not saying we were close, but I liked the guy and somehow I felt we connected

Pretty much the whole school liked Reinhold Kulle. The faculty were used to his years of excellent service, making sure classrooms were clean and that everything was provided for after-school activities. He was an exemplary employee who had raised a family in the U.S. The staff liked his quiet disciplinary style and the twinkle in his eyes which was char ming. And I guess disar ming.

I knew he had served in the German Ar my during World War II. What I didn’t know — what none of us knew — was that Reinhold had been a member of the Schutzstaffel, the infamous “SS.” And this member of the Totenkopfdivision (the “Death’s Head” Division) had — after having been wounded on the Russian front — served as a Guard at a Concentration Camp.

My play treats the community’s reaction to the news and the dual proceedings (deportation and local school board meetings) that ensued when Kulle’s past was discovered. (Spoiler alert here, it kind of tore Oak Park apart for a while.) The play raises important questions about forgiveness and the ability of people of different opinions and beliefs to engage in respectful conversation (questions that are surely relevant today!).

For Madison Street Theatre, this is the first in a series featuring original play

readings, some of and some on other topics. Tina MST’s artistic director, and I, an MST board member, are looking forward to sharing the area’s playwriting talent with the community.

“In re Reinhold Kulle,” by Ke vin Bry, will be performed as a staged reading at 7:30 p.m., Sept. 26, at Madison Street Theatre, 1010 Madison St., Oak Park. Admission is free (donation to the theater is appreciated).

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ART

BEAT

Jane Hamilton’s new boo rekindles coming of age in Oak Park in the 1970s

Memories of OPRF and the librar y

By JESSICA MACKINNON Contributing Reporter

According to acclaimed author Jane Hamilton, her new book, The Phoebe Variations, is steeped in memories of Oak Park and River Forest.

The book, available Sept. 23, is already creating buzz -- included in Oprah Daily’s Best Books of Fall 2025 and earning a starred review in Booklist and positive reviews from the literary holy grails, Kirkus and Publishers Weekly.

For this interview in southern Wisconsin, Hamilton and I sat in the charming cafe that she created as an homage to her mother Ruth, an inveterate collector of art, and discussed her new book, her Oprah moment, and her fond memories of Oak Park

“Writing the book had special resonance for me because I loved being back in Oak Park in the 1970s, which is when I came of age. I got to relive some of the feelings I had when I was growing up,” Hamilton said.

Hamilton lived with four older siblings in a big Victorian on Scoville Avenue, in a block that, according to Hamilton, had 85 children who ran wild, barefoot and cellphone-free at a time when kids could still be feral from morning until their mothers called them home for dinner

“I remember the towering elms that made arches over the street, and the sound of cicadas in the summer. I felt very close to the natural world, especially when we slept in a screened-in back porch during the summer and sometimes the winter,” Hamilton said.

Home Journal, including “Song for A Jane, and her grandmother was a journalist in temperance movement and women’s suffrage

Hamilton’s first forays in writing were self, in a subversive, private way, which she insists is the best way to start writing. At OPRF, where she she wrote poetry and worked on the staf school’s literary magazine

Her first novel, The Book of Ruth, published the PEN/Hemingway Award for best first no was revered by no less a literary arbiter than Oprah whose staff surprised her by inviting Hamilton to lunch Harpo Studios. The experience was unforgettabl

“After the taping of a show, I was planted last in the line to meet her. When I introduced myself, she was so excited and started spontaneously ing from the book. We talked about books the whole time. Oprah’s gift is to make you feel like you’ve been best friends forever — she just showers this radiant energy upon you,” Hamilton said.

Hamilton grew up surrounded by books. Her family didn’t have a television until she was 10 or 11. She credits the librarians at the Oak Park Public Library (OPPL) and Hawthorne School (now the site of Percy Julian Middle School) with encouraging her love of reading.

“I remember Mrs. Dyliss Finch [OPPL librarian] opening a box of books, rooting through it and handing me a book that she said she got for me. It seemed magical at the time that she knew me so well.”

Hamilton’s mother, Ruth Hamilton, and her grandmother, Emma Kidd Hulburt, were both prolific writers. Her mother wrote poems, several of which were published in Ladies

both of which, like The Phoebe Variations, she refers to as “Oak Parky” books. Many of her novels focus on motherhood, domestic relationships and the lives of teenagers.

Eight years later, The Book of Ruth was selected as the third book for Oprah’s Book Club, which debuted in 1996. Sales of the book exploded from 85,000 copies pre-Oprah to more than one million.

“That was beyond my wildest dreams But I was very fortunate to have the Oprah experience several years after the book was published. I already knew that the glare was going to be temporary and I’m grateful for that. I’ve always just been happy to do the work,” Hamilton said.

Lightning struck again when Hamilton’s second book, A Map of the World, was selected for the Book Club in 1999, five years after it was published

Hamilton expresses gratitude for Oprah’s support and credits her and J.K. Rowling for keeping independent bookstores viable in the 1990s in the face of pressure from behemoths like Border’s and Bar nes & Noble.

Both The Book of Ruth and The Map of the World were made into movies. “Map” stars noteworthy actors Sigourney Weaver, Julianne Moore and Louise Fletcher. Hamilton and her nephew, a film buff, visited the set in Toronto for a couple days. They made a brief appearance at the end of the movie, albeit walking with their backs to the camera.

Hamilton has written a total of eight books, including The Short History of a Prince and When Madeline Was Young,

“Oh my gosh, you put any teenager in a narrative and the whole thing is going to explode. It’s such a time of high tension, particularly with girls, because you feel powerful but you don’t know how to use it. But you know it can affect people,” she said.

The Phoebe Variations is a coming-of-age story focusing on the intense friendship between two girls and their shifting power dynamic after they reach adulthood. On the cusp of high school graduation, Phoebe faces a disruption in the fragile fabric of her life and takes shelter with a rambunctious family of 14 children, where she assumes she will be unnoticed. Years later, she looks back from the perspective of adulthood on a period of adolescent tumult and self-discovery

As with all her characters, Hamilton treats the girls with great compassion and empathy

“I loved high school so it was fun to write about girls who also loved high school. I got to relive some of the feelings I had when I was growing up. I intentionally gave Phoebe a complicated and loving deflowering,” she said, laughing

Hamilton left Oak Park during college and, for four decades, has lived and worked in a three-generation familyowned apple orchard in southern Wisconsin. Her son, the fourth generation, is now coming into the fold

“I knew when I married my husband [Bob Willard], I was marrying into a business. It wasn’t an easy decision. But my husband is the best person on the planet. It ’s been a privilege to travel through life with him,” she said, with the same generosity she shows her beloved characters.

JESSICA MACKINNON

Jane Hamilton feeds Babette in her apple orchard.

OPRF students seize service opportunity

Civics Ser vice Learning Fair is o ered twice yearly for over 400 students

By GREGG VOSS Contributing Reporter

The Oak Park and River Forest High School cafeteria was abuzz with potential last Thursday.

Hundreds of juniors and seniors made their way around 29 tables re presenting local nonprofits at the Civics Service Learning Fair For these youngsters, the tables and the people that manned them re presented not just a way to fulfill their mandated five service hours for their Civics course, but a way to give back to their community.

“I see tons of opportunities,” said OPRF junior Mia Mahoney, a volleyball player

“Definitely a lot of things I want to get involved in, especially in education,” said Mahoney, who wants to go into teaching eventually, possibly psycholo gy. “I definitely want to learn about children and their mental health and stability.”

If you need further insight about how serious she is about her career path, consider this:

“I’m doing my project for service learning on education expenses, so I’m trying to see the relationship between mental health and colle ge expenses and the toll it takes on students,” she said.

Kinzler loves working with kids and wants to be a pediatrician someday, and so there were no shor tage of opportunities to contribute to her five hours, like Oak Park Education Foundation and the Collaboration for Early Childhood.

The Civics Service Learning Fair is offered twice yearly for the over 400 students enrolled in Civics each semester. Thurs-

litical and civic eng agement, community and youth eng agement, and housing and food insecurity.

Nearby, OPRF junior football player Liam Brown said he was using Thursday as a basis for setting a monthly routine to contribute service hours. Which organization appealed to him?

“I like Beyond Hunger a lot, because I’ve ed with Feed My Starving Children and it seems kind of up that alley,” Brown said. “That’s also the kind of topic I’m doing for my project in Civics class.” ri Miller, Beyond Hunger director of development, appreciated the interest shown by dozens of students like Miller.

“What I love about these kinds of opportunities is for kids to learn to be of service the community,” Miller said, amongst gaggle of youngsters looking to learn

. “For us, we have lots and lots of volunteer shifts and I think volunteering in a food pantry is a great way for kids to learn more to donate their time.”

Senior Akuba Sarpey is also interested in Beyond Hunger, and also Tutorastic. But there is a higher-level issue she saw from her classmates.

“I really like how I have made a connection with those who are influencing our community,” she said. “I like how they we are interested in what they are doing and also make an impact with them.”

Superintendent Greg Johnson stood among the students with a smile, realizing that the fusion between OPRF and the com-

munity is strong and will only get stronger with the time students will donate.

“It’s great to see all the kids eng aging as clearly as they are,” Johnson said. “Before the kids came in, I was going around the members from those organizations were telling me how fabulous the kids were. No phones were out, they are taking notes, they are asking serious questions, which is wonderful.”

The Civics Service Learning Fair also included a panel discussion in the Little Theater with Cook County assessor Fritz Kaegi, state Sen. Don Harmon, and state Re ps. Camille Lilly and LaShawn Ford.

Want proof that what they were saying had an impact?

It took a re porter the better part of a halfhour to reach Lilly after she spoke with dozens of students after the second panel discussion.

“Their questions were very thoughtful,” said Lilly, an OPRF graduate herself. “They asked us how we are eng aged in making sure they are included. They really want to know about us, and I thought that was very, very important.”

Bottom line: it was an enjoyable experience for her and the panelists.

“This is the third time I’m doing it, and I come every time, probably because I’m a Huskie,” she said. “What I liked was the young people were attentive to listening to our answers. They were intentionally listening to everything we were saying.

“I was very impressed with that.”

OPRF COMMUNICATIONS

OPRF Civ ics Service Learning Fair

OPRF COMMUNICATIONS

State Rep. Camille Lilly with several students during the OPRF Civics Service Learning Fair.

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ARTS FESTIVAL

Celebrations

put on ICE

from page 1

This week, the event was cancelled due to increased Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) activity in Oak Park.

According to Rev. David Loofbourrow, who helped plan the festival and is part of Pilgrim’s Anti-Racism Steering Committee, the planning team began to hear from the scheduled artists that they had concerns about congregating in one place, “especially a welladvertised Hispanic event,” he said.

“We did not want to be creating a space that was a target for the very people that we were trying to celebrate,” Loofbourrow said.

Emad Mahou, chair of the arts council board, said, “The recent presence of ICE in our community is deeply concerning. While we were very much looking forward to presenting this special event, the comfort and safety of our participating artists and guests must come first. After thoughtful discussions, both OPAAC and Pilgrim have agreed that it is best to postpone the event at this time.”

This decision comes amid heightened federal immigration enforcement efforts in

Chicago, after the Department of Homeland Security launched Operation Midway Blitz to target immigrants in Chicago and Illinois Sept. 8.

The cancellation is not the only one of its kind in Oak Park.

The village gover nment announced in an email Sept. 22 that it would be cancelling the annual ¡Viva! Festival due to “ongoing presence of federal immigration agents throughout the region.”

In light of these developments, Rev. Colin Knapp, senior pastor at Pilgrim and a member of its anti-racism steering committee, said he hopes the decision to cancel the Pilgrim and arts council festival makes clear where Pilgrim stands in the face of community threats

“I would want the larger community to know that there are lots of churches that stand opposed to this administration and are actively resisting and creating new ways to be together and cultivate hope,” Knapp said. “We are not going to renege on our values, which this administration stands directly opposed to, and we believe God stands directly opposed to.”

The arts council’s Mahou said, “Oak Park remains steadfast in its commitment to being a safe, welcoming, and inclusive place for all. While difficult decisions sometimes have to be

“I would want the larger community to know that there are lots of churches that stand opposed to this administration and are actively resisting and creating new ways to be together and cultivate hope.”

RE V. COLIN KNAPP

Pilgrim Church senior pastor

made in the interest of safety, our dedication to celebrating the rich cultural diversity of our community has not wavered. This event may not move forward as planned, but our work to uplift voices, honor traditions, and build understanding continues. We want our community to know that these values are not negotiable — they define who we are.”

Pilgrim’s Loofbourrow said that although the event has not yet occurred that the overwhelmingly positive responses he received when reaching out to local sponsors in preparation for the festival was success enough for him.

“I would like people to reach out into the

community and stretch a little bit and find yourself interacting with folks that are different than you, and you’ll find wonderful, loving, exciting, positive people,” Loofbourrow said. “In that regard, I feel like the event was a success, even though we haven’t had it yet.”

Representatives from Pilgrim Church including Loofbourrow, Knapp and their fellow committee member Karin Grimes said the decision should be considered a postponement, not a cancellation. They hope to hold the festival as soon as next spring.

“We’re trying to provide hope to the community in a time when there’s a lot of fear and despair, and we continue to believe that the way things are is not the way things have to be,” Knapp said.

Mahou of the arts council said, “The threats are not just about this one event — they strike at the heart of what Oak Park stands for as a community. Oak Park has always prided itself on being welcoming, inclusive, and committed to celebrating the diversity that makes us stronger. When threats emerge, they are meant to intimidate and divide. Our responsibility as a village is to respond by reaffirming our values: protecting the safety of our residents and guests, standing in solidarity with those targeted, and ensuring that fear does not dictate who we are or how we come together.”

Oak Parkers visit with Institute for Nonv iolence Chicago sta in Austin Gardens Sept. 12. e organization held the event with help from Unity Temple.

Institute for Nonviolence brings peace e orts across Austin Blvd.

Unity Temple collaborated with the street outreach agenc y to provide opportunity for Oak Parkers to learn about violence prevention e orts

By BRENDAN HEFFERNAN Staff Reporter

Unity Temple volunteers Madeline Van Hecke and Marsha Borders said they felt honored to hear that the Institute for Nonviolence Chicago wanted the church’s help setting up an event in Oak Park

Both volunteers on the church’s gun violence prevention team, they said the event presented an opportunity for them to help chip away at barriers that prevent Oak Parkers from connecting with their neighbors in the Austin community, where institute staf f work tirelessly to mediate conflicts, advocate for victims, prevent shootings and support at-risk people get on track with education, job opportunities, mental health care and more

“This feels really nice, trying to create that sense of connection,” said Van Hecke, who grew up in Austin. “Oak Park can be a very isolated kind of community. It’s very liberal politically, but I’m not the only one who’s said that sometimes it’s felt like it’s in a bubble. This is one way to establish more connection — it’s one way to get out of that bubble.”

“Austin is our sister neighborhood in Oak Park.”

Held at Austin Gardens on Friday, Sept. 12, the event invited Oak Parkers to meet with the organization’s outreach workers and other institute staffers to learn about its mission, strate gy and goals. A quick chat with an institute fundraising staffer earned people a ticket to exchange for a

BRENDAN HEFFERNAN

Cucina Paradiso turns 30

The dining community gets presents as the restaurant celebrates

By RISÉ SANDERS-WEIR Eats Reporter

Until Nov. 17, when you dine Cucina Paradiso you might win a Vespa or a trip to Italy. But one thing that is guaranteed during the restaurant’s th anniversary celebration ou’ ll get a good meal.

his dad who owned Nancy’s Pizza locations

His place was Trattoria Pepino on North Avenue’s restaurant row. It was quick-service Italian.

At the tender age of 17, Anthony Gambino opened his first restaurant. It wasn’t even the first foray into food service for the young man who grew up in Elmwood Park. For years he’d been shadowing

“Our clientele would always tell us your food is excellent. Why don’t you make it a full-service restaurant?” Gambino said. “My intention was never to make that location full-service. The physical space really didn’t allow it.” Still, he was intrigued by the idea and wanted to take a chance on something new. He searched for a location for a year, ultimately falling in love with a warehouse space at 814 North Blvd., Oak Park

Through the sweltering heat of the summer of 1995, Gambino and his crew worked to get the place ready to open.

“We were under construction, I remember

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being in a ladder, cleaning the light fixture from all the construction dust,” Gambino said. “A guy walks by the window. Walks in, says, ‘Wow, what a beautiful space you built. I sure hope you’re going to make it.’ I’m like, what do you mean? He goes, ‘I honestly don’t know who’s going to find you here. You’re off the beaten path.’”

This was before internet searches, Yelp reviews and social media recommendations.

“I didn’t make a comment back. I just thought to myself, wow, you know what? Man, am I going to prove this guy wrong!” Gambino said.

When the doors opened, diners discovered a more eclectic menu than in his other location. Many dishes, still on the menu, made their debut in the first months. Bacon wrapped dates was one.

“Couldn’t get anybody to eat a date. A date? Fried with bacon? Can’t keep them in stock today. Rustic salad, virtually from the be ginning. Pasta is the penne arrosto with roasted peppers, ricotta cheese, marinara. Pistachio chicken, which was again 30 years ago, like, nuts? On a piece of chicken?” Gambino said. “When we started, the menu was handwritten, very limited. Six or seven pastas, six or seven entrees, some appetizers, some pizza. Very similar to what it is now.”

The restaurant was building a following Six months after opening, it was named as one of the best restaurants in the city by Chicago Magazine. That and good reviews from the Wednesday Journal and the Chicago Tribune ensured that people didn’t have much trouble finding the location.

“I don’t want to say the rest is history,” Gambino said. “We’ve had some ups. We’ve had some downs.”

Can local journalism survive? Thrive?

important discussion sponsored by the League of Women Voters Oak Park and River Forest and Growing Community Media

The internet killed off many newspapers and other legacy publications are struggling to survive. Meanwhile a new wave of young online publications is attempting to ﬁll the vacuum and cover their communities. If democracy is to survive, voters need to know the candidates running for ofﬁce and their positions. Readers, local donors and foundations have stepped into the fray, but will their philanthropy be enough?

Join the discussion

Tracy Baim Executive director of Press Forward Chicago, a pooled fund helping local journalism

Max Reinsdorf Interim executive director, Growing Community Media

April Alonso Co-founder of Cicero Independiente

Amethyst Davis Founder of the Harvey World Herald

Judith Crown Co-president, League of Women Voters Oak Park and River Forest, will moderate the discussion

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gration activity in Oak Park, and we acknowledge that the increased presence and actions of federal immigration officers throughout the re gion presents not only disruption but also deep fear for many in our community,” the village said in the statement. “We’d also like to reaffirm that in accordance with the Welcoming Village Ordinance and the Illinois TRUST Act, the Village of Oak Park will not use village resources, including staf f, to assist in the enforcement of civil federal immigration laws. This includes not inquiring about, recording, or disclosing an individual’s immigration status unless required by law.

EVENT CANCELED Precautionary move

from page 4

and community members first,” the village said. “The Village remains committed to working with the committee to find alternative ways for the Village to honor Hispanic Heritage Month.”

The move comes after the village confir med to Wednesday Jour nal last week that on Friday, Sept. 12 at approximately 10:45 a.m., multiple ICE agents were in the park-

Sign at Oak Park Village Hall encourages residents to report fede

to immi gration.

activities

Rights and the Organized Communities Against Deportation hotlines, a local immigrant’s rights and social justice org anization participating in a nationwide effort to document interactions with ICE.

Another local organization — PASO West Suburban Action Project — reported on Thursday that ICE agents had been present in Village Hall’s parking lot again.

“At approxim ately 10AM - 10:30AM, bystanders encountered Fe deral agent presence in Oak Pa rk at Vi llage Hall pa rk in g lot,” the agency said last week. “We beli eve that two d etained individuals we re transfer red from one vehicle to another

ing lot of Village Hall, where members of the Oak Park Police Department approached and briefly spoke with the ICE agents present in the parking lot. The federal agents left the property after about 15 minutes “without issue,” according to village staff.

The village announced Friday, Sept. 19 that the village was restricting access to the Village Hall parking lot as result of ICE’s presence.

mented on the move via his official Facebook Friday after noon.

“I am incredibly grateful for the leadership of Village President Vicki Scaman and for village staf f taking quick action to ensure that our Welcoming Village Ordinance is truly meaningful,” he said. “It is a sad statement on our nation that barricades are necessary to demonstrate that we are a Welcoming Village. We are living in frightening times. President Trump is taking action to instill fear with the goal of preventing resistance. T he fear you feel is a tool to silence you. Do not let your voice be silenced.”

Hall parking lot closest to Adams Street will be closed,” the village said in a statement. “The parking lot at 123 Madison St. is restricted for use only by vehicles of Village employees and persons with business within Village Hall. Permitted vehicles must use the northernmost entrances closest to Village Hall to both enter and exit the parking lot. The two remaining entrances may be monitored by security staff pursuant to instructions provided by village staf f.”

Oak Park has a sanctuary ordinance on its book that bars village employees from assisting ICE in any civil immigration investigation without a signed court order compelling them to do so

TODD BANNOR

ral

related

Oak Park police arrest man for hit-and-run, aggravated assault

By BRENDAN HEFFERNAN Staff Reporter

Oak Park police arrested a Berwyn man on several felony charges in connection with a hit-and-run incident.

Police arrested the 61-year-old man shortly before 9 p.m. Sept. 15 on charges of aggravated assault, possession of a stolen vehicle, criminal damage to gover nment property, aggravated fleeing and eluding and fleeing the scene of an accident along with several traffic violations, according to police.

The incident began in the 1100 block of South East Avenue and the man was arrested in the 1400 block of Oak Park Avenue in Berwyn, according to police.

The man is still in custody and is scheduled to appear in court next on Oct. 10, according to Cook County records.

Indecent exposure and battery to o cer

Oak Park police arrested a Forest Park man on a variety of felony charges last week.

Police arrested the 34-year-old man in the 400 block of Jackson Boulevard shortly after 9 a.m. Thursday, Sept. 18. The man was charged with indecent exposure, aggravat-

ed battery of a peace officer and resisting a peace officer, according to Oak Park police.

Burglary arrests

Oak Park police arrested two young men and a juvenile on burglary and other charges in connection with an investigation into an incident that happened outside of a store in the 6300 block of North Avenue in the early mor ning hours of Monday, Sept. 15, according to police.

Police arrested a 23-year-old man from Melrose Park, an 18-year-old man from Aurora and a juvenile from Rockford on charges of burglary and criminal trespassing to a motor vehicle. The juvenile was also charged with aggravated possession of a weapon, according to police.

These items were obtained from Oak Park’s Police Department re ports dated Sept. 9-15 and re present a portion of the incidents to which police responded. Anyone named in these re ports has only been charged with a crime and cases have not yet been adjudicated. We re port the race of a suspect only when a serious crime has been committed, the suspect is still at large, and police have provided us with a detailed a description of the suspect as they seek the public’s help in making an arrest.

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North Riverside Players

Proudly Presents

horrifically awry, set to a powerful pop-rock score by Frank Wildhorn, with book and lyrics by Leslie Bricusse. In an attempt to cure his ailing father’s mental illness by separating “good” from “evil” in the human personality, talented physician Dr. Jekyll inadvertently creates an alternate personality of pure evil, dubbed Mr. Hyde, who wreaks murderous havoc on the city of London. As his fiancée Emma grows increasingly fearful for her betrothed, a prostitute, Lucy, finds herself dangerously involved with both the doctor and his alter ego. Struggling to control Hyde before he takes over for good, Jekyll must race to find a cure for the demon he has created in his own mind.

good, Jekyll must race to find a cure for the demon he has created in his own mind.

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October 3, 4, 5, 10, 11, 11, 2025 Fridays and Saturdays 7:30P Sundays 2:30P North Riverside Players

Directed by Synoma Hays

October 3 at 7:30pm October 4 at 7:30pm

3 at 7:30pm October 4 at 7:30pm

October 3, 4, 5, 10, 11, 11, 2025

Directed by Synoma Hays

Fridays and Saturdays 7:30P Sundays 2:30P

October 3, 4, 5, 10, 11, 11, 2025

October 3, 4, 5, 10, 11, 11, 2025 Fridays and Saturdays 7:30P Sundays 2:30P

Directed by Synoma Hays

5 at 2:30pm October 10 at 7:30pm October 11 at 7:30pm October 12 at 2:30pm

Scheck Village Commons

2401 S DesPlaines Ave, North Riverside, Illinois

Tickets at www.nrplayers.com or 708-526-8084

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NONVIOLENCE

Connecting Austin, Oak Park

from page 15

frozen treat at an ice cream truck that the organization’s CFO Brian Ng runs on the side.

Oak Park attendees had the opportunity to meet people like Tavares Harrington, the institute’s Austin outreach supervisor. Harrington began working in street outreach for the institute after losing his niece to a homicide.

“It was like an all-out-war was going on, so I wanted to try and help the neighborhood and save some of our people,” Harrington said.

Collaborations with suburban organizations like Unity Temple provide a great opportunity to tell the organization’s story, said founder and CEO Teny Gross

Still, staf f said that they see the impact of their work every day.

“I’ve seen our participants elevate to places they thought they couldn’t reach,” said Lar recio Gamble, an Austin case management staffer. “It’s good to see that they’ re doing so well in their own lives with children and families and that they’re developing like we thought they could. I’m seeing that on a daily basis and it’s exciting to see that the growth is there and the change is there.”

Rates of gun violence have fallen steadily across Chicago this year, with the summer of 2025 being the safest one the city has seen since 1965. Some credit support for the outreach work that organizations like the institute do for driving that drop, which has also played out in all of the U.S.’s major cities over the last few years.

Still, it’s difficult for outreach workers to pause for any celebration in light of those numbers, said Gamble.

“It’s hard to brag about helping someone change, you’ re doing it naturally,” he said.

Something like a recession could put an abrupt halt to that progress, Gross said.

The institute was founded in 2015 by Gross, a veteran of both the Israeli Defense Force and the movement to build peace between Palestinians and Israelis who’s worked in violence prevention in U.S. cities since coming to Massachusetts as a colle ge student in the 1980s. Gross said that the institute already has a base of support in Oak Park, but that it is important to demonstrate the work that’s being done to break cycles of violence in Chicago’s most crime-burdened communities as crime in the city is put under a national microscope.

“I don’t want to sell those numbers,” Gross said. “If the economy tanks, if it’s true that 300,000 Black women have lost their jobs, that’s going to effect a lot of families.”

There have been 50 homicides in the Austin community over the last 12 months, down from the 83 killings in the community in 2020 and 71 it saw in 2021, according to ABC 7 Chicago. There have been three homicides in Oak Park since last November, all of which were fatal shootings.

“Research shows that an Israeli soldier is six times less likely to be killed than an African American who drops out of high school in Austin, it’s stunning,” Gross said. “One of the issues that we have is that too many people in Chicago and around Chicago don’t really think that there is a plan to solve violence. So this is a chance to educate in a friendly way, because you can’t do things in a vacuum. Unless people support what you do, it’s not sustainable.”

Latasha Henry, an Austin native and the institute’s case management supervisor, said that Oak Park and Austin need each other to ensure sustainable safety in both communities

The Institute for Nonviolence Chicago has teams anchored in Chicago’s Austin, Brighton Park, West Garfield Park and Back of the Yards communities. The institute’s street outreach workers come from the communities they serve and often bring their own personal experiences with violence and trauma to their work responding to the scenes of shootings, visiting the hospital beds of victims and building relationships with young people in crisis.

Before coming to the event in Oak Park, Gross and his staf f had been at the hospital after an outreach worker’s son was killed in a homicide.

“Because they might get a lot of their information on what’s going on from the news, all Oak Park might see is the impact of negativity,” she said. “So being able to build collaboration, we have an opportunity to come out and make sure that everyone knows not only what we do, but what we stand for and how we’re moving along to model that vision and that mission. Violence has an impact everywhere, so being able to come together and build community is a great thing.”

Harrington said he’d like to see the institute put on an event that brought Oak Parkers into Austin.

“We could definitely get the community to intertwine with each other, I mean we’re all living together” he said. “Violence is a disease, and we all need to stop the spread of it.”

From the ballroom to the laundry room, this classic home checks every box

Noted architect Howard Van Doren Shaw designed 406 Linden

By LACEY SIKORA Real Estate Reporter

Homes built by noted architects aren’t a rare sight in Oak Park, but there aren’t many designed by Howard Van Doren Shaw, whose work is more common in suburbs north of the city. One of Shaw’s de-

signs just hit the market at 406 Linden Ave. and the home is a calling card for his work. Born in Chicago in 1869, Shaw graduated from Yale in 1890 and studied architecture at MIT, finishing his two-year de gree in one year. He then returned to Chicago and worked for the firm Jenney & Mundie, where William Le Baron Jenne was designing early sk yscrapers for the city and where noted architects Daniel Burnham and Louis Sullivan trained . Shaw left the firm to travel Europe and study the architecture there for two months. After returning, he joined the See 406 LINDEN on pa

FIRE & LIGHT: e formal dining room of this Van Doren Shaw home on Linden o ers both the warmth of a replace and the welcoming light of a bank of windows.

firm again before starting his own practice in 1894. His first commercial design was the Lakeside Press Building at 731 S. Plymouth Court, and he designed notable buildings in Hyde Park and throughout the North Shore. His summer retreat, Ragdale, in Lake Forest was one of his first forays into the Arts & Crafts movement.

During his early career, Sh aw re gularly communed with other architects interested in the Arts & Crafts mo vement. Th e lunch group, called “The Eighteen” included Frank Lloyd Wright and met re gularly at the Steinway Hall. As the group

DANCING AND SWIMMING: is very large home includes a third oor ballroom and a pool in the yard.

406 LINDEN

Almost 6,000 square feet from page 21

moved towards the Prairie School of architecture, Shaw set himself apart by embracing a European style of architecture.

Greer Haseman of @Properties Christie’s International Real Estate, who is listing 406 Linden for $1.4 million with her teammate Chris Curran, says of Shaw, “He went off to Europe and became enamored with the grand country homes. He also really loved a courtyard and this house, of course, has a beautiful courtyard.”

The gracious stone courtyard of 406 Linden faces south, and Haseman has heard rumors that the home’s lot originally included two neighboring lots, one of which housed tennis courts

The home spans almost 6,000 square feet and is built of brick and limestone. Inside, the entry foyer is at the center of the house, flanked by a wood-paneled library, a for mal dining room and a for mal living room, all with original fireplace mantles

A sunroom on the west side of the house is walled with windows. The breakfast room still sports its original wooden ceiling and stencil patter ns

While the seller gut rehabbed the kitchen Haseman notes of the butler’s pantry, “She told the designer, ‘Don’t touch this.’ It has its original sink and cabinets.”

On the second floor, the primary suite includes a sunroom, large private bathroom and a room that could be used as an office or nursery. Two wings off the main hall bring the total number of bedrooms up to six and bathroom count to five and one half

The upper two floors showcase many vestiges of the past. The home was so large when it was built, that fire hoses, now-defunct, were installed on the second and third floors. Call boxes for servants are found in two places, and some of the bedrooms have private sinks tucked into their built-in closets.

Haseman notes, “All of these massive homes have ballrooms.” 406 Linden is no exception. The third floor includes a housespanning room ready for recreation. Another room on this floor is wrapped in built-in storage cabinets. A holdover from the time when the homeowners would swap out their clothing storage by the season.

The seller not only maintained an inground pool to the backyard, she also fully rehabbed the basement, moving the pipes up to create higher headroom. There’s plenty of space for recreation and what Haseman calls a “laundry room extraordinaire.”

After living in the house since 1991, the seller is moving on to a new adventure, and Haseman notes, “The sellers before her lived here a long time. It’s a house that beckons you to stay.”

Editor’s note: e photos accompanying this stor y were vir tually staged by the Realtor.

PHOTO S PROVIDED

Revising Halloween p. 27

Whose streets are they, anyway?

Three Beye students were struck by a car earlier this month while walking to school. They were in the crosswalk, with parents nearby, doing everything “right.” And still, they were hit by a distracted driver. Thankfully, they are all OK

CHAVAS

As a Beye parent, receiving an email that three children were hospitalized on their way to school was sickening. It reminded me how fragile our safety is when we allow cars to dominate our streets — where even a moment’s distraction can have devastating consequences ust two weeks later, a bike rider on Augusta was retedly harassed and intentionally struck by an SUV then threatened with a gun before the driver led. That horrifying act underscored a related truth: our car culture doesn’t just create danger through mises — it can also dehumanize, treating people walking and biking as obstacles instead of human beings And yet too often, our response is to blame the ulnerable. Local Facebook groups fill with familiar omplaints: “Why aren’t your kids wearing helmets?” lists don’t follow the rules of the road.” We are all imperfect, and kids are still learning. But these incidents show us that no matter how careful a child is, or how closely a rider follows the rules, the adult behind the wheel of a multi-ton vehicle always carries the greater burden. You can see the same misplaced focus in community debates. When Oak Park released its updated bike plan, a vocal minority zeroed in on parking loss. It’s not wrong to raise questions. But what does it say about us if our first concern is where to put our cars, rather than how to keep our kids and neighbors safe?

Here’s the irony: drivers benefit enormously when people choose to walk or bike. Every trip is one less car in traffic, one less vehicle competing for parking, one less driver in line at the light.

Reckless drivers make us feel powerless. We can’t stop people from buying ever-bigger cars, or eliminate distracted or aggressive driving. But we do have power over something that makes a difference: the design of our streets. And the good news is, we’ve already used that power to adopt two plans that envision a safer Oak Park: Vision Zero and the Bike Plan. That’s the Oak Park I want to walk, bike, and yes, drive in. Now it’s our job to make sure the plans are implemented.

The village is already at work, rolling out crossings and bike boulevards with paint and signs to calm traffic and connect safer routes near schools and parks. To some, the markings look odd, but they’re proven cues: stripes and symbols that tell drivers to slow down and watch for people. They make it safer for people of all ages and abilities to walk and bike — a win for everyone who shares our roads.

We can choose a different story for our streets — one where Oak Park puts people first. That means celebrating neighbors who walk and bike, knowing every trip not taken by car benefits the whole community. And it means engaging constructively with the village as they put Vision Zero and the Bike Plan into action. The work has begun. Let’s keep it moving forward.

DEADLINE FOR SUBMISSIONS IS FRIDAY 5 P.M.

Call Viewpoints editor Ken Trainor at 613-3310

ktrainor@wjinc.com

What I did for my summer vacation

It takes two to speak the truth — one to speak, and another to hear H.D. Thoreau

After 30 years in education, I know my way around an essential question. With retirement from public schools slated for the conclusion of this year, I wanted to deepen my knowledge of Civil Rights, enslavement and the works of Thoreau, to find ways to make these topics compelling and relevant for students.

I was selected for three fantastic programs designed to give educators tools to teach “hard history”: Civil Rights Educator Workshop, co-hosted by the Museum of History and Holocaust Education at Kennesaw State University and the National Center for Civil and Human Rights in Atlanta; George Washington Teachers Institute: Lives Bound Together, Slavery at Mount Ver non, Virginia; and Approaching Walden: Studying Thoreau, in Concord, Massachusetts

tion of a historical letter, painting, song, or poster with a “thinking routine” works to help students be close observers, reason thoughtfully, and reflect on how they are making sense of things. These routines come from Project Zero and the Harvard Graduate School of Education. These workshops gave me more tools and more access to important artifacts of history. For example, each location offered in-depth work with archives — Martin Luther King’s archives at Morehouse College, Washington’s archives at Mount Ver non, and Thoeau’s archives at Walden Woods. And truthfully, a lot of energy and inspiration comes from being in a historic place and hearing about the heroism of our people — King and the Civil Rights organizers, the enslaved people at Mount Ver non who resisted as they could, and Henry David Thoreau, who wrote unequivocally about the evils of enslavement and the importance of fighting for human rights

Luckily, best practices can also provide job security. In Atlanta and Mount Ver non, our cohorts talked about how teachers in many states might be able to address these indispensable parts of history, under threat of discipline or dismissal for teaching about Civil Rights, enslavement, and racism. One Georgia teacher attended a training devoted specifically to keeping your job while teaching “divisive topics.” She asked to remain anonymous for fear of disciplinary action. Her takeaway: primary sources, original documents, and artifacts that provide first-hand evidence of a historical event, topic, or period are the key. “Present information factually and let students come to their own conclusions,” she was told. “Read the law for yourself and use good common sense.”

Using primary sources has been a popular and effective approach to practice investigation, critical thinking and reflection with students. Also, pairing a structured investiga-

The cohorts of teachers and the spaces of history and lear ning reinforced my belief that teaching is a civic act, that we must curate the truth and an inclusive history, no matter how disturbing it is, with artifacts. Most importantly, we must encourage and offer a safe space for diverse students to bring their experiences, no matter how well they speak English or their background

At the risk of being overly optimistic, the colleagues I met in these programs, competent and hard-working, are poised to teach students how to think, not what to think. They are ready to fight for critical thinking so our students can find the truths of the past and present.

Allison Baxter teaches English as a Second Language at West Chicago High School, serves as secretary of Sisters in Crime Chicagoland, and you will see her walking her cute but naughty poodle mix, Max, around the streets of Oak Park.

PROVIDED

ALLISON BAXTER One View

OUR VIEWS

Poking

the bear

It has been another week in Oak Park of warding of f the fear and the separation President Donald Trump works each day to stoke his grim vision of America. Our welcoming community has poked the bear and we have also strategically retreated to protect our immigrant neighbors.

While the nation rightly applauds the return of Jimmy Kimmel to late-night TV, Oak Park has blocked access to its village hall parking lot to prevent ICE agents from using it as a staging area. It is a bold step by Village President Vicki Scaman and villa ge staf f to say, “Not here. Not in this village.”

The village board also passed a resolution calling on state and federal elected officials to ban the use of face masks by any and all law enforcement personnel.

Meanwhile, we followed up on two longtime River Foresters who have recently been deported to Slovakia. One witness we interviewed said three of the four agents she encountered on her apartment stairway were masked. When she asked who had detained her longtime neighbor, she was told, “We can’t tell you that.” So far the Journal has had both ICE and Customs & Border Protection deny their involvement. We’ll keep asking.

And in the strategic retreats mentioned, two Oak Park events celebrating Hispanic Heritage and Hispanic ar tists have both been cancelled to prevent federal agents from targeting those events for possible de portation action. An arts event co-sponsored by Pilg rim Church and the Oak Park Area Arts Council has been delayed even as Pilgrim leaders spoke out to our re por ter about the state of the nation.

Oak Park’s village government has also cancelled a festival celebrating Hispanic heritage out of the same concerns over ICE intervention.

Discouragement and hope as we work the long process of retaining and sustaining American values.

Two weeks back marked my fourth visit to Ireland — 1973, 2007, 2019, and 2025 — and likely not my last. In 2017, my son met hi future wife on our tour, and I have tw red-headed grand-leprechauns now to sho for it. This time, my travel partner, a first-timer and I focused on the three D’s, Dublin on the east, Dingle and Doolin in the west, connected country’s fine iron road of rails.

Over the past 52 years of my acquaintanc this once-isolated outlier in the North Atlanti has become a vibrant, forward-thinking nation, first in the world to ban smoking in public places in 2004 and the first nation to legalize same-sex marriage by popular vote (2015). After centuries of moral repression by a scandal-ridden Catholic Church, the Irish rebelled, voting to approve abortion and sanction divorce. Following England’s seven-century oppression, Ireland finally secured its long-sought independence in the 1920s, then spent most of the past century saddled with a depressed economy.

Ireland: the imagin ion nation

TRAINOR

Finally freed from the throes of poverty in this millennium, they now seem determined to keep it that way on their brisk daily walks to work. The Irish are infectiously outgoing, accented by their lilting “brogue,” which I never tire of listening to. It’s a stylish speech that lifts ordinary English to the brink of lyric poetry. Ask for directions whenever possible, then sit back and enjoy for it will be well worth your while.

I supplemented our visit by reading Ray Bradbury’s Green Shadows, White Whale, a fictionalized memoir of his six months working on a screenplay (Moby Dick) in 1950’s Ireland:

“Before you go,” said Finn. “On the Irish now. … How would you best describe …?”

“Imagination,” I said quietly. … “What wealth is there? None! What natural resources? Only one: the resourceful genius, the golden mind, of everyone I’ ve met! … The Church puts her on her knees, the weather drowns her, politics all but buries her but Ireland still sprints for that far exit. And do you know, by God, I think she’ll make it!”

By God, Ireland did make it. Set on a “pool table” divided into rectangles by rain-sucking hedgerows, it is the greenest land on Earth. It rained every day we were there — and sunny every day, too, in equal measure. That old cliché, “if you don’t like the weather, wait 15 minutes,” is the daily forecast here, or would be if they bothered to issue one. In the vast open sky on the West Coast, cloud masses engage in a great cosmic ballet, battling sun and wind on the Wild Atlantic Way, accompanied by enough rainbows as to seem commonplace, rain lashing the windows while the far hills are beaming, or itinerant

louds generously strafing distant slopes as you watch from a warm oasis of temporary sunshine. Locals never blink an eye about it all. Ever at the of powerful, shifting natural elements, it’s no wonder the Irish developed a mystical bent. eed from their heavy societal anchors and historical straitjackets, they are at long last oming into their own, their mindset reflected in three favored descriptors: “grand,” “lovely,” and “brilliant.” The national symbol is a musical nstrument (the harp). Several of Dublin’s artful bridges across the River Liffey (not the Liffey mind you, the “River Liffey” because it falls more comfortably from the mouth) were named to honor three of their greatest wordsmiths: Sean O’Casey, Samuel Beckett, and James Joyce. This is a land where the arts and education come first, where the gover nment subsidizes schools through college, including many where instruction is entirely in the “Irish” language. On every traffic sign, Gaelic precedes English because they are deter mined not to let their native tongue die from neglect.

Ireland is a more egalitarian culture than ours. In Dublin, an enor mous banner hangs from a high-rise proclaiming “Ceasefire Now” because they know what it means to be oppressed and they sympathize with underdogs everywhere. It’s a country where citizens say, “We all have to pay our taxes” — not with bitter resentment like us, but sincerely because of the many things the gover nment is trying to do for people. And they’re willing to pay a much higher percentage in taxes than we do.

In Ireland, “the drink” refers either to the pub or the Atlantic Ocean. The pub is the one with quotes on the cluttered walls that range from Brendan Behan (“I only drink when I’m thirsty and when I’m not thirsty”) to W.B. Yeats (“The problem with some people is when they’re not drunk, they’re sober”). Ireland’s superpowers, storytelling and music, are each cross-fertilized by the other. People laugh easily where stories are told, and the pubs reverberate with a feeling akin to home It was a very, very long road to get where the Irish are today. This country seems to know where it’s going. And it’s no longer going elsewhere — proud of the outsized influence some 70 million people of Irish descent have exerted worldwide, prouder still that they no longer have to leave

A folklorist, speaking on Ireland’s rich mythical legacy of faeries, banshees and leprechauns, said they were used to “explain the unknown, back when they had nothing to work with but their mind.” A nation of imagination.

When people talk about the changeable weather here, they excuse it with a shrug, saying, “Green is good for the mind.” And by God it is green here.

DFair wages for D90 teachers

uring my time in District 90, I took on many union leadership roles and also was a part of several contract negotiations. I am writing in support of the RFEA and their ongoing efforts to sign a contract that pays them fair wages. I also have a lot of respect for our principals and assistant principals. Staff and administration alike work exceptionally hard to maintain the high achievement levels of all of your D90 schools. I encourage River Forest residents to reach out to school board members to ask clarifying questions about the ongoing contract negotiations. It’s my hope that board members truly want to represent their constituency, so your voices matter I have a few questions I would like residents of River Forest to ask themselves and their school board:

MCFARLANE BALU

One View

living near Chicago in order to teach in River Forest. Do you really value your administrators that much more than RFEA members, the ones who are teaching your children every day?

3. If the state recommends that school districts have 180 days of cash on hand, why does D90 have 460 days’ worth? I need to say that I do have a tremendous amount of respect for Anthony Cozzi and his dedication to the district, but discussion of how much cash D90 truly needs should be had in an open and honest way. Saving money for the future at the cost of hiring and retaining high-quality teachers is a risky bet.

Honoring food service workers

Thursday, Sept. 25 is National Food Service Worker Day, established to recognize and honor the hard work, dedication and talent of the many servers, chefs and cooks, hosts, dishwashers, delivery drivers, and more who feed our communities across the nation.

These workers are folks we interact with on a re gular basis but who often lack stability and a safety net when something goes wrong. That’s why the 501(c)(3) nonprofit Giving Kitchen (givingkitchen.org) is encouraging eaters and drinkers to let food service workers know about the support they can get if

they miss work due to an injury, housing disaster, illness, or death of a family member

Giving Kitchen provides financial aid and network resources for food service workers when they need it most – swiftly and without strings attached. If you find yourself dining out on Sept. 25 or ordering in, please let your server, driver, or host know they can turn to Giving Kitchen in the midst of a crisis

And please, don’t forget to thank them for their hard work and dedication!

Amy Rosenthal Oak Park

1. How many high-quality teachers have you lost and will you lose to other districts because they could make more elsewhere?

Anecdotally, I have heard of several people tur ning down job offers or choosing not even to apply to D90 in the first place because they knew the salary was lower than they were already making or could make in a nearby suburb. Several for mer D90 teachers have felt comfortable leaving for other districts or endeavors because our salary in River Forest wasn’t competitive enough to keep us there and the salary increases were barely kee ping up with inflation. D90 is definitely a lovely place to work because families are so supportive on a daily basis, but that support simply doesn’t pay the bills

2. D90 administrators are currently paid wages 43% above the state average, while D90 teachers are currently paid 2% above the state average. Remember, that 2% doesn’t take into account the additional costs of

4. What are the proposed salary increases for teachers that are being offered by each side, and how would each of those scenarios affect future property taxes? I firmly believe in the sanctity of keeping negotiation discussions confidential, but perhaps the second half of that question could be answered without violating agreements on discussion details. Residents deserve to know if their school board members are rejecting proposed numbers from the RFEA for legitimate and substantial reasons. Perhaps asking what the gap is between the two sides’ numbers might also be helpful.

Please speak up. You deserve excellent schools and the RFEA deserves to be compensated in a way that reflects their dedication to that excellence.

Amy McFarlane Balu taught fourth grade at Willard Elementary School for 20 years, and was very grateful to be a part of the larger River Forest and Oak Park community. In the spring of 2024, she moved back to her hometown in Wisconsin to work at a school district near her extended family.

In support of D90 teachers

I am the parent of two daughters in District 90. We joined the Willard community in 2020 when my older daughter, Luxmi Singh, was in kindergarten. Three years later, my younger daughter, Margot, had the privilege of joining the preschool classroom for two years at Willard. They are now in second grade and fifth grade.

As a full-time working parent, I am not as involved as I would like to be in volunteering at the schools, but I have served in various capacities as room parent over the years. I write this letter acutely aware that the business of running a school district is entirely outside my domain of expertise, aware that the pragmatics and multiple demands inherent in that job must be endlessly wearing and vexing.

I also write this letter with a compelling study in mind: a study referenced in an Atlantic Magazine article (“The One Parenting Decision that Really Matters,” by

Is citizen input a waste of time?

Seth Stephens-Davidowitz), which distills an enormous amount of developmental data and shows that the impact of “role models: adults who are smart, accomplished, engaged in the community” has (arguably) the greatest impact on forming good citizens of the world.

Teachers are at the center of this ecosystem, in which those little citizens grow and develop. They are the homeostasis upon which the goodness of my children’s day rises and falls. They are worthy of every form of support available to them, in every substantive way possible.

So I am conveying what I suspect is both an obvious and shared sentiment, but one that I hope yields meaningful impact for the engines and organizers of our childrens’ worlds

I stand in support of River Forest teachers.

I am deeply disillusioned by the Oak Park Village Board vote on Sept. 16 to overrule the findings of the Historic Preservation Commission (HPC) re garding the Arcade development proposal. The disre gard for the careful work of the HPC members and the citizens who testified against the proposed tower was very disappointing. Despite the needlessly extended process, caused by the developers’ delays, the public commitment never flagged. Using the official guidelines for

additions to historic sites, the HPC carefully brought their expertise and judgment and to the task. They rejected it four times!

Yet the majority of the board yielded to the developers’ demands.

Why have this commission? Why have any commissions if their work can so easily be dismissed? The village board sent a message to the community that citizen input is a waste of time. That is not the Oak Park I have known the past 50 years.

I have always been proud of Oak Park’s

high standards, respect for community, and the agility with which it has honored its historic architecture while encouraging diversity, economic development and the well-being of citizens Together, not individually, these factors give Oak Park its unique culture and reputation. What happened? You cannot sacrifice one without damaging the whole. This project does not conform to local architectural standards, will not bring more af fordable housing. It will not improve the

quality of life and will cause terrible congestion in an already congested area. This village has thrived because of the tenacious, scrupulous, visionary and hardworking involvement of its citizens. I can only hope that the Plan Commission will respect the contributions of the community and reject this proposal.

Will the village board respect their decision?

Ann Bregman River Forest

Carla Lind Oak Park

SHRUB TO WN by Marc Stopeck

Let’s revise and re-do Halloween

I’ve been an Oak Park resident for seven years, a mom for six, so I am aware this community loves Halloween as a chance to celebrate and tap into magic and whimsy.

But it’s always made me unsettled: symbols of death displayed on front lawns. Oak Park, this year I invite you — I *implore* you — to look past “spooky season” and instead look to reality. Look to the mass starvation in Gaza, look to the school shootings in the U.S.

We don’t need to decorate and make light of real-life hell. We are seeing real-life starvation, real-life murder. We are seeing parents bury their children around the world and in our community. And then we’re seeing skeleton families in our front yards. T he disconnection is jarring. It leaves me unsteady. Coffin races and coffin decor come across as so insensitive to those of us who have had to face death head on. Nothing

about coffins is funny or cute. I can’t speak for every grieving traumatized person, or even every parent who has buried a child, but for myself, I can say this season is very hard. The depictions of death in yards give no reprieve from pain or trauma. I am ever thinking of my daughter who died, yet each time I see a small coffin decoration or a child-sized skeleton, I have a jolt of awful, painful reality I ache for the parents who are newly living this reality, while the world keeps spinning. Our community does so much intentional good together; let’s take care of one another by removing triggers and trauma where possible. Let’s have more apple cider, carved pumpkins and leaf piles and in this real-life spooky season. Let’s move toward violence prevention and har m reduction. Anna Lesser Oak Park

WEDNESD AY

JOURNAL

of Oak Park and River Forest

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e goal of the Viewpoints section is to foster and facilitate a community conversation and respectful dialogue. Responsible community voices are vital to community journalism and we welcome them. Space is at a premium and readers’ attention is also limited, so we ask that Viewpoints submissions be brief. Our limit for letters to the editor is 350 words. For One View essays, the limit is 500 words. Shorter is better. If and when we have su cient space, we print longer submissions, but when space is limited — as it o en is — we may ask you to submit a shorter version or hold the piece until space allows us to print it.

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Blast those OPRF bathrooms!

My grandchildren at OPRF High School both tell me that removing the bathroom doors didn’t change a thing, except get people riled up and put OPRF all over the local news, and not in a favorable light.

I’d like to suggest that the school test this proven alternative approach in one wing of the school. Put the bathroom doors back on, and pump into these bath-

rooms the most excruciating melody-free opera and Mahler musical works they can find — at volumes that noise canceling earphones won’t completely shut out.

Just as this sort of practice has ended or minimized loitering outside many bode gas, it very well might reduce or eliminate vaping, dope-smoking, and class-skipping in the test bathrooms. If

successful, consider taking the practice schoolwide. And while the school is testing this concept, maybe ask the students what they think would work.

Who knows? They might actually have some effective ideas.

Dan Lauber

River Forest

Panem et Circenses?

The River Forest village president’s recent letter celebrating National Senior Citizens Day might read as a warm tribute, but residents should see it for what it is: a distraction. Lavish praise of seniors is no substitute for honest gover nance.

Yes, our older adults have contributed immeasurably to River Forest. But the President’s sudden emphasis on “community” in lieu of “infrastructure and planning” sidesteps a harsher truth: residents, including many senior citizens, are being forced to pay attention to infrastructure

and long-term planning only because of the village’s ongoing financial mismanagement. Costly and shortsighted investment decisions have left taxpayers holding the bag, yet the responsibility is quietly shifted back to us under the guise of “community building.”

What the President does not say is just as important as what she does. She consistently and deliberately ignores the will of the people, whether by pushing ahead with unpopular projects or by denying the results of a free and fair election that established

ter m limits for her office. It is one thing to host a Bingo game and serve ice cream. It is another to deny constituents’ votes and silence our voices

River Forest deserves leadership that respects its citizens not only with platitudes but with accountability. Our community doesn’t need more overblown thank-yous. It needs honesty, responsible financial stewardship and, above all, respect for democratic decisions

Deborah Borman River Forest

Invest in teachers or undermine our schools

My husband teaches here in District 90. I work in early childhood systems and policy. In our home, conversations about education and care aren’t just topics of interest; they are the very fabric of our lives. We share stories from the classroom, debate policy, and dream of a better future for all children.

That dream is our lens for everything. It’s how we gauged the world during Chicago school closures, as we fought alongside parents and staff. It’s how we dreamed of safer, more nimble community schools during the pandemic. It’s how we struggled to explain the murder of George Floyd to young kids, and how we now make unbearable plans for a school shooting that hasn’t happened here, yet.

Focusing so intently on children forces a difficult truth into the light: our public schools have become the catch-all for society’s deepest failures. The professionals inside them are now expected to be educators, social workers, mental health counselors, and protectors. Yet while we ask them to solve everything, we demean them as “babysitters” or worse.

This devaluation is no accident. It is the direct result of a society that accepts endless responsibility from its caregivers while offering scant support in return. We see it in our overwhelmed pediatricians and underpaid childcare workers, too. The mission expands to meet children’s complex needs; the respect and resources do not follow.

But what is the cost of this disconnect?

The cost is a crisis of sustainability. We know children thrive on consistency and stability, yet we’ve built a system that actively pushes it out of reach. Consider that the median household income in River Forest is $148,000. A starting teacher here makes $50,000.

This math only works if we ignore reality It assumes a teacher can afford to commute from a distant community, that they won’t seek a better-paying job, or that they possess independent wealth. This isn’t a sustainable model for education; it’s a privilege-laden fantasy that excludes talented, passionate individuals and tells those who stay: “Your immense skill and care are not worthy of a dignified life within this community.”

When we underpay and disrespect teach-

Dissent devoid of anger

Boomers did OK as parents. It was a peaceful time, decades of it. We didn’t know that then. Of course we want decades of peace and prosperity for our children. But these are dif ficult times.

Here’s a meme for living in these times without breaking everything. We are all members of the American Family, a family too broken, too angry to speak, to vote, to pass legislation. Our Family needs to heal enough to take up the job of democracy, i.e. to deliberate, and acknowledge that we are all, all concerned about the future.

Violence is in our DNA. It was useful to acquire food and defend homes. But recent events have shown that today’s violence is both Means and Ends. That’s what is dif ferent, violence for violence’s sake. We are shocked by Charlie Kirk’s death. But we should not drown in selfpity now, nor retreat to the dark corners of our hearts. The future is not written. It is time to talk with our neighbors, not fear them.

ers, we aren’t just failing them. We are making a conscious choice to destabilize our children’s education. High teacher tur nover leads to worse student outcomes. This isn’t sentiment; it’s data.

I believe our community supports its schools. But support must be more than gratitude. It must be action. Do we show our values by paying administrators more while teachers leave for districts that offer a living wage? Or do we show it by ensuring the professionals we trust with our children’s minds can afford to live here, build a career here, and are treated with the respect their expertise demands?

Supporting our teachers isn’t a luxury. It is the absolute baseline requirement for answering the question “How are the children?” with any honesty. If we want them to be OK, we must first value the people we entrust with their care.

I encourage all readers to reach out to the D90 school board at board@district90.org to urge them to provide teachers with the fair contract and livable wages they deserve Kristina Rogers Oak Park

We need to take up the practice of democracy. Dissent devoid of anger. Government devoid of personal interest. Elected officials devoid of naked bias. Our precious, fragile government flourishes with participation, not in isolation. Deliberation, compromise, debate, acceptance, give and take — these are the behaviors of a responsible, free people.

In her bio graphy of the philosopher Voltaire*, Evelyn Beatrice Hall wrote, “I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it.” This is the essential freedom, the heart of democracy, and freedom of speech. How do we go about making decisions when we disagree? Here are three simple rules for exercising free speech when we disagree:

■ Respect all speakers; it takes courage to speak.

■ Listen actively; take notes.

■ Seek to understand all sides of a question.

We’re special to the Free World. Now sit up and think like it.

*The F riends of Voltaire, Evelyn Beatrice Hall, 1906.

Karen Morris Muriello Oak Park

anks for making the lm fest a success

The Oak Park Illinois Film Festival was a smash hit. There are so many people to thank that I cannot name names, only organizations, or this letter would be too long to print. We received support from the village of Oak Park, the Oak Park-River Forest Chamber of Commerce, the Historical Society of Oak Park-River Forest, the Nineteenth Century Charitable Association, the Oak Park Area Arts Council, the Park District of Oak Park, Downtown Oak Park, numerous local restaurants, and many volunteers. Sorry if I left anyone out. Madison Street Theater and the Lake Theatre were wonderful places to rent and went above and beyond, helping us in so many ways. We also had several business sponsors and individual supporters, and the vendors we used gave us great service. Thank you to them all. Hundreds of people purchased tickets

The event was considered of regional interest. Not only did we have articles in two

industry newsletters, but I was interviewed on three Chicago radio stations, including WGN. I was surprised and happy to find that four online media creators were there, creating coverage of the event, to appear soon. Wednesday Journal gave us an excellent rate on paid advertising with good placement. We also had the opportunity to list our program in the calendar. However I must point out it is unfortunate that Wednesday Jour nal no longer has an arts critic in such an arts-oriented town; this important event drew hundreds of people, but did not receive a featured article or a review. I hope this is a situation will improve next year. I’m sure the paper could find some young, aspiring critic who would work for free admission, a byline and a very small stipend

Finally, I must thank our Board of Directors, who put in an incredible amount of work for many months in order to make the magic of the weekend happen. I have to name them:

Michael J. Awe, Jill Dahl, Eric Henry, Byron Leonard, Martha McGee, Chris Rooney, Timothy Sedlacek and Charlie Sweitzer. I also want to thank our audience members for being so incredibly enthusiastic. There was a real sense of community and the biggest challenge of the weekend was ending people’s excited conversations between blocks in order to stay on schedule. It’s a wonderful problem to have when people are so enjoying being with other like-minded people and making connections. Some watched all 27 films and two industry panels, as well as enjoying the live music of the Miguel DeLeon Band and Ike and Shane Reilly

If anyone is interested in volunteering or being an applicant for the board of directors, please email your interest to team@opilff.org

We will see all of you next September, if not before.

Joyce Porter President, OPILFF Board of Directors

Elevate Oak Park: building a civic culture

Elevate Oak Park grew out of this past year’s local elections for village trustees and president. What began as spirited, thoughtful conversations among neighbors has become something more: a grassroots, people-powered initiative with a clear mission: to foster open, respectful, and solutions-focused civic eng agement while creating space for of fline, reasoned discourse.

ANGELA

SPINILLO

One View

from chasing perfect consensus. It comes from building meaningful compromise. In fact, the constant pursuit of unanimity can delay urgent action and often dilutes the very values that make Oak Park special. Progress isn’t perfection. It’s process.

local challenges, whether around housing, sustainability, community safety, or equity, don’t have to be zero-sum games. They can be opportunities for win-win solutions that honor our diverse experiences while keeping our shared goals in focus.

QuickTrip tripped

I applaud the decision of the Oak Park Plan Commission to vote down the petition from QuickTrip to allow them to build a g as station and convenience store at Harlem and Garfield. It was a four-hour meeting, and the commission members deserve praise for their decision and insightful questions. The committee chair did an excellent job of managing a boisterous crowd and one particularly rude participant. Our neighbors who spoke did so clearly and made cogent points.

Although the company may have become familiar with village zoning law and IDOT re gulations, they did not do their homework when it came to our neighborhood and to Oak Park. They seemed unaware of our concerns about traffic, crime, or the environment. For example, they had to be prompted about charging stations and rooftop solar for their structures.

That shared goal is where Elevate Oak Park (EOP) finds its footing. We’re not about shouting down opponents or offering a platfor m for the loudest voices to virtue signal or dominate the conversation. Nor are we attempting to rebrand as “the middle” or water down what it means to be progressive

Instead, we’re pursuing a deliberative approach — an intentional effort to strengthen our civic culture by encouraging reasoned discourse and social cooperation, where pragmatic and transfor mative goals can coexist and inform one another. We can seek change and progress while remaining grounded in practical, community-driven solutions.

We believe real progress doesn’t come

Local governance can work. And that’s something worth celebrating. While the national political climate feels more divided and performative than ever, here in Oak Park we have an opportunity to model something different: a community-led path rooted in transparency, shared responsibility, and social cooperation. But that only happens when more people are engaged, informed, and genuinely willing to get involved.

That’s where Elevate Oak Pa rk comes in

We’re creating a space where more voices are not only welcomed, but actively encouraged. A space where new ideas are heard. Where we lean into action, not endless argument. Where disagreement isn’t viewed as a threat, but as an essential part of the democratic process — something to be managed constructively, not eliminated or ignored.

We believe many of our most pressing

At a time when online forums too often amplify division and hostility, Elevate Oak Park of fers something refreshingly different: real, face-to-face conversations, grounded in respect — even when things get tough. Oak Park is thriving, but we also believe we can do better. We must do better.

So let’s get to work — together.

Elevate Oak Park is about common ground and collective action. We’re not just imagining a more constructive civic culture — we’re building it. And there’s room at the table for everyone who wants to be part of the solution.

We’re just getting started. Our first community meetups will be announced soon, and we look forward to welcoming village trustees, local leadership, and neighbors from across Oak Park to join us.

Join our Facebook group, Instagram coming soon! Want to receive our email? Please send your info to elevate.oak.park il@gmail.com.

The design was very generic and cookie cutter. Why do they need so many parking spaces? How would they avoid overnight parking? The entrance and egress, for customers coming from and going south on Harlem, would clog traffic on Garfield and have a high potential for accidents. I would challenge their traffic engineer at 5 p.m. to either attempt to make a left onto Garfield from the current strip mall and/or make a left of f southbound Harlem onto Garfield. The proposed entrance on Lexington was also problematic, given that it was directly across the street from the park, would have increased traffic, and was in clear violation of the relevant building code.

I understand the desire of the Mohr family to move on. The current site (including the ugly strip mall) clearly needs attention. I suggest that the village commit substantial funding toward environmental cleanup to help attract new developers (after all, they found funds for streetscaping elsewhere in the village!).

Roy Plotnick Oak Park

Marijuana and tra c

Oak Park residents are facing growing public safety concerns, and the situation seems to be worsening. At the intersection of Taylor and Adams, few vehicles comes to a full stop at crosswalks — just one example of how traffic laws are being routinely ignored. This puts pedestrians at serious risk, and it’s not an isolated issue.

Another concern is the frequent smell of marijuana on Oak Park streets, especially from passing vehicles. While recreational cannabis is legal in Illinois, the pervasive odor — often near schools, parks, and residential areas — has become a public nuisance and, at times, a health issue. Yet Democratic leadership has shown little interest in addressing the unintended consequences of legalization.

Compounding these problems is the rise in uninsured motorists. A friend of mine was recently rear-ended by an uninsured driver whose car smelled strongly of marijuana. Beyond the financial burden, the incident highlighted the danger of impaired, unaccountable drivers. The Illinois Supreme Court’s 2024 People v. Redmond decision, which ruled that the smell of cannabis alone does not justify legal action, has made it even harder for law enforcement to respond effectively.

Despite these challenges, the village continues to prioritize infrastructure changes like adding more bicycle lanes and boulevards. While promoting cycling has its merits, this approach feels out of step with the community’s most pressing concerns. Many drivers — especially non-

When Gerald Ford re placed Richard Nixon as President, Ford said “Our long national nightmare is over.” How I long to hear those words again! I keep wondering whether any Trump scandals would cause him to step down in favor of J.D. Vance. I have read Vance’s autobiography, a coming-of-age saga from a backwoods childhood of dark poverty, raised by parents and grandparents who were drug addicts. He rose to the Vice Presidency, thanks to keen intelligence, an Ivy League education and a best-selling coming-of-age biography. He now seems to be a complete opportunist and turncoat. A user, just like Trump

Whatever is in store for our now-fragile democracy, we can count on the fact that there will be a movie about Trump sooner or later — probably more than one Will it be History? Comedy? Tragedy? Farce? If I recall my days as an English major, it won’t be tragedy because the hero is required to be of noble character before his fall. (No more questions, Your Honor.)

So who should play lead roles in a movie about our Prince of Darkness … the man

residents — are unfamiliar with the intent behind these new boulevards, increasing risks for cyclists rather than reducing them.

Moreover, re placing street parking with bike lanes has frustrated homeowners who rely on that parking for daily use. The move has sparked tension and contributed to a growing sense of disconnect between residents and local leadership. Policies that disrupt daily life without addressing core safety issues only deepen mistrust.

Instead of pushing through top-down infrastructure projects, Oak Park should refocus on enforcing existing traffic laws. Cracking down on rolling stops, speeding, and distracted driving would go much fur ther in improving safety for pedestrians, cyclists, and motorists alike. Addressing the rise of uninsured, potentially impaired drivers should also be a top priority. Finally, leaders must take more proactive steps to deal with the fallout from marijuana legalization. The current legal framework leaves too many gaps when it comes to impaired driving enforcement.

Oak Park’s leadership must recognize that cosmetic changes won’t fix underlying problems. True public safety requires responsive, grounded gover nance that listens to residents, enforces existing laws, and protects everyone using our roads.

Richard Willis, Oak Park

River Forest ‘con dential’

On the confusion about term limits approved for River Forest officials in the April 1 election: At the Sept. 8 village board meeting, it was explained yet again that because the referendum had “ambiguous” language (alle gedly both binding and advisory), there is some legal murkiness about what the village should do in response to the majority vote for ter m limits

There also seems to be confusion about what the municipal code says regarding what a municipality can and can’t do to enact term limits. Because of this confusion, our attorney has been directed (again?) to get clarity on this. Meanwhile, it seems the board has received from our attorney information relevant to this issue that has been declared “confidential.”

A trustee asked that a summary (not confidential) be created that can be made available to residents so that those who are concerned about this are privy to what the board is dealing with — in the hopes, I assume, that we will understand the complexity of this matter

OK, that sounds reasonable, but in retrospect, I’m now wondering what could possibly be confidential about the municipal rules. A personnel matter is, indeed, confidential. But municipal rules and guidelines for how to handle such a referendum and vote? Confidential? What on earth could be confidential about that?

Phyllis Rubin, River Forest

e Worst Years of Our Life: the movie

who makes us want to look away? I thought it would be fun to cast the movie with my own favorites, living or dead. (I included “dead” because a lot of the greats who are no longer with us would have been perfect in certain roles).

Donald Trump: On the one hand, Jack Nicholson captures the crackpot energy of the would-be dictator, but the late Marlon Brando (with full strawber ry-blonde toupee) would have explored new ter ritory in Trump’s hateful and hate-filled personality For full poetic justice, however, I choose Rosie O’Donnell to play Trump

MARY KAY O’GRADY

Vice President Vance: A young Tom Hanks would have been good as the self-made young man who succumbed to sucking-up — and paid for it later.

Vice President in (illegal) Third Term: Charlize Theron because Trump will try to change the law and gain a third ter m and because he would insist on a beautiful blonde as his running mate

First Wife Ivanka Trump: Meryl Streep loves doing accents. She would also be good trying to hold onto the stair railing as she … uh … fell to her death.

Second Wife Marla Maples: Frances McDor mand should play at least one of the wives, just to enrage Trump when he sees the movie

Melania Trump: Meryl Streep again for the accent, but Nicole Kidman could dye her hair and be wonderful.

Oldest daughter Ivanka and husband: Nicole Kidman conveys intelligence and loyalty at once, in a dif ficult role Ryan Gosling as her husband because he always looks embarrassed to be wherever he is.

Trump’s three sons: Though possibly too old, John Mullaney, Dan Levy and Sean Penn would be great fun, and would probably have their own “buddy” movie later. Robert Downey Jr. as Pete He gseth. Downey would probably win an Oscar, which would not be fair because he actu-

ally was an alcoholic and drug addict in his real-life past.

Robert Duvall almost looks like Putin, and would probably win an Oscar for the role, although it requires no more than smiling pleasantly and picking the useful idiot’s pocket.

Leonardo Di Caprio as California Governor Gavin Newsom, the man we Oak Parkers are counting on to part his hair, spray it, and sweep in to save us when Trump tries to change the law and run for a third (or fourth) term. Or sooner. Please, Gavin. Is it too mean to cast Danny De Vito as Secretary of State Marco Rubio? Probably, so Al Pacino.

John Goodman as Dr. Phil, who appears to be on Trump’s payroll.

Robert De Niro as Pope Leo II, who may very well break new ground and say what he really thinks about Trump. Please

Morgan Freeman cannot play every black hero, so Denzel Washington as Obama. It would be fun if they could have captions at the bottom of the screen to show what Obama is really thinking whenever he deals with Trump

OK, Morgan Freeman as the nar rator

Once upon a time, in the village of Oak Park, there was a proud little building called the Arcade. Born in 1906, polished up in 1922, and lovingly restored in 2008, it stood as a reminder that history matters. So much so that in 2007, the village bestowed upon it the title of “historic landmark.”

The people were pleased. They had cre-

When density is destiny

ated a council of wise ones — the Historic Preservation Commission — to guard such treasures. And guard it they did. Four times, the commission said “no” to a towering, 10-story newcomer that threatened to overshadow the Arcade. Four times! In most fairy tales, that’s the part where the dragon retreats.

But lo and behold, in our moder n-day

Rebecca Dennis, 54

OPRF grad, class of 1989

On Aug. 29, 2025, surrounded by love and family, Rebecca Jane Dennis, 54, gracefully died, all too soon, from breast cancer. The sadness of her passing is eased by the life she lived fully and shared generously with family and countless friends, near and far. Born to Melanie and John Dennis on July 13, 1971, in Evanston, she was welcomed into a large, blended family Her infectious charm, generous spirit, necessary grit, and dimpled cherub smile won her a special place in the hearts of others. As an old family friend recalled when meeting her as a small child, she was the most alive human he ever met. She spent the first half of her life in Oak Park and Evanston before moving to Maine, and ultimately settling in Vermont. In the Green Mountains she met her partner, Nate Perham, raised her daughters, Madison and and lived a happy, beautiful life. A graduate of OPRF High School, class of ’89, she worked for Nor thwestern search Park before moving east. A link to her hometown remembrance can be found at https://www.norther montfuneralservice.com/obituary/rebecca-dennis.

fable, a new village board is here. And this board decided that housing density was the magic word that trumped all others. Forget af fordable housing — why bother, when the project just happens to land one unit shy of the requirement? Forget history, too. “Density!” cried the board, and suddenly the rules, the guardians, and the landmark itself all shrank into background scenery.

music led her to play in the bands Cross Destiny and Double Agent in her youth. Later in life, she pursued online studies through Full Sail University and continued with music production while living in Colfax, Washington. Deborah was preceded in death by her parents, James and Bonnie, and her brother, James Patrick Hennessy She is survived by her sister, Kathleen Gibbons, and her best friend, Nancy (Evan) Kluge.

June Atlas Karlen, 101 School counselor, special ed teacher

Deborah Hennessy, 65

A passion for music

Deborah Susan Hennessy, 65, of Pullman, Washington, died on Sept. 14, 2025. She will be remembered for her kind heart, her lifelong passion for music, and the love she had for her beloved cat, Mia.

Born on Oct. 27, 1959 in Chicago to James Edward and Bonnie Jean Hennessy, she grew up in Oak Pa rk, where she graduated from Oak Park and River Forest High School. Her love of

June Atlas Karlen, who died on Sept. 16, 2025, lived a long and wonderful 101 years. Born on June 10, 1924, she was the daughter of Lottie and Benjamin Joseph and the sister of Mae Nessenson. She had two very happy marriages to Leon M. Atlas and Harvey M. Karlen and loved her daughters, Susan Atlas Kelley (husband Stephen Kelley) and Caron Atlas; her andchildren, Alex Kelley, Rachel Schulman (husband Zach Schulman), and Zoe; her greatandchild Atlas Schulman; and her stepsons David and d with all their hearts. , and lived in Melrose Park and Oak Park. She earned her bachelor’s de gree at Chicago Teachers Colle ge and a master’s in Counseling and Special Education from Northeastern University. She was employed by the Chicago Board of Education for 40 years as a school counselor and special education teacher. As she put it, “I loved every single day of my career.” She received letters from her students over the decades saying how much she had changed their lives. Her principal noted in a birthday card that she “had a gift for making children feel so special, so precious, and unique.”

She loved to travel and visited over 44 countries, bringing home stories about the wonderful people she met, and her home was filled with art from her trips. Her drawers were filled with another form of art, the beautiful sweaters she knit over the years.

Her friendships lasted decades through joy and grief —

And so the Arcade’s story took a tur n. It still stands — for now — but dwarfed by promises of profit and a developer’s clever arithmetic. The moral of the story? In Oak Park, history is optional, density is destiny, and once upon a time may soon be all we have left.

some over 50 years. She was an enthusiastic matchmaker, and on more than one occasion introduced her friends to their future spouses.

Two days before her passing, the orchid she rece ived for her 100th bir thday bloomed again. Like that orchid, she will live on through all she shared with so many she loved.

In lieu of flowers, contributions are welcome in June’s name to the Children First Fund (https://childrenfirstfund.org), Oak Park Temple B’nai Abraham Zion (https:// www.oakparktemple.org), or the charity of your choice.

Funeral at Arlington set for Tyra Manning, former D90 superintendent

The funeral and burial of Tyra Manning, a longtime River Forest school superintendent, has been set for Oct. 6 at Arlington National Cemetery in Washington D.C.

Manning died on July 6, 2025 at the age of 78. She had lived with cancer for 18 years.

She led the District 90 River Forest elementary schools from 1992 to 2000. In retirement she moved home to West Texas where she wrote two books and grew her national re putation in education. Her first book, Where the Water Meets the Sand, was a memoir that told the story of her early life struggles with mental illness and substance abuse following the death of her husband Lt. Larry Hull, an Air Force pilot who died in 1971 while on a secret mission over Laos during the Vietnam war. His remains were not expatriated to the United States until 2006. He is buried at Arlington National Cemetery.

Manning’s funeral will be at the Old Post Chapel at Arlington. Guests will need to arrange their own transpor tation to the chapel, the gravesite and to exit the cemetery.

Robert Milstein, Oak Park

SPORTS

OPRF ag football ies past Fenwick

Henderson tosses ve TDs in Huskies’ shutout

By MELVIN TATE Contributing Reporter

Oak Park and River Forest High School senior flag football quarterback Julia Henderson knew how important the Huskies’ East Avenue Showdown against visiting Fenwick, Sept. 16, was.

“There was a lot riding on this game because they’re our hometown rivals and we want to beat them in every sport,” she said.

Henderson did her part and then some, throwing for five touchdowns in OPRF’s 37-0 victory over Fenwick

“She’s unreal,” said OPRF coach James Geovanes. “I think she’s the best quarterback in the state and I’ll put her up against anybody. She reads defenses so well, finds the open receiver. I haven’t seen a better quarterback than her yet.”

After holding Fenwick (6-4) to one first down on the game’s opening possession, OPRF (9-3) marched 51 yards on eight plays, capping things with an 18-yard touchdown pass from Henderson to sophomore Lucy Avrut. Then following a threeand-out defensively, the Huskies scored again, this time on six plays, as Henderson found Leia Hammerschmidt for a 10-yard score and a 12-0 lead at the 9:55 mark of the second quarter

“It was really important,” Henderson said of her team’s fast start. “It sets the tone for the whole team to be excited and have so much emotion. It felt good to start off strong and not to have to work our way back.”

OPRF’s next “drive” three minutes later lasted just one play But it was a beauty as Henderson pitched back to senior Cora Brown, running a reverse to the right. Brown stopped and lofted a pass down the Fenwick sideline to Avrut for a 44-yard touchdown.

The Huskies then put the Friars away with two scores in the final three minutes of the half: an 86-yard pass from Hen-

win

derson to Avrut, and a 33-yard pass from Henderson to Brown, making it 31-0 OPRF at halftime

Three plays into the second half, Henderson threw her fift touchdown pass of the night, 66 yards to Nabila Diorio. score made it 37-0 and mandated a running clock for mainder of the contest.

“Beating Fenwick is always huge for any one of our programs,” Geovanes said. “With this group this year, it special, and to shut them out is even better.”

Fenwick struggled to move the ball against the OPRF de fense, outside of a few receptions by senior running Heaven Lee from senior quarterback Margaret Price.

“[OPRF] is a good team. They’re very well-coached, they fast and talented, and they were humming tonight,” said F wick coach Bryan Boehm.

That said, Boehm is hopeful that the Friars learn from the lopsided loss and use it as motivation to get better

“First and foremost, you’ve got to look inside your hear and character,” he said. “How are you going to respond as team and as an individual? I don’t think a game like this will define our season, but every play we’ve got to look at what we could’ve done better and just grow. We’ve just got to coach better and make sure everyone’s ready, and from a player’s standpoint, we’ve got to do the small things and fundamentals right. There’s some time to get into the woodshed and figure it out.”

OPRF quarterback Julia Henderson (9) gets blocking from Alessandra Gerut (13) as she looks to pass against Fenw ick during a cross-tow n ag football game, Sept. 16, in Oak Park.

Boehm’s message was received by Fenwick. The Friars snapped a four-game losing streak with a 14-0 shutout victory at De La Salle, Sept. 17, then defeated host Sandburg, 14-7, Sept. 20.

Meanwhile, OPRF is rolling and won its fifth consecutive game with a 36-0 shutout at Downers Grove North, Sept. 18.

“We’re peaking at the right time with some big g ames coming up,” Geovanes said. “We’re communicating better than

we ever have and have come together better than we ever have. With the players looming in two weeks, we told them to be ready because it’s going to be a fun run for us.”

OPRF has West Suburban Conference games versus York, Sept. 24; at Lyons Township, Sept. 25; and at Proviso West, Sept. 27. Fenwick hosts Resurrection at Triton College, Sept 24, and has road games at Glenbrook North Sept. 27 and Loyola Academy Sept. 29.

Fenwick football rallies late but comes up short

By MELVIN TATE Contributing Reporter

“Fight Fenwick, fight to the end; fight Friars, fight till we win …”

That is how the second stanza of Fenwick’s school song begins. After falling behind by

Missed two-point conversion seals Friars’ fate at Montini

18 points at Montini in the third quarter of a Chicago Catholic League/East Suburban Catholic Conference White Division football game, Sept. 19, the Friars did indeed rally and fought until the very end.

However, the heroic effort came up short as Fenwick failed to convert a two-point conver-

sion at the end of regulation time. Instead of going into overtime with all the momentum, the Friars were left with a tough 31-29 defeat.

“We weren’t mentally prepared, being that it was our first time facing adversity,” said

Fenwick senior co-captain Tommy Thies.

“We just turned it on too late We’ve got a bet-

ter job of facing adversity and having a ‘next play’ mindset.”

On fourth and six from the Fenwick 20, midway through the first quarter, Noah Sur executed a successful fake punt, running for eight yards and a first down. On the next play, Jamen Williams (23-of-40, 333 yards, 3 TD,

STEVE JOHNSTON

OPRF girls swimming steadily improves

Experienced Huskies feel ready to compete

By MELVIN TATE Contributing Reporter

For the last two seasons, the Oak Park and River High School girls swimming and diving varsity team has been young, with a lot of student-athletes gaining needed experience. This year, the Huskies are ready to p experience to good use, if early results are any indication.

“At this point in the season, the girls are respondin very well to the training demands we’ve set before said OPRF coach Cl yde Lund gren, now in his 27 th season with the pr ogr am. “They are a sweet group to work and they genuinely enjoy putting in the ef fort We ready seen several lifetime bests and with the additio of weight training to our dryland progr am, I’m excited to see the results it brings as we head toward the end of the season.”

At the Riverside-Brookfield Invite, Sept. 13, OPRF fin ished second in a nine-school field with 222 points, 96 behind champion Lake Park Lundgren was pleased with his team’s strong perfor mance.

“It meant a lot to the girls and gave them a well-deserve d sense of accomplishment,” he said.

Senior Hailey Boland, who qualified for state last year in the 100 breaststroke, won four medals at RB. She won the 200 freestyle in a time of 1:59.40 and the 100 breaststroke in 1:07.67.

Boland was also part of two OPRF relays that medaled. She swam the last leg of the second-place 200 freestyle relay (1:41.99) which also comprised of junior Kylie Miller and seniors Evie Hasenbalg and Avaa Ruffer. The same quartet finished third in the 200 medley in 1:54.53.

Other individual winners for the Huskies were Ruffer in the 200 individual medley in 2:17.95 and senior diver Jil-

INT) hit Raphiel Stewart (three receptions, 101 yards) in stride for a 72-yard touchdown that gave Fenwick (3-1, 0-1 in CCL/ESCC White) a 7-0 lead. But Montini (4-0, 1-0) countered with a three-yard touchdown run from Isaac Alexander (13 carries, 65 yards).

Things still looked good when Sur booted a 36-yard field goal with 3:39 left in the half to give the Friars a 10-7 lead. But disaster struck with 11.7 seconds remaining as Montini’s Payton Nelson intercepted Williams at the Fenwick 32 and turned it into a pick-six, giving the Broncos a 14-10 halftime lead

“That’s the difference in the game right there,” Fenwick coach Matt Battaglia said.

Twice in the third quarter, Fenwick went for it on fourth down just past midfield but failed to convert on either, and Montini took advantage of its gifted field position both

times

OPRF’s Hailey Boland sw ims the breaststroke dur ing the 200 yard Medley Relay at the Hinsdale Central Kendall Pickering Invitational, Aug. 30, in Hinsdale.

lian Louie in the one-meter springboard with 225.75 points. OPRF also got top-six showings from Miller, who was fifth in the 50 freestyle (25.96) and sixth in the 100 freestyle (57.09); Hasenbalg, who took sixth (26.13); Ruffer, who took fifth in the 100 backstroke (1:02.72); and sophomore Lily Cook, who took fourth in the 500 freestyle (5:46.87).

Despite having home meets at neighboring schools due to the ongoing Imagine Project II construction, Boland likes how the season is going.

Montini quarterback Israel Abrams connected with Damacio Ortegon for a 57-yard score at the 5:26 mark of the third quarter

After the Broncos’ defense stopped the Friars again on downs, Abrams hooked up with Nico Castaldo for a 28-yard touchdown and a 28-10 lead.

“Montini’s a well-coached team and they were definitely ready for us,” Thies said.

“They had a good game plan and took advantage of some of our weaknesses. We’ve got to do a better job on defense, and offensively we’ve got to establish the run. ”

But Fenwick went on a three-play drive that took just 33 seconds to get back into the game. Jimmy Watts (six receptions, 139 yards) grabbed a 32-yard rece ption. Stewart followed with a 14-yard catch, and Wil-

“It’s safe to say the pool situation hasn’t slowed us wn,” she said. “If anything, it’s pushed us to make the most of every minute we have in the water and really pen our skills

Boland, who has been on the varsity all four years, also ppreciates the opportunity to showcase her leadershi p skills as one of the team’s captains, something she calls “amazing.”

“I’ve been swimming with Coach [Lundgren] since I was 8 years old and g etting to work with him now as a captain is truly a dream come true,” she said. “He’s been a mentor to me for so many years and leading the team under his guidance feels like things have come full cir-

OPRF perennially competes with Fenwick for the sectional title, and that’s expected to be the case again this ear. Both Boland and Lundgren want to ensure that the Huskies are in peak shape when the postseason star ts

“The big focus for the team will be pushing ourselves to hit our best times and locking in our championshi p lineup,” Boland said. “Individually, I just want to keep shar pening my skills and racing my hardest in order to qualify for individual events in our state meet.”

“Our goal is always the same, to use our sport as a means to grow as people,” Lundgren said. “By striving for success, we encounter moments of vulnerability where the outcome is not guaranteed even though we have prepared thoroughly.

“It can feel cruel sometimes, but in the end this is ho w life is and part icipating in this sport can embolden you to be more prepared for what life can bring,” he added. “We strive to place as well as we can at our highly competitive [West Suburban Silve r] meet, post as many PR’s [personal records] at our end-of-season championships, and get as many girls to state as possibl e.”

liams hit Will Tomczak for a 29-yard score. The two-point conversion run failed, but the Friars cut their deficit to 28-16 after three quarters.

Things again looked break after Johnny Louise’s 41-yard field goal with 8:40 left in regulation gave Montini a 31-16 lead. But the Friars refused to yield and marched 70 yards on seven plays, with Jake Thies’ 4-yard touchdown run making the score 31-23 with 5:41 to go

Fenwick’s defense stiffened on Montini’s next drive, posting three consecutive negative plays. Odin Ferjak dropped Johnny Neustadt for a two-yard loss on first down, then Tommy Thies and Liam Cahill notched back-to-back sacks. Following a punt, the Friars had the ball back on the Montini 44 with 2:49 left.

Williams patiently drove Fenwick downfield, and on the final play of regulation, he found Mike Murphy for a 5-yard touchdown. The Friars needed two points to tie the game and force overtime. From the Montini 3-yard line, Williams dropped back and saw Stewart breaking open in the middle of the end zone. But the pass sailed through Stewart’s hands, ending the contest.

“The g ame’s not on Raphiel, it’s on the whole team,” Tommy Thies said. “Football’s a team sport and there are a lot of things that went into us losing that g ame.”

“We have not even come close to playing our best football,” Battaglia said, “so if we learn from this and play our best, it’s wor th it.”

Fenwick visits De La Salle, Sept. 26, at 7:30 p.m.

STEVE JOHNSTON

PUBLIC NOTICES

PUBLIC NOTICE

Notice is hereby given, pursuant to “An Act in relation to the use of an Assumed Business Name in the conduct or transaction of Business in the State,” as amended, that a certification was registered by the undersigned with the County Clerk of Cook County. Registration Number: M25000902 on September 17, 2025

Under the Assumed Business Name of ERROL JAY KIRSCH ARCHITECT with the business located at: 1046 FAIR OAKS, OAK PARK, IL 60302. The true and real full name(s) and residence address of the owner(s)/ partner(s) is: ERROL JAY KIRSCH 1046 FAIR OAKS, OAK PARK, IL 60302, USA.

Published in Wednesday Journal September 24, October 1, 8, 2025

PUBLIC HEARING NOTICE

ZONING BOARD OF APPEALS

RIVER FOREST, ILLINOIS

Public Notice is hereby given that a public hearing will be held by the Zoning Board of Appeals of the Village of River Forest, Cook County, Illinois, on Thursday, October 9, 2025 at 7:30 p.m. in the First Floor Community Room of the River Forest Village Hall, 400 Park Avenue, River Forest, Illinois, to consider amendment(s) to the Village’s Zoning Ordinance which include, but may not be limited to, the following:

1. A Text Amendment to Section 1024-3 (Applicability) of the Zoning Ordinance regarding the applicability of other sections; and

2. A Text Amendment to Section 10-24-3 (Off Street Parking) of the Zoning Ordinance to establish tree preservation requirements for single family properties and to update tereminology.

The petitioner for the Text Amendments is the Village President and Board of Trustees. This public hearing is being held pursuant to direction given by the Village Board of Trustees for the Zoning Board of Appeals to consider these amendments. For additional information visit www.vrf. us

All interested persons will be given the opportunity to be heard at the public hearing. For public comments to be considered by the Zoning Board of Appeals and Village Board of Trustees in their decision, they must be included as part of the public hearing record. If you cannot attend the public hearing but would like to provide input on this matter to the Zoning Board of Appeals you may submit your comments in writing, to Clifford Radatz, Building Official, no later than 12:00 Noon on the date of the public hearing at cradatz@vrf.us or by mailing them to 400 Park Avenue, River Forest, IL 60305. For further information or for a copy of the proposed text amendments, please contact Village Administrator Matt Walsh at (708) 714-3563 or at mwalsh@vrf.us or visit www.vrf.us

Clifford Radatz

Secretary, Zoning Board of Appeals

Published in Wednesday Journal September 24, 2025

PUBLIC NOTICES

PUBLIC NOTICE OF ADOPTION OF RULES AND REGULATIONS OF THE BOARD OF FIRE AND POLICE COMMISSIONERS OF THE VILLAGE OF OAK PARK, ILLINOIS

The Board of Fire and Police Commissioners of the Village of Oak Park, Illinois have adopted Rules and Regulations for the Village of Oak Park’s Police Department. The Rules and Regulations may be obtained at the Human Resources Department, Village of Oak Park, 123 Madison Street, Oak Park, Illinois 60302 during the regular business hours of 8�30 a.m. to 5�00 p.m. The Rules and Regulations shall take effect ten �10� days from the date of publication of this notice.

Published in Wednesday Journal September 24, 2025

PUBLIC NOTICE

Request of bids for Geothermal HVAC system at Cheney Mansion.

Owner: Park District of Oak Park 218 Madison St, Oak Park, IL 60302 The Park District of Oak Park will accept sealed bids for the Cheney Mansion Geothermal HVAC System at 220 N. Euclid Av. in Oak Park. The project consists of the full installation of all HVAC equipment, necessary ductwork, electrical work, existing geothermal well manifold hookups and components. The Park District of Oak Park will receive individual sealed Bids until 10:00 a.m. (Central Daylight time) on Thursday October 9th, 2025, at 218 Madison St., Oak Park, Illinois. Copies of the bidding documents and requirements will be available at 4:30pm, Thursday, September 18th, 2025, via the Demand Star website at: https://www. demandstar.com/app/suppliers/ bids/509114/details. A Mandatory Pre-bid walk-thru is scheduled for Wednesday, September 24th, at 10:00 a.m. (Central Daylight time) at 220 N. Euclid Av., Oak Park, IL 60302. For additional information, contact Bill Hamilton at bill. hamilton@ pdop.org or 708-7252052. Bid bonds will be required by bidding contractors. This contract bid must adhere to the Prevailing Wage Act of 2025. Only the bids in compliance with the provisions of the bidding specifications will be considered. Minority and Women Owned businesses are strongly encouraged.

Park District of Oak Park By: Sandy Lentz, Secretary Park District of Oak Park 218 Madison St. Oak Park, Il. 60302

Published in Wednesday Journal September 24, 2025

REAL ESTATE FOR SALE

IN THE CIRCUIT COURT OF COOK COUNTY, ILLINOIS COUNTY DEPARTMENT - CHANCERY DIVISION Lakeview Loan Servicing, LLC Plaintiff, -v.-

Tontaneshia F. Bouie; Timothy Sharperson; Unknown Owners and Nonrecord Claimants Defendants. 2025CH00071 14 52nd Ave., 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 7/17/2025, an agent of Auction. com, LLC will conduct the auction in person at 12:00 P.M. on October 22, 2025 located at 100 N LaSalle St., Suite 1400, Chicago, IL 60602, and will sell at public sale to the highest bidder, as set forth below, the following described real estate. LOT 27 IN CASTLE HOMES ADDITION TO BELLWOOD, BEING A SUBDIVISION OF PART OF LOTS 4 AND 5 IN THE SUBDIVISION OF THE NORTHEAST FRACTIONAL QUARTERS AND THE NORTHEAST QUARTERS OF THE FRACTIONAL NORTHWEST QUARTER OF FRACTIONAL SECTION 8, TOWNSHIP 39 NORTH, RANGE 12, EAST OF THE THIRD PRINCIPAL MERIDIAN, IN COOK COUNTY, ILLINOIS.

Commonly known as 14 52nd Ave., Bellwood, IL 60104

Property Index No. 15-08-101-0300000

The real estate is improved with a Residential Property. The judgment amount was $198,662.83 Sale Terms: 20% down of the highest bid by certified funds at the close of the sale payable to Auction. com, LLC, No third party checks will be accepted. All registered bidders need to provide a photo ID in order to bid. The balance, in certified funds/or wire transfer, is due within twenty-four (24) hours. (relief fee not required) 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)(l) 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 Con-

dominium 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 151701 (C) OF THE ILLINOIS MORTGAGE FORECLOSURE LAW. For information, contact Plaintiffs attorney: CODILIS & ASSOCIATES PC (630) 794-5300 please refer to file number 14-24-07648.

Auction.com, LLC 100 N LaSalle St., Suite 1400 Chicago, IL 60602 - 872-225-4985 You can also visit www.auction.com.

Attorney File No. 14-24-07648

Case Number: 2025CH00071

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.

I3272385

IN THE CIRCUIT COURT OF COOK COUNTY, ILLINOIS COUNTY DEPARTMENT - CHANCERY DIVISION SELENE FINANCE LP Plaintiff, -v.-

TORSHAUN STAMPS, UNITED STATES OF AMERICA ACTING BY AND THROUGH THE SECRETARY OF HOUSING AND URBAN DEVELOPMENT, CORTEZ REAL ESTATE INVESTMENT, LLC Defendants 23 CH 08261 1046 32ND 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 January 17, 2025, an agent for The Judicial Sales Corporation, will at 10:30 AM on October 3, 2025, at The Judicial Sales Corporation, One South Wacker, 1st Floor Suite 35R, Chicago, IL, 60606, sell at public in-person sale to the highest bidder, as set forth below, the following described real estate: LOT 18 IN BLOCK 4 IN SHELKETON BROTHERS THIRD ADDITION, A SUBDIVISION OF THE SOUTHWEST 1/4 OF THE NORTHEAST 1/4 OF SECTION 16, TOWNSHIP 39 NORTH, RANGE 12, EAST OF THE THIRD PRINCIPAL MERIDAIN, IN COOK COUNTY, ILLINOIS. Commonly known as 1046 32ND AVENUE, BELLWOOD, IL 60104

Property Index No. 15-16-209042-0000

The real estate is improved with a single family residence. The judgment amount was $225,269.72.

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, in certified funds/or wire transfer, is due within twenty-four (24) hours. 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.

Where a sale of real estate is made to satisfy a lien prior to that of the United States, the United States shall have one year from the date of sale within which to redeem, except that with respect to a lien arising under the internal revenue laws the period shall be 120 days or the period allowable for redemption under State law, whichever is longer, and in any case in which, under the provisions of section 505 of the Housing Act of 1950, as amended (12 U.S.C. 1701k), and subsection (d) of section 3720 of title 38 of the United States Code, the right to redeem does not arise, there shall be no right of redemption. 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).

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, contact HEAVNER, BEYERS & MIHLAR, LLC Plaintiff’s Attorneys, 601 E. William St., DECATUR, IL, 62523 (217) 4221719. Please refer to file number 1683418.

THE JUDICIAL SALES CORPORATION

One South Wacker Drive, 24th Floor, Chicago, IL 60606-4650 (312) 236-SALE

You can also visit The Judicial Sales Corporation at www.tjsc.com for a 7 day status report of pending sales.

HEAVNER, BEYERS & MIHLAR, LLC

601 E. William St. DECATUR IL, 62523 217-422-1719

Fax #: 217-422-1754

E-Mail: CookPleadings@hsbattys. com

Attorney File No. 1683418

Attorney Code. 40387

Case Number: 23 CH 08261

TJSC#: 45-1884

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 # 23 CH 08261 I3272565

IN THE CIRCUIT COURT OF COOK COUNTY, ILLINOIS COUNTY DEPARTMENT - CHANCERY DIVISION THE BANK OF NEW YORK MELLON, F/K/A, THE BANK OF NEW YORK, AS TRUSTEE FOR BEAR STEARNS ASSET BACKED SECURITIES

TRUST 2006-4, ASSET-BACKED CERTIFICATES, SERIES 2006-4

Plaintiff, -v.ERIC B. CRAWFORD, YOLANDA CRAWFORD, VILLAGE OF MAYWOOD Defendants 2024CH03889 2112 S. 8TH AVENUE MAYWOOD, IL 60153

NOTICE OF SALE

PUBLIC NOTICE IS HEREBY GIVEN that pursuant to a Judgment of Foreclosure and Sale entered in the above cause on July 9, 2025, an agent for The Judicial Sales Corporation, will at 10:30 AM on October 14, 2025, at The Judicial Sales Corporation, One South Wacker, 1st Floor Suite 35R, Chicago, IL, 60606, sell at public in-person sale to the highest bidder, as set forth below, the following described real estate: Commonly known as 2112 S. 8TH AVENUE, MAYWOOD, IL 60153

Property Index No. 15-14-324-0170000

The real estate is improved with a single family residence. The judgment amount was $300,822.07.

Sale terms: If sold to anyone other than the Plaintiff, 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, in certified funds/or wire transfer, is due within twenty-four (24) hours. 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 151701(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, contact JOHNSON, BLUMBERG & ASSOCIATES, LLC Plaintiff’s Attorneys, 30 N. LASALLE STREET, SUITE 3650, Chicago, IL, 60602 (312) 541-9710. Please refer to file number IL 21 9061.

THE JUDICIAL SALES CORPORATION One South Wacker Drive, 24th Floor, Chicago, IL 60606-4650 (312) 236-SALE

You can also visit The Judicial Sales Corporation at www.tjsc.com for a 7 day status report of pending sales.

JOHNSON, BLUMBERG & ASSOCIATES, LLC 30 N. LASALLE STREET, SUITE 3650 Chicago IL, 60602 312-541-9710

E-Mail: ilpleadings@johnsonblumberg.com

Attorney File No. IL 21 9061 Attorney Code. 40342 Case Number: 2024CH03889 TJSC#: 45-2002

Case # 2024CH03889 I3272716

IN THE CIRCUIT COURT OF COOK COUNTY, ILLINOIS COUNTY DEPARTMENT - CHANCERY DIVISION NEWREZ LLC D/B/A SHELLPOINT MORTGAGE SERVICING Plaintiff vs. AMIR MOHABBAT, AS SPECIAL REPRESENTATIVE FOR LINDA J. THOMPSON, REGINALD THOMPSON, UNKNOWN HEIRS AND LEGATEES OF LINDA J. THOMPSON, UNKNOWN OWNERS GENERALLY, AND NON-RECORD CLAIMANTS Defendant 24 CH 9859 CALENDAR 58 NOTICE OF SALE PUBLIC NOTICE is hereby given that pursuant to a Judgment of Foreclosure entered in the above entitled cause Intercounty Judicial Sales Corporation will on October 28, 2025, at the hour 11:00 a.m., Intercounty’s office, 120 West Madison Street, Suite 718A, Chicago, IL 60602, sell to the highest bidder for cash, the following described mortgaged real estate: P.I.N. 15-15-308-034-0000. Commonly known as 1905 S. 25th Avenue, Maywood, IL 60153. The real estate is: 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: At sale, the bidder must have 10% down by certified funds, balance within 24 hours, by certified funds. No refunds. The property will NOT be open for inspection. Prospective bidders are admonished to check the court file to verify all information.

For information call Sales Department at Plaintiff’s Attorney, Altman, Strautins & Kromm, LLC d/b/a Kluever Law Group, 200 North LaSalle Street, Suite 1880, Chicago, Illinois 60601. (312) 236-0077. SMS001265-24FC1 INTERCOUNTY JUDICIAL SALES CORPORATION intercountyjudicialsales.com I3273418

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