Jon Hale of Forum Oak Park takes issue with Dan Haley’s lumping of OP political philosophies into “a narrow range. Liberal, good government, tolerant.”  Rather, there are populists and progressives: 

The NLC/VCA side [winners in last village board election] is populist, catering to what it thinks “the people” want, often to the point of demagoguery, and distrusting the ability of professional experts to help guide policymaking. “Good government” and “tolerance” of opposing views have not exactly been hallmarks of this group’s leadership over the past year. It puts too much faith in the use of public meetings, which it expands ad infinitum until the only folks left standing on a given issue are the extremely committeds, who then are given disproportionate say over the outcome.

This is very familiar.  I can still hear the neighbor and fellow Beye School parent announcing at a PTO meeting in the 80s that he had plenty of time and would remain as long as it took to decide a certain issue.  You hang in there, asking, “Which side are you on?” until the people with lives beyond politics go home.

This side sees Oak Park not as one community, but as a collection of groups to be catered to – especially those that supported it at the polls. In general, this group finds decision-making difficult, especially on complex issues where it’s hard to discern exactly what it is “the people” want and professional expertise is considered untrustworthy.

Ah yes, we need “closure” here.  Majority rules?  How brutal.  Rather than “the people,” what you hear is “the community.”  Yeah, yeah!  Rumble, rumble.

Hale’s Forum, on the other hand, thinks

there is more to policymaking than . . . catering to what we think “the people” want.  . . . there are multiple viewpoints on every issue. A trustee is called upon to consider these public viewpoints then to . . . “revise and enlarge” the public view taking into account the whole variety of community interests, so that policy decisions are based on what’s best for the entire community, current and future.

Not quite philosopher kings, but elected representatives who do not feel need for a referendum on every decision.

This is . . . why we call our Village Board members “trustees” — we, the people, “entrust” them to make the kinds of decisions on behalf of the entire community that any well-informed and knowledgeable citizen would make if he or she were serving as a trustee and had access to not only the public’s opinions but also professional expertise.

Sounds reasonable.

* Board meetings proliferate, trustee(s) object: Two of the OP Seven, Brady and Baker, have missed 10 and 19 study sessions respectively of 27 sessions this year. Brady is unrepentant. He was told by President Pope and Trustee Milstein, both holdovers, that being a trustee would take 20 hours a week max, but

“Anyone who reads the [local] newspapers or watches [VOP] Channel 6 knows that the trustees have essentially taken on another full-time job.”

he told WJ. “Do I help my son go to sleep and read him a bedtime story, or do I rush out to the village study sessions two to three times a week?” he asked. He wants more discussion at the regular meetings, which Trustee Johnson said go longer because — it’s “the irony” of it, he said — some who missed the study session have to be brought up to speed — “we have extended the debate.”

Brady pleaded work obligations as her reason for missing meetings but noted:

“We’re sometimes a little loose in study sessions. If we were more disciplined overall it would probably make study sessions more effective.”

Anyone who watches Channel 6 can attest to that. Only the dedicated need attempt it. Cherchez le Milstein here, who recently had to be reminded by another trustee that a matter was “not in our purview” in discussion of which he wanted to linger — something about how to get villagers to own fewer autos! “I don’t know the answer to that,” said M., as if in a college common room or even a student dorm. He’s not supposed to know the answer to that!

Not only could Milstein try putting a sock in it, but President Pope might take half the time to say twice as much now and then. His starts and stops are enough to make a grown man fidget if not weep. He seems also at times to take Milstein’s side lest M. get on his high horse at being contradicted. He won the presidency in part thanks to revulsion at alleged high-handedness in running meetings by his predecessor. Now he has one of those who profited from the backlash refusing to attend meetings that go on and on, calling it

tedious to have read all the [information provided on an issue] and be ready to make a decision, and then spend five hours rehashing people’s positions that have already been made public,

and another whom he picked pointedly criticizing how he runs things. Maybe there’s a good reason why Joanne Trappani ran a tight ship.

* Affordable housing again: Working from a 2003 report, “our bible,” says the relevant committee chairman, a village committee wants to put “more teeth” in OP’s program. One of these presumably would be hitting up developers who tear down buildings with affordable units to build more costly ones, as suggested by the woman who heads W. Suburban PADS.

Not a good approach, said Rick Kuner, who chairs the Oak Park Regional Housing Center board, He cited a recent study that showed OP as the fifth most affordable community in the Chicago area because of its access to mass transportation. Don’t build anew, he said, indirectly countering the PADS woman’s idea, but look to what’s here already.

One out of every four condos becomes a rental unit, he said, and units in two- to four-flat buildings are often big enough for families with children to rent.

* Run, do not walk to read two columns in 8/23 WJ, Jack Crowe on who authorized the expenses that beef up whose tax bills — We did it! — and John Hubbuch on what other kind of games we can host beside gay ones, how many ways to lose how much $ on the Colt building, and perfectly matching us with our new manager.

* “I’ve always been suspect of the state’s tax cap legislation,” says Dan Haley in his 8/8/2006 column, who surely wanted to say suspicious. It’s the legislation that’s suspect.

It’s in this column that he says:

Would be a good moment then for this village board to swear off the insanity of the Colt Building. The proof is in-this building is a white elephant. And while the village may, or may not, have funds to pour into it from its discretionary Tax Increment Finance stash, it is still real money, still comes from local taxpayers.

And it’s a week later that Milstein chimes in with his column about taxes, where he talks about courage again — this is Father Courage speaking —

Legislators typically find their courage only when they’re scared to death of voter outrage.

And in which he emphasizes coordination by taxing bodies — village trustees prompting school board members, for instance — a utopian concept, assuming it’s a good idea, and in his criticism of the village board exempts his own role in overspending by saying the board

“dithered on new development (Colt building, whether restored or razed), which prevents the village’s tax base from growing to keep pace.”

Haley took strong exception. Milstein, he wrote,

seeks cover on the Colt building boondoggle. . . . Colt proponents are claiming the cost of filling this black hole would be borne out of the TIF fund, as if that isn’t really tax money. Milstein actually misstates that the TIF fund is sales tax driven which is plain wrong. Property taxes diverted from the schools and parks create the TIF fund. [Ask any school board member.]

Also note that Milstein is paving the way to fill the unleaseable Colt building by suggesting it would be a good place for a children’s museum. This way lies ruin.

Another Oak Parker took exception more pithily to Milstein as problem-solver. Jack Strand in an 8/23 letter tags him tellingly as a barnyard fowl. “He often reminds me of the rooster that thinks it is his crowing that makes the sun rise each morning.”

In another letter (same link), Dan Finnegan tries to help President Pope in his “reverse buy-out” plan to help people pay their taxes, from trustees repaying the village $21,000,000 “from their personal wealth” when they “spend $7,000,000 on a project and later learn that the project makes no economic sense,” to rebating “$100 per bite” to every taxpayer dinged by a mosquito “within [village] boundaries, despite mosquito abatement efforts.”

Wed Jnl:

Atty. Heise: If the moratorium were to lapse before zoning changes were made law, “we’d be back where we started.” [However, a] moratorium can be extended or shortened any time before its end date.

. . . .

Trustee Ray Johnson did not support the moratorium idea in part because of the process to enact it that was cut short in observance of the board’s month off in August.

“This is normally a process that should take several weeks, not several days,” Johnson said, asking Heise to confirm. Heise said it was “not that unusual” for the board to respond quickly to an issue.

Is there more turning to Atty. Heise these days than usual? Is he being asked to do more than give legal opinion?

Johnson said the move could create an environment of uncertainty for developers, and that, taken together, this and other moves Oak Park has made might [together make] the village seem anti-development.

“There is also a lot of uncertainty when it comes to residents,” responded Trustee Robert Milstein.

Gotcha.

Oak L:

“Sometimes it does take courage to say no,” Johnson said, adding that he understands concerns of neighbors on the 400 block of North Maple Avenue, but thinks the moratorium goes too far.

……………

At a study session Thursday [four days before the vote], Johnson [had] said he was concerned about approving the moratorium without giving residents an opportunity to comment on it. The board heard a first reading of the ordinance Thursday and passed it Monday.

“In circumstances where we don’t have some pressing issue, it’s always preferable to allow time, as much as you can, but it’s not necessary,” Heise said of public comment Thursday. “We’re perfectly within the law as a home-rule community.”

Here is Heise as lawyer, essentially telling trustees what they can get away with.  It’s what a lawyer does.

Regarding the Schiess fine mentioned below – actually the Troyanovsky fine, he being the developer – village staff has no record of approving height changes, this blog hears.

(The building is neither the seven stories high that Schiess wanted nor the five that neighbors wanted, but six, by the way.)

As for the bricks, Schiess got two approvals, one in the ordinance giving him the go-ahead, the other of his permit application, which should be enough for any man, except they were each for a different kind of brick! Not to be outdone, he used yet a third kind, which makes him a clever fellow indeed.

They file Michael Sneed among “people” columnists at Sun-Times, with the reliable and readable Bill Zwecker (H’wood), Stella Foster (Kup’s heir), Cindy Pearlman (also H’wood), and the incomparable (to what shall I compare her?) Susanna Night Out (photo-op shots of fun-timers grinning ear to ear). But she does like to be a regular Democrat tell-all sometimes, as today, when she refers to the Republican candidate with slight lead over Toddler Stroger in the county board presidency race as Tony “The Whiner” Peraica.

She had just puffed Toddler with an item about State Sen. Mike Madigan having “handpicked” Toddler’s campaign manager, noting that both Madigan and Toddler are Ignatius High graduates. (Has she ever noted that stepdaughter Lisa, the state’s attorney general is a Latin School alum?) The campaign manager is one Mike Noonan, from whom she quite likely got the “whiner” bit.

Not only that, she used it in reference to “GOPers . . . wishing they had a stronger candidate,” which is the perfect nasty item to plant, because Peraica does a lot of complaining, though not about trivial things, which is what whining is, but about huge waste thru patronage in a miserably run $3 billion operation.

And ditzy though shrewd Sneed injects this Dem-campaign bit a few pages in today’s paper before a full-tabloid-page story about the county’s health department as exposed by Northwestern U. researchers as hugely wasteful and miserably run.

When does interesting mean disgusting? When LA Times man Tim Rutten does a lead ‘graph on Mel Gibson as noxious:

Given all that’s been written and broadcast about the anti-Semitic tirade Mel Gibson delivered when he was arrested on suspicion of drunk driving, it’s interesting that the story’s most significant implication barely has been touched. [Italics added]

If Gibson were not a wealthy and widely admired celebrity, he’d be just another lush dragging around a mental rat’s nest of kooky opinions and morbid animosities. However, he’s not a noxious nobody; he’s a noxious actor and filmmaker dragging around a mental rat’s nest of kooky opinions and morbid animosities [repeated for emphasis] — and the only part of this affair that legitimately concerns anyone but Gibson and his family is whether any of those views made their way into his work.

And on goes Rutten, telling us what’s so darn interesting, i.e. disgusting, about it. “The press” — good for him, leaving stupid TV out of it — has not “reopened discussion” of Gibson’s movie “The Passion of the Christ,” which depended too much on Matthew’s gospel and what an anti-semitic nun wrote two centuries ago and in any case had a “sadomasochistic aura.”

Or did it? Rutten can’t quite say so but uses the venerated “some . . . argued” expression, allowing him to make the point while shrugging his shoulders. Not even neatly done, Rutten. But it’s interesting how you do it.

There’s more, which you can find here if you are willing to surrender some of your marketing demographics to his employer.

However: If kooky and morbid stuff came out of Gibson when roaring drunk, we know it was in him, else how did it come out? But his defenders, including the Jewish ones, hadn’t seen it from him in his sober moments, that is, moments when he was in control. I do believe our character depends on the latter moments. In this I am in tune with (a) how our society judges people — temporary insanity, anyone? and (b) the Catholic Christian teaching I grew up on, and millions of others too.

Rat’s nests? Please, we all have them, of one kind or another. Question is, what do we do about them? Sober, Gibson has done just fine, his friends say. Drunk, he becomes a man possessed, as if by devils depicted in Matthew’s gospel. So open the envelope and name the exorcist, please, 12–step program or whatever cleanses him. That will be the interesting part.

A view from Canada of Israeli-Hezbollah culpability that you don’t run into often enough, including details of Palestinians etc. upping body count with imported corpses: 

On Thursday, Israel apologized for last weekend’s bombing of an apartment building in Qana, Lebanon, in which more than two dozen civilians were killed. As a result of faulty military intelligence, Israel believed the building was being used as a “hiding place” for terrorists. In fact, it was a refuge for innocent men, women and children.

But while Israel has admitted its role in these deaths, the terror organization Hezbollah has not. Hezbollah’s cowardly practice of hiding behind human shields was the reason the Israel Defense Force (IDF) began bombing Qana in the first place. Since the beginning of this war, Hezbollah has sought to maximize civilian deaths on both sides, not only by firing rockets at the heart of Israeli cities, but also by firing those rockets from inside Lebanese homes and apartment buildings — thereby ensuring more civilian casualties when Israel protects itself by striking back at the rocket launchers.

more more more . . .

The village board drew a line in the air above which architect John Scheiss was forbidden to rise.  But he did it, and now he pays:

Learning that the Opera Club mixed-use building at the southeast corner of South Boulevard and Marion Street was built 5½ feet higher than it was supposed to be drove the Oak Park Village Board last night to levy a hefty fine–$188,223 . . .

The Opera Club developer also has to make a parking lot on land a block away that is to be cleared.

Scheiss has apparently been making changes that depart from a 2004 agreement with the village.  The board just found out about them, such as using bricks that displease the eye on one wall.  But news of the 5 1/2–foot overbuild is what tore it for the trustees.

Trustee Ray Johnson, the most developer-friendly of the seven, called it “a serious issue,” even though he had earlier said the discrepancies might have been the village’s fault. 

“This takes us to another level,” Johnson said. “That’s a major problem for me.”

A key village staffer, head of its Building & Property Standards Department, admitted that village procedure, even in measuring height, “leaves something to be desired.”  But it’s up to the developer to stay within guidelines, said village president David Pope.

The height issue had top priority at the start.  Schiess wanted seven stories, neighbors wanted five at most.  But he went with five to reap good will for the developer, he said, who has other Oak Park projects planned.

But the five-foot discrepancy was clear from the start, Scheiss said at the 8/3 meeting at which the fine was imposed, not only to him but also to village staff — who apparently did not inform the trustees — because an extra foot per floor of “unusable” space had been prescribed by the structural engineer.

[Scheiss] said he met with [Village Planner Craig] Failor and another staff member to review the plans and they talked about the height difference. Staff had the opportunity to not approve the plans, but they approved them, Schiess said.

Meanwhile, Scheiss got the OK from someone else — the above-mentioned Building & Property Standards people — for the sensible-shoes no-style brick but didn’t tell the planner.  These bricks were what had trustees’ shorts in a bunch until they heard about the five or five and a half feet — measurements differ, alas — and that’s what made the roof fall in on Scheiss and the Opera Club.

Rocky Mountain News editor targets Editor & Publisher as leftist rant:

[E&P editor] Mitchell is mistaking standard opinion journalism for media criticism. There are plenty of places to debate the right approach to Iraq or to the current Mideast Crisis, but what he’s doing is not media criticism.

Even if he’s going to wear his politics on his sleeve, he should be taking on the quality of the reporting, not recounting his unhappiness with the editorial positions of journalists or newspapers. At a minimum, he should have his Web site provide an opposing view. But what he should really do to make his publication relevant is critique journalism, not tell us what he thinks newspapers should be saying on their editorial pages or in their columns.

Now.  In this presumed media-critique blog, do you find positionism leaking in?  That’s entirely possible, but this editor’s slam at the E&P man serves as a good reminder not to let it do so.  (Hat tip to Romenesko)

During discussion about ending the night-time on-street parking ban, OP trustee Martha Brock “repeatedly said the village needs to find a way to reduce the number of cars residents own,” Oak Leaves reports.

“I think it’s a good idea to seek to reduce the overall demand for parking,” Brock said, adding that if the village creates more parking spaces, residents will continue to purchase more cars.

Of course!  People have been thinking the problem is not enough parking, when it’s too much!

Meanwhile, the board went ahead on its teardown moratorium, rushing the vote to honor its own moratorium on meetings during August.  It halts demolition of single-family houses on multi-family and commercial streets.  It’s a saving of the 200 such structures, for now, until new ordinances can be crafted, according to trustee Robert Milstein, who likes the idea very much.  He threw out the 200 figure in discussion, identifying it as his “opinion.”

The vote was held on Monday after study-session discussion on Thursday.  That’s legal, said the village lawyer, because OP is a “home rule” community.  The moratorium was opposed only by trustee Ray Johnson, who said he had got calls from worried realtors, to which Milstein and Brock responded that they had got them from not worried ones.

Milstein had said (several times) that it’s a matter of “courage” to vote for this (and do some other things).  Johnson said on Monday that it took courage to oppose it. 

Village President David Pope said he’s usually not for moratoria but would make an exception this time, calling it “a reasonable step” because of its limitations — which if it covers 200 houses can’t be so limited as all that.  Nor is it limited to 120 days: the trustees can shorten or extend that at will, Wednesday Journal reports.

The uncertainty of it all plus other recent board actions might make OP look anti-development, warned Johnson.  “There is also a lot of uncertainty when it comes to residents,” countered Milstein.  In other words, you got your uncertainty, I’ve got mine.  Very high level of debate here.