The seating of Galen Gockel as interim village board member last night was a dramatic event in its way. One trustee had no idea he would be sworn in right away and even checked with the clerk to see if she was ready to do so. She was, meaning she had the papers ready for him to swear to and sign, but she added that she was ready for anything, meaning apparently that she could save the papers for later, which no one in his right mind would deny her since she had nothing to say about it.

As soon as the uninformed trustee, Marsey, announced his being uninformed, two things happened rapidly: the president, Pope, who had called trustees up about his idea a few days earlier, said it was his fault, which seems accurate, since Marsey seems usually to know what’s going on; and another trustee, Milstein, shot back that he knew it, leaving it for us to maybe guess that it was not Pope’s fault at all. Who knows?

Milstein followed immediately with his announcement that since the president was acting firmly and with dispatch, they had no business questioning his decision (paraphrase here), to which the president responded saying he was grateful for Milstein’s support — reaching out to touch him fraternally in the next chair — but that Marsey was within his rights to question the decision. Marsey had done so without prejudice to Gockel, whom they all know from his past time on the board, but noted that the criteria for picking him applied to two other past board members, whom he named.

He also had questioned filling the slot at all, the one left vacant by resignation of trustee Baker, who pleaded need for time with family, having earlier complained in a newspaper about length and frequency of meetings. The new trustee, not a veteran of their previous discussions, would be “a drag on the dynamic” they had achieved by these discussions, said Marsey, specifically about the budget, which will be soon calling for their approval. (Gockel said later he’d been following them on TV in the budget discussion, for which he deserves a medal in addition to his newly allocated board seat.) Marsey also questioned the “manner” of filling the interim slot.

Trustee Brock said adding the seventh trustee — let the odd man, she said — in was a good thing, in case of a tie vote on the budget, which is to consider a bad if not worst-case scenario, when they could not agree. Trustee Johnson presented himself as a convert to President Pope’s proposal, having at first wanted a more “collaborative” process; it had taken him a few days.

This is when Marsey asked Clerk Sokol if she was ready, stating his preference for waiting two weeks. A time for public comment had looked preferable to Johnson too, he said. But he decided there was no need for it, because “we all know Galen,” which if they don’t now, they never will, he being probably the most prolific overall living vote-getter in Oak Park, with careers behind him on school, township, and village boards covering maybe 20 years. He was on the elementary school board in 1976, when our oldest was being prepared for kindergarten. I think I have that year right.

Marsey’s concerns carried no water, however. Milstein perhaps least of all would object, recalling as he said that he and Gockel had stood on the same side of a budget vote a few years back when both were on the board. This is when Milstein made his blanket avowal of support for Pope in the matter.

In a matter of minutes, the deed was done: Gockel was sworn in and pointed to his seat, with the understanding that he would not stand for election in April. He delivered a eulogy of sorts for the resigned Baker, sympathizing with him on the need to be with family. When Pope implied Gockel wouldn’t be saying much right away, Gockel told him not to be sure of that.

In any case, it was a coup for Pope, who apparently was clearer on the matter with Milstein than with Marsey when informing the trustees of the proposed Gockel seating, when lining up votes for him, that is. Pope has a tentative way about him that can be deceptive and could become a Frank Paris in the office, Frank being the longtime unthwartable River Forest board president. But that’s a big leap beyond last night’s scenario, dramatic or not. Who knows?

This month’s Wed. Journal column has:

* PICKING A WINNER: I voted early this year but only twice — early at Village Hall two weeks ago, twice when the touch-feel machine wouldn’t save my paper. . . . .

* SIGNS OF TIME: Meanwhile, the Peraica signs seem to be growing on front lawns. It can’t be easy, I have said, for the true-blue Dem to go red-blooded Republican, even if he’s a supposed reformer. . . . .

* SIGNS MISPLACED: The Stroger signs, on the other hand, came and went like thieves in the night, for instance on the narrow grassy strip on South Boulevard across from the Oak Park Avenue el platform. . . . .

* RAISING MY HAND: Was happy to contribute my two cents to the OP elementary schools recommendation fund the other day. Did it online, but don’t you even think about that, because the deadline has passed. Had a few questions left over, however . . .

Read it.  You’ll like it.

Talking budget, OP trustees considered options.  Cutting costs being one of them:

Trustee Robert Milstein said the board should be careful not to raise false expectations that they can keep spending in line.

“I don’t think anyone’s going to be happy if we cut a service,” Milstein said.

As a revenue producer, Milstein suggested increasing fines for developers who do more demolition than was village-approved on historical homes, and implementing a tax on vacant buildings.

Let us give credit to anyone trying to spend no more than $116.7 million next year, but may we not ask what’s this about making people happy?  Since when did that happen at budget time?  Question is, will you trustees be happy — satisfied, whatever?  Not to mention, will voters be happy if spending goes over, bond rating is reduced, etc.?  And which voters?  The dumb ones?

As for those fines for developers et al., are not these people who have been in Trustee Milstein’s crosshairs for some time now?  And might he be better occupied in finding sources with eye on prize of revenue totals rather than, as one suspects, on people to be taught a lesson?  Forget killing two or more birds with one stone already.

Filling out D97 questionaire about what’s important in schools, I run into “providing adequate support” for kids moving to higher level.  What is this adequate support?  Anyhow, I rated it very important on general principles.

Why do I call it not important to teach cultural etc. differences?  Because this multiculturalism is at best a distraction from teaching how to read, write, and express oneself, at worst a blurring of distinction between right and wrong and of universal standards.  (Clitoridectomy ok some places because we can’t condemn anyone?  Defended here in 1996, condemned here in 1867!)

Same for rating multicultural ed programs: big distractions, blurring of norms.  It’s inculcation of highly suspect mentality, over-the-top substitute for old-fashioned mutual respect, color-blind, etc. 

“School control” over staffing, etc.?  Apparently vs. district and board?  Maybe good idea, maybe prescription for chaos.

Open enrollment a good idea: parents, etc. choose.  Schools get vote of confidence or not.  I like the idea.

Fill it out yourself here.

OP is past the point of no return as to development.  Even OP Ave. has vacancies, as its modestly position tenants leave for Forest Park or go out of business.  Lake Street problems are old news.  Question is, will OP upgrade its exclusivity — without which we are nothing — for the two thousands or not?  It has moved past the village of old, like it or not, and faces decline or growth.  The new Lane Bryant and gym-&-swim club on Lake Street — and this is no bicycling-in-the-window as at the long-gone Chi Health Club on Madison or the soon-to-be-gone OP Y on Marion, but pool, basketball arena, climbing wall and lots more, according to its brochure.  Condos are atop it all. 

But it’s the building that tolls the knell of parting village.  It’s a Loop or Mich. Ave.-style building, looming big and imposing.  Heritage-preservers can’t be happy about it, even Lane B. shoppers or gym rats.  It’s like 70 years ago, when the elegant Austin house was moved to what’s now Austin Gardens — from Lake Street, where commercial purposes were winning out.  History matters, as the historical society says, and it tells us this is no time to go wobbly with the OP future.

Whether T. Stroger’s campaign is “descend[ing] into chaos,” with his declining to appear with Peraica on various shows, one thing is clear in OP: his signs are popping up all over — but not on private property!  Few citizens want them, but someone is planting them on various parkways and stretches of publicly tended grass.  Yes.  Soon there will be a sea of them on the village green of Scoville Park, where frisbee is played, but not this year.  The public-minded citizens who plant signs on public property may be county employees or they may not be.  Readers are asked to decide.

Getting wise to scandals (sent off by Peraica campaign)

… Federal prosecutors are no longer playing along with the perverse joke that illicit patronage hiring and contracting are “just politics.” FBI agents are unraveling scandals that stretch from the Capitol in Springfield to the Cook County Building to the adjacent Chicago City Hall.

And those probes may be having effects:

A few weeks ago, Democratic insiders were sure that Todd Stroger, their candidate for the presidency of the Cook County Board, could ride out the serial deceits that had put him on the ballot. Now some of those insiders are worried. Their polling shows that many Democrats have stubbornly negative opinions of Stroger.

The surmise: Those Democrats, thousands of whom voted for board member Forrest Claypool in their party’s primary [as in Oak Park], want a steely reformer–the only option left is Republican Tony Peraica–who’ll work with the feds to clean up Cook County. What’s more, those Democrats are still angry at party bosses who repeatedly told them lies about former Board President John Stroger’s medical prognosis in order to steer the previously pliable Todd Stroger onto the ticket. … [on mark!]  [Italics and color added]

-– Editorial, Chicago Tribune, October 5, 2006

Regina Robinson spends “one fine day” in the neighborhood of my boyhood, Austin & Madison, which is not far from where I’m still living. She finds a nail shop, an eatery (on Chicago Ave.), and Laurys Bakery, the last of which was Schallenmuller’s in the ‘40s. At Laurys — why isn’t it Laury’s? — she finds

sweet potato squares, cake by the slice, fruit-filled pastries, muffins and whole cakes . . . special-occasion cakes [and] sugar cookies

like her mother used to make. At Schallenmuller’s — it’s on Madison just east of Austin, north side of street, a block from St. Catherine’s — it was coffee cakes that this guy remembers, thin ones with gooey melted sugar and pecans, the cakes themselves almost brittle. Bismarcks too, with jelly inside.

Robinson has gone down Austin for 20–plus years, she says. Assuming she’s black, that’s easy to believe. Racial change was near-ancient history by then. We (white) moved a few blocks north and one block west of Austin & Madison in 1971, when it was in full swing.

Hugh, my student at Ignatius in the mid-60s, told me his father and uncles, all Pullman car porters with a taste for Danish, drove many blocks west of their South Side neighborhood to find a bakery that suited them. Hugh watched me like a hawk, he told me, as I discussed race relations in class, and later caught bricks thrown in Martin Luther King’s direction on a march in Marquette Park — thrown maybe by white students of mine also from Ignatius, who were part of the taunting crowd and gave me a wave as I walked by.

That’s a little bit of Chicago history for you, ripped partly from the pages of Saturday Tempo Metromix Planner’s Weekend, Chicagoland’s Best Guide to Leisure and Entertainment.

Jon Hale’s “One View” in the Wed. Journal could hardly have been said better. 

Desman Associates [planning consultant, leading the meeting]; Ross, Barney & Jankowski, the architects designing the parking garage; The Lakota Group, which is responsible for area planning and streetscape; and Metro Transportation Group, working on transportation and parking issues.