At 6:30 tonight the Park Ridge City Council is holding a “workshop” on the Higgins Road Corridor Plan (the “Plan”). For those of you who aren’t familiar with the Higgins Road Corridor Plan, it’s supposed to be the City’s “vision” for how the southern border of Park Ridge – primarily between Dee Road and Cumberland, although the “Corridor” technically runs all the way from Dee to Canfield – will be redeveloped.
The Plan proposed by the City’s consultants, Camiros, Ltd. and Valerie S. Kretchmer Associates, Inc. is, in our opinion, far too pedestrian – and by that we don’t mean favorable to walkers. If adopted and implemented, it will do virtually nothing to make the Park Ridge portion of the Higgins Corridor a “destination” or a significant revenue generator.
Fortunately, back in March the City Council asked Staff to look for more opportunities for commercial development that will generate greater revenues for the City while still remaining consistent with the general character of the community. One idea which we hope is fully-explored is the possibility of including a small, quality hotel that could attract other compatible businesses, like restaurants.
In her June 15, 2009, Agenda Cover Memorandum, the City’s Director of Community Preservation & Development, Carrie Davis raises five questions for the Council, which we have taken the liberty of suggesting some answers (in bold):
1. Does the Council want a larger commercial use, such as a hotel, even though it may take acquiring land, such as single family residential properties to the north of the corridor? This is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity for significant redevelopment of a border area of Park Ridge that enjoys unique accessibility to both the CTA and the Kennedy Expressway, as well as proximity to Rosemont and Des Plaines. Every option needs to be fully explored so that this opportunity is not wasted.
2. What measures does the Council want to take to increase the size of assembled sites to encourage redevelopment? The City needs to express its willingness to work with developers to maximize the value of the Corridor to our community which, in turn, should increase the value of the Corridor to the developers. The City should invite developer proposals while expressing its commitment to assist developers in assembling additional land if needed to increase the size and scope of the project in ways that are mutually beneficial.
3. Does the Council want to acquire additional right-of-way along Peterson Avenue? If acquisition would substantially enhance the project, why not? The City not only sold off its old reservoir property for Uptown Redevelopment, but it also acquired private land (e.g., the Bredemann Toyota and Buick dealership property). Why should it do less for the Higgins Corridor project?
4. How tall does the Council want to encourage new buildings to be? The Council should let it be known that it would favor proposals that do not exceed five stories, with the City being willing to facilitate plans that conform to that restriction by assisting in enlarging the footprint of the project.
5. How does the Council want to address traffic and parking issues? Those issues should be addressed, in the first instance, by the developer(s). Until the City knows what developers want to do with the area, there’s no reason to guess at what the traffic and parking needs will be.
In summary, we strongly encourage the City Council to resist the urge to accept small-minded tweaks to the current Higgins Corridor structures and uses. The Corridor has enormous potential for becoming a major economic engine for Park Ridge while minimally disrupting life throughout the rest of the community. That potential should not be squandered.
46 comments so far
Interesting ideas,
But let’s see if we can disect a “vision” using the even bigger picture. In theory, mose ideas or visions may appear great but in pratice often fall a little short for lact of exploring the broader view.
1. When addressing the Higgins Corridor, remember it does (as you pointed out) cover Higgins from Canfield to Dee. So anything that is invisioned for the “corridor” should benifit and promote the ENTIRE corridor. We shouldn’t be looking at this a single piece of property but the corridor as a whole.
2. Assembling land in the past as you have mentioned, could be agrued as something that has NOT been a “mutual benifit” for us but rather a give away to a developer with little to no return for the city. As the uptown and resovior proerty at no time was money ever exchange but instead was a bumbled bunch of numbers in a piece of paper.
3. Before jumping into the Hotel Business, perhaps a glance at the building plans for the Hotels across the street on the Chicago side would be a good idea as there are big changes gonna go on there. I’m not sure how a 5 story hotel would compete when bigger with more ammenities is offtered in VERY close proximity, in more than one direction. Unless you want to play the price war game in which your best chance at a discount hotel might be something along the lines of a Travel Lodge. I’m not sure that’s where we want to go.
4. Aquiring residential property is a very tricky game, not to be played lightly. Eminent domain is a sure fire way for any administration to lose the trust of a community. When residents fear that they are at risk of being “aquired” for the sake of developement or “a vision” that soon becomes the “tag” that’s put on our leaders. “**If we don’t have the land (and we don’t) that deveopers find attactive we’ll (the city) “aquire” it from our residents.**”
I guess a different approach could be, that a “vision” should be one of distiction. Something that separates us from of neighbors. Something we could offer that no one within 5 miles could offer, that would bring people to Park Ridge. This of corse is something that takes alot of thought and planning and real imiagination.
PD:
In general, I agree with the answers you suggest for the questions that were posed…….of course I do not live near the Higgins corridor.
I would guess the people who live near the Higgins corridor would not take too kindly to some of your suggestions. And as for point No.3, I guess the answer to Why Not? would be because that is a residential street. I wonder if the person proposing that the street become a right of way also lives on that street or anywhere near there, I’m guessing not. Are you suggesting we sell out our neighbors? or am I not picking up on some sarcasm here?
food for thought: i read the pw post to mean that every reasonable idea deserves a full airing. maybe no developer wants to build a 4-5 story hotel down there, or maybe the neighbors would make a good nimby case against it. but i think we deserve to know what the full range of options are before we lock ourselves into anything.
you want the higgins corridor to build on something special that we have down there, but there’s not one thing in our town that anybody would travel 5 miles for. so that’s a non-starter.
the camiros/kretchmer plan is pathetic: another nothing-special office building on mr. k’s, small changes everywhere else. it’s a tragedy they were paid for such tripe. and if that’s what the higgins corridor turns into, we really have squandered a great opportunity for something bigger, better and more profitable. i don’t want to see anybody “sold out,” but i also don’t want to see a once in a lifetime opportunity lost without even hearing what somebody might be willing to do, even if it requires taking some private land.
Anon 7:40
Just who’s private land are you offering up?! Might this be your property you’re speaking of? or am I to understand that you think the private property of a certain number of people and the property values of many more are worth some kind of “opportunity” that YOU will profit from? OMG who ARE you!
i live on the north end of town, and the only property i have a stake in is my own home.
but what I’m saying is that I would like to see every option on the table. if some developer wants to come in with a plan for redeveloping part/all of the higgins corridor, and he wants to buy up 20 or 30 private homes to do so, i’d like to hear about it and i’d like the city council to consider it.
that doesn’t mean that, in the end, it would be an acceptable plan. but we won’t know until we hear about it and it gets debated publicly. what’s so bad about that?
Again, I am not with the in crowd in this town. If there is something behind the scenes going I am usually the last to find out. But someone please tell me what I am missing. Based on some of the posts here one would assume that there are 20 developers lined up with revolutionary ideas, but the samll minded politicians are stoping it. Correct me if I am wrong but that is not the case.
I am left with several questions. What exactly is this plan that would seperate us from our neighbors? I am not a developer but I can not think of a damn thing that does not already exist within 3-5 miles (or less). Second, how many groups have expressed interest?
I cannot imagine a developer coming in without asking for significant financial participation from the city in the project. When that happens you will see people on the blogs screaming their lungs out.
5:52
So what if we rethink the Higgins corridor plan and concentrate on the Touhy corridor plan? We need to bulldoze some of those homes and make another thru street, or two, over there to ease up that congestion. There is a huge traffic problem over there,and wouldn’t be for the good of the town to clear that up?
We are millions of dollars in debt and you are talking about bulldozing homes to ease up congestion?!?!?!?!?!?! Gee, an idea just hit me. How about we make Cumberland a thru street?? Idiot!!
Anonymous 7:08 No. 1:
I’m not an “in crowd” member, either. But I moved here from Chicago almost 10 years ago, and since then I have seen and heard some things here that look and sound a lot like some of the stuff that went on in my ward in Chicago. In Chicago, only a couple/few developers ever went after any project because they “got the word” that it was a done deal. That’s the same sense I’ve been getting about parts of the Higgins Corridor project, like the Mr. K’s property that somebody mentioned.
That’s where I agree with the person who criticized the Camiros study, which pretty much is telling the development community what Park Ridge wants down there, so any developer who might want to do something else figures he’s already been cut out of the deal.
The city council should announce that the Camiros study has been ashcanned, and get the word out that it wants to hear any and all ideas for what can be developed down there. That way, at least we might have a real choice rather than one or two cookie cutter ideas.
I just checked out the Mr. K’s property on Google Earth, and it looks like you can double the Mr. K’s space by acquiring the 15 houses immediately north of Mr. K’s and around the turn of Peterson. Even at $600,000 (avg) per house (which is definitely high) you’re talking $9,000,000 for all of them. Would a developer want to pay that? I have no idea, but if so, and if he had a great plan for redeveloping all that property, wouldn’t it at least be worth thinking about?
We have had millions of dollars in budget deficits for the past two years and $2,000,000 budget deficit this year alone, and from the sound of how city government is operating there’s no indications that these deficits are going to stop anytime soon. So unless we want whopping tax increases or big cuts in services, we had better start looking at ways to raise more revenue other than from homeowners. And the better the development in the Higgins Corridor, the more likely that we’ll get more revenue.
Chicago makes a ton of money from its side of the Higgins Corridor, while Park Ridge does nothing on our side and doesn’t even want to entertain any ideas developers have! Once the casino goes in we’re going to get all the traffic and garbage that goes with it, so why shouldn’t we at least make some money for our troubles?
So let’s say 15 or 20 people sell off their property to get away from what would turn out to be a disaster for that entire section of town. What about the property value for the rest of the neighborhood which would no longer be a quiet residential area, but a “developed” commercial area generating revenue for the people on the north side of the town. That works? Sounds like it just gets worse and worse for the south side of town while the north side profits from the downfall of an entire section.
Anon @8:48 It’s called sarcasm! I don’t want to bulldoze Anybody’s house. But the person on the north side of town might try contemplating a scenario where it happens to him/her
anonymous on 06.16.09 5:13 pm
Who said anything about a “disaster for that entire section of town”, especially since we haven’t even seen a plan for what might go there? And whatever might go there would generate revenue for everybody, not just “for the people on the north side of the town.”
That sounds a lot like the same kind of whining from the Belle Plainers who never gave a monkey’s nuts about all the noise and pollution in the 1st and 2nd wards but now want the whole town to march on O’Hare because the noise has shifted.
It’s time people woke up and realized we’re all in this together. A lot of us in the 5th ward didn’t particularly want the Uptown Redevelopment but went along with it because it was supposed to be good for the whole town (although the jury is still out on that one). If the Higgins Corridor is the next best chance to bring in revenue with the least impact on the entire town, our city government should look into it.
anon 5:17: Please accept my apologizes. I missed the sarcastic intent.
anon 5:27: All in this together? What city do you live in? In fact, what country do you live in? I think what you mean is all in this together as long as I agree with it, the implementation does not affect me and I do not have to pay for it.
anonymous on 06.16.09 5:13 pm,
You seem unaware that the Higgins stretch is already a commercial strip. Further, if the area is going to be developed at all, I can tell you from personal knowledge that residential construction “is not a compatible land use” in regard to the airport. You are aware, are you not, of the air traffic coming that way?
Any residence built after, some date in time which I do not recall exactly, will NOT qualify for sound proofing. Have the builder sound proof any residential development, you say? According to what code/ordinance, I ask?
Park Ridge does NOT have a sound insulation ordinance on the books. Some witchy person broached the subject repeatedly and was rebuffed.
Anon @ 5:52 PM:
Yes, we are all in this together, whether you like it or not. And that’s the case despite regular and sometimes heated disagreements, which are healthy if they don’t become petty and bitter.
When the planes are flying low over Maine East or Field School, it’s usually quieter for the people under the new runway’s flight path; and vice versa.
Not my or your, but OUR tax dollars pay for everything in this community, because none of us have the right to unilaterally dictate how our money is spent. And when OUR city budget is $2,000,000 in deficit, all of us will feel the pinch in reduction of services and higher taxes in the years to come.
The people in various parts of the city have regular flooding, which they put up with because the city can’t afford the solution. People in other sections of town lose power more frequently than the rest of us because Com Ed can’t get power right.
And if some developer comes up with a grand plan for the Higgins Corridor that the residents of this community can get behind, then that might be the one that the people of the Higgins area need to take “for the team.”
Or you can just keep fighting your war between the north and the south.
Hoover and 5:27-No one should take one for the team when you are talking about the property they own and their right to the use and enjoyment of that home. Eminant domain-taking a person’s property-all wrong. If a developer offers them a FMV for their home and they choose to take the offer-so be it. But no one should take one for the team.
As for us whiners on Belle Plaine-once again the rest of you do not get it. Many of us bought are homes before the new runway was even a pipe dream of Daley. We were lied to about the use of the runway. Our property values have plummeted while are real estate taxes have not and the people on the NW side of town have the noise abatement work and now no noise. Those on the NW side bought their homes (in the last two decades or so) when the planes were flying overhead. There were no planes along the Belle Plaine corridor in my area before Nov. 20, 2008.
In addition, ME is considerably farther north of where the end of the ORD NW runway is. The new runway is as far north on ORD property as can be. The UAL pilots tell us they are between 600 and 800 feet above MS as they fly over. The new runway is being pushed by the FAA for extensive use-estimates say 27% of landings when the wind is out of the west. This is intolerable and affects homes from Canfield to Dee Road and Touhy to Higgins. This is a very large part of PR. So we will continue to speak out and ask they city to do its part to salvage something from this nightmare. If you don’t like-too bad. But we are not going to take one for the team.
Hoover:
Thanks but no thanks. It is not my war.
Anon 8:46 You are spot on! As for Hoover- Take one for team! Is this some sort of demented joke?Who’s team are you on? Do you think this is a spectator sport? And the people on Bell Plaine and the South side of town are the teams at play, with the only goal to make revenue and profit for the select few. “Take one for the team”? What selfish narcissistic world do you live in that you think people reduce the quality of their own lives to benefit some jerk who feels superior enough to even suggest it.
06.16.09 8:46 pm: I can’t see anything in Hoover’s comment about a homeowner receiving less than FMV. That’s what they are entitled to, even in condemnation proceedings. As for being “lied to” about the new runway, you must have been one of those people who heard only what you wanted to hear, because nobody promised you anything about limited air traffic or noise.
I live in the 6th Ward near MS and the planes are coming in right over my head. I’ve gone to plenty of ORD-REST and to ONCC meetings both before and after the new runway opened up in November, and one thing I am pretty darn sure about is that Park Ridge can spend millions on fighting OMP and we’ll end up just like Bensenville and EGV – out a lot of cash and with nothing to show for it.
Is that what you want?
I think that some may have missed the report on Monday about the Hotel idea.
The report was (and I paraphrase) when a developer of Hotel chains was contacted about the possibility of coming to Park Ridge, basically turned heal and ran the other way after hearing of the CLOSE PROXIMITY to the new casino.
Yes that’s right, you heard correct. They WOULD NOT be interested in building a hotel that close to a casino.
The reason…. the casino would offer rooms at a dicounted rate and other hotels could not and would chose not to compete.
So you see this casino that we would try to “cash” in on, already has a negative impact on our community and they are not even near breaking ground.
6:34-No we should not spend millions to fight this. (As I remember this was the problem with Weitecha. He wanted to stop ORD changes all together instead of trying to work out some best possible solution for all parties.) No one is talking about millions. The only one who gets anything out of that is the lobbyist lawyer who tries to “help.”
But the fact remains we have been robbed. We have been robbed of what we paid for when we bought our homes. We now have a constant barrage of planes over our houses-like today. We did not have this before 11/20/08. The kids at Roosevelt and other schools in the path are being robbed of education time. The planes are low and loud and even with the windows closed which creates very hot uncomfortable conditions, it is still loud. So these kids get less out of the education our high property taxes are paying for. Thanks Daley.
Since we have been robbed and we know the theif-Chicago-then we should all be compensated in some way-restitution. Abate our taxes, give us the equivalent in the loss of FMV of our homes. All to be paid for by Daley. The thing the NW side of PR does not get-we had something stolen from us-the use and enjoyment of our homes and parks and schools. This we should be compensated for by the criminals who took it.
Anon at 10:00 AM, you’re right – we’ve been robbed. That thief, Daley, doesn’t care about the quality of life or property values in Park Ridge. We need a voice, a loud voice that a regional airport authority could give us. Other cities have regional authorities, why not us?
http://www.flylouisville.com/Regional-Airport-Authority/Overview.aspx
http://www.columbusairports.com/default.asp
http://www.san.org/Airport_Authority/index.asp
The city of Park Ridge should also be opposed to the CLOSE PROXIMITY of the casino, PERIOD. Check the Casino Watch site. Communities have come together and successfully implemented restrictions for how close a casino can be to schools and residential areas. Park Ridge on a whole will suffer a decrease property value and general “prestige” from being so close to a casino. But unlike north shore communities that work together to keep their neighborhoods safe and free of tackiness and criminal gathering venues, one side of town thinks it is the obligation of the other side of town to absorb all the sleaze in an effort to generate income that is unlikely to materialize. Not only will we not profit, we will be forced to hire more police and fire.
know you shouldn’t be compensated.
Just learn to live with it.
I’ve lived with it most of my life so you can too.
Park Ridge has always been a desirable community to live in because it had a quaint, small town feel but was conveniently located to transportation, the city, and shopping. The neighborhoods had beautiful tree lined streets with unique, well kept single family homes. There was the sense that residents cared about their community. Whenever there is a school function, there is always a large turnout of parents, which shows that the residents here value education and take an interest in the school system. We have wonderful park district facilities and programs. This is not true of all communities. I think that great care and thought should be put into any plans that have the potential of changing the atmosphere of Park Ridge. For people to care about the community they live in, the community must also give them something to care about. The Belle Plaine runway has no doubt changed the atmosphere of the area. The people who live close to the Granville corridor will no doubt lose their quality of life as well. The casino in Des Plaines has the potential to bring increased traffic to Park Ridge streets. Parents who have children attending Maine South (as I will) now may be thinking about safety issues involving the increased casino traffic that may pass through the streets surrounding Maine South. There are many teenagers who are new drivers that will be traveling to and from school who may be put at greater risk. Acquiring homes to develop a stretch of road will not only affect those homes, it will also affect the neighborhood/homes that sit next to that area. What about them? What will it then do to those property values? All of these things have a negative impact on a community. We may not see the changes overnight, but they will happen; and then we are left with something we can find anywhere else. Sometimes the “hidden cost” of losing something would be greater than any monetary gains that might be had.
Food for thought on 06.17.09 7:42 am: We’re aware of no “report” about a Higgins Corridor hotel. And we’re always skeptical about un-named anybodies questioned by unidentified otherbodies. Sounds to us like more anti-casino propaganda.
Anonymous on 06.18.09 9:53 am: You make some good points. But just so we’re clear: PW does not currently endorse any proposal for the Higgins Corridor, especially not the two-bit, small-minded garbage from Camiros/Kretschmer.
What we advocate is a process by which all developers are encouraged to propose their “visions” of that corridor, free from any limitations and restrictions imposed by any one interest group. Let the entire community, including the NIMBYs who will be most directly affected, vet the pros and cons of any and all ideas before a decision is made that will affect our community for decades.
MikeTouhy-where in PR do you live? If you have always had noise from airplanes and gotten used to it then you bought your home knowing this was going to be part of your every day life. Those of us in the Belle Plaine corridor and those near down town PR-and soon Grandville-have had our relative quiet neighborhood stolen from us. The schools in the area are negatively affected as are the parks etc. We are now faced with noise and crap in the air. Yesterday we had planes flying very low over the area (every few minutes or so) from just before 7 am till after 10 pm. This is like chinese water torture. We will not get used to it.
Keep the pressure on the City of PR and Daley to do something about this. Call 800-435-9569 to complain. Contact the FAA-either at the Great Lakes office or write the noise ombudsman in DC. Contact Durbin (worthless) and Schakowsky’s office. Information to contact is easily available on the web. If Jan wants to be reelected she won’t get support if she does not actually do something to help. (same goes for Dave Schmidt) Contact the White House and the IOC. This takes only your time and if you care about this town this is what we should do. This is a frustrating situation and will take time to get some changes-if any-but we must continue to defend what is ours.
“MikeTouhy-where in PR do you live?”
Why should that matter? If concerns are about air pollution and safety then where somebody lives in town doesn’t matter.
“If you have always had noise from airplanes and gotten used to it then you bought your home knowing this was going to be part of your every day life.”
Then it looks to me like you whiners bought your homes knowing airport pollution and safety issues were going to be part of your every day life.
“Those of us in the Belle Plaine corridor and those near down town PR-and soon Grandville-have had our relative quiet neighborhood stolen from us.”
Nothing has been stolen from you. You still own your homes in your neighborhoods that weren’t as quiet as you pretend they have been and depending on the wind direction you still get quiet days. If total quiet was what you were after then you should not have bought your house near one of the world’s busiest airports in a town with a Metra train track running through it and trains that regularly blare their horns.
“The schools in the area are negatively affected as are the parks etc.”
Where was your conern for the shools that have always been under the plane noise? Where was your conern for the parks that have always been under the plane noise? You’re a bad kind of NIMBY.
“We are now faced with noise and crap in the air.”
Wrong. You are now faced with more noise. There’s always been crap in the air, mostly from the surrounding roadways. You just didn’t think of it until you got plane noise. You and the other Belle Plaine whiners are grasping at straws with your sudden concerns about health and safety issues.
“Yesterday we had planes flying very low over the area (every few minutes or so) from just before 7 am till after 10 pm.”
Guess you didn’t know there was one of the world’s busiest airports near the town where you bought your home? Guess you didn’t know that planes take off and land at airports all day long?
“This is like chinese water torture.”
This is called metro area living.
“We will not get used to it.”
Sure you will. If you stop whining long enough and find something constructive to do, after a while you will hardly notice it.
“Keep the pressure on the City of PR and Daley to do something about this. Call 800-435-9569 to complain. Contact the FAA-either at the Great Lakes office or write the noise ombudsman in DC. Contact Durbin (worthless) and Schakowsky’s office. Information to contact is easily available on the web. If Jan wants to be reelected she won’t get support if she does not actually do something to help. (same goes for Dave Schmidt) Contact the White House and the IOC. This takes only your time and if you care about this town this is what we should do. This is a frustrating situation and will take time to get some changes-if any-but we must continue to defend what is ours.”
A fool’s errand.
I’m actually hoping to find someone who cares about what’s happening to the s.w. side of town. My neighbors are “afraid to rock the boat” or don’t want to get involved. And it seems the people on the north side are all too happy to implement drastic changes so long as it might lower their own tax bill.Anon 9:53 is correct, we have to be careful not to change the character of the town. If you read some of the Des Plaines submissions in the Speak Out section of the Journal you’ll find there is a faction of people wishing for the decline of Park Ridge, the new runway was the start, but the casino is the nail in the coffin.
SLE-we are not whiners in the Belle Plaine corridor and we will not get used to it. PERIOD. A plane flying directly over your home from 7 am to 10 pm and later at intervals of every 2 to 3 minutes is not metropolitan living. It is torture. It is not like the distant sound of a train (and the whistles do not blow all day long-there are rules on that issue for Metra to follow) or the sound distant sound of a car. It is the roar of a massive engine on a plane flying about 1200 or so feet over my house.
And no we do not get to use our homes and property as we did before. To be outside and enjoy our yards, parks and pool etc-gone.
As for those on the NW side of PR, that runway has been there for about 30 years. When they bought their home there they had the noise. Why is it so hard for you to get the difference. We have been robbed of the use and enjoyment of our home. Unless you live in this area you are not in position to judge on this matter.
How do you know we do not do anything constructive with our time-and who are you to judge how we spend our time when the very quality of our lives is being negatively affected. Would you just roll over and take it when you are being screwed? Go ahead-but many of us in the BP corridor and the SW side of town are not going to. So again-either help or stay out of it.
Anyone has got to be crazy to be so bugged by the air noise that can’t be outside.
I can understand being annoyed if it’s hard to have a conversation or if you’re sleeping but as for the rest, Please!
Well enjoy your summer.
Mike:
There ya go…call people crazy. Do you understand the concept of living in a community? People have different ideas. Different things bother different people. That does not mean they are crazy.
There are two examples that come to mind. When I first moved here, there was a bru-ha-ha about improving the pools in PR. As we are all aware, after a lot of heart burn the idea was shot down. Now that is not what I wanted and I did not get some of the arguments used by those against it. Of course I have kids and I along with them will be using the pools for a long time. That does not mean they, or I am crazy. The second example is the flooding issue. We have a task force and we are headed down a road that will cost us a lot of money. Guess what? I took the advice of many in this town and had a flood control system put in. I do not flood anymore. The rain does not bother me a bit. So what am I suppose to say, screw everyone else? They should have done what I did? They should stop whining? They are crazy? If you live near an airport you will have noise, duh!! Well if you live in PR you will flood, duh!! So the essense of your position is everyone just live with what ever they find a problem, unless Mike thinks it is a problem – then lets fight.
I am glad that you have no problem with airplane noise – good for you!! But if you go anywhere near Maine South and see the planes and hear the noise and not at least have some respect for the idea that this might bug the shit out of some people (maybe not you) then you are the one is crazy.
By the way Mike, based on todays weather and the outlook for the remainder for the week, I would guess we will be hearing a great deal from those crazies who have flooding issues.
New pools were “shot down” via the voters in referendums, presumably because they didn’t want to pay millions of extra tax dollars for those particular amenities.
Flooding can be handled in a variety of different ways, including by systemic government action or by individual initiatives like your own. If the public doesn’t want to spend the money for the systemic approach, then we’re stuck with the individual approach.
But you can’t compare pools or flooding with the airport, because we as a community can make decisions on the pools and flooding; but we cannot control the decisionmaking on the airport.
Anon 9:26 am – The people of Park Ridge may not have the ability to “control the decisionmaking on the airport” however, they may be able to “influence” the decision making.
“Influence the decision-making”? Yeah, right. Just ask Bensenville and Elk Grove Village how much “influence” they had, after spending millions.
Elk Grove Village did in fact “influence” the decision making process regarding the Elgin-O’Hare-West Bypass Project. Elk Grove Village officials delivered over 33,000 comment cards collected from residents of both Elk Grove and Bensenville and delivered them to IDOT. After receiving these cards IDOT announced that they would drop the plan that Elk Grove Village opposed. IDOT officials stated that the most comment cards they every received was 10,000. Elk Grove Village did end up getting something they wanted.
A3:23,
I’m definitely not laughing with you, and I’m doing my best not to laugh at you, but that’s not going so well.
So get yourself 33,000 comment cards, deliver them to IDOT, and see if IDOT can stop the flights over your house. Good luck.
I think the point Anon3.23 is making is that everything is not inevitable, when communities come together there can be a reversal of something that might have negative impact on a community as a whole. But selfish and small minded people aren’t always willing to look at the big picture, if they are not the center of the issue.
A3:53,
You could be right. It certainly is entertaining to watch people insist on being made the central focus of an issue, long after the ability to affect the direction of an issue has passed. That kind of selfishness and small minded behavior is always entertaining. That is, it’s entertaining before it wares and becomes completely obnoxious.
I’ve watched the airport issue unfold for years. You and others who’ve just recently bothered to participate in the issue are…very entertaining.
I wish you all the luck in the world, but know, if any of you attempt to use public resources to renew anything akin to the abysmal SOC failure, I’ll be your most formidable opponent. Promise.
Alpha Female-do you have any compassion for anyone at all? The comments you post hear are regularly negative and threatening. You seem to be a very negative hate filled person. What issues are important to you and the people in your neighborhood? Let us know what these issues are so those of us very negatively affected by the new ORD runway can make sure not one cent of public resources are used on whatever “your” issues are.
A10:29,
I do. You are responsible for your own emotional reactions to comments I or anyone else might make here. Best of luck to you.
If you read the posts on this blog then you already know what issues I care about and what is important to me.
Your opinion of me personally is irrelevant to both me and the discussion of the issues posted about here.
The final sentence in your comment belies who is truly the negative, hateful person. Best of luck to you with that too.
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