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| As of September 12, 2011, contributions total a record $15,000 and still counting! Thanks to all who contributed. You can still contribute by clicking here. In the “Designation Window” please type “LemonAid Stand.” |
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With a 4 to 1 vote on August 15, the River Forest Village Board approved an ordinance to authorize red light cameras and postponed a vote on the agreement with Safe Speed LLC to establish them on the River Forest side of the intersections at Lake and Harlem and at North Avenue and Harlem. Trustee Susan Conti was the only vote against the proposals. Trustee Catherine Adduci — who has privately said she would vote against any red light cameras in River Forest because we don’t need them — abstained due to the possible appearance of a conflict of interest because her husband is a lobbbyist for a different red light camera company. (Legally she probably does not have a conflict of interest as long as the firm for which her husband lobbies is not at all involved — and it is not involved.)
Testimony from four citizens against the proposals was presented. No citizens spoke in favor of the proposals.
Before the vote, Conti moved to refer the proposed ordinance and contract to the village’s Traffic and Safety Commission for proper study. If a proposal for a stop sign needs to go through the Traffic and Safety Commission, why shouldn’t this more complex and costly proposal be reviewed by the Commission? Conti and Adduci (voting on procedure, not the ordinances) were the only trustees to vote to refer. The Village Board then adopted the ordinance and postponed until September voting on the contract authorization with Safe Speed.
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Safe Speed’s representative reported that 70 to 80% of the violations would be failure to stop for right turn on red ($100 fine; River Forest gets $60 of that). He asserted that the red light cameras would reduce accidents by 20 to 30%. Given that there have been five accidents causing bodily injury during the past three years at Harlem and Lake, and three at North and Harlem, the red light cameras will result in less than one fewer injuries a year between the two intersections. Given that over 60,000 cars a day traverse these intersections with so few accidents that cause bodily injury over a three year period, safety is remarkably good at both intersection. (To be fair, Safe Speed reported that there were 16 accidents total — including those with no bodily injury — at Harlem and North in 2009 and 20 in 2010. But Safe Speed could not say how many of those involved the River Forest approaches on the two roads.)
The cameras will cover two approaches in River Forest at Harlem & Lake (southbound Harlem and eastbound Lake) and one in River Forest at Harlem & North Avenue (eastbound North Avenue — all the other red lights are in other cities). So the planned cameras will cover only 3 approaches to these two intersections, further reducing their impact on the number of accidents and the number of tickets that can be issued. Obviously, River Forest cannot issue tickets to vehicles whose drivers run a red light that is actually located in Oak Park, Chicago, or Elmwood Park.
Is this not a solution in search of a problem?
The cameras will stream live video of the intersection to River Forest village hall 24/7 in addition to snapping photos of possible traffic light violators. The authorization for the contract says, “With this, [the] village will be able to monitor any activity within camera range.” Do we really need another constant spy in the sky? (See pages 33 and 18 of the document).
Click here for full details from the village board’s ordinance, proposed authorization of the agreement with Safe Speed, LLC, and supporting material.
Speed Safe could offer no concrete data regarding the intersections such as the number of red lights run by motorists now. Since Monday’s meeting President Rigas has produced a newspaper article from 2009 with figures on the number of accidents at these intersections. Why was this information not provided to the public prior to Monday night’s meeting? Why didn’t Speed Safe have this data at its fingertips for its presentation Monday night? Why is it so hard to get proper studies conducted before the village board acts?
With so much to learn, why not allow proper research to be conducted before approving this ordinance and authorizing this agreement?
And why didn’t the Village Board ever refer this ordinance and agreement to the Traffic and Safety Commission in the first place — where they deal with traffic safety issues all the time? This is a traffic safety issue, isn’t it? We’re sure that there’s just no chance that the majority of the Village Board is doing this to raise revenue as some critics have suggested. We’re willing to accept the trustees’ word that this is just a safety issue.
Disclosure: The author of this article has never received a ticket due to a red light camera (actually, he hasn't gotten anything more serious than a parking ticket in more than 25 years).
| Precinct | Yes | No |
| 1 | 149 | 151 |
| 2 | 245 | 254 |
| 3 | 271 | 214 |
| 4 | 296 | 295 |
| 5 | 194 | 177 |
| 6 | 198 | 201 |
| 7 | 295 | 253 |
| 8 | 196 | 165 |
| 9 | 167 | 147 |
| 10 | 285 | 232 |
| Total | 2,296 | 2,089 |
The nearly five point margin allows the River Forest Village Board to increase the sales tax by 1 percent, to 9.5 percent, the same as neighboring communities Oak Park, Melrose Park, and Elmwood Park.
A big “Thank you” to all who voted “Yes.” The Village Board must notify the State of Illinois of the 1 percent increase by January 1 for the increase to go into effect next July (which under state law is the soonest it can go into effect).
| Forest Leaves and Wednesday Journal both say vote “Yes” on Tuesday |
Improve police protection
Maintain fire protection
Plow our streets in winter
Get the leaves cleared from the streets
Prevent further severe flooding
Fix streets and our aging sewer system
Generate economic development
Prevent further cutbacks that would reduce our property values
Keep River Forest a desirable place to live and raise a family
Despite cutting expenses to the bone, River Forest needs us voters to approve a 1 percent increase in our sales tax next Tuesday, November 2 in order to keep River Forest the first–class community we moved to.
The village isn’t crying “wolf.” River Forest's financial crisis is very real — as thoroughly documented in the report of the Citizens Advisory Committee on Village Finances. Our fire department has been cut back so much that if the village had to eliminate one more firefighter position, it couldn't legally respond to fires. Streets aren't being repaired as quickly as before. Preventative maintenance has fallen by the wayside. Tree trimming has been cut back. Important village staff positions remain vacant and our short handed staff is overloaded and cannot perform at peak efficiency.
Wonder why you haven’t received a village newsletter in the mail for a year? To cut expenses, River Forest switched to an online newsletter a year ago with notifications emailed to those who sign up for them. But due to budget constraints, staff never sent a mailing to residents telling them how to sign up online or request a printed copy sent via the Postal Service. Fewer than 200 of the village's nearly 12,000 residents have signed up for the online newsletter. With all the staff layoffs, the village does not have the staff available to communicate adquately with residents.
Wonder why the village no longer pays for school crossing guards? It doesn’t have the funds to afford $100,000 a year. The village had spent over $1 million subsidizing the schools during the past ten years. Click here for other spending cuts already implemented.
On August 9, the River Forest Village Board voted to place on the November 2 ballot a referendum to increase the sales tax by one percentage point. State law requires that a referendum be conducted because River Forest does not have home rule.
If approved, the sales tax will enable the village to close most of the gaping budget deficit for the next few years as explained in the report of the Citizens Advisory Committee on Village Finances. Click here to download a PDF file of the report.
While the village board could have sought an increase in property taxes (just 11% of the property taxes we pay go to the village; our superb public school districts get 70%), most village trustees concluded that an increase in sales tax would be less burdensome for residents and much of it would be paid by nonresidents shopping in River Forest. Our sales tax is lower than that in many neighboring communities. The requested one percent increase will make our sales tax the same as Oak Park, Melrose Park, Elmwood Park, and scores of other suburbs.
| Referendum on the November 2 Ballot: “Shall the Board of Trustees and the President of the Village of River Forest be authorized to levy a 1% sales tax to be used for municipal operations, public infrastructure, or property tax relief?” |
You Get What You Pay For:
The Lesson of School Districts 90 and 200
Great schools like those in districts 90 and 200 don’t come free. We’re willing to pay substantial taxes for all the superb services our public schools provide our children — and we get what we pay for. The same holds true for village government. We won’t get a great village government that provides the superb services we want unless we’re willing to pay for them. This 1% addition to the sales tax is a small price to pay for better services from our village government.
Having cut spending to the bone as documented in the report of the Citizens Advisory Committee on Village Finances, River Forest’s only remaining way to maintain the current level of village services is to generate new revenues. Read it online here. The least regressive and least painful means is through a small increase in the sales tax. If this one percent increase is not approved, there is little doubt that further cuts will have to be made to village services. As the report makes clear, “structural deficits” assure that River Forest will exhaust its reserve funds and lack adequate funding to operate the village in just a few years.
For example, the Fire Department is already at minimum staffing levels and could not, under law, even respond to a fire if the number of firefighters were further reduced. If the sales tax is not increased, it’s likely that the village will have to cut back on street repairs, tree trimming (already reduced 20 percent), sewer repairs, and other village services. Flooding will get worse. Further staff reductions to an already understaffed village will lead to unrepaired deteriorated streets, sewers, and other features of River Forest under the responsibility of the village.
River Forest used to be proactive and able to prevent problems. But with this ongoing budget crisis and cutbacks already made, the village has had to become reactive and follow the more costly approach of responding to problems instead of preventing them. When it comes to running a village, Ben Franklin was right: A stitch in time does save nine. But you can’t apply the stitches when you can’t even afford the needle and thread.
What opponents say. Some folk argue against this modest hike in the sales tax. They voice the mantra of the need to cut waste and mismanagement out of the village budget. Dare them to name examples of actual waste or mismanagement — they can’t because any waste or mismanagement has been eliminated. Dare them to identify any more expenses that can realistically be cut without reducing essential village services. They’ll rant about pension costs which I readily agree are out of control. But pensions are determined by the state legislature, not individual cities. Pensions are literally are out of our hands. The sales tax referendum is needed to maintain village services, not to fund the pensions imposed by the General Assembly in Springfield. They’ll argue that making our sales tax the same rate as scores of other suburbs like Oak Park, Melrose Park, and Elmwood Park will discourage people from shopping or dining in River Forest — a contention for which they have no factual basis. Do you really think somebody will not shop or dine in River Forest because our sales tax is the same as our neighboring communities? With all due respect, their arguments hold no water.
On April 12, 2010, the Village Board received the long–awaited report from the Citizens Advisory Committee on Village Finances. This exhaustive study of River Forest’s financial situation found a growing gap between revenues and expenditures that will, frankly, bankrupt the village in a few years unless revenues are increased substantially (the report doesn’t say this explicitly, but the ultimate collapse of River Forest’s finances and complete draining of its financial reserves is pretty obvious when you read the report).
Village expenses have already been cut to the bone, with 10 percent village staff laid off and pay freezes instituted for most staff — leaving the village seriously understaffed. The village’s fire department is at minimum staffing levels — anything lower and it will not comply with state and federal law.
See for yourself online or click here to download a PDF of the committee’s study. Don’t let its length deter you. Everything is summarized in the four–page Executive Summary, followed by 20 pages of narrative and data. Most of the report consists of exhibits that show all the public information the committee reviewed.
While we could argue all day about how the village got into this situation — part of the blame may rest with the decisions of previous village boards under President Frank Paris, part with expensive state–mandated police and fire pensions, and part with the Great Recession. The bottom line is that with any and all fat in the River Forest budget trimmed last fiscal year and the remainder trimmed in the Fiscal Year 2010–2011 budget approved April 26, the village must find major new sources of revenue. Since River Forest is not a home rule community, state law prevents the village from generating additional revenue without a referendum. If approved, the November 2 referendum to increase the village’s sales tax 1 percentage point will nearly close the budget deficits that loom after Fiscal Year 2010–2011. So please get the facts and read the committee’s nonpartisan study now to get a handle on the village’s fiscal situation.
With a 5–0 vote February 8, the River Forest Village Board adopted its Corridor Plan without the exclusionary “Land Use Conversion Opportunities” that threatened to remove 200 units of scarce affordable housing along Harlem Avenue between Oak and Chicago Avenue and between LeMoyne and North Avenue. The village trustees declined the opportunity to clearly state that they decided to make no changes to the “land use pattern” along Harlem Avenue in order to preserve housing affordable to households with modest incomes. They did, however, remove the language that suggested that no changes were recommended because it was just too difficult to put the deals together to redevelop the affordable housing.
Click here to see the language adopted for the key page 77. Click here to view or download a PDF file of the plan as adopted. It’s 18 MB in size.
The village’s planning consultant who created the exclusionary “Land Use Conversion Opportunities” that would have replaced 200 units of affordable rentals and condominiums with condominiums that would cost more than three times as much as the current dwellings argued vigorously against including any language about affordable housing. He did, however, support a village wide discussion of affordable housing to which the board appears to have committed itself.
The board made these changes thanks to the efforts of about 70 residents who attended the Village Board’s January 19 meeting to speak out against these exclusionary provisions. This extraordinary and very articulate group of citizens made a strong case to the village trustees that the village’s plan should not target their homes for replacement. At that meeting the River Forest Village Board unanimously directed staff to remove the objectionable “Land Use Conversion Opportunities” from the proposed River Forest Corridors Plan which would have eliminated 200 units of scarce affordable housing. Click on the links in the left hand column to see the revised pages or the entire revised plan. Members of the Village Board who were present also seemed to accept a need to review the village’s plans for their impact on existing housing affordable to teachers, village employees, librarians, seniors, and recent college graduates.
The revised plan included language on page 77 that made it sound like the village was not recommending redevelopment of these areas on Harlem because it was simply too difficult to assemble the land. Citizens sought instead to have these revisions on page 77 more accurately explain why the plan now recommends maintaining the land use pattern along Harlem: namely to preserve housing current residents can afford.
Speakers suggested that the last three sentences in the second paragraph on page 77 should be changed to read:
“The houses, apartments, and condominiums along Harlem provide essential housing in River Forest that is affordable to teachers, librarians, retired seniors, our children coming out of college, village employees, retail workers, college students, people with disabilities, and others who have modest incomes. To preserve this irreplaceable housing, the Plan recommends maintaining the existing land use pattern and existing housing in the Harlem Avenue corridor.”
Urged on by their planning consultant, the trustees declined to adopt this language or any language about preserving affordable housing. No trustee at its February 8 meeting voiced any support for preserving affordable housing. They made it clear that they removed the language because 70 people showed up in protest.
Clearly there’s a long way to go to educate the village board (and plan commission) about the need to preserve existing housing that households with modest incomes can afford.
“River Forest Matters” will be a place to keep track of what’s happening with village discussions of affordable housing so you can participate in those discussions — otherwise the voices of exclusion and discrimination will succeed at maintaining the village’s current plan and zoning provisions that seek to eliminate existing affordable housing and prevent the development of any new affordable housing.
All but one resident spoke in favor of removing the so–called “Land Use Conversion Opportunities” (LUCOs) from the plan. These LUCOs targeted the River Forest Garden Condominiums (on Harlem between Oak and Chicago avenues) and the apartments and condos on Harlem between North Avenue and LeMoyne for replacement by mixed–use retail and much higher priced condominiums (click here to see the specific plans). If the plan were implemented, River Forest would lose around 200 units of scarce and irreplaceable housing affordable to the members of the middle class. Click here for a PDF file with information about the scarcity of affordable housing in the Chicagoland area.
The dozens of residents who spoke presented articulate, forceful but respectful, heartfelt and heartwarming testimony. In the 23 years we've lived in River Forest, we have never seen such a strong turnout on any issue; nor have we seen speakers present such a collectively superb set of testimony.
At the end of the public testimony, the 5 trustees present (President Rigas, trustees Gibbs, Winitakes, Conti, and Adduci) went around the table and voiced their views. They unanimously agreed to remove the two "Land Use Conversion Opportunities" from the plan and instead clearly state that the plan recommends maintaining the current land use patterns along Harlem. In plain language, they agreed to what the citizens sought. The full Village Board voted to adopt the revised Corridors Plan at its February 8 meeting.
And they appeared to recognize that the preservation of housing affordable to households with modest incomes is important and that the village needs to revisit the question and establish a policy. So continued monitoring and participation by a broad range of citizens will be needed. My guess is that this will proceed slowly since the village has a serious budget crisis to resolve before it can do anything else.
To learn a whole lot more about what River Forest can do to preserve affordable housing, click here to see a slew of short papers, longer monographs, and articles about preserving affordable housing. The two-page piece about low-equity cooperatives describes the nation's most successful effort to preserve housing at an affordable level in perpetuity.
To be notified of upcoming events involving River Forest’s plans that affect affordable housing
and/or to volunteer notify residents affected by village plans and ordinances: 
See the objectionable exclusionary proposals for yourself 
Original article urging people to attend the January 19 village board meeting appears immediately below:
At the 7:00 p.m. start of its Tuesday, January 19 meeting the River Forest Village Board will hear from residents and discuss the Corridors Plan that threatens to replace much of the village’s affordable housing with much higher density mixed use projects with much more expensive condos current residents could not afford. A huge crowd will be needed to get these exclusionary proposals removed from the plan.
The Village Board will be meeting as a “committee of the whole,” a more informal setting that allows for more interaction and discussion with residents. The Corridors Plan will be the first item on the agenda. This is the best opportunity to show the village trustees that pages 77-79 of the Commercial Corridors Plan should be deleted now.
Pages 77-79 call for replacing the condos and apartments on Harlem between Chicago and Oak (“River Forest Garden Condominiums”) and between North and Le Moyne with higher density and more expensive condos plus retail. Such high intensity use is incompatible with the adjacent single–family homes on Bonnie Brae — and will eliminate the housing the current residents can afford for more expensive condominiums. The plan calls these “Land Use Conversion Opportunities.”
In November the River Forest Plan Commission voted unanimously to approve the plan unchanged and recommend that the Village Board adopt the plan as is despite 15 citizens asking the Plan Commission to delete these pages from the Corridors Plan.
After its January 19 “committee as a whole” meeting, the Village Board will vote on the plan at a formal Village Board meeting where it will be important to come out in force again.
The village’s planning consultant correctly asserted that the plan does not recommend that the demolition of these homes and their redevelopment take place now. The plan calls for implementation of these proposals if the opportunity presents itself.
Endorsement of these proposals gives the village’s stamp of approval to a developer who seeks to redevelop these properties. It means such a proposal is consistent with the comprehensive plan — a key standard for approving such a development.
The only way to prevent the loss of these homes is to get the Village Board to remove pages 77-79 from the plan. That’s what residents must seek when they speak at the village board meetings where the plan will be up for adoption.
Author: River Forest Resident Daniel Lauber