Trustees Andrews, Boutet and Moroney,
My wife, friends, as well as myself all supported you in the last election due to your stand on the Albion building proposal and the fact that we felt we needed some fresh thinkers at village hall. Please prove that your word is worth something (unlike most pols these days) by voting against this project as it stands.
The village should stick with the eight-story maximum, and if the developer walks, he walks. Don’t tell us that Oak Park is back to the days of accepting whatever is offered by a builder as there are many other more acceptable possibilities for this site.
We have new multi-story buildings either already in use or under construction in the greater downtown area and, despite what some might say, we’re reaching or have already reached our saturation point in the number of units and certainly with area traffic flow.
The village keeps informing people to use North and South boulevards as alternates to Lake Street, which is gridlocked half the time, but we have major projects on both these streets near/at Harlem. In addition, Rush Hospital has a project ongoing at Madison near Harlem, which, while necessary, makes another route prohibitive. Mayor Anan still is pressing to reduce the lanes on Madison in Oak Park to further complicate matters.
You may or may not improve the village’s bottom line with an increased tax base, which is all well and good, but much of those gains will go toward other expenses caused by the new arrivals, such as school costs.
This mess has to stop, and that’s why we voted for you so that things could be reined in somewhat before the downtown area becomes impossible to travel through.
Please follow through on your promises.
James Agin
Oak Park
