We've never seen anything like it! The speed! The agility!
Last week we posted a letter to the editor from Mr. Steve Kopka, who was protesting the plan to put another drive through bank in Park Ridge on the old Napleton parking lot near Uptown, and a CVS pharmacy on the site of the old Napleton Cadillac dealership.
Today we read in the Journal and Topics that the bank in question, CenTrust, is backing off of their plan.
In the Journal article today, CenTrust Chairman and CEO Carl Vander Wilt says that zoning variances and the process are too risky for his bank to go through. -- O.K., stop that! Really! That's enough laughing! -- But that's not what Mr. Vander Wilt was saying just a few days ago.
In an online Herald-Advocate update, Mr. Vander Wilt credited "concerns that residents in neighboring blocks had expressed about a bank at that location."
Also in the Journal and Topics article today we read that "some city officials...were not aware" of CenTrust's "recent change in plans" but that Mayor Howard was contacted personally about CenTrust's decision.
So what do you think, PRU readers? Think Mayor Howard isn't communicating with "some city officials"? Or, was Mayor Howard denying knowledge of the change in plans to the local press? Is anyone else willing to describe the current administration of Mayor Howard as "Kafkaesque"? And why is Mr. Vander Wilt now singing a different tune?
Is it possible that Mr. Kopka's letter to the editor and the efforts of other area residents that have produced one of the most rapid responses to citizen concerns that we've ever seen is viewed as threatening by the Kafkaesque Mayor Howard?
The PRU Crew can't say for sure. But from now on, whenever the concerns of citizens of Park Ridge are met with this kind of rapid response we're going to be calling it Kopkaesque!
July 30, 2008
Kafka? No! Kopkaesque!
Read this document on Scribd: JT73008CenTrust
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17 comments:
city officials are also claiming ignorance of the CVS proposal. in fact, emails were flying fast and furious last night, just before the neighborhood meeting in the Napleton parking lot, in which someone (not from the neighborhood) claimed to have spoken with CVS' developer who said "there are not plans and never have been plans" to open a CVS on the old Napleton site.
This, despite last week's article in the journal (http://www.journal-topics.com/business/08/biz080709.7.html) which quoted Andrew E. Kolb, the attorney who has appeared before city commissions representing CVS. When asked about the putting a CVS store on the Napleton Cadillac site at 200 N. Northwest Highway, he said, "That's the plan."
Now everyone seems to be saying the whole thing is "just a rumor".
It seems that everyone involved who wants a CVS to appear on the site (city officials, CVS officials, who knows who else) would just love for the whole thing to remain a "rumor" right up to the point where the bulldozers show up and the concrete starts getting poured. In other words, they'll let the neighbors know what's going on at right about the point when it's too late for them to do anything to stop it.
It appears that another back room/side channel deal is in the works here with the old Napleton site on Greenwood/Busse Hwy.
We know that we can - count on Howie and "the back street boys" of Pk Ridge to arrange another bank deal.
After all.......Howie believes that
we are all made of money in this town and can afford his type of leadership:
Tax & Spend!!
Thanks again.
Walgreens failed to keep their intel working - here I guess.
CVS is also very expensive - really.
The soft shoe ( no offense ) shoppers are not in those Isles with the coupons for nothing.
Yep - another bank Howie.........
We got it......
I'm shocked, I say SHOCKED, to read that Mayor Frimark might not be communicating with other city officials! Has that ever happened before...?
anonymous at 11:31--thanks for the hideous vision of "Howie and the Backstreet Boys." Perhaps they can sing/dance onstage at next year's Taste of PR!
While sitting at that lovely light at Greenwood/Busse the other day, I noticed the empty lot on the SW corner, where they used to put the overflow cars from Napleton. GREAT location for a bank or pharmacy with a drive thru. Neighbors are the train and the city building.
anony-mouse,
yea, the jewel/osco pharmacy cattycorner is probably lonely and wants company.
Silly Mouse that corner is where the new police palace is going. It wouldn't be too far fetched to see a CVS strip mall on the showroom site...that is if Slymark can convince his alderpuppets to have the city foot the bill for the clean up the brown field. I bet Ryan has already agreed to it.
I thought the police station was going where the showroom was.
that piece of land where the parking lot exists is way to small for the palace police station.
"Slymark"--I like it!
Kind of you to turn my name into an adjective (adjectify me?).
Really, though, I'd credit dozens of neighbors for speaking up in many different ways--calls, visits, flyers, letters. And of course your readers whose comments (I believe) found their way to the right ears or eyes.
While I love a good scandal, what I really want is for them to change the zoning. Last night at the corner of Meacham and NWHighway, about 70 people showed up to talk with Alderman Ryan about these proposed businesses. He agreed all the parcels in question--the parking lot and Audrey's on one side, and the Napleton showroom on the other--are supposed to be residential. He had a copy of the Uptown Plan with him. The Mayor has also now said they should be residential. Carrie Davis, in the Journal article you put up, is saying the same thing. And of course the Uptown Plan says the same thing too.
Now it's just a matter of doing it. Knowing all this, and the number of people who have heard and reported (might even be video out there) these comments, the people involved might have a hard time changing their stories.
If the zoning is not changed, and more businesses are courted there... my, then we'd have a scandal.
Thanks for publishing my letter.
-Steve Kopka
You're modest self is quite welcome.
Mr. Kopka--you are doing what we all should be doing. We need to be present, active, knowing what is going on. Perhaps this chaos in our community is partially our fault, trusting the town's government to act in our best interests.
it's time to start showing up at meetings, watching, listening.
That's so great that a group showed up for that meeting outside with the Alderman. Kudos to you!
Who is writing this blog, Camille Desmoulins?
The resident involvement is very admirable, especially considering the apathy generally associated with residents of the suburbs. But not all involvement is productive (except perhaps for Mr. Kopka, who credits his political acumen by keeping on top of this blog and responding--bravo). We do a disservice to blogging as a medium for citizen voices so long as we:
1. Needlessly and passionately attribute every action to motives like corruption and insanity. This is grating and dilutes whatever argument or comment you might be trying to make. Plus, let's face it, it's not clever.
2. Try to dredge up sour indignation at absolutely everything. Political efficacy actually benefits from fair thinking!
3. Use "kafkaesque" in this context. Honestly. Ouch. Names similar to Kafka do not appropriate scenarios for saying "kafkaesque" make.
4. Self-identifies as being ironic and satirical. Wading through all this "irony" and "sarcasm" is enough to kill internet civic currency where it stands.
Great idea, and props to Mr. Kopka. But seriously PR Underground get over this "Attorney General of the Lamppost" idea and try to connect resident opinions with a little more humility and if you can, leave Mr. Kafka out of it.
Good Lord, feuillant! That was an awful lot of babble and blather just to tell the PRU that you don't like the blog!
I do like this blog! It's the first time I've ever felt like us residents are getting the whole story on things in town, instead of the spin and whitewash the politicians feed the paper.
I don't think you got the Kafka joke. That Mr. Kopka got a response that wasn't a nightmare and illogical, so it's the opposite of something kafkaesque. I also think it's weird how the story went from a response to residents to a reason about zoning variances being risky for the bank. That's just weird!
I got a kick out of feuillant's "royal we"...
Hey Flatuent, i mean feuillant,
Cant be the frog Camille, 'cause he is long gone.
BUt to quote 'em (who in turn quoted another) "He that does evil hates light"
Shine on crazy diamond . . .
Turn on the lights and watch the cockroaches scatter
Feuillant:
Our city is in Crook County, in a state that is corrupt enough to make a mockery of the slogan "Land of Lincoln." So "corruption" should always be one of the choices any time motivation is in issue.
As for "insanity," that may be a tad hyperbolic when "stupidity,"
"ignorance," "illogic" and/or "short-sightedness" could suffice. Or we could just stick with "corruption" - which, in one form or another (favor-trading, for example), is probably the correct answer most often to decisions that aren't readily understandable to the average citizen who is trying to pay his taxes, not spend them.
"Corruption" would also explain why there's so much hiding in closed sessions, why there are "secret" memos, why public officials hold "private" meetings with developers, etc.
As for "political efficacy," it derives from citizen participation. And the increase in citizen participation that can be observed in the past year or so that this blog and Public Watchdog have existed suggests that these blogs actually enhance political efficacy.
They may have also forced the two local newspapers to raise their game a bit as well, as the H-A's Jennifer Johnson is starting to actually act and write like a "reporter"; and the Journal's Craig Adams is light-years beyond his predecessor, the aptly nick-named "Dwight Hee-Haw."
Or you could simply be content with reading "The Spokesman."
The person above me needs to stay away from the roaches.
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