Kafka? No! Kopkaesque!

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.

JT73008CenTrust - Upload a Document to Scribd

Read this document on Scribd: JT73008CenTrust

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!