Park district of Oak Park voted to move forward with the construction of a new entertainment center building in the northeastern section of Field Park with Berkshire Street on Thursday, about the location of the neighbor Despite the vocal objections in.
Park board treasurer David Vik said against the loan vote what the authorities had called “Option A” in the meetings leading to the decisive vote.
Thursday’s decision disappointed some two dozen people attending the meeting, although at least one resident took the design.
After the vote, the excluded sighs from the crowd also came from the crowd, and many of the people who talked out the anger, which they had seen as bureaucracy for the interests of the neighborhood as bureaucracy.
The first person to address the board, Val Desideero, said, “Most of the parents are here, and they do not want so.” He said that the neighborhood parents enjoy the existing veil and play area, and the alternative design, “option B”, which would have placed the new building close to the parking area, would be more convenient for the park users.
“It’s going to make it less than convenient for many people,” he said about option A. “Those who live there feel just the super firmly that they do not want it there.”
On Thursday, others addressing the board recalled childhood experiences in the park or recalled special moments with their children, remembering the memories of playing on the Baram and the playground. He felt that space, full of personal history, was special and valuable beyond its observation features. His emotional arguments did not move the board.
“We have received a lot of nutritional memories of that hill,” resident Mike Desideario told the board. “My son’s first sled ride was on that hill. … There is a possibility that my son will always remember. The park as a child was like a holiday you used to take as a young person, and this is a memory that you are going to cherish for the rest of your life. ,
The new design will have its own Baram, which was built from scooped soil for the foundation of the new building, similarly the park builders built the existing Berm 100 years ago. Park officials argued that the new barrum would be safe, landed in the place of open park and not in a metal fence on one side and an active playground on the other side.
In fact, the park director Jan Arnold said, all the existing features in the field park will be replaced.
“When that building comes down, we will re -build what we have in the north corner,” he said.
But the opponents of the plan looked uncontrolled. At the end of the two -hour meeting, many people had shown to protest after the results of voting, the Park Board chairman admitted that things could be locally uncomfortable for a while.
Park District President Qasi Porreka said, “Some strange dogs may have conversation.” “But being a leader, there is a person who is ready to move forward and make a difficult decision.”
He praised Arnold’s leadership and vision for the project.
“As the Executive Director, she takes a lot of negative press in the community as the agency’s face and is a true leader,” said Porreka.