FRIENDS OF THE PARKS:
HARDLY REPRESENTATIVE OF YOUR INTERESTS
Here is the profile of Friends of the Parks membership, as found in the latest annual report to the State of Illinois Attorney General. As suspected this is a group of elite activists who reside in areas that would never, ever tolerate an impingement on their properties. Take a look:
BOARD OF DIRECTORS = 47 PERSONS
Of that total, 15 live on the Goldcoast, including Elm Street, East Lake Shore Drive, North Michigan Avenue and Astor Street.
Another 7 live in the suburbs (Lincolnwood, Glenview, Riverside, Skokie, Wheeling, Western Springs and Lincolnshire)----making their input on anything dealing with Edgewater even more infuriating.
The remainder live in Hyde Park, and near north.
There is not one board member who lives in the 60660 zipcode!
This is hardly a group of individuals who are qualified to recommend anything for our area. Shame on this group of elite activists.
FRIENDS OF THE PARKS' MESSAGE TO THE LAKESHORE RESIDENTS: “YOUR VIEWS DON’T REALLY MATTER”
On February 5, voters in the South Shore area were presented their views on the Friends of the Parks proposal to extend a bike path between 71st and 75th streets. They overwhelmingly rejected this proposal by over 90%, with 1865 against and only 187 in favor. (One wonders how many people are members of Friends of the Parks
When presented with this result, Erma Tranter, executive director of the advocacy group stated that the results didn’t reflect the views of “residents across the city”. She went on further to state that “we are not surprised by it (vote) because it was only in a limited area which most residents want to keep for their private use”.
This further reinforces our assertion that this advocacy group is disingenuous when it comes to holding “community meetings” to assess the wants and needs of the community. Our view has been that these meetings are only “running through the motions” to add an air of legitimacy to the bankrupt planning process practices by the advocacy group. The meetings are designed to hear only from those in favor of additional lakefront landmass. In fact, the meeting announcements are not broadly distributed, and certainly not posted within the buildings in the impact zone.
Those from the community who are not in favor are dismissed out of hand as somehow selfish, and not willing to accommodate the perceived wishes from “residents across the city”. What kind of planning process is this that starts with the results and ends with the same?
One has to wonder whether these elitists would be as willing to sacrifice for the wishes of “residents across the city” when those wishes would have an impact on their $million + gold coast residences.