After months of contentious debate, a River Forest committee says a Roosevelt Middle School parking lot must remain open to the public against School District 90’s wishes.
The plan now goes to the River Forest Village Board, who will evaluate the plan themselves.
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The Development Review Board’s conditions, include providing 30 parking spaces at the school, of which 10 on the west end must be available at all times for two-hour parking, met with mixed reviews.
“While I certainly understand some of the concern that were raised by individual members of the DRB, I also am very concerned they may not have considered adequately the safety issues we have tried the focus on in our past DRB meetings,” said River Forest School District 90 Board President Patrick Meyer.
Though most of the River Forest Village Board members were at the Feb. 19 hearing, some District 90 officials and members of the community hoped they would still be able to bring them over to their way of thinking at the Feb. 23 Village Board meeting. Expecting a large crowd, the trustees were scheduled to meet at 7 p.m. in the auditorium of Willard Elementary School.
Three years in the making, the project has hit speed bumps along the way. The main sticking point was a proposal to shut down public access to Roosevelt’s north parking lot, which currently also provides parking for the River Forest Public Library.
District officials claimed they wanted to close the parking lot to the public for the safety of the students, but at the Feb. 5 meeting, several Development Review Board members said they did not buy the excuse.
John Griffin and Therese Tagger O’Brien voted against the entire plan because, in their opinion, it did not meet several of the standards required for approval. Griffin and O’Brien also voted against the special conditions for the north parking lot.
District 90 parent Markus Sleuwen called the Development Review Board’s vote to require the west end of the parking lot to be open to the public at all times a “disgrace.”
“I think this is a farce. I think there are children that are the No. 1 priority of the board and this board is making a decision to put them at risk,” he said. “They keep on insisting there is a parking problem when there isn’t a parking problem … The day someone really gets injured in that lot, people will be asking for answers from the people who made this decision today.”
Village Board candidate Patty Henek led a petition drive that resulted in more than 600 signatures from residents opposing the plan because of the likely traffic congestion caused by cars that would be pushed onto surrounding streets to park.
“It’s really in the right direction,” she said of the Development Review Board’s recommendation. “At this point, more than 20 (spaces) is good.”
Retired teacher and senior activist Al Popowits also approved of the outcome.
“Basically, this board couldn’t come up with a plan to satisfy everybody, because what you have is a finite space with ever-growing demands,” he said.
Popowits said his main concern was that all the taxing bodies could get back to working collaboratively and cooperatively.
“No one should ever doubt that the board and the superintendent acted with total sincerity to produce this plan.”
Rebecca R. Bibbs is a freelance reporter for Pioneer Press.