The dozens of residents who turned out to the senior center in Niles earlier this month for a town hall meeting with the mayor mostly had questions about traffic in the north suburb. The answers they got explained that there’s not much village leaders can do.
Niles, a busy and heavily-trafficked town about 14 miles from downtown Chicago, is crisscrossed by major roads, all of which are state thoroughfares and under the purview of the Illinois Department of Transportation. Therefore, village leaders explained, the town can do little about traffic controls aside from issuing tickets.
“Every major throughway in this village is IDOT’s,” mayor George Alpogianis told the crowd at the Oct. 21 meeting. “Ultimately all those streets don’t belong to us. The only reason we plow them is because if we waited for them to plow them, they wouldn’t get done.”
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He said the village is about to launch a stop sign study in locally-controlled roadways, looking into areas in need of better traffic controls, and he promised more police officers in areas where people tend to speed.
However, a majority of the complaints would be passed along.
“But now that I hear this, I will talk to [state Sen. Laura] Murphy and the folks down south to see what we can do about the situation,” Alpogianis said.
Alpogianis also gave a brief update on village positives.
“We’re going to have all new bridges in the village,” he reported.
The mayor also mentioned the crime rate.
“All major crime in the village of Niles is down,” he said. “All of it.”
The mayor also hinted at some big potential development news.
Two residents asked about a venue for live entertainment, and Alpogianis said he’s already in talks with developers.
“There are three things that bring a community together: food, music and art,” he said. “We’ve talked to two different people, two different land owners, about getting this done. So, we are serious about getting this done.”
He added he’s talked with music promoters, too.
“We’ve got four different people we’re talking to, and we’re going to figure out how to do this the right way. … At one point, from Frank Sinatra all the way to Michael Jackson with the Jackson Five … they all were here in Niles and we’re trying to revive that,” Alpogianis said.
Already on the agenda next year is the Golf Mill Mall redevelopment. The village approved the $440 million project.
One resident asked if part of the development would include senior housing. The plan does include some residential, and the resident pointed out that some people might want to stay in Niles as they age and don’t need a full-size home any longer. Alpogianis didn’t make any promises — the development is still nailing down specifics — but said it’s possible.
“We are working very hard on it with them,” the mayor said.
He said he’s also been in talks with a nonprofit group that wants to develop senior residential housing in Niles. So, if not at the mall site, possibly senior housing could be somewhere else in the village.
“We’re looking for spots right now and we are working with them,” he said.
The mayor said the hope is to attract mid- to high-end stores to the redeveloped Golf Mill Mall.
“We’re looking for Nordstrom Racks … no Dollar General,” he said.
The other big item the town is facing is a referendum on the Nov. 5 General Election ballot that could divide the town into six different districts and elect trustees from each district. At present, trustees are elected village-wide and represent the town as a whole, not a specific area.
The mayor told the audience that, as a private citizen, he doesn’t like the proposal.
“Seventh grade social studies told us one thing: United we stand divided we fall,” he said. “It just happened in Skokie and the village manager called me and said ‘George, do whatever you can to stop it, it’s tearing our village apart.’ … It’s going to cost the village $100,000 just to get it mapped out.”
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Jesse Wright is a freelancer.