Wednesday, March 26, 2008

When Do Residents Take Priority?

Courtesy News-Star:
Truman College is to be commended for pulling together two community meetings to discuss its plans for a new parking structure and student services center. Truman has demonstrated a forthrightness that is sorely lacking in the 46th Ward.

All of the college's intentions in staging these meetings are admirable and the college should be thanked for sharing information with the community. Unfortunately, 46th Ward Ald.Helen Shiller and other city officials, particularly those from the city's Department of Planning and Development, still don't get it.

The only problem with Monday evening's meeting at Truman College was the pent-up frustration that many Uptown residents feel over the lack of community input into the planning process.

Planning for Truman's new parking garage and student services center should have taken place in a smaller setting. Instead of two large community meetings, there should have been several smaller meetings. The block clubs closest to the college should have been included early on in the planning process.

Residents could have asked their questions then about garage security, interruption from construction, access and new traffic patterns, not when plans for the project are almost completed. Perhaps then, Monday's meeting would have been a slam-dunk for Truman.

The residents attending Monday night's meeting had a right to ask why $10 million in TIF money has been proposed to foot part of the costs for a tax-exempt city college. After all, it's their money.

These residents deserve better than an alderman who chooses to put in a rare community appearance, and then pretends to not understand why her constituents are angry and frustrated.

While we recognize the need for a new building at Truman College so it can continue growing as a city college of choice, we believe that some of the proposed $10 million in TIF funding could have gone to refurbishing the existing Wilson El Station or toward construction of two new stations as CTA President Ron Huberman proposed Monday evening.

As one resident put it during the meeting, when do residents who have already given up so much take priority?

We urge Truman to come up with a plan for neighbors to benefit from its new parking garage during off-school hours. Nearby residents can use the garage on snowy winter days, for overnight guests, or on afternoons when Cubs fans invade neighborhood streets looking for free street parking so they can ride the El to Wrigley Field.

We understand Truman's dilemma in trying to solve its parking issues and urge the school to look for incentives in inducing more staff, faculty and students to not use the garage by taking mass transit or finding alternative modes of transportation.

While we believe college officials when they say they want to be good neighbors, we hope that whatever plan Truman comes up with for its parking garage also considers those who are helping to foot the bill-the residents who live within the Wilson Yard TIF District.

5 comments:

  1. There are many things that burn me about the Truman Parking plan, but this editorial sums up the most egregious bassackward reasoning yet:

    The residents of the Wilson Yard TIF are going to help pay for this parking lot. Then Truman will charge us for parking there. So, in effect, we get to pay for it twice.

    The students at Truman who drive - presumably not from a couple blocks away, presumably not residents of the Wilson Yard TIF - get to park free! So generous of us Uptown residents to pay twice so non-residents can easily forego public transportation and receive the gift of free parking.

    If you live outside of Uptown: Here's a nice little gift for you.

    Taxpayers of Uptown: Pay twice!

    And yet we're told this is such a GOOD thing for us. I'm still trying to figure out how.

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  2. I can think of many colleges in Downtown Chicago that operate just fine without free taxpayer provided parking lots. Roosevelt University, DePaul University, Kent Law School, Loyola, John Marshall Law School, to name a few.

    Why doesn't the city scrap the Block 37 retail development plans and build those schools 9-story parking lots with 2 adjacent low-income housing towers on State Street for 300 low, lower, and very, very low income persons?

    ARE YOU RACIST, GENTRIFYING YUPPIES THAT DON'T CARE ABOUT THE HOMELESS ON YOUR STREETS?

    WHERE WILL THEY GO DOWNTOWN?,MR. MAYOR???????

    ISN'T PARKING MORE IMPORTANT THAN A FUNCTIONING DOWNTOWN CTA STATION, MR. RON HUBBERMAN?

    COULDN'T YOU STACK A PARK-& RIDE FACILITY ON TOP TO SUPPORT THOSE WHO PREFER TO DRIVE INTO THE LOOP AND TAKE THE CTA TO THE AIRPORT, DEPT OF TRANSPORTATION MANAGER LYNN HOLLENBERG?

    I believe those of us who don't live there, don't work there, or and don't pay for it, should be the ones who decide.

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  3. Um, yes. They are racists downtown. Mayor Daley called them that when the residents resisted using Grant Park for the new Children's Museum. However, those residents must not get called that as often as we do because they managed to let it roll of their shoulders a bit saying, "Um, you are from Bridgeport and you are calling me a racist?

    What was Daley doing when Helen Shiller was marching with the Black Panthers? Whatever you want to say about Helen, she has the street cred on that one.

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  4. Truman is learning, as we all are, that some choices need to be reconsidered. It doesn't make sense to build a parking garage next to the decrepit Wilson El station and encourage students to drive because the parking is FREE.

    Truman is rethinking this decision.

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  5. "Truman is rethinking this decision."

    Just curious on what you base this surprising statement? I'm not asking you this to give you grief, but to ask for clarification.

    If what you say is true, it's a complete 180 to everything we heard Tuesday.

    Thanks!

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