More good letters in yesterday's local rag and today's Trib local section.

I'm certainly not going to suggest that any governmental body should be entirely controlled by vocal public opinion, but doesn't it just seem outrageous that the PD could go about this in the manner it did - announcing it only after the decision has been made and when they were soliciting bids?

Is there any suggestion now that they are reconsidering their decision, or are them merely intending to "educate" the public in the grand manner of local governmental entities.

http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/local/chi-burnhamtreesapr10,0,7611606.story

15 trees cut down in Burnham Park and the people doing it are vandals (I myself would have went with "tree thuggers"). What does that make our village when they cut down 300+/-?

quote:

Originally posted by Clamato:
Don't tell me that the Daily Herald doesn't have a sense of humor. These two stories appeared side by side online:

Tree City USA honors

Roselle is among the communities that have received Tree City USA honors from the Arbor Day Foundation to honor its commitment to community forestry . This is the 22nd year the village has received the national recognition.

Glen Ellyn tree meeting

Glen Ellyn will hold a public information meeting to discuss the storm water facility project that entails cutting down more than 300 trees at Ackerman Woods in coming months . Residents looking for additional information can attend the meeting at 6 this evening at the Glen Ellyn Civic Center at 535 Duane St. in the second floor Clayton Room. While the village is overseeing the flood control project and leading the construction, Glen Ellyn Park District is donating the land. In return, two new soccer fields will be created as part of the project; one will serve as the detention facility. Glen Ellyn trustees agreed in November to go forward with the project.

Fortunately, Glen Ellyn is in its 23rd year of Tree City status. Wonder how we'll compare after the Tony Rio Memorial Soccer Field and Retention Basin is constructed.

Link

quote:

Originally posted by BlueEchoes:
http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/local/chi-burnhamtreesapr10,0,7611606.story

15 trees cut down in Burnham Park and the people doing it are vandals (I myself would have went with "tree thuggers"). What does that make our village when they cut down 300+/-?

That's a Tribune link....are you feeling OK?

From the Tree City manifesto:
To be eligible to participate in the Tree City USA program, a community must legally designate a city official or volunteer tree advocate as having authority over the management and care for the urban forest.
-
Who is the GE tree advocate? Does this person actually have "AUTHORITY"? Then wake her/him up!

quote:

Originally posted by Lionheart:
From the Tree City manifesto:
To be eligible to participate in the Tree City USA program, a community must legally designate a city official or volunteer tree advocate as having authority over the management and care for the urban forest.
-
Who is the GE tree advocate? Does this person actually have "AUTHORITY"? Then wake her/him up!

I nominate this person-

Tree Advocate

The Village of Glen Ellyn and the Glen Ellyn Park District are planning on cutting down over 340 trees in the woods at Ackerman Park this spring. This area is between Lenox, Riford and St. Charles roads and is a forest and wetland area.

The land is owned by the Park District, and the Park District is letting the Village use the land for stormwater retention from the 5-corners area. In exchange, the Village is letting the park district build two soccer fields in the woods- clear cutting a heavily wooded area with trees over 24"in diameter. Park district surveys show the slated removal of 344 trees, and the survey lists only trees with a diameter of 6" or more. Countless more small tree and plants will be destroyed.

The Park District has not looked into placing soccer fields in any other locations, just in the woods. They have also failed to complete any kind of facilities usage study to see if their current fields are meeting their needs.

The Village curren tly has stormwater retention for the 5-corners area in the large drainage ditch they own north of Walgreens. The Village wants to move the stormwater retention to the woods at Ackerman, and sell the current stormwater area to a developer for more retail space. There has been empty retail space in the 5-corners areas for years, but yet the Village would rather have another strip mall than preserve the woods.

This project will cost $467,000 and in the end the residents of Glen Ellyn will end up loosing one of the few remaining tracts of woods in the village.

Please help save the trees of Ackerman Woods. This issue has not been publicized- please forward this e-mail to other Glen Ellyn residents to get the word out.

The next Glen Ellyn Park District board meeting is Tuesday, March 20 at 7 p.m. at the Spring Avenue Recreation Center. Join us there to let the Board know that cutting down woods is not acceptable. Thanks for your help!

Sincerely,

Go Downtown!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Hi Clam- I checked with Go Downtown! and wanted to clarify their recent email. It was requested by numerous people to include information about Ackerman Woods to the group about the meeting last night. The previous emails received did not have enough information to send out, so an earlier email was copied and pasted into Go Downtown!s. Then, of course, the information about the actual meeting was accidentally left off. Go Downtown! does not have a political stance on this.

Enjoy your day.

When the referendum was up last year. I remember thinking now what is the PD going to do about outdoor soccer . It looks like they are going to lose a couple of fields when they put their new indoor soccer palace in Ackerman. So will they just lengthen the soccer day for house leagues, will they limit the teams and the number of kids who can play, will they take over the softball fields for soccer.

Of course the PD wisely did not mention any of this when they urged everyone to vote for the referendum. It was a win-win situation your taxes would not go up.
There would be a nice new indoor facility of course on average no more than 500 people a year would use it. Since it will be reserved mostly for indoor soccer leagues and traveling youth basketball but I digress.

So the ref passed and now the other shoe has just dropped with a loud thud. So tell me if I could see what would happen when this facility was built. Don't you think the people at the PD saw this as well. Sure they did, they're not stupid. But rather than tell everyone what the next step was they decided to keep it to themselves and not even mention until it was to late.

I was thinking we should come up with a word or term for this. I like the word Gleeced. I got this from the Glancer magazine and fleeced.

Basically it means when a Glen Ellyn taxing or government body pulls the wool over our eyes.

Congratulations everyone we've been gleeced.

THERE IS NO WAY THAT OUR VILLAGE WOULD DO THIS TO US!!!

Let's talk to everyone we know from every other place on earth and ask if this is the way things are there. I suspect we're being treated very badly.

So...in a nutshell...after last night's meeting...did the village or did the village not tell the residents there that they could pee up a rope and that the project...regardless of the desires and amount of whining from residents....will indeed be going on.

That's what I was just told. Bring in the Stihls and McCulloughs...cuz those suckers are coming down. Unless we chain Cory and Vicky to the trees (might be fun to do in effigy, BTW)...appears that there is no hope. Or did my good friend misinterpret what the village honcho said?

Glen Ellyn is run by hard @sses.

quote:

Originally posted by Yossarian:

quote:

Originally posted by Lionheart:
From the Tree City manifesto:
To be eligible to participate in the Tree City USA program, a community must legally designate a city official or volunteer tree advocate as having authority over the management and care for the urban forest.
-
Who is the GE tree advocate? Does this person actually have "AUTHORITY"? Then wake her/him up!

I nominate this person-

Tree Advocate

Funny story about Randy. When I was running a bands message board and website, a bunch of the members there invited Randy to join in. He signed up and logged in and joined in on a few conversations. The other members turned on him like pit bulls and ripped the guy endlessly. As the admin of the board, I saw all the private messages he was sending to the other members, and he sent me some great emails telling me how I was going to burn in hell for eternity and that Satan was going to make me his little bitch while sodomizing me endlessly with his pitch fork. I was going to send them to the Tampa police and press charges on him for emailing me such threatening emails, but just could not do it. I know someone that worked for the company randy works for and I called him one day asking why so hostile and how a good christian can be so vulgar and threatening and he hung up on me.

good times....

That guy has got to be one of the creepiest people on earth.

quote:

Originally posted by Clamato:
THERE IS NO WAY THAT OUR VILLAGE WOULD DO THIS TO US!!!

Clam you're so cute. Underneath all that cynicism you're as naive as pre-schooler.

I think it was sarcasm. But if that line makes me more endearing to you or anyone else for that matter...then yes, I am naive.

Time for Clam and Fish to start chaining themselves to some trees.

Interesting tidbits from the Sun's coverage of the meeting that was held:

link

Public Works Director Joe Caracci said the deal will go forward based on the intergovernmental agreement and that the meeting served merely to inform the public.

"This is a public meeting, not a public hearing," he said, explaining that a public hearing is a more formal and rigid legal structure.

-------------
Resident Jay Kinzler noted the empty retail space in downtown Glen Ellyn.

"There's not a big move for commerce at Five Corners, either," he said.

No one in the audience spoke in defense of the plan.

At one point, someone shouted out, "We would like to stop this from going forward!"

--------------

Sounds like it is a done deal...

Ick.
If the picture on the front page of the Glen Ellyn Sun is representative of the "old growth forest", there's not much worth saving there. Melissa appears to be standing between a dead Box Elder and a soon to be on the ground Box Elder. In front appears to be a diseased Black Cherry judging from the bulging bark at the base. These are weedy low to zero value trees that grow in previously disturbed areas.

Has anyone bothered to check with the experts at the arboretum or walk through a native woodland such as Lyman Woods or one of the numerous DuPage forest preserves before embarking on this "cause". I'm grateful that people are becoming more conscious of our environment but Ackerman Woods appears to have little wildlife habitat, wildlife food sources, or even much aesthetic value. I think we would be better served by a stormwater basin that would reduce flooding and that incorporates native plant species to clean the water, provide wildlife habitat, and aesthetic value.