The Village of Forest Park DOES interact in multiple ways with the Village of Maywood, so here and now the negative assertions in a recent Forest Park Review and its newly linked Maywood newspaper, will be refuted:
1. Forest Park, in the person of village mgr. Tim Gillian interacts on a regular basis with Maywood’s David Myers in an entity called the West Cook County Housing Collaborative.
2. Whenever there are disasters such as floods Mayor Calderone communicates and liaises with all our neighboring suburbs INCLUDING Maywood.
3. FP Individuals do attend Maywood meetings from time to time, as well as Maywood functions in their park, Aztec Fest, Blues events, National Night Out, etc.
4. While living in Forest Park I undertook to solve a dangerous safety problem at Proviso East several years back, succeeding, with effective help from Engineer Floody of Oak Park and Theresa Kelly.
5. West Suburban Pads is active in Forest Park, hosting a shelter on Friday nights at St. John’s. You can be sure Maywoodians have been part of that population to seek shelter.
6. For five years now, Juneteenth is celebrated in Forest Park, an event which welcomes Forest Parkers, Maywoodians and anybody interested in civil rights historically and currently.
There may be more examples than I’ve provided here…I haven’t interviewed all 14,000 residents in Forest Park or the approximately 24,000 souls in Maywood, so I can’t know, and neither can those employed by either of these two papers.
I object to the tone taken in this piece and the expectation that Forest Park can solve the difficult, perhaps intractable, problems of Maywood. We also have matters to contend with right here: this is not the world’s richest suburb, with geniuses on every block capable of solving everybody else’s difficulties. It IS a great place to live and shop,
worthy of respect.
Amber Ladeira
Forest Park
