There’s a lot to like this week in Forest Park. Here’s what we’re taking note of:

Construction at Reiger Park, Circle and 16th, is about to get started. The park district has been working on this for years. Seeking and winning state funding. Holding solid listening sessions with neighbors to find out what they wanted in this long-ignored and underdeveloped flat surface. Creative design work that will make this a destination that deserves destinations. And now actual construction. Good work.

The first-ever, all-district Spring Fling was launched last week by the newly unified District 91 PTO. Held at Grant White School, this was a busting-at-the-seams success. Hundreds of locals turned out for this nothing-but-fun event. And it was a good indication of the energy a single PTO can generate in the village.

Forest Park Theatre held a successful Shakespeare’s Birthday fundraiser for the nascent equity theater company that is the dream of Rick Corley, a Forest Parker and theater professor at the University of Illinois Chicago who is working toward a goal of finding a permanent home for the company by 2024. 

Forest Park Arts Alliance has a new venture ready to unspool. The 48 Hour Film Challenge is coming in May. Those adventurous enough will have three days (extra day for Mother’s Day) to write, film, edit and submit a short film on a theme chosen by the alliance. The entries will be reviewed and then presented at the Red Carpet Gala, held at St. Bernardine’s on May 20. Nothing but fun.

The Oak Leaf sign, the venerable and recognizable neon icon on Harrison Street, will have a new home, also on Harrison Street. The sign was saved during the demolition of its former restaurant/bar home as the park district cleared the site for a future building project. The district announced last week that once the new building goes up, the sign will come out of storage and be prominently displayed as part of the building. That is a worthy outcome.

Matt Walsh, who we first took notice of when he was elected to the park district board at a very young age, was just appointed to the permanent post of village administrator in neighboring River Forest. Smart, capable, approachable, Walsh took the promotion after River Forest’s village administrator left the post. Good choice by River Forest’s leadership.