Forest Park’s future looks bright to Mayor Rory Hoskins – and he hopes that the Democratic Party convention taking place in Chicago in August will be a big part of it.
It’s a theme the mayor kept returning to as he looked ahead toward the new year. He is a candidate to be a delegate in the 2024 convention in Chicago.
The convention, he said, has the potential to bring in guests interested in Haymarket Martyrs’ Monument at the village’s Forest Home Cemetery, and generally people looking for Airbnb lodging near the city. This could translate into more customers for village businesses, Hoskins said, and has the potential to put the village on the map.
Several long-discussed projects notably won’t be coming in 2024. For example, Hoskins said that he doesn’t expect to see any new development on the village-owned portion of the historic Altenheim property – though he expects that the village and the retirement community would complete a land swap to smooth out some of the awkward property lines created during the 2000 sale. He said he doesn’t expect to see any movement on plans to raise and redo the CTA/Metra viaduct over Harlem Avenue – though he got a commitment from the CTA to remove the much-maligned water tower on the nearby rail yard. And Hoskins said that the village isn’t interested in pursuing the acquisition of the former U.S Army Reserve base at Roosevelt Road at this time.
But that doesn’t mean there aren’t any plans on the horizon. The village, he said, will be looking at the long-term future of Mohr Community Center, especially its childcare component.
“I think, in 2024, we will take a long look at how the village handles childcare,” Hoskins said.
The former Bed Bath & Beyond location is expected to get a new user, which may or may not be another retailer. And the village council may soon decide whether to make Rachell Entler’s interim village administrator position a permanent one or put out a job search for other candidates.
In 2023, Hoskins was reelected for a second term as mayor. When now-Chicago mayor Brandon Johnson’s old Cook County Board of Commissioners seat officially became vacant, he was one of the six finalists to fill it until November 2024, but he wasn’t selected. While he didn’t comment on the latter, he said that the reelection campaign made the first three months of the year “stressful.”
“It was humbling to be reelected,” Hoskins said, adding that the campaign gave him more appreciation for the village’s increasing diversity.
He also described Entler’s appointment as interim village administrator at the beginning of September as something he was happy with. Hoskins complimented Entler on working well with the department heads.
“It just goes back to the village running smoothly,” he said.
Hoskins said that he asked the village commissioners to complete evaluations of Entler’s performance and weigh in on whether the village should advertise for a more permanent hire or simply remove the “interim” from her title. The decision is expected to be made this winter.
As for the Democratic convention. Haymarket Martyrs’ Memorial, a statue commemorating five labor activists who were blamed for the bombing of the May 4, 1886 labor protest in Chicago, already attracts union officials from all over the country – something that Hoskins hopes to capitalize on.
“We hope to get convention-goers to take the tour of cemetery, to tour the Haymarket Martyrs’ monument,” he said. “I had labor officials tell me that they made trips to Forest Park specifically to see the monument. Because we expect so many labor advocates and so many representatives from organized labor at the convention, we hope to draw some of the [attendees] to Forest Park and hopefully put Forest Park on the map a little more.”
Hoskins plans to work with the Forest Park Chamber of Commerce and the convention organizers to figure out other ways the convention can benefit the village, and he asked village commissioners to brainstorm ideas.
He also hopes that the convention would encourage CTA “to clean up some of its stations and trains” and improve service along the line’s Forest Park branch.
“I think that having smoother-running transit system and cleaner transit system will encourage people to take the train out and visit Forest Park,” Hoskins said.
Hoskins also said that the village plans to work with Visit Oak Park, a regional tourism organization to promote Forest Park. He said he wants to capitalize on the recently opened Robert’s Westside music venue to try to draw in more visitors.
In September, Hoskins proposed using the former Grant-White Intermediate Elementary School building to house youth programing currently operating out of Mohr Community Center. The building has multiple maintenance issues, and the water reservoir under its playground will most likely need to be repaired. If the deal doesn’t pan out, Hoskins said he is open to other possibilities. Building a new youth center on the Altenheim property would be “a very expensive endeavor,” but “not something that we would rule out.”
The village has applied for a $10 million federal grant to help repair the reservoir and help pay for sewer separation projects throughout the village. Hoskins confirmed that it won’t be used to replace lead service lines – something the village is also seeking funding for.
Internally, he said, he wants the safety and traffic commission to have a say in Forest Park’s planning decisions. The volunteer commission examines traffic issues throughout the village and advises the village council on how to address them.
Hoskins said he expects the Forest Park Police Department, which lost officers because of retirements and resignations from 2020 to 2022, to be back to full strength.
“We expect that by April, we’ll be fully staffed up to 38 police officers,” he said.
Hoskins added that he appreciated that some of the candidates took the time to familiarize themselves with Forest Park’s street grid while they were still going through the police academy.
Hoskins said that there are many things that are hard to predict – businesses closing without warning, unexpected issues, promising deals that don’t pan out. But overall, he looks forward to what 2024 will bring.
“I’m very confident in our prospects, given our space and the makeup of our community and some of the positive publicity we received because of St. Patrick’s Day Parade, because of the Casket Races,” Hoskins said. “People want to move here, and there are a lot of people who want to make this town a better place.”
