Finally.
Commissioners on the Forest Park Village Council are demanding that Mayor Rory Hoskins convene a special meeting of the council for an open discussion about the future of the village-owned property at the Altenheim.
Good for Commissioners Maria Maxham, Jessica Voogd and Ryan Nero for putting this pressure on a recalcitrant mayor about a core issue in the village. We cannot for the life of us understand why Hoskins, and before him Mayor Anthony Calderone, dawdled and distracted on planning for the use of this jewel of open land in Forest Park.
And we are deeply troubled by Hoskins’ response to the Review after the April 14 council meeting: “I’ve always wanted the commissioners to talk among themselves, to the extent that it does not violate the Open Meetings Act, and come to some kind of general agreement. I would like to be able to at least take a very high-level sketch of what the village proposes to the Altenheim (senior facility) board and ask if it’s something that they can live with. We may call a special meeting before that, but that’s what I would have liked. And it just doesn’t seem like the commissioners were really engaging in discussions with each other.”
Why should the mayor want elected commissioners to have private discussions about a primary topic of public concern and then somehow, without violating the Open Meetings Act, cobble together some consensus of how to move forward with the single largest piece of open land in town?
That’s no way to do the public’s business.
And yes, there were noise limits built into the two-decades-old sales contract that a financially stressed Altenheim senior home signed when the village bought the property for a whopping $3 million. But that contract does not give that entity veto rights on planning for this publicly owned site.
Right now, absent anything approaching a plan for the site, the Altenheim property is being ferociously nibbled at. A portion of the site is one of two proposed locations for new village water reservoirs. The Altenheim senior facility wants to buy back a small section of the property nearest its building. The village wants to buy back a strip of Altenheim land to create a bike path along Van Buren Street. And the wonderful Opportunity Knocks nonprofit is about to start planting its spring crop on a portion of the property under a soon-to-be approved long-term lease with the village.
Meanwhile, the village is having the property appraised. A local pension board official has called for selling off the land and funneling the proceeds into the deeply underfunded police pension fund. And a newly elected park board commissioner broke new ground in asking for a conversation about what role the parks might play in keeping some portion of the 11 acres open to recreational use.
This is the moment that cries out for a very public discussion among our elected village officials about how to use this land. Why in the world is Mayor Hoskins keeping this from happening?
We want an answer.