The federal government just can’t give up on Forest Park. We’d have loved seeing the military walk away from the large and underused facility it owns on Roosevelt Road. But branch-by-branch, some unit of our armed forces always puts in a claim on the parcel before it can be put to a better, more prosperous use. Most recently, the Illinois National Guard grabbed the 6-acre site. Not that we’ve noticed a living soul on site.
Meanwhile the U.S. Postal Service closed two Chicago area Bulk Mail Centers and tilted all the truck traffic that used to head to those facilities toward the remaining Bulk Mail Center just off Roosevelt Road in Forest Park.
How did we get so lucky? Lines of 40-foot trailers filled with Lands End catalogs are now clogging traffic all the way back to Roosevelt. Came to the village’s attention when the fire department could not reach a fire hydrant. We’ve noticed more of those trucks turning off the Ike and onto Desplaines Avenue in recent weeks.
Which raises the question of how many semis does it take to break down the pavement on a road? And who will pay for those repairs?
Stand up for public media
If there was a moment’s doubt that there is a determined effort out of the Trump administration to upend independent, fact-based news reporting in America, the clawing back by Congress of $1.1 billion in already approved funding to public media across this country dispels any illusion.
Our deep concern goes out to public radio and TV stations, especially those in small towns where local funding and programming are most limited.
This won’t be easy either at the combined WBEZ/Sun-Times nonprofit newsroom or at WTTW. Like many of you, many of us at Growing Community Media are already donors to these essential Chicago news operations. And we’ll likely try to dig a little deeper. Hope you will, too.
Growing Community Media receives no dollars from the federal government. So we don’t face any loss of revenue.
What’s clear to us though is that building out a model for sturdy, authentic local news in America has never been more important than right this minute. And our nonprofit model relies on you, each reader, to consider investing in our reporters, in our hard work.
We choose to see this as an additive process. We want you to support BEZ. Now. And we want you to become a monthly recurring donor to the Review in Forest Park, the Journal, Austin Weekly, or our Riverside-Brookfield Landmark. A monthly donation at any dollar amount is valuable to us.
All of us, right now, need more reporting, more eyes, more holding power to account.
Stand up straight with public media and Growing Community Media.