Forest Park’s four pocket parks have been recognized statewide for their transformation over the last five years.
On Oct. 24, the Illinois Association of Park Districts awarded the village and Park District of Forest Park the Best of the Best award for Intergovernmental Cooperation for the improvement of the four pocket parks.
In 2020, involved parties came to an official agreement for the village to lease the four pocket parks to the park district for $1 a year. Popelka Park, Rieger Park and, most recently last November, Remembrance Park have opened with new playground equipment. At the small, unnamed park at 1138 Lathrop Ave., playground equipment was removed and grass was planted last year to create a bit of green space.
The IAPD award “recognizes park districts and the units of government with which they have an agreement that maximizes tax dollars and benefits residents throughout the community,” said Peter Murphy, IAPD’s President and CEO. “The board and staff of the Park District of Forest Park and the Village epitomize the meaning of this award. Their shared vision to improve the health and wellbeing of residents brought four neighborhood parks to life, providing vibrant community spaces for play, reflection, and connection.”
Tim Gillian, president of the park district board, accepted the Best of the Best award on behalf of the park district, while Jessica Voogd, commissioner of public property, did so for the village.
“It truly was a very nice award. It was very meaningful,” Gillian told the Review of the award. He was village administrator about five years ago when he brought the idea to lease the village-owned pocket parks to the park district to address long-overdue updates that they needed.
“I knew that the village would never have the funding to do justice to those parks,” Gillian said. “Therefore, all the residents in town were being denied that benefit.”
During her commissioner’s report at the Oct. 27 council meeting, Voogd recalled the moment when then-Village Administrator Gillian pitched the idea to lease the parks.
“Tim had been an advocate for leasing the parks to the park district for some time, and it made a lot of sense to me,” Voogd said. “All of our fellow taxing bodies are doing amazing work in our community and are so supportive of each other. It’s truly a testament to the fact that when we’re working together, wonderful things really do happen.”
“It’s a great way to show, when two government entities in the same community come together, what we can accomplish,” said Jackie Iovinelli, executive director of the park district. “The reason we got to where we got to is the fact that, in the moment when the idea was first brought about, both boards immediately said ‘This is a no brainer. Why didn’t we do this before? This only benefits the community.’”
“This is also a way for us to say thank you to the village for taking this journey with us,” Iovinelli added of the award. She said that the village supported the park district in its process of getting grants to renovate the parks. “The village trusted us, we worked our tail off with their help, and this is a way to say, ‘Thank you.’”
Gillian said he first went to Iovinelli with the idea of the pocket parks, since he couldn’t pitch the idea to the village without the park district’s buy-in. Iovinelli said, at the award ceremony, she asked Gillian, “Could you ever imagine that, five years ago, when we sat at breakfast and discussed this, this is where we’d be sitting today?”
When asked what her favorite thing about the pocket parks is, Iovinelli described the scene at Remembrance Park when she leaves work in the evenings.
“When I drive past that park every night, there’s 50 to 100 people shoved in a little bitty park, smiling and laughing,” Iovinelli said, adding that the splash pad is one of her favorite features. “This is exactly what we intended to do, and we did it.”
Gillian also has a soft spot for Remembrance Park. He was village administrator when park renovations started, so he was involved in fundraising for the project, and says the memorial is an important feature for the community.
But most of all, Gillian’s favorite thing about the pocket parks is “the way they’re being used,” he said. “It’s rare that you drive by and don’t see somebody there.”
“I don’t know if you’ve driven by any of them recently, but they’re always bustling with kids running around and playing,” Voogd said of the parks at the Oct. 27 council meeting. “And they are now also safer and more inclusive, and they’re just lovely.”
Iovinelli told the Review that the pocket parks are “a safe place, families are getting joy, they’re getting back out into the world and enjoying what the park has to offer, and it’s because the village and the park district came together and did it.”