The urgency of this evening's town hall meeting was pretty real, as the Elmhurst Park District and the owner of the 17' wide parcel of land which part of the SCGT crossed, was not accepting any of the financial offers to resolve the problem. About 40 people from the neighborhood showed up for this meeting. Jim Rogers, Exec Dir, and Kevin Graf, Commissioner both from the Park District, and the Alderman Jenifer Veremis led the meeting and gave the backstory of how this parcel of private land became available and purchased by a local general contractor.
Jim Rogers mentioned various scenarios on how this issue can be resolved, neighbors asked lots of questions, and made comments. Everyone could not imagine this parcel, prone to flooding, 17' x 160', be built on. As everyone was expressing concern and asking what can be done, the owner of the parcel identified himself and spoke up. He explained his intention was to build a tiny house, or swap this parcel for a nearby lot. (which was impossible as it was purchased by the city using FEMA funds due to chronic flooding).
After a few more minutes of questions and answers, he announced it would be easier to just donate the land to the Park District, and further work out something that would be equitable. It was agreed that lawyers will call each other tomorrow to confirm the fine details of what was verbally spoken and acknowledged (and witnessed by the crowd!)
End of drama, issue is resolved. SCGT will remain intact!
And a shout out to EBC... when I was introduced and why I was there, Jim Rogers paid the club a very nice complement and stated we were very instrumental in developing the SCGT.
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Kim Messina
630.204.8945
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