As we celebrate Mr. Gore’s winning of the Nobel Peace Prize, we are saddened by the Oak Park park district trying to rid this community of neighborhood parks for destination parks, with each park given a specific use, demanding the use of automobiles. The devastation of the natural infrastructure afforded by trees is symptomatic of the scoffing of this board at the concept of global warming.
Those of us following the Field renovations are continually saddened by the continuing devastation of the trees at Field, despite protestations by the park district that care is being taken.
The tree immediately north of the fieldhouse has had no protective fencing since the beginning of construction in July. The machinery passes right under it; you can see the deep tracks. We were told that ALL the trees would be protected.
Fencing continues to be down along the alley line.
At the south end of the fieldhouse, a tree just east of the fence had its east roots severed. The park district laid down massive concrete there for apparently a bench, right next to the tree. Couldn’t that concrete have been placed five feet further south? Yesterday Nicor was at the site looking for gas lines. They dug a massive deep hole just north of the same tree, ripping up the roots with a bobcat. No surgical pruning, despite the park district repeatedly telling us that you practice that.
The news that the ditch next to the alley, which has already devastated the locust, will be enlarged for the pouring of concrete for a three-foot wide sidewalk is very discouraging. We ask you again to lay as much dirt in the ditch as quickly as you can. It has been more than three weeks since those roots have been exposed and dying. Ten days ago Mike Grandy told me that dirt would be used to fill in that ditch. We hope that concrete sidewalk will not be 12 inches deep as the other sidewalks in the park, but only the four inch depth of parkway sidewalks in the village.
Les Golden
