A memorial street sign, honoring a celebrated Oak Parker, is faded and partially unreadable.
A Wednesday Journal reader recently tipped the newspaper off, asking why one side of the sign for Dominick Meo Memorial Way has been allowed to lose its color to the point of being illegible. The small sign demarks Pleasant Place, the tiny east-west street that leads from the 200 block of South Marion up to Mills Park Tower.
The sign was installed by the village in 1993 to honor the life of Dominick Meo – who led the Community Chest for years. Meo was also a key force in helping to get Mills Park Tower, a federally subsidized senior citizen high-rise, built. The sign was paid for by the South Marion business association at the time, according to Village Engineer Jim Budrick.
The north side of the small white sign is fine, but the reverse has faded over the years under steady sunshine and is no longer legible.
Budrick says the village would be happy to take a look at the sign and see about replacing it. With today’s technology, it would be relatively cheap to reproduce and replace – he estimated around $100.
“I can take a look at it and see if it’s something we can do,” he said Tuesday morning.
Ed Solan, executive director of the Oak Park Housing Authority, which owns and operates Mills, says his organization would pay for replacing the sign if cost was an issue.
“If the expense is not that great, the Housing Authority would be willing to chip in to have it reprinted,” he said. “It can’t be that expensive.”
-Marty Stempniak
