I’m just curious, does the village know about the recession? Businesses are folding, storefronts sit empty, houses have hemorrhaged value, and the schools face budget cuts. What are local officials doing to address pressing economic concerns? C’mon, you know the answer to that question. Here are two nominees for the Golden Fiddle Award, presented for the single-most clueless civic endeavor that fiddles away taxpayer money, while Oak Park burns.
The runner up, winning a silver-plated Don Quixote-tilting-left-at-a-windmill plaque, is Oak Park’s effort to maintain its ineffective, and seemingly unconstitutional, ban on handguns. In 2008 the Supreme Court ruled that Washington D.C.’s ban, on handguns used for self-defense in the home, was unconstitutional. Although it was generally understood that the ruling would apply to virtually identical prohibitions in municipalities including Chicago and Oak Park, the village has joined with Chicago to retain its law. When the ban was upheld by a U.S. District Court in 2009, the National Rifle Association brought the case to the Supreme Court, which agreed to hear it. Oak Park vows to continue the fight.
Oak Park’s law was passed in 1983 in reaction to the courtroom murder of local divorce lawyer James Piszczor. Undoubtedly tragic, the case had little to do with the practical realities of criminal gun use in Oak Park. Apparently undeterred by the $1,000 fine for violating the ban, armed robbers continue to point their revolvers at convenience store clerks, and commuters walking home from the el. Why are we wasting our time defending this law? It unconstitutionally denies our citizens the right to defend their homes and loved ones, and does nothing to address real crime. Besides, the ban is generally considered to be a shoo-in to be, well, shot down.
Topping this, and the winner of the Golden Fiddle Award, is the Oak Park Community Relations Commission. Created in 1963 to foster racial equality, the commission has expanded its mandate to protect the rights of everyone except natural blond, strictly straight, males who were born during a full moon between 1970 and 1990. The commission wasted your money and mine this past year – studying, debating and of course recommending – that the village adopt a living wage ordinance. The ordinance requires the village, along with some contractors and subsidized entities, to pay full-time workers no less than $11.50 an hour. The village board will now have to torch more tax dollars debating and holding hearings to approve the measure.
Comments at a commission hearing, as well as some public debate, show that the proposed ordinance is not well understood, would necessitate lots of compliance paperwork and waste thousands of tax dollars. The commission’s own chairman voted against it noting that the ordinance solves a nonexistent problem, does virtually nothing to alleviate true poverty and would slap a layer of government bureaucracy on employment.
When will the village begin to address the real issues its citizens face? Go to wednesdayjournalonline.com and tell us what you consider the village’s most pressing needs.
• Virginia Seuffert moved from her native New York to Oak Park in 1988. Mother of 12 and grandmother of 14, she lectures on and writes about conservative issues, including Catholic family life and home schooling.