For those of you who wonder why the leaf-bagging decision came without community input, the answers lie in the March 12 Oak Park Village Board meeting, a full six weeks before the vote was taken.
To summarize:
1) It was determined that there was insufficient time to gather community input and still implement leaf bagging in 2024. So rather than delay to 2025, the board chose to bypass the community entirely and instead “educate” them on the benefits of leaf-bagging. They also noted the need to inform landscaping services, but as we have seen, residents were being held responsible for making them aware and cleaning up leaf-blowing-into-street “mistakes.”
2) Trustee Cory Wesley questioned whether feedback from residents should change their decision.
3) Village President Vicki Scaman said, “What we have now [street sweeping] is not working,” even as she noted that the recent cost-saving change in decreasing pickup frequency was responsible for the problems. She later stated, “I’m fairly convinced this [leaf bagging] is where we’re going to go.” (She reversed her position with her April vote to delay bagging, realizing her mistake at not obtaining community feedback first.)
However, that vote was only to delay bagging. She has to this day not agreed to support a referendum. More importantly, she also bears substantial responsibility for moving the board toward bagging in the first place. Claims of listening to the residents are ringing hollow.
You can verify these points yourself. If you would like to see the relevant 10 minute section of the meeting video, here’s the link:
https://oak-park.granicus.com/player/clip/2440?view_id=2&redirect=true
Point at the gray bar at the bottom of the video display and a time slider will appear. Position it to start at 1:49:00. Listen for the next 10 minutes.
Robert Parks
Oak Park