We are lucky to have the opportunity and choice of Ravi Parakkat as Oak Park president, and he has my vote. He is a brilliant, creative, can-do, will-do leader with vision backed by the facts and his compassion for others.
He first came to my attention with his brilliant “Takeout 25” plan for the Oak Park community to keep its restaurants alive during COVID — and it worked! He did the math (number of restaurants in Oak Park, number of Oak Parkers and families, amount of money that would be needed by each restaurant to help them survive the pandemic per week/month). No tax dollars involved, just a well-publicized (thank you, Wednesday Journal!) campaign.
Ravi understands that the pointless, unproductive village board meetings about building a new and unnecessary Village Hall are both a waste of time and, if successful, will add to the annual onerous tax bills that will not be tolerated by the taxpayers of Oak Park. He again did the math and he knows that one of the main reasons that longtime Oak Parkers leave the village is because of the current high tax burdens. Adding to each household’s tax burden to pay for a new and unnecessary village hall will gut the village’s tax base. Ravi does his homework, and he is a realist.
We have an opportunity to put a clear-eyed, creative, can-do visionary at the helm of Oak Park who will explore, out-of-the-box but realistic options to grow our village in the traditions that drew us all to Oak Park and what we love about our village. Let’s give him our vote!
Rya Ben-Shir
43 years in Oak Park
