Last week I attended my first ever village board meeting to express my support for rezoning to legalize homes. The public comment period included remarks from two renters, both of whom favor legalizing rental units, and over 20 homeowners who were split. Around midnight, trustees were finally allowed to speak. As soon as Trustee [Cory] Wesley began explaining the racist history of exclusionary single-family zoning, he was shouted down by an angry old white male homeowner who already had his turn at the podium.
The derisive energy flowing off many of the anti-zoning-change (and overwhelmingly white) homeowners was something I never expected to see in my beloved Oak Park. Also, bizarre claims from many older residents that multi-unit housing will overwhelm the schools and other infrastructure, when anyone reading this paper knows District 97 and District 200 are losing students and laying off teachers, were depressingly detached from objective reality.
Fellow Oak Parkers, we are better than this! We can let a Black trustee talk about racism. We can also read enough to acknowledge basic facts.
Noel Stringham
Oak Park