Oak Park is supposed to have a representative form of village government. Citizens elect trustees to the village board to represent citizens. Yet despite a petition with close to 2,000 signatures and a flurry of letters to Wednesday Journal in opposition to bagging of leaves, the board has now twice voted to mandate leaf-bagging this fall.
Four of seven trustees continue to ignore citizen protests and insist on a switch to leaf-bagging. Within a mere three months, they have upended a leaf collection practice that has been in place in Oak Park for at least 54 years. Eschewing community input, they also have refused to put the question up for a referendum vote.
A ruckus over leaf-bagging can seem like a silly, trivial thing. There are much bigger issues facing our community and our country, of course. But leaf collection is a basic service that most homeowners value. Don’t take my word for it. Just review the list below of 35 letters written in the last three months to Viewpoints by 45 Oak Parkers in opposition to the new leaf-bagging mandate.
In contrast, WJ has published only a few letters that do not oppose leaf-bagging, and most of those letters are not in loud acclaim for lining our streets with regiments of yard waste bags. Instead, they promote the ecological benefits of mulching leaves or leaving the leaves on the ground or garden beds. Mulching and spreading leaves on garden beds may be a good solution for some people and for a portion of the leaves, ideas that are worth educating the community about, but these strategies will not eliminate the need for a robust municipal fall leaf-collection program.
If you are looking forward to all the new costs and exercise of leaf-bagging, you may want to send a thank-you note to the 4 out of 7 trustees who continue to insist on mandating leaf-bagging: Susan Buchanan, Lucia Robinson, Brian Straw, and Cory Wesley. If you’re not too pleased by it, next time their names are on the ballot, you might want to vote instead for candidates who actually represent citizens.
Letters against leaf-bagging:
- Leaf-bagging debacle, Bruce Martin, 7/3
- Leaf-bagging petition update, Robert Parks, 7/3
- The village isn’t listening, Melinda Murray, 7/3
- Village isn’t listening on leaf-bagging, Shelly Uslenghi, 6/26
- Different treatment on 2 issues, Steven Kastenholz, 6/26
- Rethink leaf-bagging, Ryan Farris, 6/26
- Reverse this decision!, Marjorie Greenwald, 6/19
- Typical Oak Park, John Keefe, 6/12
- Open letter to the Oak Park Village Board, Thomas Bair, John & Joyce Cassell, Linwood & Susie Duroe, Denise & Bruce Hartney, James & Diane Martin, Julie Robiechaud, Zarine Weil, Jeff & Diane White, 6/5
- We need a petition on leaf disposal, Robert Parks, 6/5
- Board, beware of the Bilandic precedent, Peter Manikowski, 5/29
- Don’t go backward with leaf-bagging, Chris Lutz, 5/22
- Oak Park Board handled this badly, Shelly Uslenghi, 5/15
- Bag this short-sighted change, Ken Zimmer, 5/15
- Two words for the board on bagging, Noah Sullivan, 5/15
- What is the recourse?, Lynn Grogan, 5/15
- In opposition to leaf-bagging, Ann & Jerry Bolan, 5/8
- Life in Oak Park just got harder, Mark Wallace, 5/8
- Concerns about new leaf-bagging policy, Ravi Parakkat, 5/8
- With bagging leaves should come a tax cut, Michael Papierniak, 5/1
- Bee-pollinator friendly planting, Dimitra Lavrakas, 5/1
- What it will cost seniors, Jackie Lewandowski, 4/24
- Homework lacking in leaf-bag decision, Robert Parks, 4/17
- The leaf-removal conundrum, Grace Ewert, 4/10
- A bad bag idea, William Gale, 4/10
- Re-examine bagging leaves, Susan Parks, 4/3
- Leaf-bagging is a bad idea, Carrie Kalina, 4/3
- Parkway leaves, Robert Larson, 4/3
- Why bagging leaves is a bad idea, Charles Chauncey Wells, 3/27
- Ridiculous reasons for bagging our leaves, Alan Krause, 3/27
- Bagging leaves adds costs … for homeowners, James Peters, 3/27
- No more curbside leaf pickup?, Jerry Bowman, 3/27
- Say no to bagging leaves, Mark Wallace, 3/27
- Bag those leaf-bagging plans, Christopher Goode, 3/20
- Mandatory leaf-bagging? Surely you jest, Adrian Marquez, 3/20
Letters in favor of mulching, etc.:
- Leave the leaves this fall, WJ reprint of 10/1/2013 letter, 6/26
- Leaf bagging is not the apocalypse, Adrian Ayers Fisher, 5/22
- Sharing the (leaf) harvest, Laurie Casey, 5/22
- Turn your lawn into a garden, Jim Poznak, 4/10
- Our leaf-grinding experience, Jeff Brinkman, 4/10
- Doing nothing is the solution, Don Anderson, 4/10
- In favor of bagging leaves Lauren Peterson, 4/3
- Leave the leaves, WJ Editorial, 3/27
Mark Wallace is a resident of Oak Park.