I recently received an email newsletter from the village of Oak Park in which the lead story stated: “The village is starting the process of updating the Oak Park Bike Plan and is seeking community feedback to help inform decisions as the latest design best practices are considered to help develop an updated bicycle network.” The story included a website to participate in a survey.
Based on Oak Park citizens’ experience with the recent leaf-bagging petition, I see this “survey” as a huge waste of taxpayer dollars in which the survey results are completely irrelevant to what the current village board has probably already decided to do.
Such a survey is an expression of community views, just like the leaf-bagging petition was an expression of community views. And we already know that Trustee Cory Wesley probably spoke for the board majority when he said: “[he] is a million percent against a referendum … where the community tells us what to do with our leaves.” After all, not a single member of the board majority objected to Trustee Wesley’s rejection of the community having any input into how the village board goes about making policy for the village.
Why should the taxpayers of Oak Park be on the hook for thousands or tens of thousands of dollars for a “survey” of the “community’s feedback” when the current board, based on past experience, has probably already made up its mind on what to do.
The current board will adopt those survey results that match their probably already made decisions and will reject those results that don’t match those decisions.
As Trustee Wesley stated and the board majority silently accepted, community feedback does not tell this current board what to do.
Alan Krause, Oak Park