The recommendations this week from the OPRF superintendent to the school board on initial steps in implementing the Imagine OPRF facilities master plan are encouraging to us.

It didn't take long for the collective wisdom and accumulating negative public response to bring Mayor Anan Abu-Taleb to issue a strong criticism of a plan to build a 28-story high-rise almost next door to Unity Temple.

How many times have we heard it? "Finding African Americans to run in local elections is just about impossible." Repeatedly. How many times have we seen our elected boards with a shortage of women of color? Far too often.

It is with deserved satisfaction that leaders of Oak Park's village government point out that all of the many parcels of land the village government had acquired over decades have now been returned to the tax rolls via new development.