Ridgeland Common - Revision history

Drlesmgolden: /* Sled Hill and Environmental Devastation */

2013-12-09T14:30:32Z

Sled Hill and Environmental Devastation

Drlesmgolden: /* Sled Hill and Environmental Devastation */

2013-12-09T14:29:13Z

Sled Hill and Environmental Devastation

Drlesmgolden at 14:26, 9 December 2013

2013-12-09T14:26:11Z

Drlesmgolden: /* Sled Hill and Environmental Devastation */

2013-12-09T14:06:50Z

Sled Hill and Environmental Devastation

Drlesmgolden at 14:06, 9 December 2013

2013-12-09T14:06:13Z

Drlesmgolden at 13:10, 9 December 2013

2013-12-09T13:10:17Z

Drlesmgolden at 02:10, 9 December 2013

2013-12-09T02:10:05Z

Drlesmgolden at 01:57, 9 December 2013

2013-12-09T01:57:12Z

Show changes

Drlesmgolden at 01:12, 5 June 2013

2013-06-05T01:12:54Z

Drlesmgolden at 16:02, 31 May 2013

2013-05-31T16:02:24Z

@@ Line 11: / Line 11: @@
 ===Sled Hill and Environmental Devastation===
-[[File:SnowCoverGraphc.gif|thumb|right|450px|<small> The joy of snow activities lost because of Executive Director Jan Arnold, and the park board, led by Paul Aeschleman and Christine Graves, to destroy Ridgeland Common by removing the sled/toboggan hill, the dog park, and the mulch pile, and to replace natural grass with toxic artificial turf.  You can’t even build a snowman there, thanks to their selfish, short-sighted policy.  Do not forget their destruction of our once joyous park.</i></small>]]
+[[File:SnowCoverGraphc.gif|thumb|right|550px|<small> The joy of snow activities lost because of Executive Director Jan Arnold, and the park board, led by Paul Aeschleman and Christine Graves, to destroy Ridgeland Common by removing the sled/toboggan hill, the dog park, and the mulch pile, and to replace natural grass with toxic artificial turf.  You can’t even build a snowman there, thanks to their selfish, short-sighted policy.  Do not forget their destruction of our once joyous park.</i></small>]]
 The greatest disdain, however, was split between razing of the more than 50-year old sledding hill and the environmental consequences for Ridgeland Common.

@@ Line 11: / Line 11: @@
 ===Sled Hill and Environmental Devastation===
-[[File:SnowCoverGraphc.gif|thumb|right|350px|<small> The joy of snow activities lost because of Executive Director Jan Arnold, and the park board, led by Paul Aeschleman and Christine Graves, to destroy Ridgeland Common by removing the sled/toboggan hill, the dog park, and the mulch pile, and to replace natural grass with toxic artificial turf.  You can’t even build a snowman there, thanks to their selfish, short-sighted policy.  Do not forget their destruction of our once joyous park.</i></small>]]
+[[File:SnowCoverGraphc.gif|thumb|right|450px|<small> The joy of snow activities lost because of Executive Director Jan Arnold, and the park board, led by Paul Aeschleman and Christine Graves, to destroy Ridgeland Common by removing the sled/toboggan hill, the dog park, and the mulch pile, and to replace natural grass with toxic artificial turf.  You can’t even build a snowman there, thanks to their selfish, short-sighted policy.  Do not forget their destruction of our once joyous park.</i></small>]]
 The greatest disdain, however, was split between razing of the more than 50-year old sledding hill and the environmental consequences for Ridgeland Common.

@@ Line 8: / Line 8: @@
 ==Focus of Citizen Disgust With Park District==
 ===Dog Park===
-Cancellation of the dog park resulted in its own emergency meeting in Oak Park.  The dog owners felt betrayed, and believed that Jan Arnold had unilaterally cancelled a binding agreement made after several years of negotiation between the previous park district executive director and a group organized to obtain a dog run in Oak Park.  This was needed after the popular dog park at spacious, safe Lindberg Park was cancelled by that same previous executive director.
+Cancellation of the dog park resulted in its own emergency meeting in Oak Park.  The dog owners felt betrayed, and believed that Jan Arnold had unilaterally cancelled a binding agreement made after several years of negotiation between the previous park district executive director and a group organized to obtain a dog run in Oak Park.  This was needed after the popular dog park at spacious, safe Lindberg (Greenfield) Park was cancelled by that same previous executive director.
 ===Sled Hill and Environmental Devastation===
-[[File:SnowCoverGraph.gif|thumb|right|350px|<small> The joy of snow activities lost because of Executive Director Jan Arnold, and the park board, led by Paul Aeschleman and Christine Graves to destroy Ridgeland Common by removing the sled/toboggan hill, the dog park, and the mulch pile, and to replace natural grass with toxic artificial turf.  You can’t even build a snowman there, thanks to their selfish, short-sighted policy.  Do not forget their destruction of our once joyous park.</i></small>]]
+[[File:SnowCoverGraphc.gif|thumb|right|350px|<small> The joy of snow activities lost because of Executive Director Jan Arnold, and the park board, led by Paul Aeschleman and Christine Graves, to destroy Ridgeland Common by removing the sled/toboggan hill, the dog park, and the mulch pile, and to replace natural grass with toxic artificial turf.  You can’t even build a snowman there, thanks to their selfish, short-sighted policy.  Do not forget their destruction of our once joyous park.</i></small>]]
 The greatest disdain, however, was split between razing of the more than 50-year old sledding hill and the environmental consequences for Ridgeland Common.
 The latter includes concerns that artificial turf is composed in part of recycled synthetic tires, which according to its mandated  health risk data sheet, or MSDS, is considered a "hazardous waste" which require special disposal. This material contains carcinogens as well as endocrine disrupters, including lead, arsenic, mercury, zinc, benzene, phthalates, cadmium and carbon black.  The latter breaks down into a chemical dust and acts like asbestos.

@@ Line 11: / Line 11: @@
 ===Sled Hill and Environmental Devastation===
-[[File:SnowCoverGraph.gif|thumb|right|125px|<small> The joy of snow activities lost because of Executive Director Jan Arnold, and the park board, led by Paul Aeschleman and Christine Graves to destroy Ridgeland Common by removing the sled/toboggan hill, the dog park, and the mulch pile, and to replace natural grass with toxic artificial turf.  You can’t even build a snowman there, thanks to their selfish, short-sighted policy.  Do not forget their destruction of our once joyous park.</i></small>]]
+[[File:SnowCoverGraph.gif|thumb|right|350px|<small> The joy of snow activities lost because of Executive Director Jan Arnold, and the park board, led by Paul Aeschleman and Christine Graves to destroy Ridgeland Common by removing the sled/toboggan hill, the dog park, and the mulch pile, and to replace natural grass with toxic artificial turf.  You can’t even build a snowman there, thanks to their selfish, short-sighted policy.  Do not forget their destruction of our once joyous park.</i></small>]]
 The greatest disdain, however, was split between razing of the more than 50-year old sledding hill and the environmental consequences for Ridgeland Common.

@@ Line 11: / Line 11: @@
 ===Sled Hill and Environmental Devastation===
 The greatest disdain, however, was split between razing of the more than 50-year old sledding hill and the environmental consequences for Ridgeland Common.
 The latter includes concerns that artificial turf is composed in part of recycled synthetic tires, which according to its mandated  health risk data sheet, or MSDS, is considered a "hazardous waste" which require special disposal. This material contains carcinogens as well as endocrine disrupters, including lead, arsenic, mercury, zinc, benzene, phthalates, cadmium and carbon black.  The latter breaks down into a chemical dust and acts like asbestos.

@@ Line 49: / Line 49: @@
 ==Desires of Other Users Largely Ignored==
 ===Many Users of the Hill: Fitness===
 Many people use the hill year-round, not just during organized sports season:
-Sledding, bobsleds, and toboggans <br>
 Dog exercise<br>
 Kids running down the slope with their kites to get added speed<br>

@@ Line 20: / Line 20: @@
 A citizens group, Oak Parkers for Sanity in Our Parks, organized by [[Oak Park]], Illinois, environmentalist [[Les Golden]], scheduled a meeting with the Executive Director of the park district, Jan Arnold, and addressed their concerns.  The citizen initiative led to articles in the [[Chicago Tribune]],<ref> http://articles.chicagotribune.com/2013-03-06/news/ct-met-oak-park-dog-park-20130307_1_dog-park-turf-field-larger-dog </ref><ref> http://articles.chicagotribune.com/2013-03-12/news/ct-tl-oak-park-dog-run-0314-20130312_1_dog-park-ridgeland-common-turf-field</ref> and numerous letters to the editor in the local Oak Park press.  A rally was scheduled at Ridgeland Common and a resident began an online petition.<ref> http://www.change.org/petitions/the-oak-park-park-board-please-reconsider-your-plans-to-remove-the-sled-hill-at-ridgeland?utm_source=guides&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=petition_created</ref>
 Because of Golden’s environmental activism against destructive actions by the park district dating from the 2007 devastation of Field playground at the hands of past Park District head Gary Balling and the feckless, political patronage dump Illinois Department of Natural Resources, Golden used the name of Richard Kullman in scheduling the meeting.   He did this for two reasons:  1.  To ensure the protest stayed to the issue of Ridgeland Common and not be diverted by bureaucrats and the organized sports lobby to him, and 2. to begin afresh with the new executive director.
 The strategy proved to be in vain, however, when Diane Stanke, the public relations mouthpiece, and a holdover from the Gary Balling era, in an effort to discredit the passion of those wishing to keep the sled hill, dog park, and mulch pile, informed Arnold that Kullman was in fact Golden.  Quickly, as Golden had feared, the issue began to focus on him rather than the thousands of children and dog owners who would now find their passive pleasure destroyed.
 Golden also shared the concerns  of the group with the so-called “Green Committee,” which had been formed in 2008 in response to citizen uproar over the devastation of Field playground, and the destruction of most of its trees and all of the bushes surrounding the fieldhouse.  The response of the Green Committee was to invite an artificial turf contractor to an emergency meeting with easily predicted results.

@@ Line 3: / Line 3: @@
 Although numerous public meetings on the reconstruction of the area had been held for several years, the discussions centered on the swimming pool and ice rink.  In backroom maneuvering, park board commissioners affiliated with youth soccer, some as paid coaches, managed to push through unannounced plans to remove the natural turf field and replace it with artificial turf, bulldoze the sledding hill, remove the wood chip/mulch pile, and cancel the dog run.<ref>http://www.oakpark.com/News/Articles/2-26-2013/Ridgeland-plan-scorns-survey/</ref><ref>http://www.oakpark.com/News/Articles/2-26-2013/Ridgeland-plans-will-destroy-the-park/</ref>  Dozens of mature trees, including the two large hackberry trees on top of the sledding hill, and bushes were also planned on being destroyed.<ref>http://www.oakpark.com/News/Articles/3-5-2013/Park-District-of-Oak-Park-plans-to-flatten-sled-hill,-move-dog-park-at-Ridgeland-Common/</ref><ref>http://articles.chicagotribune.com/2013-03-06/news/ct-met-oak-park-dog-park-20130307_1_dog-park-turf-field-larger-dog</ref>
 The plans followed efforts by the same commissioners to install artificial turf in two other parks in Oak Park, Lindberg (Greenfield) Park and Taylor Park.  The residents bordering those two parks, after becoming aware of the planning process for their parks, vociferously objected, and the plans were scrapped.  Ridgeland Common, in contrast, is located in a business district, with very few neighbors.  No one other than youth sports was notified of the plans and no neighbors existed to protest.  The plans to replace the natural grass with artificial turf, requiring destruction of the sledding hill, dog run, and wood chip/mulch pile, was done in near [[Star chamber]] circumstances.
 Cancellation of the dog park resulted in its own emergency meeting in Oak Park.  The dog owners felt betrayed, and believed that Jan Arnold had unilaterally cancelled a binding agreement made after several years of negotiation between the previous park district executive director and a group organized to obtain a dog run in Oak Park.  This was needed after the popular dog park at spacious, safe Lindberg Park was cancelled by that same previous executive director.
 The greatest disdain, however, was split between razing of the more than 50-year old sledding hill and the environmental consequences for Ridgeland Common.

← Older revision		Revision as of 16:02, 31 May 2013
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	The greatest disdain, however, was split between razing of the more than 50-year old sledding hill and the environmental consequences for Ridgeland Common.		The greatest disdain, however, was split between razing of the more than 50-year old sledding hill and the environmental consequences for Ridgeland Common.
		+
		+	The latter includes concerns that artificial turf is composed in part of recycled synthetic tires, which according to its mandated health risk data sheet, or MSDS, is considered a "hazardous waste" which require special disposal. This material contains carcinogens as well as endocrine disrupters, including lead, arsenic, mercury, zinc, benzene, phthalates, cadmium and carbon black. The latter breaks down into a chemical dust and acts like asbestos.
		+
		+	In addition, artificial turf, as a result of its non-natural drainage and lack of decomposition, harbors feces, vomit, blood, and even MRSA. The high temperature it reaches has led to the literal melting of shoes worn by those walking or running upon the surface.

	==Citizen Uproar==		==Citizen Uproar==