Riverside Info » About Riverside

January 8 Board of Trustees Meetings

(24 posts)
  1. Catherine
    Member

    I thought it was pretty good. I am encouraged.

    I am glad to hear enough signatures have been collected for a referendum and glad to hear some board members want referenda.

    I thought Kathleen Rush did a good job of summarizing the issues, stating the options, and I thought her recommendation was good.

    I was glad to hear some trustees still have an open mind on whether a TIF will prove the solution, some discussion suggesting restricting the TIF to the B2, trustee Shield's position on keeping Riverside private, the series of workshops, and the Plan everyone has been asking for, i.e. what would this all look like when done, if done.

    I wonder what real estate they are discussing the purchase of in executive session. What is executive session?

    Posted Monday Jan 8, 2007 21:47 #
  2. Catherine
    Member

    And I also thought Smith had a constructive comment: people do need to have the village financial situation laid out on the table so they can appreciate the problems. I look forward to that.

    I also await the engineering report on the infrastructure requirements.

    Posted Monday Jan 8, 2007 22:11 #
  3. MikeT
    Member

    is the exec session videtaped or otherwise transcripted? I wonder if they are talking about my property.

    Just because I am paranoid doesn't mean that they are not out to get me.

    miket

    Posted Monday Jan 8, 2007 23:30 #
  4. Catherine
    Member

    What can be kept confidential is outlined in the Open Meetings Act. I can't on the face of it see why this would be.

    I'm sure we will find out shortly what they were doing if anything comes of it, Mike. I do not think this is how they would go about your property. They wouldn't even know if they needed or wanted your property yet. Perhaps someone is offering their property to the village, as has happened before.

    Posted Tuesday Jan 9, 2007 05:15 #
  5. corbi328
    Member

    Mike,

    Why would they be talking about your property? Have you had discussions with the Village about acquiring your property? Executive session minutes are made public based on certain restrictions. I believe they voted last night to release the minutes of some executive sessions held in the recent past. I am looking forward to reading those minutes.

    Posted Tuesday Jan 9, 2007 07:41 #
  6. Catherine
    Member

    Actually, I believe they were reviewing Board of Trustee meeting minutes that had not been previously released in preparation for releasing them.

    Posted Tuesday Jan 9, 2007 08:18 #
  7. spatny
    Member

    I was disappointed by the arbitrary changing of the schedule - for what reason I don't know. I got there a few minutes late and the first meeting had just started, but all seats were taken, so I waited in the hallway near the door so I could hear. Then I discovered they were on the agenda for the "Regular" meeting which was supposed to take place after the COW - not before. They went through that Agenda but unlike other "Regular" meetings had no public discussion or comments. THEN they went to the COW, where no public comments were to be allowed. Is just the way it is going t be - times, agendas and rules mean nothing? Will there never be any public comments allowed at these "Regular" meeting as at the third week of the month meetings. Who decides this, and where do they get the authority to do so?

    Posted Tuesday Jan 9, 2007 08:19 #
  8. MikeT
    Member

    corbi328 said---
    Why would they be talking about your property?

    First, I was being just a tiny bit flip in my remark above made at 1230 this morning. But, as you reminded me, corbi328, this is serious business. I had no business making that flip remark. It obviously wasn't funny. After all, with apologies to Jacob Marley, the business of mankind IS business.

    So let get down to business...

    The remark above was supposed to indicate to the forum readers how much THIS POSTER is concerned about the issue personally and that he is almost compulsively obsessed about it to the point of paranoia - that was the point of bringing in the word 'paranoia'; in that state you think that people are out to get you, and it is assumed to be baseless and irrational in order to use the term, 'paranoid'. But, it is obviusly not baseless because my house is on a list of houses to be displaced through no desire of mine. Thus the witty saying after the statement.

    This also shows that when the village gets into the business of taking homes, you are entering into people's lives, into their feelings. And since it is public it exposes those feelings whether we like it or not. The village should be concerned w/ streets and san.

    And, in as much that this experience could be duplicated, to some degree, for others in a similar predicament in Riverside, let my testimony be input to those who would judge this tif proposal. Remember what I said previously, 'if you cannot generalize this act over many people, then it is not a good act'. There are 330 properties in the tif.

    More data on the extent to which I think about this tif topic: I dearly wanted to go to that EDC meeting last Thursday, corbi328. It is almost all I think about. The reason I was not there were two reasons:

    1) I got into an accident in the driving rain trying to get to the meeting on time. I was, frankly, distracted about getting to the meeting, thinking about the meeting, and backed into a car at the cermak plaza parking lot. That's poetic.

    Thankfully, no one was hurt. I did my best high school spanish to communicate to the poor recipient of my tif mindedness and completely took care of it calling my insurance to get them going. So that was one expensive EDC meeting - $500 deductible and an enumerable number of years with substandard auto insurance premium.

    2) After I took care of this whole accident mess do you think I went home to relax and dry out? Incredibly, no, I went directly over to town hall to get to the rest of the meeting (it was 8:55). But guess what? the doors were locked. Someone called that poetic also. I waited outside for a half an hour in the cold rain for someone to come out to open the door.

    Why, corbi328, did you EDC guys lock the door? Were you trying to lock me out so that I could not come into the meeting? Did you think that I would possibly wreck it, that I would not be civil? (I am joking a bit; this was a bit of flip remark just now indicating to you and to the forum readers the extent that this tif issue is playing into my personal life.. but now I am repeating myself as well).

    back to the business....

    So, I'll unpack that statement some more and state the obvious. Sometimes we are in the middle of things and we foget why we are here...

    Through no desire of mine, there is a proposal for a TIF district in the CBD before the board right now. Through no desire of mine, my property, altho not in the CBD, is listed in that current TIF proposal as a house that may be displaced. The plan that the TIF is based on, the TOD, a transit oriented plan almost fully funded by Metra, and a plan in which I had absolutely no input and opportunity to respond, places the option to displace my house as the number 1 option according to the action matrix of the TOD.

    While the village administration is taking some kind of step back now, let me remind you and everyone that the current tif proposal is officially before the board. It has not been rescinded nor amended officially or unofficially. They know they have some 'wiggle time' before the numbers in the tif document 'spoil' at the next assessment in June. All it needs is just four board votes to pass.

    These are some rough reasons why I made that remark above at 12:30 in the morning on this website. It is also why there is a riversideinfo.org, and why there is a forum, and why you visited the forum today.

    miket

    Posted Tuesday Jan 9, 2007 11:39 #
  9. corbi328
    Member

    Mike T.

    I was not trying to upset you. To ask whether or not you have had conversation with the Village about selling your house was a natural question that came to mind from the comments you made earlier in the thread. Just curious.

    I am sorry to hear about your bad luck last Thursday night. I do not know why the front door was locked when you arrived. Maybe the building was possesed that night as the elevator was on the fritz as well. Too bad because it was a productive and long meeting that did not wrap up until 10:15 ish.

    Posted Tuesday Jan 9, 2007 13:47 #
  10. MikeT
    Member

    I thought the meeting would be still going on - as I said somewhere else in this forum, getting a vibrant business in the cbd AND retaining the space and peace of Olmsted's space here in Riverside is like solving the Rubik's cube. Maybe I'll call it the Riverside Cube.

    I forgot to say in the post above: Short answer - No. Here is the long answer....

    .
    THE DOOR
    The door seems to lock automatically after hours. When a meeting is in room 4, someone can open it for late arrivers. But when in room 30 as the edc was in last week, no one was there. Maybe you can arrange for it to be unlocked during room 30 meetings?

    Of course, I knew you did not lock it on purpose. I can see from your participation that you want to have as much debate as we can on this issue.

    I did hear from attendees that it was a productive meeting.

    mike

    Posted Tuesday Jan 9, 2007 14:29 #

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