Greetings all,

A lot is happening!  Here is a rundown of recent developments and major news items.

BUT FIRST – please donate!  Jackson Park Watch fund-raising is off to a promising start but major challenges are ahead.  Although the Chicago Park District has slowed development of a new Framework Plan for Jackson Park and South Shore, the Obama Foundation continues to say it will submit its proposal for the Obama Presidential Center to the Chicago Plan Commission before the end of the year.  JPW is seeking expert counsel to ensure that community concerns are heard and have impact, and your tax-deductible financial support is needed to make that happen.  Send checks made out to “Jackson Park Watch” to Jackson Park Watch, P.O. Box 15302, Chicago 60615.  E-mail jacksonparkwatch@gmail.com with any questions.

Another land grab? Community members have launched Save the Midway, a campaign to oppose the Obama Foundation’s proposal to build an above-ground parking garage on the eastern tip of the Midway Plaisance.  Visit their website to sign their virtual postcard. Read about the background of the initiative in the Hyde Park Herald .

What will be in those OPC buildings? The Tribune recently examined the implications of the fact that the OPC will not be a research library or public archive, but rather will be an entirely private enterprise.  Plans for the Obama Museum (that really tall building) were recently described by Louise Bernard, the Museum’s founding director, at a panel discussion at the DuSable Museum:  there will be a large public lobby, five levels of museum displays, a “sky room” on the top for community viewing, and in between, a suite for the use of the Obamas.

Golf course plan still unknown:  The Tribune editorial board has taken the City and Park District to task for trying to orchestrate a “secretive rush job” for approval of the proposed golf course merger.  While praising the Park District’s decision to slow down the review process, the editorial calls for the Park District to heed and address community concerns about the course’s affordability and accessibility and about the threatened nature sanctuary.  JPW raised these questions in its Aug. 4 open letter to the Chicago Parks Golf Alliance and Park District without any response to date.

OPC still rushing ahead:   On a related note, JPW also praised the Park District at its October Board meeting for slowing down the South Lakefront Framework Plan process.  At the same time JPW noted  the disconnect between the Park District schedule and the OPC’s determination to rush ahead with its plans:

Spokesmen for the Obama Foundation and OPC architects have stated on more than on occasion their aim to fully integrate the OPC with Jackson Park.  If they are sincere, then they should delay the submission of the OPC plans to the Plan Commission until the Framework planning process is complete.  And they should participate in the active dialogue and give-and-take of the Framework Plan process and be prepared not only to advance their ideas and vision but also to adapt those ideas on occasion to the community’s vision for the park.  Until there is such active conversation and collaboration, this is just another case of the park being sliced and diced into unconnected segments for special interests, with no regard for Olmsted’s holistic vision.   The Park District and its Commissioners should not acquiesce to the distortion and undercutting of the Framework Plan process.

About trees and accountability:   A commentator in the Sun-Times, highlighting the need for the OPC to be more transparent in its planning and fully accountable to the public, lamented the untold number of mature trees in Jackson Park that may be sacrificed to the OPC.  (And indeed the OPC landscape architects stated at an invitation-only meeting in August that most of existing trees on the site would be cut.)  The writer concluded:  “The city has given decision-making control over a large section of public land to a private entity that is not accountable to the public. . . . I would argue, however that the situation must change, and soon.”

More news coverage:

Jackson Park under threat: The Cultural Landscape Foundation has included Jackson Park in its Landslide 2017 listing of threatened public spaces across the United States.  Noting the historic stature of the Olmsted-designed park system, the TCLF designation highlights the threats posed both by the sizable and shifting footprint of the now-private Obama Presidential Center and by the proposed golf course merger that will remove existing recreational facilities and curtail access by local golfers.   The recognition brings national attention to issues and questions that are already being recognized and raised locally, with increasing urgency.

What about the broken walkways? Amid all the focus on new projects, the ongoing and long-neglected maintenance needs of Jackson Park and neighboring parks were the initial focus of an investigation by Carol Marin of NBC5 News that aired on October 4.

Might be interesting:  On Monday, Oct. 23, 7:30 – 9:00 p.m., Ward Miller, executive director of Preservation Chicago, and Alex Goldenberg, executive director of Southside Together Organizing for Power, will discuss issues surrounding the proposed construction of the Obama Presidential Center.  The meeting at the First Unitarian Church (5650 S. Woodlawn Ave.) is sponsored by Indivisible Chicago South Side.

Brenda Nelms and Margaret Schmid
Co-founders, Jackson Park Watch
www.jacksonparkwatch.org
jacksonparkwatch@gmail.com
www.facebook.com/jacksonparkwatch

Greetings all,

Here is that IMPORTANT ANNOUNCEMENT!  JPW has incorporated and is now raising money to carry on our work to ensure community input and transparency in major decisions about Jackson Park. 

We hope you are excited and pleased!  And we hope you will want to contribute.  Checks made out to Jackson Park Watch can be sent to Jackson Park Watch, P.O. Box 15302, Chicago IL 60615. Sorry, but we cannot accept on-line contributions at this time.  Visit the new DONATE tab on our web site for additional information. (http://jacksonparkwatch.org/donate/).

Here are some excerpts from the media release we have just now sent out:

. . . Jackson Park Watch (JPW) announces that it has incorporated as an Illinois nonprofit organization and is soliciting tax-deductible contributions under a fiscal sponsorship agreement with Friends of the Parks. The funds will be used to engage new legal and other expert counsel to expand JPW’s ongoing work of gathering and sharing information about proposed changes in Jackson Park. The focus is on the Obama Presidential Center (OPC) and related projects including road closures and realignments, an above-ground parking garage, and a PGA-type golf course. JPW has been gathering and sharing information related to the OPC through its widely followed Jackson Park Watch Updates since the July 2016 announcement that the center would be located in Jackson Park.

JPW co-president Brenda Nelms explains: “In keeping with our core priorities of ensuring community input and transparent decision-making on major matters relating to historic Jackson Park, we want to provide accurate and useful information about the review processes that lie ahead for the Obama Presidential Center as it is submitted to the Chicago Plan Commission. Retaining legal and other expert counsel will enable us to understand not only how the review processes work but how interested groups and individuals can make their voices heard so as to maximize their impact.”

Adds JPW co-president Margaret Schmid: “We welcome the OPC to Chicago’s South Side and wish President Obama the best as his visionary and exciting civic engagement and community-building programs are implemented. But it is the unfortunate truth that many aspects of the OPC proposal and related proposals have generated significant community concerns that have not been addressed. We believe that it is in the best interests of the OPC itself as well as of the community that these issues are fully aired and properly addressed as the Chicago Plan Commission and other relevant reviews take place.”. . . .

As always, feel free to share this Update widely.

Brenda Nelms and Margaret Schmid
Co-founders, Jackson Park Watch
www.jacksonparkwatch.org
jacksonparkwatch@gmail.com
www.facebook.com/jacksonparkwatch

Greetings all,

IN THIS ISSUE

• Reviewing the Park District’s open house meetings 9/25 and 9/27: what we learned, what we didn’t
• Obama Foundation CEO David Simas offers one new bit of information

ALSO

• Check out JPW’s improved and updated web site at jacksonparkwatch.org. Share it widely!
• And Heads Up: be on the lookout for an important JPW announcement coming soon

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Park District Open House Sessions, September 25 and 27, show OPC, South Lakefront Framework Plan on different tracks

Track 1: South Lakefront Framework Plan process extended, still nothing new on golf course proposal

• The Park District announced on 9/25 that it was extending the timetable for the Framework Plan process to January 2018, at which point a draft plan would be presented to the CPD Board of Commissioners. This is welcome news, although it remains unclear whether the extension will result in a plan reflecting community views. Note, however, the Obama Foundation is still aiming to submit its plans to the Chicago Plan Commission in November or December. (See below)
• Presentation boards offered a wealth of visual data about the history and current usages of the parks, providing among other information ample evidence of the dependence of residents of Woodlawn and South Shore on Jackson Park for public recreational facilities such as the basketball and tennis courts and baseball and soccer fields that are targeted for removal by the golf course proposal.   Park District staff and consultants answered questions and took comments, but notably absent, despite earlier assurances, was any new information about the PGA golf course proposal. (The boards are viewable at https://southlakefrontplan.com/documents .)
• The next phase, “Scenarios,” is projected to occur at some as-yet-unspecified time in November when the Park District will present “conceptual alternatives and design recommendations” for public review and comment. While it was good to hear that various options would be forthcoming, it was also clear that the Park District’s options are entirely constrained and driven by the plan for the OPC.   That is, the framework for the South Lakefront Framework Plan is being dictated by the Obama Foundation and not by public input on needs and preferences.

Track 2: Obama Presidential Center and traffic reconfigurations

• There were a few posters about the Obama Presidential Center and the proposed traffic reconfigurations. They were entirely separate from the Park District’s presentations, and are not included in the documents available on-line. Both presentations were basically the same thing the community has seen before — neither showed any modifications or acknowledgement of the many concerns expressed about the current proposals.
• There was no information about when there would be additional public meetings to review the next iteration of CDOT’s traffic maps.
• There was no information about when or if the Obama Foundation would hold additional public meetings to review the plans for the OPC prior to their submission to the Chicago Plan Commission in November or December, as originally scheduled.

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Obama Foundation CEO Lecture

Obama Foundation CEO David Simas spoke to a moderately full house at the Harold Washington Library on Monday evening 9/25.  Those who have been following the descriptions of the planned Obama Presidential Center programs — exciting and visionary as they sound — heard nothing new.  What was new was Simas’s suggestion that an amphitheater with capacity for 3000-5000 persons would be part of the OPC complex. JPW will be on the lookout for more information on this.

As always, feel free to share this Update widely.

Brenda Nelms and Margaret Schmid
Co-founders, Jackson Park Watch
www.jacksonparkwatch.org
jacksonparkwatch@gmail.com
www.facebook.com/jacksonparkwatch