Greetings, all!
City poll woefully inadequate
As noted in last week’s Update, the FHWA/City announced that an on-line “poll” would be sent to Section 106 consulting parties to get feedback on the suggestions for resolving the adverse effects (whether labeled ‘mitigation’ or not) made before and during the May 6 webinar and to allow for the submission of new suggestions. That announcement included the following:
Please share the poll with colleagues in your organization and any outside groups that have an interest in contributing to this process, including youth groups and others that are familiar with Jackson Park. We encourage each consulting party to submit at least one mitigation suggestion and these will be compiled and noted at the 2nd consulting parties meeting.
On May 13, the City sent a subsequent message with additional (and confusingly incomplete) instructions and the link to the Survey/Poll. The full message is provided below.
Prior to sending this out as suggested by the City, we of course checked out the survey. Sadly, but not surprising at this point, it is limited, restrictive, does not repeat those “resolve adverse effects” suggestions that have been presented to date (such as the one JPW presented before and during the May 6 webinar), and does not facilitate the presentation of new and creative ideas. Rather, it focuses on suggestions that are the equivalent of moving the deck chairs on the Titanic, all of which utterly fail to resolve the severe adverse effects of the OPC and related road changes on historic Jackson Park and the Midway Plaisance.
Nonetheless, we encourage everyone to respond to the poll for the record. However, we suggest that before starting the survey you have two or three phrases ready for the chance to volunteer your own thinking. The survey starts by asking for zip code and then consulting party (there is a drop-down menu, you have to choose one). Then there are four highly restrictive and limited choices for comment, but each one does also allow you to make an independent entry. Note that the submission deadline is Monday, May 18, by noon.
Feel free to identify JPW as your consulting party, if you wish. If you do so identify, please send a record of your suggestion to jacksonparkwatch@gmail.com. We continue to have grave concerns about the Section 106 process, but we think public participation remains important.
_____________________________
City’s Message to Consulting Parties:
From: Todd
Wyatt <todd.wyatt@cityofchicago.org>
Date: Wed, May 13, 2020 at 12:43 PM
Subject: Survey and Reference Materials for Jackson Park Sec 106 Consultation
To: Todd Wyatt <todd.wyatt@cityofchicago.org>
Cc: DPD <dpd@cityofchicago.org>
Good morning Consulting Parties,
As a follow-up to our meeting on May 6, 2020, the project team invites you to participate in a SURVEY (ctrl+click) designed to collect feedback on mitigation examples, and to receive your new mitigation ideas. Please complete the survey by noon on Monday, May 18th. Your input will be analyzed and incorporate into the next meeting on May 20, 2020 (9:30am – 11:30am).
Please reference the meeting materials from our May 6th meeting which provide useful educational information on mitigation. These materials can be found on the project’s web page (ctrl+click).
Additionally, the project team has prepared a response (attached) to the relevant questions and comments received from the chat box during the May 6th meeting.
Thank you for your continued participation in this project, and we look forward to reviewing your input at our next meeting on May 20th. Please register if you haven’t do so already. Please contact me with any questions.
THANK YOU FOR YOUR DONATIONS!
Thanks to all who have supported us financially. As always, we welcome your contributions. If you have any questions about contributing, please contact us at jacksonparkwatch@gmail.com and we will get back to you. You can contribute in three ways:
- You can contribute via checks made out to Jackson Park Watch sent to directly to Jackson Park Watch, P.O. Box 15302, Chicago 60615.
- You can contribute via PayPal here.
- You can contribute via checks from donor-directed funds sent to our fiscal sponsor Friends of the Parks at FOTP, 17 N. State St., Suite 1450, Chicago 60602, ATTN Kevin Winters. Such checks should be made out to FOTP with a note stating they are intended for Jackson Park Watch.
As always, we thank you.
Brenda Nelms and Margaret Schmid
Jackson Park Watch