Call to Action: More Funding for Chicago's Parks

[tsipple]

For those of you in or near Chicago, and/or for those of you interested in parks, please visit this web site:

http://www.friendsofmeigs.org">http://www.friendsofmeigs.org

It's a group that I support, and they have created an innovative "have your cake and eat it too" plan which is particularly well timed for the historic 100th anniversary of the Wright brothers' first flight on December 17th. (That's the day the Chicago Park District votes on the 2004 budget.)

It's called the Bessie Coleman Skypark, and what it does is create a new combination park/aviation museum/living airfield on Chicago's lakefront as a recreational, transportation, and public safety asset for the city. In so doing, it also contributes approximately $100 million dollars in new federal funds to the Chicago Park District.

The Park District currently has a $30 million deficit, and the current budget proposal calls for eliminating programs, cutting back on park maintenance, and raising fees and (regressive) property taxes throughout the city. There are no new funds for new parks, even for the many areas of the city (such as my neighborhood in Logan Square) without adequate parkland.

Visit the web site to study the proposal. Then take action. Please tell the Chicago Park District to include the Bessie Coleman Skypark in its 2004 budget. You can quickly and easily compose an e-mail to the CPD from this web site:

http://www.friendsofmeigs.org/html/cpd-a.htm

And if you have any questions about the Bessie Coleman Skypark, feel free to send me a private message here at DU.

(Bessie Coleman was America's first African-American pilot. She also happened to be female, and I believe she had to go to France to get her private pilot license since no one in the United States would help her. She had ties to the City of Chicago, and there's a roadway near O'Hare Airport, called Bessie Coleman Drive, bearing her name. She died tragically and prematurely in an airplane accident, ironically as a passenger. The Bessie Coleman Skypark is named for her also to recognize the Young Eagles program, aimed at Chicago's inner city youth and sponsored by the Tuskegee Airmen, which would provide free airplane rides at the new facility.)

[Don_G]

1. I Don't Think So

In a city with millions of people, why can't they fund the Parks System after Dimbo's "help" for theeir benefit?

I'm in another city and we're facing the same problems.

[tsipple]

2. There Are Big Issues in Cities

And this is one of them. This group, which I endorse, got creative and figured out a way to get $100 million in new funds to the Chicago Park District.

There's also the bigger problem of what's going on in Washington, that funds to states and localities are being stripped, and that's squeezing them hard.

We need to do both. We need to make sure that cities and states run efficiently and use every possible means to improve services and keep taxes in check. We also need to make sure we have new leadership in Washington.

[mopinko]

3. i really dissaprove of the tone

using words like free money is a real slap in the face to the many INTELLEGENT taxpayers who read this plan. do you think you are riding the cta here? no one can follow the pea in this shell game? it's not my money if i send it to washington first? get real, give it up. forever open and free, and that includes air strips.

[tsipple]

4. Free to Chicagoans, Yes

And spent on parks, not on, say, prisons. (These are parks for city kids.)

[FullCountNotRecount]

5. Highrise Office worker against Meigs:

Any one who worked in office buildings that line Grant Park HATED those planes that had the weird flight patterns in order to take off and land at Meigs. I always had visions of a September 11 happening on the North Side of Grant Park.

Forget it. Go to Gary or Midway or build one at Calumet Harbor not around tall buildings.

The park district wastes enough money already. I don't believe your numbers.

[tsipple]

6. Do the Homework

Actually you have a big 9/11 problem which the Bessie Coleman Skypark addresses.

There's no way to get anything by air to downtown Chicago.

The Fire Department is now several miles away (at the 95th Street helipad). The Coast Guard can't land. And you can't get transplant organs or medical supplies moved downtown. They have to sit on the Stephenson or Kennedy Expressways, possibly in rush hour traffic. Good luck.

New York City, on the other hand, had the Wall Street heliport. Chicago has nothing.

This is serious business, public safety.

Oh, and $100 million in new federal money to the Chicago Park District.

If you're concerned about an airplane crashing into a downtown Chicago building, you have a solution. Close all large airplane airports. Close Midway -- take off is straight into the Sears Tower from runway 4. Close O'Hare. Close all the airline airports.

The Bessie Coleman Skypark will not handle any large airplanes except, in an emergency, military cargo transports. Every other large airplane is incapable of using it.

Do the homework.