Last night over 40 people filled the Loyola Park field house to tell the Chicago Park District powers-that-be (North Region Supervisors Matt Marino and Brian Loll) the Boys and Girls Club doesn't belong in the new Gale Community Center.
As the unaltered photographs show, kids and adults stood with signs denouncing the smoke filled, back room plan Joe Moore and Jim Ginderske cooked up.
Eva McCann and Toni Duncan of the North of Howard Park Council spoke passionately and the crowd backed their every words with applause when telling the powers-that-be (Matt Marino and Brian Loll) how they were all but shut off of all discussions for the new community centers future programs.
Only one person stood up and defended the Boys and Girls Club at the New Gale Community Center. Guess who? That's right. Joe Moore's new little puppet boy.
Sounding more like a 2011 Aldermanic campaign speech. Click the video and listen as Jim Ginderske gets all defensive with the dissenting vocal crowd. For some odd reason Ginderske openly talks about his heroin usage, his recent trip to New York City (to score some China White?) and the fact he's all alone. ("demon warrior princess" withdrawal, perhaps?) Ah, poor boy. Let's hope Jim Gindeske doesn't ask Joe Moore to secure a Methadone Clinic with tax payer money for Rogers Park next week.
This is raw and uncut footage of Ginderske putting his foot in his mouth. Union-buster Ginderske kept using the word -"WE"- like he had the 'white horse' in his pocket - or something. Unless Gindeske was hallucinating on 'black tar', no one else in the room was standing by his side that the public could see. Like I said, Gindeske was the self-admitted lone supporter of the Boys and Girls Club occupying the new Gale Community Center.
In the video Hugh gets chastised for questioning Ginderske's authority and who Ginderske really represents. While some may not like Hugh's style, Ginderske openly admitted his campaign speech didn't fit the protocol of the meeting - and Hugh had enough. I don't blame him. Ginderske spoke for over five minutes. Zero minutes were spent on 2009 North Region Park District budget issues. That alone was enough to tell Jim to shut the fuck up and sit down.
Blognotes: Major Joe Moore campaign contributor, the Service Employees International Union, is totally against this privatization of the new Gale Community Center. In the below photograph, this gentlemen for the SEIU spoke up against the Boys and Girls Club take-over of this new public, tax payer funded, community center. I'll sum it up in three words. They're NOT HAPPY.
Christine Wellman, President of Rogers Park Voter spoke - but you couldn't hear a damn word she said. Note to Christine, if you're going to stand up and waste our time listening to your thoughts, hopes and dreams - speak loud enough so the audience can hear you. While she may not like others loud and boisterous style, at least they could be heard.
Don Gordon spoke and I'll post his entire speech later. (Updated: Now posted in the comments section.)
Joe Moore didn't show up. I guess Barack Obama needed a foot massage.
As the neighborhood bloggers start filing their reports, I'll link them in the comments section.
Also. I'll get to Katy Hogan's diatribe in a future blog post. Her blather is just too hypocritical to lump in with this posting.
14 comments:
Toni's report.
Christine Wellman reports.
Statement by Don Gordon, Rogers Park Resident and Park and Lakefront advocate, To Be Read Into Record at The Chicago Park District North Regional 2009 budget hearings at Loyola Park -Tuesday, July 22, 2008 at 6 pm.
“I am here this evening to read into record the public land give-away being orchestrated by our Chicago Park District.
Rosenbloom Park in South Shore – public parkland being given away to build South Shore H.S.
Rainbow Beach Park - public parkland being given away to build Hurley Elementary School on the lakefront
Park 452 at 4100 S. Princeton - public parkland being given away to build Hurley Elementary School
Norwood Park - public parkland being given away to build a Senior Center
Abbott Park - public parkland being given away to build a Senior Center
Warren Park - public parkland being considered to be given away to build a Senior Center
GRANT PARK! - public parkland being given away to build the Children’s Museum ON THE LAKEFRONT!
Let me stop for a second here and read to you an excerpt from Lois Wille’s book, ‘Forever Open, Clear, and Free’. (excerpt: “It was 1836, a year before the town incorporated as the City of Chicago. The men – Gurdon Saltonstall Hubbard, William F. Thornton, and William B. Archer – were charged by the state of Illinois with selling unsettled areas to pay for a new shipping canal. But they REFUSED TO SELL THE LAKEFRONT!” Instead they issued the following words on their map of the little prairie town: “Public Ground – A Common to Remain FOREVER OPEN, CLEAR AND FREE of any Buildings, or Other Obstruction whatever.”)
Lincoln Park - public parkland ATTEMPTED to be given away to build a soccer field for the wealthy parents of the Latin School
and now… Rogers Park… with a “twist” – Gale Community Center, a hard fought for, recently completed park facility, being turned over lock, stock and barrel to the Chicago Area Boys and Girls Clubs
On one hand you gave us a new field house (after more than 10 god-awful years of waiting) and NOW, before we even have a chance to dirty the floor with our muddy shoes, you TAKE IT AWAY! AND… to add insult to injury, you’re ALSO taking away the Park District union jobs that would have staffed that field house and turning over the $100,000 budget to the Boys and Girls Clubs to run their facility!
Ahhh… but lest we not forget, or should you NEED to be reminded…
Chicago ranks next to last in the percent of parkland per 1,000 residents and has for quite a while. Only 4 acres per 1,000 residents are allocated to park space. Let’s put that number into perspective. The National Parks Association recommends a minimum of 6 acres per 1,000 residents and as much as 10 acres. But let’s go to the “gold standard”… ‘The Burnham and Bennett Plan Of Chicago’. I’ll quote Daniel Burnham directly, who in turn was quoting the 1904 ‘Report of the Special Park Commission’ in Chicago: ‘For health and good order there should be one acre of park area for each hundred people’. Let me do the math for you – that’s 10 acres of parkland for every 1,000 people. Chicago? 4 acres and we’re giving parkland away! How about Minneapolis? They finished at the top with 15 acres of parkland Guess they got Burnham’s message and I doubt ol’ Daniel ever set foot in the town! New York, San Francisco, Los Angeles, Philadelphia, Baltimore, Boston – ALL better than Chicago.
And here’s one more stat… the amount of open space as a percent of city land. Again, Chicago manages to finish next to last, coming in at 8% of our city land dedicated to park space. Let’s put that into perspective: New York, who finished first, has 26% of it’s land in open space. Let me repeat that. 26% of the land in New York city is parkland and open space! San Francisco? 20%! Anyone ever been to San Francisco? You know how land-locked the city is? And STILL – 20 % of the land dedicated to park and open space. Chicago? A measely 8%. Urbs in Horto (City in a Garden)? I think not! What I DO think is that the only green the Park District is interested in comes with a picture of George Washington!
Finally, my message to you this evening, Matt Marino, to Alderman Moore, to Superintendent Tim Mitchell and to the Mayor is…
STOP!
Stop taking away our parkland.
Stop taking away union jobs from Park District employees.
And Stop ignoring the citizens of this city who fund 70% of your budget through our tax dollars!
Thank-you.
I do not understand where the hell this Ginderske fellow gets the idea that he has some kind of authority over this situation.
While his voice is equal to anyone else, he keeps posturing as if he is an elected official.
He's nothing more than Joe Moore's ass kisser of the moment.
And isn't it odd that Joe didn't even attend this train wreck?
Is he afraid of being publicly chastised or simply indifferent?
thank you for the perfect example of the childish and rude behavior that you always bring the rp dialog. can't even let one person speak that doesn't agree with you.
Don't you have a mural to screw up somewhere?
Mr. Klein, of SEIU 73 and Jim Ginderske got into a nose-to-nose, public cat fight. Meow.
When asked about his attorneys lack of competency, Jim Ginderske had "no comment."
Gale Park Budget Requests
Good Evening,
I am Eva McCann. I am here to represent the Gale Park Advisory Council and the Rogers Park Community on the issue of the Boys and Girls Club taking over the management of programs at the new Gale Park Community Center Facility. I will also present a list of programming items and Park Improvements that should be included in the budget for Gale Park and the Gale Park Community Center.
Community members and Rogers Park organizations over the years have worked with the Chicago Park District in good faith to help raise funds, design and bring to fruition the Gale Park Community Center. In good faith these same community members and organizations expect the Chicago Park District to uphold its commitment to the community to run programs as in other parks and their facilities throughout the city of Chicago, using Park District Staff that have already been hired to work at Gale Park Community Center.
The Gale Park Advisory Council has passed out surveys throughout the neighborhood asking people of all ages how they feel about the new Park building being run by the B&G Club and overwhelmingly they say it should be run by the Chicago Park District
If the Boys and Girls Club runs programs, Park District employees who have been hired to work at the Gale Park Community Center will be displaced.
If such an agreement goes through with Gale Park how many other agreements with other Park facilities will take place and how many more Park District Union Employees will find themselves without a park to call home.
The Gale Park Community Center is a public facility paid for by tax payers money. We insist that this Park Facility be run by the public agency for which our tax dollars have been designated. Our park taxes are not intended to be invested in a private organization to run the Gale Park Community Center.
The B&G Club is a private organization. The B&G Club is not accountable to the public nor can the public hold them accountable for running programs that meet the needs of the entire community, young and old alike.
An agreement such as this short changes the neighborhood for which it is meant to serve and allows the Park District to continue to be an absentee landlord to the three parks North of Howard. We need the Park District to be accountable to the taxpayers and to be present to take responsibility for what goes on in the Gale Park Community Center and its sister parks. We have worked too long and too hard to get to this point to have this facility dropped into the hands of an outside private organization. The B&G Club should not take over this public facility.
Improvements we are asking to be included in the Gale Park and Building Budget are:
1. A spray pool.
Kiwanis Park, the original park that the Park District tore down to build the Gale Park, had a small kiddy sprinkler area for the children to play in on hot summer days. The community asked the Park District to leave it or modernize the sprinkler area because parents do not allow their children to go to the lake by themselves to cool off in the summer. The Park District removed it down despite the community’s request.
We want to have the replacement of that kiddy sprinkler with a spray pool included in the budget for Gale Park improvements for 2009.
2. Other items we are requesting to be included in next years budget are:
Outdoor basketball hoops be installed
Park Kids Program
Neighbor Sports
Mighty Fit Kids
Cubs Care
Go Go Girls
Volleyball, youth and adults
Basketball, youth and adults
Wheel chair basketball
Cultural Arts Camp
Teen Club
Teen Leadership Club one for males, one for females
Family Night Out
Chess, youth and adults
3. Gallery 37, so that young people can provide art for our three parks, artistic benches, sculptures, mosaics, textiles etc.. Young people will learn artistic appreciation, help beautify the parks and earn some money while doing so.
4. Gymnastics
Not just tumbling but artistic and rhythmic gymnastics with a fully trained instructor. Parents in this neighborhood are not likely to take their children out of the area to participate in training activities. Parents have not done so, thus far, therefore the physical talents of these youth go unrecognized. There are also so many talented young people in this neighborhood who are unsupervised who pull dirty mattresses out of alleys to use for tumbling. Kids destroy trees trying to climb and swing and circle & flip over limbs. The children need to learn the real discipline of gymnastics. Real gymnastics that will discipline their minds and bodies while building strength and a sense of team work and personal best.
We request that you include in the Gale Park budget real gymnastics equipment like the balance beam, vaulting horses, uneven bars and parallel bars, high bars, rings and pommel horse.
5. We need Programming for special needs population in the budget
Special Olympics for the physically challenged
Arts & Crafts
Creative Expression
6. Other forms of fitness and conditioning that should be included in the budget are:
Seniors:
Low impact aerobics
Walking
Weight training
Yoga
Young Parents Programs
Stroller Fitness
Toddlers Tunes & Turtles
Mommy & Me Ballet/Creative Movement & fitness
Youth & Young Adults
Boxing/wrestling
7. Have designated time for an Adult social club where people can gather to play bid whist, chess, scrabble or bingo.
8. Intergeneration programs and Family Nights Out
9. Young people need to learn about the environment through programs like:
Outdoor Explorers,
Team Adventure
Urban Campers.
10. The Park District needs to put into the budget various Arts Partnerships to provide:
African or Caribbean dance for both youth and adults
Some form of traditional Latin Dance to accommodate the Hispanic population
Hip Hop Dance
Steppers Dance
Theatre classes for all ages
Creative writing
Drumming Circles
Arts & Crafts
Cooking Classes
These programs are not asking too much for a community that has been deprived for decades of productive supervised activities. There are artists and instructors ready and willing to partner with the Park District to help bring many of these programs to the Community Center. The Community agrees to continue to work with the Park District to help provide the types of programming needed. We just need the Park District staff to be there and to work with and to partner with us to bring the highest quality possible to a desperate needy neighborhood.
The Boys & Girls Club can bring additional programming by moving into the Gale Annex 1/2 block north on Marshfield. They do not have to nor should they take over the Gale Park Community Center. We can have the best of both programming options by utilizing both facilities, one run by the Chicago Park District in the Gale Park Community Center, the other run by the B&G Club in the Gale Annex. Gale Academy wants the B&G Club in the Annex. Let them continue to work with the CPS system and let the Park District do its job where it will benefit people the most.
by Eva McCann
I believe it is time for Joe Moore to realize that the community does not support the plan to hand this facility over to the Boys and Girls Club.
Who, besides Jim G., is in favor of such a move?
Uh, what does a photograph os "say no to Joe" have to do with a community center to HELP the youths of Rogers Park?
Why do I suspect that Roundeye's siblings never made fun of him for being the brainy one?
Thanks for continuing to bring us the truth and not let Joe Moore and his cronies pull the wool over our eyes.
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