After the 2003 pre-election photo op fake ground breaking for the long awaited Gale Community Center, Joe Moore dropped the issue and his silver shovel and went about doing nothing worth while in his ward.
By March of 2005, the Gale Community Center was again put on the back-burner. Residents had enough - and went down to the Chicago Park District Headquarters to demand answers to the long delays.
As you can see by the photo I took back then in the Spring of 2005, the Gale Park Council was led by Eva McCann, Sister Cecilia and Toni Duncan. They organized a group of neighbors to raise awareness to the plight north of Howard.
There was no Boys and Girls Club helping out. DevCorp North or Kimmy Bares didn't show up. Jim the plumber was no where to be found either.
Because Joe Moore got word the neighbors were uprising over his head, Joe Moore showed up and blew smoke up our asses. Always passing the buck. Even back in 2005. Here's his ring-dingers of a quote that made News Star back when they were a Pioneer.
"It's a result of the Park District's own negligence that we're at this point...All in all, there has been a delay because of the Park District mistakes".I thought I lost this historic photograph. Thank goodness the Howard Hell Hole remains open, free and transparent to the public - even though I rarely post there anymore. I was going to pull a Joe Moore and delete everything.
Alderman Moore
Pioneer News Star
March 16, 2005
4 comments:
Alderman Moore guaranteed, "Some of the community will be involved ( in the process )... but not all of them.
March 2005.
Chicago Park District Monthly Meeting.
Gee, how right he was.
Beata Riedlmayer said...> "Sure, it sounds like a great idea, but only at first glance, for about ten seconds. The longer one thinks about it, the more the "wait a minute" response kicks in, and turns into a resounding "Woah -- stop! This just isn't right!"
Of course a Boys and Girls Club in our community would be a good thing -- but in some place other than the new Community Center -- that is, in addition to the center, not instead of it. There are a number of other places the Club could go, including unused space at Gale School, as some have suggested. Goodness knows that unused spaces abound on Howard and in the surrounding area.
This is a matter that simply must be put to the community to decide. The Gale Park Advisory Council has put many years, countless hours of effort, to be a responsible voice of the community about this new center. Turning it over to the Boys and Girls Club without grass-roots community input is simply wrong. We need the community center, and we need it to serve the whole community, all ages, and a wide range of activities. Over the years, I have followed the painfully slow progress of this much needed project. The Advisory Council has not limited itself to sitting in meetings and talking. They have mustered all the resources they could, not just to get the facility built, but to involve hundreds of neighbors in the process.
Now it's been built, and suddenly it is about to turn into something else, without anyone asking whether this is what the community wants and needs. "Hijacked" is a word that came to mind before I checked around to see what the Advisory Council and other neighborhood folks thought of it. After a bit of common-sense thinking, it seems like a very mild word for what is happening.
Mr. Moore points out that adults have other options -- outside of the immediate community. Notice that little word "outside." Seniors and many others need a place Inside the neighborhood. It could be a wonderful thing to have both the community center, for all of the neighborhood, along with the Boys and Girls Club -- in another facility. We need both, not just one.
The center was dreamed of and planned for a specific set of needs and purposes, and it is not for sale, barter, or giving away to another organization! The Boys and Girls Club should look elsewhere. There's room, but not in a center that was paid for by others.
Nine out of ten responses being positive is a nice ratio, but it probably matches the number of people who don't know what is going on. And it probably matches the number of residents who don't have computers north of Howard. After so long, and so many broken and stretched deadlines and promises, absolutely anything that remotely hints at an open facility can sound good on the surface. That's especially true when looking only at a carefully cropped piece of the story.
We have already waited over a dozen years for our center to be opened. Let's make sure that it becomes a resource that meets all of the needs it was designed for. It can't be that hard for Alderman Moore to get a meeting together with the folks who have labored for this, the Advisory Council, to discuss all the ramifications.
The Center belongs to the community, and has great potential. Let's get it right. We need an open meeting to give the entire community a voice about the use of the building. Many people are concerned about this newly announced idea, since it's our neighborhood and our tax dollars."
Michael C. Luckenbach
Letter to the Editor Chicago Journal/News Star Re: Gale Park Community Center
As a 30 year resident of Rogers Park, specifically the North of Howard neighborhood, I am very much opposed to Alderman Joe Moore's 'plan' (cooked up behind closed doors with a small group (3 or 4 people?) of non NoH residents, without ANY community input) to 'turn over' the new, unopened, Gale Park Community Center to the 'Cotter Boys and Girls Club'! There has been no community voice in this proposal at all! The North Howard Neighbors Association has conducted a poll on our web blog, (nhna.blogspot.com) and found 90% of the respondents say NO to this plan without neighborhood/community input and agreement. Not even the official CPD community parks advisory council (NOHPAC) was consulted about this idea. Out of no where, the Alderman sends out an e-mail announcing this plan, as though it were a done deal! This is a Park District facility, on Park District land, built after 10+ years of tireless effort on the part of many local neighborhood residents and groups, and as a LOCAL resident, I say NO to this 'back room' deal! The North of Howard Parks Advisory Council should convene a community meeting to allow the Alderman and the Cotter Boys & Girls Club to present 'their' idea(s) to the residents of the NoH neighborhood. The Alderman must be held accountable and answer to the will of the community. Anything less is a farce and a travesty of basic democratic principles! Let the people of the neighborhood decide!
Michael C. Luckenbach
North Howard Neighbors Association
7712 N. Paulina
Tim Jackson said...> "Joe Moore is expert at approrpiating good ideas. He makes them appear to be all his own every time, and still the North of Howard community gets less than promised.
Little wonder so many in the community hold the belief that the center would not be for them. While the Boys & Girls Club will make great media for Moore, it will not serve the North of Howard community that would have benefited from some form of supervised adult activities.
"Moore added that adults in the neighborhood have more access to recreational and leisure programs outside the immediate neighborhood than do children." Such as knocking over trees, ripping apart the equipment and trashing Gale park every evening, because there is no sense of anything belonging to our community.
For instance, having people from the suburbs coming in to plant flowers without engaging the locals, who come along later and stand around on the effort."
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