Tuesday, May 8, 2018 || By Community Editor || @maywoodnews 

There’s a lot happening in the Proviso Township area this week. Here are just a sampling of the big events going on near you:

Enjoy the Battle of the Bands

On Saturday, May 12, Proviso East will host its annual Battle of the Bands at the high school’s football field, 807 S. 1^st Ave. in Maywood. The parade will kick-off at 9 a.m. while the competition starts at 12 p.m. If the weather becomes an issue, the event will be moved to the field house. Admission is $10.

Witness history come alive again during Civil War reenactment

On Saturday, May 12, from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m., at 224 N. 1^st Ave. in Maywood, the Friends of the Maywood Home for Soldiers’ Widows and the village of Maywood will host the annual Maywood Civil War Living History event.

Historical interpreters and living historians will resurrect the 10^th Illinois Volunteer Infantry and the 26^th Regiment United States Colored Troops. Don’t be alarmed by the sound of the musket firings!

Celebrate Mother’s Day early

On Saturday, May 12, 1 p.m. to 4 p.m., at the Maywood Multipurpose Building, 200 S. 5^th Ave. in Maywood, R&B recording artist Space, Maywood Trustee Isiah Brandon, David Hilliard and Oak Street Health will host a pre-Mother’s Day luncheon.

Fresh flowers for all moms over 18 years old. Live music. Must RSVP at (708) 450-4492.

Indulge in yet more Mother’s Day celebrations

On Saturday, May 12, 2 p.m. to 4:30 p.m., at Afriware Books, 1701 S. 1^st Ave. (Suite 503 in Eisenhower Tower) in Maywood, another pre-Mother’s Day celebration will take place.

Valerie Hudson, a licensed massage therapist, will be offering 10-minute chair, hand and scalp massages for $10 while Lecretia Akines, owner of Dawning Day Creations, will have her products, including head wraps, women’s skirts and ‘Mama & Me’ gift boxes, on display. Changelle Branch, author of “Decisions,” will be signing copies of her book.

Get prepped for the big day

On Saturday, May 12, 11:30 a.m., at the Maywood Public Library, 121 S. 5^th Ave. in Maywood, the library’s Children’s Department will offer stories and small crafts in preparation for Mother’s Day. VFP 

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Tuesday, April 8, 2018 || By Michael Romain || @maywoodnews 

Featured image: A conceptualization of Proviso West High School presented by Perkins and Will on April 24. | Screenshot from Perkins and Will video

Proviso Township High Schools District 209 officials held the fourth, and so far the largest, master facilities plan community engagement session at Proviso Math and Science Academy, 8601 W. Roosevelt Rd. in Forest Park, on April 24.

More than 400 people packed the school’s auditorium to hear architects from Perkins and Will, the architectural firm contracted last year to facilitate the master facilities planning process, present a series of long-term facilities concepts for the school. Last month’s meeting was the first where community members could actually see visual schemes of what future changes to the district’s three campuses might look like.

The architects presented three concepts for each school. Two of the nine concepts — which were also the most unpopular among those in attendance at the meeting — called for Proviso East and Proviso West accommodating PMSA, which would be relocated from its current campus in Forest Park to either of the two other schools.

“Tonight we’re in concept testing,” said Mark Jolicoeur, a Perkins and Will architect. “For each of the three schools we have different concepts. They are nothing more than that. They are ideas to test how the sites can work.”

All of the concepts addressed the high square footage per student at all three of the campuses, each of which has a classroom utilization rate of less than 70 percent — well below the recommended rate of around 85 percent — and hosts far fewer students than they have the capacity to host.

Two of the three concepts for East would entail moving the faculty, staff and student parking lots that are currently west of 1^st Avenue onto the school’s main campus; adding a new student commons area in the center of the main academic building; either building a new fieldhouse or extensively renovating the current one; consolidating and reconstructing PE athletics facilities in the fieldhouse; and upgrading the football stadium (including improving the track and field space); among other improvements.

Two of the three concepts for West would entail the addition of a student commons area, consolidated and expanded career technical education space and renovated cafeteria space, among other improvements common to the three plans. All three concepts would also include an expanded south parking area for students and guests, which would improve car and bus traffic on campus.

The third concept for West would locate PMSA in a wing near the bus drop-off and pickup lane, with a new academic wing for West students situated closer toward the center of the campus.

The third concept for East would entail building a space for PMSA’s campus at the corner of 1^st Avenue and Madison St. while building an academic addition for East. Similarly, the third concept for West entails relocating PMSA’s campus into a separate wing of the campus.

All three concepts for PMSA would entail relocating the parking lot entry further north and providing additional drop-off and pick-up access. A new lane dedicated to student drop-off and pickup would be designed to lower congestion and create safer site circulation, architects said.

In addition, all of the PMSA concepts would include a new student commons area featuring a secured entry that would allow for after-hours use, and the addition of a new play field with a walking track.

The first PMSA concept entails the addition of a new gymnasium and locker rooms while the second concept only features new performing arts and woodshop space. The third concept for the school features both new gymnasium and locker space, as well as new performing arts space (additional space for music instruction would replace the woodshop space).

District 209 Supt. Jesse Rodriguez started the meeting off by addressing the public reaction that accompanied the third community engagement session, where Perkins and Will publicly broached the possibility of closing PMSA’s Forest Park campus and presented a series of options — all but one of which called for relocating the magnet school to Proviso East in Maywood and/or Proviso West in Hillside.

At the time, Perkins and Will representatives stressed that the options were merely preliminary and were generated based, in large part, on public input gathered during previous sessions.

The architects also acknowledged the difficulty of even posing the possibility of consolidating the campuses, which touched off a storm of reaction, particularly among PMSA students and parents — some of whom mistakenly conflated the architectural concepts for imminent board decisions, among other misunderstandings about the facilities process.

The architects’ preliminary scenarios also sparked a debate among many community members that has been constant since PMSA opened roughly a decade ago inside of a converted office building once owned by Loyola University Medical Center in Maywood.

Many PMSA parents and students have argued that the magnet school’s location in a separate building from East and West — both of which lag in academic performance and experience more discipline issues — is a large part of PMSA’s appeal, allowing students who may not feel comfortable at the other two schools a space to thrive.

Critics of the selective enrollment school, however, have claimed that it has been a source of stigma for students at East and West, many of whom may feel alienated from PMSA’s many successes, which include being ranked among the top suburban high schools in the Chicago area.

During last month’s community engagement session, supporters of PMSA as a campus separate from East or West seemed to dominate the public feedback portion of the meeting, plastering the poster boards depicting the two concepts that entail PMSA merging with East and West with red dots indicating “something that you don’t think works,” architects said.

In his opening remarks, Supt. Rodriguez seemed to address the public divide while clarifying how the master facilities process works.

“We value all students and all children in our school districts,” he said, before adding that the district is “not closing any schools. That’s not what the discussion is about. The Board of Education and superintendent are not in discussions about closing any schools.”

Rodriguez emphasized that the architect’s concepts are only options that have not yet been finalized.

Once finalized, “those options will become recommendations,” he said, adding that he “will have a recommendation and the board will have a recommendation … The board will vote on that recommendation maybe by October or November.”

The D209 school board will hold a listening session for community members to give input on the master facilities plan on May 15, 6 p.m., at PMSA. VFP 

Watch the full video of the April 24 meeting below.

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Tuesday, May 8, 2018 || By Nona Tepper/Forest Park Review || @maywoodnews 

Featured image: Cletiss Seals directs the Proviso East High School Marching Band during a May 7 performance at Field-Stevenson in Forest Park. | Alexa Rogals 

Members of the Proviso East High School Marching Band swayed, stomped and shouted in the auditorium at Field-Stevenson Elementary School on May 7, offering young Forest Parkers a look at what their future could hold if they join the growing high school group.

“We actually have a very small number of students from Forest Park, which is a reason we really want to increase our influence,” said Cletis Seals, band director.

“Most students who come from Forest Park will either [attend Proviso Math and Science Academy] or they’ll transfer to another school outside the district,” he said. “So we figure if we show them all the great things we offer at Proviso East, it’ll help them stay within the district.”

Dressed in blue shirts that read “Straight Outta Proviso East” and “Proviso East Forever,” the 53 students performed five songs for the packed auditorium. Three color-guard dancers accompanied the show, shaking in white leotards, gold tights and waving their blue flags. Principal Tiffany Brunson asked performers how many were former Field-Stevenson Sharks. Three band students pumped their fists.

The Proviso East High School Marching Band, under Cletis Seals, is looking to make inroads in Forest Park. | Alexa Rogals 

“We have a lot of children, of course, at Field-Stevenson and D91 who attend Proviso East and PMSA,” Brunson said. “This gives our kids something to look forward to and enhances the partnership with the schools.”

Field-Stevenson students can join band once they enter fourth grade, and there are 22 students in the current program, said band director Bob Kelly, adding that participation has grown every year.

“It’s good for us to see what the future can hold,” he said of the high school’s performance.

Though participation has grown in the Field-Stevenson band, the number of students involved in the Proviso East program has decreased from 65 students at the end of the 2015 school year to the current 53, Seals said, with only four performers from Forest Park.

The marching band hopes that its May 7 visit to a Forest Park school will help attract more students in the town to the band. | Alexa Rogals 

“One reason is the change in leadership,” Seals said. “Whenever you change leadership in a band program a lot of students will prefer the styles of the previous leader, and a lot of the middle-schoolers come in with the preconceived notion you have to come in already knowing how to play an instrument.”

Seals took over the program in 2015, after longtime band director Reginald Wright retired. Wright served the Proviso district for 20 years, and even served as Seals’ mentor and coach. During his time at PMSA, Seals participated in the Proviso East Marching Band, and eventually earned a scholarship to South Carolina State University for his trumpet skills. After studying music, he said Wright encouraged him to apply for his soon-to-be vacant position in 2015.

“I want to make sure that I give back to my community; this is where I got my roots,” said Seals, of Broadview. “I want to make sure anyone coming after has the same opportunities, if not more, than I had.”

Students at Field-Stevenson focus their attentions on members of the Proviso East High School Marching Band on May 7. | Alexa Rogals 

Seals expects marching band students to treat participation in the program like a job, and he makes all his seniors audition for college programs. After Proviso East’s performance, he held a question-and-answer session for young Field-Stevenson students, who asked questions like, “How do you handle the noise?” “How long does it take to learn a song?” and “Do you know my sister Rachel?”

Elise Cuenca, 8, said the band’s first song was her favorite because she liked how the performers danced free-style. “I just want the stage to be a dance floor,” she said, adding that she also appreciated how loud the band was.

“The elementary schools are the foundation where a lot of students decide where they’re going to participate in the band program, so performing at these schools gives them an influence,” said Seals, adding: “It helps them, it helps us, it helps build their program. It’s a great thing overall to help get them interested early.” VFP 

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Wednesday, June 9, 2018 || By Local News Curator || @maywoodnews 

Featured image: Klenshaye Little, of Maywood. | Illinois State Police 

A Maywood woman has been charged with five felonies, including one count of leaving the scene of a fatal accident and four counts of failure to report an accident resulting in injury, according to multiple reports.

On May 6, at around 4:30 a.m., five people were in a taxi westbound on I-290 that broke down near the Homan Avenue exit ramp. The group got out of the taxi and started walking up the exit ramp when Klenshaye Little, 21, struck all of them while driving her 2014 Kia Optima.

Authorities pronounced Anan Ahmed Albalawi, 27, of Kentucky, dead at the scene, while the others were taken to nearby hospitals with serious, but non-life-threatening injuries, including broken legs and a concussions, the Chicago Sun-Times reported.

The Illinois State Police located Little’s vehicle near the scene of the crash and arrested her roughly four hours later after a short investigation identified her as the driver at the scene of the crime, CBS Local reported. On Tuesday, Little’s bail was set at $50,000. VFP 

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Wednesday, May 9, 2018 || By Michael Romain || @maywoodnews 

Proviso Math and Science Academy, 8601 W. Roosevelt Rd. in Forest Park, was ranked among the top 10 public high schools in Illinois this year, according to U.S. News & World Report’s annual rankings of schools across the nation.

The magnet school was ranked 8 out of 670 public high schools in Illinois and 261 out of 20,548 public high schools in the country that U.S. News reviewed — good enough for a Gold medal.

This year’s rankings were a significant improvement over last year, when PMSA was ranked 32 in the state and 1,044 nationally, and received a Silver medal. The year before that, they received a Bronze medal.

U.S. News & World Report uses a four-step process to determine Best High Schools. The publication teamed with RTI International, a nonprofit social science research firm based in North Carolina, to produce the rankings.

“The first three steps ensured that the schools serve all of their students well, using their performance on the math and reading parts of their state proficiency tests and their graduation rates as the benchmarks,” according to the methodology explained on the publication’s website.

The first step determines “whether each school’s students were performing better than statistically expected for students in the state.”

U.S. News factored into its assessment of reading and math proficiency the percentage of “economically disadvantaged students — who tend to score lower — enrolled at the schools to identify schools performing much better than statistical expectations.”

To pass the first step, a school had to be “one-third of one standard deviation above the average.”

PMSA’s student body is 47 percent low-income, 94 percent minority, 39 percent male and 61 percent female. The school notched a 70 percent in both math and reading proficiency on U.S. News’ scorecard.

How PMSA performed on U.S. News’s scorecard for measuring the nation’s best high schools. | U.S. News & World Report 

The second step in the U.S. News methodology assessed whether a school’s black, Hispanic and low-income students “performed at or better than the state average for historically [under-served] students.”

“For schools passing the first and second step, Step 3 required schools to meet or surpass a benchmark for their graduation rate,” according to the U.S. News website.

How PMSA students compared with students across District 209 and the state in m ath and reading proficiency. | U.S. News & World Report 

“Schools that made it through the first three steps became eligible to be judged nationally on the final step — college-readiness performance — using Advanced Placement and International Baccalaureate test data as the benchmark for success,” the website continued. VFP 

See the full U.S. News & World Report rankings here. 

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Wednesday, May 9, 2018 || By Igor Studenkov || @maywoodnews 

Featured image: A chart pulled from Broadview’s approved FY 2019 budget document. | Screenshot 

The village of Broadview’s Board of Trustees voted 5-1 to approve the budget for the  2019 fiscal year during a special April 18 meeting. Trustee Judy Brown-Marino was the sole dissenting vote. During the meeting, village officials also laid out their goals and plans for the new fiscal year.

The budget was originally projected to have an almost $1.9 million deficit, but the department heads were able to bring the deficit down by reducing pension contributions from the level advised by the actuaries to the level mandated by state law, as well as reducing expenses.

The village is expected to bring in $15,326,056 in total revenue — a $259,706, or 1.7 percent, increase compared to the 2018 fiscal year. Property tax revenue, which is expected to account for 39 percent of the budget, is expected to increase from $4,730,231 to $6,037,296.

The next highest source of revenue, which is labeled ‘other taxes’ in the budget document, is projected to decrease by $281,067, going from $4,989,000 in fiscal year 2018 to $4,707,933 in fiscal year 2019. The village is also projected to take in less money from licenses, permits and fees, while getting more money from service charges and investment income.

Timothy Hicks, Broadview’s finance director, said during the April 18 meeting that employee costs account for the largest share, or 66 percent, of the budget. The village plans to spend $9,785,117 overall – an increase compared to last year’s $9,411,473.

“The majority of the costs are personnel costs, so that leaves very little,” Hicks said. “We have to fine-tune [the remainder in order] to be able to provide good services that residents have come to know and to expand certain services.”

The employee benefits costs went up as well. The amount of money that will go into contract services is lower than it was this fiscal year, going down from $2,484,508 to $2,462,482. The village also plans to spend less on goods and capital expenses, which dropped by 23 percent and 35 percent, respectively.

The executive department, which includes Broadview Mayor Katrina Thompson and the trustees, got an 8 percent bump under the 2019 budget, going up from $682,724 to $737,481.

Thompson said that one of the reasons for the change is that all of the village legal services have been consolidated in the executive department, so legal service expenses went up in that department and dropped down to zero in all others.

The village clerk’s office budget was reduced by 26 percent, going down from $69,353 to $51,105. Village Clerk Kevin McGrier said that he plans to operate on an even lower budget than that. He also noted that his office’s budget tends to go up during election years and go down during off years.

McGrier said that his office’s major priority in the upcoming fiscal year would be to ensure that all of the ordinances are properly codified and up-to-date. McGrier explained that this is something that has been a major issue since 2015.

And, in what he described as an unprecedented move for Broadview, McGrier said he would release 2017 executive session minutes.

The Buildings Department budget was reduced by $32,166, going down from $584,318 to $552,152. David Upshaw, the Broadview Building Commissioner, explained that, at the mayor’s request, he intends to hire a second administrative staffer to help with economic development initiatives.

Upshaw said that he also plans to hire contractors to handle landscaping for “all municipal properties as well as abandoned homes that we become aware of during the [next] fiscal year.”

Upshaw said that his major priorities are to update the Broadview building code and put together a comprehensive program that would create uniform procedures for what kinds of incentives developers and property owners can apply for.

He said that he also plans to sell village-owned properties in order to encourage economic development and buy up abandoned properties with large property tax debts in order to get rid of the debt and sell it back to private owners.

“Our budget is less,” Upshaw reflected. “And it [is] my goal to increase revenue in our community and lose our debt, and we can do it by economic development, which will create sales tax, property tax [revenue].”

Video of the April 24 special meeting on the fiscal year 2019 budget for Broadview. | YouTube 

Other departments saw their budgets reduced. The finance department’s budget dropped by around 5 percent and the public works department’s budget dropped by roughly 7 percent.

“We operated within our budget every year, with exception of 2010, where we had a natural disaster [flood],” said Matthew Ames, the public works director. “We’re going to do everything in our power to operate within our ever-reducing budget. But I do understand.”

Ames said that he would like to replace a street sweeper and other vehicles, since most of them have become unreliable and expensive to maintain.

The village also plans to install smart water meters, replace the water main on Roosevelt Road and repaint the village water tower — something that hasn’t been done in about 20 years. Ames suggested that it would be prudent for Broadview to apply for low-interest Illinois Environmental Protection Agency loans to help cover these and other projects.

Broadview’s fire and police department’s experienced budget increases of 2 percent and 6 percent, respectively.

Broadview Mayor Katrina Thompson said during the meeting that she plans to work more closely with other departments to encourage economic development, collaborate more intensively with area schools and other government entities and setup a municipal internship program for Broadview college students.

Some trustees, such as Judy Brown-Marino, expressed concerns about the budget. Brown-Marino said that she was concerned that some of the projected revenue was too optimistic.

“I’m concerned that we got really rosy, overly optimistic and unrealistic projections,” she said. “I’m seeing one thing after another after another that mirrors everything [former mayor] Henry Vicenic was doing that led to massive layoffs and the austerity program, and having not enough money to cover payroll at the time,” she said.

Trustees Sherman Jones and John Ealey expressed their own reservations, with the latter suggesting that it might be prudent to hold off on the vote. But trustee Verina Horne said that, overall, she had no problem with the budget.

“I actually think this budget solid,” she said. “I can understand how people can have different ideas of how they want to use the money, but the information that was presented adds up, it’s balanced, it makes sense.” VFP 

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Thursday, May 10, 2018 || By Michael Romain || @maywoodnews 

The village of Maywood is considering joining a class-action lawsuit filed by a prominent Chicago law firm against opioid manufacturers.

During a May 1 regular meeting, Alfred Murray, a senior litigator with Edelson PC, said that his firm is one of three law firms leading a “coordinated multi-state litigation coalition, comprised of a dozen law firms collectively representing cities, counties, states, labor unions, and self-insured companies.”

Edelson representatives claim to have “prosecuted over 200 large-scale class and mass actions” totaling more than $1 billion. Some of the companies the firm has gone after include Chase, Uber and CitiBank.

Murray said that last year, more than 100 cases were filed by state and local governments, many of them against opioid manufacturers such as Purdue Pharma L.P., Teva Pharmaceuticals, McKesson and Endo Health Solutions.

The lawsuits accuse the companies of fraud, unjust enrichment, negligence and public nuisance. They even claim that the companies have been violating the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act, or better known as the RICO Act — a law that’s often used to go after leaders of criminal syndicates.

In a Dec. 6, 2017 panel discussion at the City Club of Chicago, Jay Edelson, the president of Edelson PC, compared the lawsuits currently being filed against opioid manufacturers with the big tobacco lawsuits filed in the 1990s.

“What we think we’re going to be able to demonstrate is they decided to try to change the narrative,” Edelson said of some pharmaceutical companies in December, according to a Cook County Record report.

“They set up shell corporations and fake research and started convincing doctors and the public that they had this new pill, OxyContin,” Edelson said, adding that the manufacturers tried persuading the public that the drug was not addictive.

At the May 1 meeting in Maywood, Murray said that those manufacturers have contributed to an opioid epidemic that has had myriad “economic impacts that are hard to quantify,” including lost productivity in the form of employee absenteeism, and increased costs for health insurance, criminal justice and substance abuse treatment programs, among other costs.

Despite the unquantifiable nature of the “pain caused to individuals and families affected by the epidemic,” Edelson representatives pointed out, “communities across the United States have shouldered real costs in trying to combat it.”

Edelson officials said that the “annual estimated burden of opioid abuse in the United States totals over $78.4 billion.” The combined annual revenue of the pharmaceutical companies that are targets of the lawsuits is upwards of $600 billion, they said.

“History suggests that municipalities like Maywood need to get involved in order to secure their portion of any settlement,” Murray said, adding that he doesn’t believe that “many, if any” of the cases currently working their way through the courts will go to trial.

“Recovery is going to come via settlement and only by filing a lawsuit will a village like Maywood be able to carve out their stake as a portion of that overall settlement,” Murray said.

Murray added that he does not know precisely how much a settlement would be worth, but said that if the multi-billion-dollar tobacco settlement is a guide, the total could reach into the “trillions of dollars.”

He said that the money doled out from the big tobacco settlement, which was filed by states, did not end up trickling down to the affected communities — a result that can be avoided by individual municipalities joining the lawsuits themselves.

Murray explained that the lawsuits are currently being filed in state and federal courts; however, he said, filing in state courts would suit the needs of municipalities like Maywood “substantially better.”

Murray said that state courts are more sensitive to local ordinance violations, such as public nuisance violations, and could be a better forum for municipalities to “carve out their piece of the settlement.”

Murray said that several municipalities in the area, including Bellwood, Berkeley, Hillside and Melrose Park, have signed on to be represented by Edelson in the mass action suit. He said that the “general consensus” of those other towns is to file one consolidated complaint in state court.

Murray said that if Maywood approves a retention agreement with Edelson, it will pay for legal costs only if a settlement is recovered.

When the village of River Forest approved a retention agreement with Edelson last month, the village’s attorney, Greg Smith, said that indications are that a resolution or settlement could be reached sometime this year, according to a Chicago Tribune report.

At the Maywood meeting in May, multiple trustees seemed to be on board with the possibility of joining the lawsuit.

“The idea does seem to have merit,” said Trustee Henderson Yarbrough.

“This is one of the major issues that the National League of Cities is tackling,” said Trustee Isiah Brandon, before recommending that village staff get more feedback from that organization.

Mayor Edwenna Perkins, who asked Edelson to present at the meeting, said that she introduced the notion of joining the lawsuit because other suburban mayors were joining the legal action.

“Once a month, we the mayors from the 15 communities [in Proviso Township] meet and this program was brought up there,” Perkins said. “I wanted to bring it to the board to see if you would be interested in signing onto this.”

Board members directed village staff to review Edelson’s retention agreement, which they’ll vote on at a future meeting. VFP 

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Friday, May 11, 2018 || By Michael Romain || @maywoodnews 

Featured image: Kristen Kierulf-Mighty, the new executive director of the Quinn Community Center. | Submitted photo 

Representatives with the Quinn Community Center at St. Eulalia Church, located at 1851 S. 9^th Ave. in Maywood, recently announced that they’ve hired a new executive director.

Members of the center’s executive board shared the news they had hired Kristen Kierulf-Mighty in a letter the organization sent out to community members and parishioners earlier this month.

Kierulf-Mighty, who succeeds the center’s founding executive director Gabriel Lara, is a Broadview native who has “an extensive background in public health, budget growth and management, data-driven assessment, and professional collaboration with a wide array of stakeholders,” Quinn board members said in the letter.

Board members said that Kierulf-Mighty started at the end of February and has “already made significant strides toward securing a vibrant future.”

Kierulf-Mighty, the first person in her family to attend and complete college, holds two bachelor’s degrees in microbiology and chemistry from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, and a master’s degree in public health, as well as a doctorate degree in life sciences, with a specialization in virology,  from Northwestern University.

Started in 2011, the Quinn Community Center is the social arm of St. Eulalia parish and includes a variety of community programs, including a soup kitchen, food pantry holiday food basket drives, tutoring programs and language classes.

“Kristen’s warmth, energy, many (many!) skills, and connections to this community will be superb assets for growing the Quinn Center and building an inclusive culture of justice, health, and peace in Proviso Township,” Quinn board members stated in the letter.

The center is currently started the registration and fundraising process for its annual summer program. For more information on the program, or to give, click here. VFP 

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Friday, May 11, 2018 || By Nona Tepper/Forest Park Review || @maywoodnews 

Featured image: A Metra train in Chicago. | Photo courtesy of Metrarail.com.

Metra announced today it will introduce the “Round Trip Plus” pass in late summer, which will offer unlimited rides for 24 hours for the same price as a round-trip ticket. Customers will be able to purchase these tickets through the Ventra mobile application.

“A lot of people are getting more work from home options, and more working four days a week for 10 hours, so there’s a lot more flexibility in the workforce and this product was introduced to meet those needs,” said Meg Reile, Metra spokesperson.

Round Trip Plus was introduced for riders who travel on more than one Metra line on a given day, riders who wish to make multiple stops along a single Metra line or riders desiring a round-trip ticket.

Reile also noted that since Metra will soon eliminate its online ticketing program, this pass will save customers who don’t have the time or ability to purchase tickets from physical stations money. Riders are charged an additional $5 if they purchase tickets from conductors on the train.

Metra announced in early April it was ending its online ticketing program, which allows customers to buy monthly and 10-ride tickets via Metra’s website. The last day to purchase a monthly pass from the website will be June 20 and the last day to purchase a 10-ride ticket will be June 30. Metra estimates the end to its online ticketing program will save $144,000 in annual website hosting, maintenance and support costs.

“We understand this change will inconvenience some Metra customers,” Jim Derwinski, CEO and executive director, said in a statement. “However, we are trying to find efficiencies wherever we can, and we still offer several other sales channels, including the convenient Ventra app.”

Metra will measure demand of the new day pass for a year, and then decide whether to continue it or not. Its board of directors is still mulling providing discounts to customers who ride outside of peak travel times. VFP 

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Friday, May 11, 2018 || By Michael Romain || @maywoodnews || Updated: 5:34 p.m.

A Maywood man was sentenced on May 10 to federal prison for identity theft and tax fraud, according to a statement released by the Internal Revenue Service’s criminal investigation office.

Taj Chapmon, 41, was sentenced to 74 months in federal prison, with two years of supervised release, and ordered to pay $264,973 in restitution. Chapmon had pleaded guilty last year to four counts of wire fraud and two counts of aggravated identity theft.

According to the IRS statement, court documents show that “between at least January 2012 through February 2013, Chapmon filed at least 239 false and fictitious tax returns for tax years 2011 and 2012.”

The tax returns included false statements about Chapmon’s income, tax withholding and employment, with the defendant having sought tax refunds totaling approximately $755,691.

“In some instances Chapmon instructed that the tax refunds be placed in bank accounts belonging to Chapmon’s parents and straw account holders,” the IRS statement noted. “The IRS paid out approximately $456,634 of those refunds.”

The IRS added that Chapmon filed at least 88 tax returns using the names and social security numbers of people who were not aware that their personal information was being used to file tax returns in their names.

At the sentence, Chapmon’s lawyer said acknowledged that her client “purchased the identities used to file the tax returns on the dark web,” which is an aspect of the internet that is not encrypted.

Gabriel L. Grchan, the special agent-in-charge of the IRS’s Chicago criminal investigation division, announced the sentence, which was imposed by U.S. District Judge John Robert Blakey. The case was prosecuted in the Northern District of Illinois. VFP 

Correction: A previous version of this article incorrectly noted that Chapmon was sentenced to 74 years in prison instead of 74 months in prison. This post has since been updated. VFP regrets the error. 

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Saturday, May 12, 2018 || By Michael Romain || @maywoodnews 

Featured image: Tamara Wallace on the test cover of, Lādē Magazine, her forthcoming online quarterly publication. | Courtesy Tamara Wallace 

When Tamara Wallace, 27, of Bellwood, debuts Lādē Magazine, her new online publication, in June, she’ll be extending a brand of empowerment and aspiration that originated with her nonprofit of the same name.

Wallace founded Lādē Incorporated in 2015 in order to help girls and women “recognize their worth and realize they can conquer anything,” according to the nonprofit’s website.

Since the organization’s founding, members have hosted a range of empowering events on a routine basis, including self-defense classes, strategic planning sessions and bonfires.

Lādē Magazine, Wallace said in a recent interview, will grow the organization’s empowering mission to scale, giving young women across the country, and possibly the world, a platform to share their life stories, aspirations, goals and achievements.

“A lot of the articles will feature women who are doing big things in the community,” said Wallace. “I want to empower young women and what better way to do this than to build a platform that would enable me to do that?”

A test cover of Lādē Magazine. | Courtesy Tamara Wallace 

While in college, Wallace studied TV and radio production, in addition to graphic design and other media disciplines. She had planned to go to work in the fields, but pregnancy intervened.

While working at a bank for a year, she applied for jobs at newspapers and TV stations with no success before looking for opportunity inside of herself.

“My uncle, who lives in Georgia, has several magazines in different countries,” Wallace said. “He told me to just start my own magazine.”

Wallace said that the first issue will launch on June 30 and will likely come out at the end of each quarter. She said her target audience is 18 to 35 year old women who, like her, are striving for a sense of purpose. 

Wallace said that by publishing her magazine digitally, meaning that it will only be available to read on the internet, she’ll be able to reach an audience with virtually unlimited growth potential without the burdensome costs of print.

Besides, she added, millennial women are looking for information on web devices like phones, laptops and tablets — not so much in paper form.

“The other good thing about digital magazines is that they’re interactive, so you can click on a link and it will go to business websites, YouTube videos, movies, you name it,” she said. “The format is really interactive.”

Those interactive features will come in handy, since the magazine’s content will range from inspirational columns and interviews with successful business women to movie reviews. Wallace said she’s still looking for contributors, subscribers and advertisers. She said that people from other states have already pre-subscribed. Subscriptions are free.

Wallace explained that her long-term business model is the reverse of Huffington Post, which until recently  accepted unpaid articles from contributors.

“We’ll allow people to submit articles free for now, but once we become big, we’ll start charging people to submit,” she said, adding that each e-magazine edition will be themed. 

The first edition’s theme, quite naturally, will be sisterhood. VFP 

For more information on Lādē Magazine, or to subscribe for free, click here. 

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Saturday, May 12, 2018 || By Local News Curator || @maywoodnews 

Featured image: Joshua Acosta, 12, who died on May 11 after fainting in his Northlake classroom. | Photo: Acosta family 

Family members are mourning a 12-year-old boy who fainted at his school on May 11 and never regained consciousness, according to multiple reports.

Joshua Acosta, of Melrose Park, was pronounced dead at Gottlieb Hospital in Melrose Park at 1:45 p.m. on Friday, according to the Cook County Medical Examiner’s office.

The young student had passed out at while in a 6th period reading class at Northlake Middle School earlier in the day, at around 12:30 p.m., according to a CBS Local report, which noted that “students were working on a project.”

“When the student fainted, his classmates say the teacher yelled for them to leave and go get help,” CBS reports.

The medical examiner’s office is conducting an autopsy to determine the cause of death. The results are still pending.

Meanwhile, Acosta’s family members have created a GoFundMe campaign to raise funds for the child’s funeral expenses. To donate, click here. To read the full CBS report, click here. VFP 

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Sunday, May 13, 2018 || LETTERS || @maywoodnews 

In March, the Maywood Youth Delegation made their way to the National League of Cities Conference in Washington D.C. to continue the ongoing search for resources for the village and aspiring our young politicians to be the voices of the people.

This year’s 2018 delegation hosted John Michael Dawson, Chelsea James (Proviso Math and Science Academy seniors) Juliana Soto (Proviso East High School freshman), Keyanna Turner, Jared Charro, Atarrius Jacobs and Christian Palomares (Proviso East High School juniors), Jeramia Sowell (Proviso East High School Senior), Christopher Buchanan (Walter Christian Academy senior), and myself, Anahi Soto (Proviso East High School junior). 

This year’s delegation was escorted by Ms. Woods, dean of Proviso East High School, and Maywood Trustee Isiah Brandon, who never fails to see the potential in the youth of Maywood hosts.

The conference began with opening remarks welcoming everyone to Washington D.C. From there, the youth delegate sessions began. The importance of being persistent and cooperation were the subjects of discussion.

The delegates were challenged with seeking solutions to a variety of issues, such as the minimum wage and decreasing the voting age. All delegations were scrambled in order to maximize our networking opportunities and to engage with a diverse range of perspectives.

We later went to a round robin session to which different government secretaries and agencies came out to offer their services. From this session, we acquired grant applications and program applications for clean water facility improvements, infrastructure, police safety and training.

Each delegate presented their findings formally before the village of Maywood’s Board of Trustees, expressing the community solutions they discovered. The members of the village board also came along to the conference and were always offering words of support and advise.

While in the area, we visited Howard University, a campus with beautiful buildings that hosted a deep history within its walls and the cherry blossoms that flowed gracefully in the wind.

In addition, we visited the Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial and the Abraham Lincoln memorial. Each time, we visit these memorials it always seemed to inspire the delegates to do more and be humbled by the greatness of historical figures like Lincoln and King.

My friends, we as a community, are growing. It is beautiful to see our people grow into the steps of those before us and still aspire to be more. They live on the philosophy that Martin Luther King Jr. did, which is to have a dream and to pursue it.

They are our story, our legacy that we are giving rise to. I am honored to continue to serve my home besides those I call family. In the village of Maywood, there is greatness coming and we are burning with a desire like that of an eternal flame.

Thank you to all those who’ve supported us — business, family and staff.  I wish you all love, life, health and happiness. VFP 

— Anahi Soto is a junior at Proviso East High School

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Monday, May 14, 2018 || By Michael Romain || @maywoodnews 

Proviso Township High Schools District 209 officials have launched a community survey in order to gather public feedback about the facilities master planning process.

The survey is comprised mostly of open-ended questions, so community members can take however long they want completing it, officials said.

The survey complements four community engagement sessions that the district, along with the district’s contracted architects from Perkins and Will, have hosted since the master facilities planning process started last fall.

The district recently released statements in English and Spanish announcing the survey, which will be available for completion until May 21, officials said. Click here to take the full survey. The statements are below.

In addition, the district will host another public meeting on the process, called the Facility Master Plan Community Forum, on May 15, 6 p.m., at Proviso Math and Science Academy, 8601 W. Roosevelt Rd. in Forest Park.

District officials said that, unlike the previous four public meetings, community members will be allows to present specific ideas about the Facility Master Plan to the Board of Education.

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Monday, May 14, 2018 || By Community Editor || @maywoodnews 

Local young people interested in obtaining summer employment with the village of Maywood this year have until May 21 to apply for a job.

Interested candidates must live in Maywood and be between 14 and 18 years old. Those who are younger than 16 are required to obtain a work permit.

The complete application is available below. Candidates may also access the application by clicking here or visiting the village’s website here.

For more info, contact the village’s Human Resources Department at (708) 450-6302. VFP

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Monday, May 14, 2018 || LETTERS || @maywoodnews 

Featured image: Proviso students who participated in the May 6 CROP Hunger Walk in Oak Park. | Courtesy Martina Mc Ellistrim/Facebook 

I want the Maywood, and larger Proviso Township, communities to know that on May 6, during the CROP Hunger Walk, 23 Proviso East seniors, two of their teachers, Ms. Mc Ellistrim and Ms. Murray, and two students from Proviso West raised $700.

The fundraiser to feed hungry people, now in its 35^th year, started at Pilgrim United Church of Christ on Lake St. in Oak Park.  The almost 300 walkers proceeded east and into the Austin Neighborhood of Chicago and then  back into Oak Park — a total of five miles.

“When I first heard about the hunger walk,” said McEllistrim, “I thought it would be a great way for some of my students to earn some community service hours. I had expected maybe five or six students to sign up. But I had encouraged my students to recruit their friend to come too because it’s more fun if you do it in a group. I never expected that 25 students would show up.”

Proviso East Senior Sebastian Zaragoza said he participated in the walk at first because he needed to earn some community service hours, but as he and his friends did the walk it was nice to know that they were helping people.

Likewise, Jamari Hawkins said he liked doing the walk because some of the money he raised was going toward food pantries in his own community.

The agencies to which Jamari was referring include The First Baptist Church of Melrose Park Food Pantry, Housing Forward, Proviso Food Pantry, Quinn Center of Saint Eulalia Hunger Ministries and Vision of Restoration Food Pantry.

McEllistrim concluded, “As we walked as a group I think the student really got why people were walking and they learned something about would hunger. My goal for next year will be to recruit more students and to raise more money for hunger.”

At the time this letter was sent, we’ve received over $70,000 and the contributions are still coming in.  That means that our local pantries will receive a total of about $20,000 as they did last year.

— Pastor Tom Holmes is, member of the CROP Hunger Walk planning team

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Tuesday, May 15, 2018 || By Michael Romain || @maywoodnews 

Featured image: Maggie Riley, the president of the teachers union, speaks against the district’s dress code policy change during a regular school board meeting on May 8.

Teachers at Proviso Township High Schools District 209 are pushing back against the school board’s move to get rid of the district’s uniform policy, arguing that the decision will contribute to an atmosphere of insubordination and disorder at the schools.

The teachers said that their point was proven by a massive water balloon fight at Proviso West High School earlier this month.

Starting next school year, students will be allowed to wear regular clothing as long as it doesn’t “disrupt the educational process, interfere with the maintenance of a positive teaching/learning climate, or compromise reasonable standards of health, safety, and decency.”

The new dress code policy — which was approved unanimously by the board in April but still needs to be finalized and added to the 2018-19 student handbook— is largely the work of members of the Superintendent’s Student Advisory Board and a group of students who are part of an English class at Proviso East.

The students argued that since its implementation in 2014, the uniform policy has been unfairly and unevenly enforced, and has helped to perpetuate “racism, classism and sexism” in the district.

Most board members applauded what member Rodney Alexander, a proponent of uniforms, called the students’ “adult-like, board-like work.”

“You have to yield to their expressions and their education process and their ability to communicate and put this argument together,” Alexander said. “They’ve pretty much won the argument.”

But at a regular meeting on May 8, members of the Proviso Teachers Union didn’t feel the debate was settled. Although most of the teachers who spoke lauded the students’ effort to overturn the uniform policy, they countered with arguments of their own about the policy’s effectiveness.

“The uniforms do not promote racism, sexism and classism,” said Scott Hendrickson, a union member and social studies teacher at Proviso West. “They promote the very opposite. … I’ve worn uniforms with people from all races, ages, socioeconomic backgrounds and sexes. Uniforms minimize differences and promote teamwork.”

Hendrickson said the union was not consulted about the policy change and the teachers’ view about the proposed change was not adequately considered.

“The union is especially concerned that there will be no enforcement of the new dress code and we’ll return to what we had in the past — students wearing belly shirts, spaghetti straps, short shorts,” he said.

The new dress code, which would debut next school year, like the current policy, prohibits most of the items Hendrickson stated, but both teachers and students who spoke during public meetings over the last two months complained about enforcement.

Maggie Riley, the teachers union president, said the union “believes that altering the uniform policy is still a mistake,” and “one teacher and a handful of students do not speak for the majority of our members.”

Riley added that “this entire year, the dress code has not been enforced,” and argued that the lack of uniform policy enforcement, in addition to the overall lax disciplinary culture throughout the district, may have been a contributing factor in a water balloon fight that took place at West on May 2.

Video footage of what appears to be students running through a hallway at West was posted to Facebook that day. The person who uploaded the content captioned that the scene was from a water balloon fight.

“It was so bad that at one point, administration from East and [Proviso Math and Science Academy] was sent over to help,” she said, adding that a maintenance person was hit with “several water balloons” and a “substitute teacher was so scared” that the person hid underneath a staircase.

Carissa Gillespie, an English teacher in the district who also has a child attending a D209 school, said during the May 8 meeting that the district should have solicited input from parents and community members through multiple outlets, including email, newsletter and meetings, before deciding on the policy change.

“Although I’m proud of the work a small number of our students did to bring about the new dress code,” she said.

“I’m not proud that most of our students learn that if you complain, or refuse to comply with the rules, District 209 will change the rules for you.” VFP

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Tuesday, May 15, 2018 || By  Community Editor || @maywoodnews 

A regular meeting of the Maywood Board of Trustees is scheduled to take place tonight, Tuesday, May 15, 7 p.m., at the village’s Council Chambers, 125 S. 5th Ave. in Maywood. Items to be discussed and/or voted on include (for a full agenda packet, click here):

• Continual discussion that the Village proceed with the next step to acquire the building at 5th Avenue and Quincy.
• Consideration to approve the appointment of Lorna Harvey to the Environmental Beautification Commission.
• Discussion and consideration regarding Maywood Park District request to waive the Building Permit Fees in the amount of $19,453.77 for interior renovations at 809 Madison Street, Maywood, Illinois.
• Status Memorandum regarding Chronic Public Nuisance at 5th Avenue/Quincy Street Apartment Building, dated May 9, 2018 from Klein, Thorpe and Jenkins, Ltd.  This item was presented and discussed at the May 1, 2018 Board Meeting.
• Memorandum regarding Small Cell Amendments dated May 9, 2018 from Klein, Thorpe and Jenkins, Ltd., with a Compliance Checklist and Tool Box attachment. VFP 

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Tuesday, May 15, 2018 || By Elizabeth Abunaw || @maywoodnews 

Featured image: Living historians dramatize Civil War history on the corner of First and Lake in Maywood on May 12. | Courtesy Laura Rogers 

Replica flags? Check. Period pieces like guns dating to the mid-19th Century? Check. Actors dressed in historical clothing? Check. Abraham Lincoln? Check.

Besides the heavy traffic and savory fumes from nearby Burger King and McDonald’s restaurants, community members had few barriers to imagining themselves transported to the year 1861 during the annual Civil War Living History, held May 12 at the corner of Lake Street and First Avenue in Maywood.

For around four hours, Company H of the 10th Illinois Infantry set up camp, complete with tents and a campfire, on the south lawn of the historic Home for Soldiers’ Widows — the historic structure built in 1924 to service the needs of elderly Civil War widows and orphans.

Former Maywood trustee Michael Rogers, Tom Kus, Vicki Haas, Mike Dawson, Kevin J. Wood, who portrays Lincoln, Maywood Trustee Henderson Yarbrough and Maywood Village Manager Willie Norfleet Jr. | Courtesy Laura Rogers 

Throughout the morning and afternoon, “soldiers” ranking from private to captain mixed and mingled with close to 100 people of all ages — many from Maywood. There were even visits from a private from the United States Colored Troops 29th Infantry and the 16th President of the United States, Abraham Lincoln.

But don’t call this scene a Civil War re-enactment. A re-enactment is the recreation of a particular battle. Although there were plenty of rifles on display, no one took up arms.

Kevin J. Wood as Lincoln in Maywood on May 12. | Elizabeth Abunaw 

And despite the fact that a retinue of camping supplies were on display, this was not an encampment, since the “company” was not staying overnight. According to Vicki Haas, who has been coordinating this annual gathering since 2015, it’s called a living history for a reason.

Haas said that she first encountered the living historians who were in attendance on Saturday at Graue Mill and Museum in DuPage County. Drawn to their encampment at the 150-year-old grist mill and homestead, she asked if they could be persuaded to take their role-playing on the road. They relented and the rest is, well, history.

Civil War-era soldiers tend to a campfire during a living history on May 12. | Courtesy Michael Rogers 

With almost a dozen men clothed in Union Army uniforms, women in hoop skirts, and the 10th Infantry flag flying, the historical happenings on the lawn were difficult to miss.

Manuel, an Uber driver, had several rides that brought him to the western suburbs that afternoon and saw the living history as he was driving.

“I see this here and I had to pull over,” he said.

Manuel and other visitors chatted Civil War history with historians like Bob Winter, who portrays a first lieutenant. A longtime history buff, Winter joined Company H in 1989 because he wanted to teach others about the Civil War. 

Lincoln with Union Army soldiers on May 12 in Maywood. | Courtesy Michael Rogers 

Company H members do more than pretend to be Union Army soldiers. They do first-person history, portraying actual people who served during the war. The group elects people to a rank, then each historian chooses a soldier, making use of rosters in Illinois state archives to determine who they will play.

Jerry Bliss, who has been with the company for 19 years, is currently embodying Private Edwin Estabrook, one of the first 70 men to enlist in April 1861. When asked why he chose Estabrook, Bliss said that he was drawn to the fact that his alter ego was an ordinary man. He survived the war, returned home to Sandwich, Ill., and had a family.

Beyond their replica uniforms and antique rifles, the performers were a veritable encyclopedia of Civil War knowledge.

The living history on May 12 even included dramatists eating and talking by a campfire. | Elizabeth Abunaw 

Luther, who lives in Joliet, stopped by to portray a private from the 29th Infantry, an African American unit. Not only did he take pictures with guests, but he also shared stories of how much of what we know today, like the temporary insanity legal defense, was born of the Civil War era.

Soldiers weren’t the only historical portrayals that day. Kevin J. Wood made an appearance as President Abraham Lincoln. Bearing an uncanny resemblance to the country’s 16th president, a Republican, Wood recited speeches, praised the acting of Edwin Booth (the elder brother of his assassin) and recounted how Andrew Johnson, a Democrat, wound up as his running mate in 1864.

During the Civil War, soldiers were allowed visits from their families when they reached a safe camp. Rachel Davidson kept the tradition alive by joining her husband, who portrays a Company H corporal, in the living history event. A teacher, Davidson said that she considers the living histories excellent ways to maintain public interest in our country’s history. VFP 

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Tuesday, May 15, 2018 || By Michael Romain || @maywoodnews 

Featured image: James Harlan, left, with his son, Jason. | Photo submitted 

James Harlan, the president and founder of the Just for Men group, an affiliate of the Answer Inc., a prominent autism awareness nonprofit founded by his wife, Debra Vines, has died. In a Facebook post uploaded Monday, Vines said that her husband died on May 13.

“It saddens me to say I lost the love of my life last night to Non Hodgkins Lymphoma Cancer,” Vines wrote. “He battled with dignity for 3 years. He will be missed by many.”

Vines and Harlan, both Maywood residents, were pushed into advocacy after their son, Jason, was born with autism.

That’s when they discovered that the amount of resources available to minority families caring for disabled children are relatively scarce, particularly if those families reside in low-income communities.

The struggle led Vines to found The Answer Inc. roughly a decade ago. The organization has since offered families in Proviso Township a range of critical resources, such as regular mentoring and tutoring, bullying prevention and wellness programs.

The nonprofit has also pushed for the passage of legislation designed to make life easier for families caring for disabled children and young adults.

In a 2015 interview with Village Free Press, Harlan said that, after his son’s diagnosis, it took him some time to process the information. Eventually, as Jason matured, Harlan developed a bond with his son worth emulating.

Observing other men process the fact of their children’s disabilities prompted Harlan to create the Just for Men group, an affiliate support system under The Answer’s umbrella of services.

“Watching Jason has made me appreciate the little things in life that I used to take for granted,” said Harlan, who over the years had become his son’s main caretaker as Vines built their nonprofit.

“I would rather be here with him knowing that he’s happy, he’s cared for and he’s safe,” Harlan noted in 2015. “I like being with him, he’s a good guy.”

Harlan’s funeral service will take place on Saturday, May 19, 10 a.m. to 11 a.m. (wake), and 11 a.m. to 12 p.m. (home-going celebration), at Jordan Temple Church, 4421 Roosevelt Rd. in Hillside, according to Vines. VFP

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