(Photo: Wendy Heise)

Park Forest, IL–(ENEWSPF)– The Finance Committee for School District 163 will meet on Monday, January 5, at 7:00 p.m. in the Board Room at the District Office, 242 South Orchard Drive.

Among the items on the agenda are a presentation by architect Mario Planera regarding the locker room at Forest Trail and the District Kitchen. The committee will also discuss Forest Trail camera and security issues.

The Board of Education will meet at 8:00 p.m. Besides committee reports and a report from the Superintendent, the board will consider adoption of a resolution authorizing the law firm of Scariano, Himes and Petrarca, CHTD to represent the District before PTAB for 2007 appeals, a resolution directing the sale of school personal property, and the board will consider approval of a presentation by Legacy Professionals LLP to the Board of Education regarding the Annual Financial Report.

The board will go into closed session "to discuss information reg

Park Forest, IL–(ENEWSPF)– Director of Public Works Ken Eyer shared the brackish news with board members at Saturday's Rules Meeting: road salt is at a premium this season, and scarce.

The harsh winter has necessitated Public Works using over 1,000 tons of salt this year so far.

"I've taken delivery of 1,600 of our 1,800 tons of salt," Director Eyer told board members. Taking the advance delivery should help the Village avoid a situation like the one last year when the supplier ran out of salt, "Our contract was valid, but we couldn't get [salt]."

"This is a high amount of salt. We don't usually use this amount at all," Eyer said, "We've used a season already in salt because of the ice storms."

"I was worried until December hit that we were going to have too much salt," Eyer said.

Eyer said cost is a factor. When budgeting for this year's allotment of road salt, Eyer said he anticipated a "30% increase or decrease" in cost.

"We are paying an exorbitant price in salt right n

Commentary
Inside the First Amendment

By Charles C. Haynes
First Amendment Center senior scholar

Let’s ring in the New Year with some good news about our country: Despite bitter culture wars, outbreaks of nativism, and pockets of intolerance, the United States begins 2009 as the boldest and most successful experiment in living with religious differences the world has ever known.

This is no small achievement in a world torn by religious hatred and sectarian violence. Christian vs. Muslim in Nigeria; Hindu vs. Buddhist in Sri Lanka; Muslim vs. Hindu in India … and the tragic list goes on.

The 20th century was plagued by the scourge of secular, totalitarian ideologies (fascism and communism). Now the 21st century is emerging as an era of political and social wars rooted in religious and ethnic differences.

In stark contrast, America — the most religiously diverse place on Earth — boasts many neighborhoods where church, temple, mosque, synagogue and other hou

Anecdotes trump polls on withdrawal

Commentary
by Dahr Jamail

The New York Times failed spectacularly in its coverage of Iraq’s alleged weapons of mass destruction, helping lead the country into war and only much later (5/26/04) publishing a half-hearted mea culpa. As the near-apology acknowledged, the paper’s failure resulted in large part from its lack of skepticism regarding its sources, most notably exiled Iraqi politician Ahmed Chalabi.

Despite the mea culpa, though, the Times continues to mislead on Iraq, particularly on the issue of whether or not Iraqis want the U.S. military to exit their country. Once again, that journalistic failure seems to be rooted in the same fundamental problem of overconfidence in the paper’s sources and ignoring the obvious contradictory evidence.

An article by Times reporter Stephen Farrell headlined, “Should U.S. Forces Withdraw From Iraq? The Iraqis Have a Few Opinions” (9/9/08) serves as a recent example. The piece, wh...
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Park Forest, IL–(ENEWSPF)– A man reported to police that while he was at the counter at a gas station on Sauk Trail paying for merchandise, a man came up behind him. The complainant reported feeling something touching his back and heard the man behind him mumble something to him.

The man then allegedly reached around in front of the complainant and grabbed his crotch area, according to police. The complainant reported that he thought he was going to be robbed, so he grabbed the merchandise he had just paid for and quickly exited the business, according to police.

Police say the man followed the complainant outside, and allegedly began to follow him in his vehicle on Sauk Trail. The complainant called police, and Richton Park Police notified SouthCom they had the man, Willie Young, 4227 Green Brier Ln., Richton Park, in custody after conducting a traffic stop at the intersection of Sauk Trail and Cicero Avenue.

Young was arrested on January 1 and charged with battery,

The Park Forest Police Station. (Photo:Wendy Heise)

Park Forest, IL—(ENEWSPF)—Editor's Note: We continue our reporting on news from police reports. Besides covering the many stories from around Park Forest that otherwise might go unnoticed, we want to bring more complete coverage of police reports than is reported by other local media.

An arrest does not mean that a person is guilty. All those arrested are presumed innocent until proven guilty. It is the policy of eNews Park Forest to not remove items in the public record from publication. If your name is listed in the police reports, we will only add information relevant to the final disposition of the case at hand, e.g. "Mr. Smith was subsequently acquitted," or "All charges against Mr. Smith were subsequently dropped." We will do so upon receiving and verifying proof of such disposition.

Persons wishing to leave anonymous information on any criminal matters including narcotics or gang activity are encouraged to...
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DeKalb, IL–(ENEWSPF)– The Illinois City/County Management Association (ICMA) issued a statement in the aftermath of the arrest of Illinois Governor Rod Blagojevich. The statement stresses that association's contention that the majority of politicians in Illinois are honest. The statement concludes, "Not every elected and appointed official in the State of Illinois is corrupt. Many are quietly striving day-by-day to improve the lives of the millions of citizens of Illinois and to serve the people of our state with honesty and integrity."

The statement is signed by Patrick Urich, Peoria County Administrator, President, Illinois City/County Management Association; David M. Limardi, Highland Park City Manager, President, International City/County Management Association; Robert J. O’Neill, Jr., Executive Director,International City/County Management Association; and Dawn S. Peters, Executive Director, Illinois City/County Management Association.

Park Forest Vi

Commentary

eNews Park Forest has a new look.

The site was recently updated to the most recent Content Management System (CMS). This update was very labor-intensive. It was not simply a matter of upgrading the software. The upgrade required a migration of the database.

What does that mean?

If you're familiar with word processing, imagine converting a Microsoft Word document to Word Perfect. The conversion is simple but necessary. Each word processing program interprets the data in the page differently.

That's the situation we faced in making this major upgrade, except on a much larger scale. Image converting several thousand Word documents all at once, and then making sure they all go in the right folders on your desktop.

It was a bit involved.

We're happy to announce, however, that the upgrade is largely complete. The "behind the scenes" picture is very nice. As you read articles, you'll note the clean template and a few new features.

We were able to bring along all comments re