NEWS NOTES
Reporting on history as it happens
When Joe Biden announced on July 21 that he was withdrawing from the race for president, on the team of Associated Press reporters breaking the news was a woman who grew up in H-F, Colleen Long. She’s the daughter of Dunning’s Market owner Maureen Mader. She also reported on the attempted assassination of Donald Trump on July 13.
There’s an old saying that newspapers are the first draft of history. Long is helping capture the flurry of events that will one day be key chapters in the nation’s history.
She’s also co-author with Rebecca Little of “I’m Sorry for My Loss: An Urgent Examination of Reproductive Care in America,” which will be published in October.
Thornton Township development: Freeman out
For those who are following the drama in Dolton and Thornton Township, there was a new development reported this week by Chicago media. WGN reported Monday that Keith Freeman had been fired as Thornton Township Supervisor Tiffany Henyard’s senior advisor.
The station said it based the story on documents obtained from the township. The story also notes that Freeman denied he had been terminated. A Chicago Tribune story reports that Freeman remains a Dolton administrator.
Freeman was charged in April with bankruptcy fraud for allegedly failing to disclose his pay from Dolton. He has pleaded not guilty.
Save the August date(s)
‘Hair.’ The Drama Group will take you back to the 1960s when it presents “Hair” at 7:30 p.m. Friday and Saturday, Aug. 2 and 3, and 2 p.m. Sunday, Aug. 4. Repeat performances are at 7:30 p.m. Thursday, Friday and Saturday, Aug. 8, 9 and 10, with 2 p.m. performances Saturday and Sunday, Aug. 10 and 11. The musical about anti-war protest and the world of 60s hippies. Shows are at the Drama Group’s Milord Theatre, 330 202nd St., Chicago Heights. Tickets can be purchased online at dg.booktix.com or by calling 708-755-3444.
HoFlo Hundred. GoodSpeed Cycles, 2025 183rd St., announced the “HoFlo Hundred: A Friendly Neighborhood Metric Century,” a 62-mile ride around town from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. Sunday, Aug. 18. The route will be within Homewood and Flossmoor. Three trips along the route will equal 100 kilometers. Find the route here. The cost is $10 per rider, with the proceeds going to the James Hart Outride cycling program.
National Night Out. Homewood and Flossmoor police departments will host individual National Night Out events from 5 to 8 p.m. Tuesday, Aug. 6. Homewood’s event will take place in Irwin Park, 18120 Highland Ave., and Flossmoor’s will be at village and Infant Jesus of Prague School parking lots, 2800 Flossmoor Road. Both events give residents a chance to mingle and chat with local police officers and other public safety staff.
Back to School bashes. Flossmoor District 161 will hold its back to school event from 4 to 6 p.m. on Aug. 16 in Flossmoor Park. Homewood District 153, in partnership with the Village of Homewood, will hold the event from 3 to 6 p.m. on Aug. 24 in the village hall parking lot, 2020 Chestnut Road.
DEMOCRACY WATCH
Information vs. conversation
At the meeting July 21 of Heather Hill neighbors to discuss the detention basin under construction adjacent to Heather Hill School, residents expressed some frustration with the village’s communication about the project. It wasn’t the first time. The subject has come up at village board meetings, too, in recent months.
Meeting organizer Ashly Giddens noted that some residents are still just learning about the project, which received final approval in late spring and has been under construction since mid-June.
Mayor Michelle Nelson expressed frustration, too, noting the various ways over more than a year the village had attempted to get the word out about the project’s design and timetable, including discussions at board meetings, email, newsletters, social media posts, open house presentations, newspaper articles and meetings with residents.
The encounter of people who seem divided but really want to be on the same side, who want to work together but are frustrated with the situation and with each other, suggests the community might benefit from rethinking the basics of community-government relations. I wonder whether a town hall meeting, or series of them, would help. The focus could be on the issue of local democracy, on how people can participate in decisions that affect them and how government can better enable that participation.
We already have voting, yes, and open meetings, sure, and effort by residents and government to work together. And yet we somewhat regularly have issues emerge where communication problems seem to make disagreements worse. It is happening now in Flossmoor, but it happens everywhere.
The detention basin meeting, called by residents and attended by a government official who could listen to concerns and provide information, actually is an example of what might help if it was more routine. Conversations. Board meetings might be open, but they are designed to get village business done, not to encourage conversation. And from what I’ve seen in covering local government over the years, what people everywhere crave is not just a chance to speak but to feel like they are being heard, taken seriously and engaged with.
Nikki LaGrone made a comment at the basin meeting that stuck with me.
“We feel like we’re just bystanders in our own community.”
In other words, people don’t just want government to be effective at feeding them information. They want to be part of the conversation.
I was reminded of a quote from an old book, “A Little Democracy is a Dangerous Thing,” written in 1948 by Charles Ferguson.
“One form of democracy which appears most likely to attract us is the discussion group. This is the heart of the democratic process. Democracy must not end with the discussion group, but it cannot begin anywhere else. The full interchange of views among citizens in small groups on subjects in which their common interests are involved is the very essence of the matter.”
