New material was added to this post on June 30 at 1:07 p.m.
Ever since the the Park District of La Grange last July decided to sell a portion of Gordon Park to Atlantic Realty Partners for inclusion in the proposed La Grange Place development, district officials have publicly maintained that the amount of land involved in the sale amounted to approximately 2.82 acres.
That was the figure cited by the Park District last October when it filed an application with the Circuit Court of Cook County, whose approval is required for the sale or conveyance of public parkland in amounts up to three acres.
Last Friday, however, Judge Susan Fox Gillis ruled that the contract submitted for approval by the Park District would result in the sale to the developer of not 2.82 acres, but 3.5 acres.
The discrepancy is significant because it means that, under Illinois law, the Park District may now have to ask the voting public to approve the sale, not the court. And the sale, if approved by voters, could be subject to a public auction, not awarded as a no-bid contract.
Now, as Park District officials ruminate about whether to appeal the judge's ruling, ask voters to approve the sale, or peer into their collective hat in hopes of pulling out a magic rabbit, residents of La Grange also may find themselves trying to wrap their heads around what has just transpired.
It would surprise no one if residents began formulating some questions for their elected officials, beginning with a most obvious one for Park District commissioners: How is it possible that the amount of parkland repeatedly cited—for almost a year now—by Park District officials is so at odds with what is described in a contract that they themselves negotiated, constructed and approved?
Perhaps if they had made the contract public, as concerned residents requested time and time again, someone could have pointed out the discrepancy and maybe saved taxpayers some of the tens of thousands of dollars in lawyers fees spent by the Park District as it attempted for eight months to fight off legal challenges to the sale from two La Grange residents, William Dobias and Orlando Coryell.
On Friday, it was Coryell's attorney, Mark Daniel, who in a motion for summary judgment convinced Judge Gillis that the amount of parkland being sold was 3.5 acres.
In his motion, Daniel put into evidence the contract's own legal description of the parcels to be sold, along with its title insurance policy, which affirmed the description. For good measure, he included a land survey of the property—prepared less than two weeks earlier and for which Coryell said he personally paid $2,000—that visually expressed what the contract documents described.
The Park District's attorneys, in response, maintained that it was their client's intention to sell only 2.82 acres. The additional 0.69 acres consisted of land within a strip of Shawmut Ave. that had been vacated by the Village in the 1950s and then deeded to the owners of the adjoining parcels, including the Park District.
The Park District had said all along that it wanted to retain that strip of Shawmut Ave, which the developer would reconstruct to service La Grange Place and the improved Gordon Park. The roadway would then be swapped for some land the Village owned south of the park, Park District officials suggested.
If that was indeed the case, Daniel argued, the Illinois Plat Act required that the 0.69-acre roadway parcel be surveyed and subdivided. The Park District had offered into evidence no such survey, and Coryell's survey showed no such subdivision.
A new subdivision, under the Plat Act, also would require a hearing and approval from the Village.
After listening to both sides, Judge Gillis granted Daniel's motion, stating that the legal evidence he presented was all too persuasive.
The Park District's insistence, even in the face of compelling legal evidence, that its widely and often cited number was more correct than the one contained in its sales contract, again begs the question: Why would Park District officials state publicly and repeatedly something that the facts did not support?
Truth be told, this is not the first instance in the lengthy saga of Gordon Park where Park District officials have publicly stated and stood by something the facts refuted. Last December the Park District issued a press release in an effort to drum up public support.
Among other benefits to be derived from the selling the "secluded" parcel west of the tennis courts, the release implied, was making Gordon Park safer.
"In the past four months, La Grange police have broken up 11 incidents involving alcohol and drugs," it claimed. This crime factoid also was included in a flyer circulated throughout the community.
When asked at the time to verify this claim, La Grange Police Chief Michael Holub instead refuted it.
"There has never been a report [regarding Gordon Park] involving drugs during my time here," Holub said. "And I don't recall any involving alcohol either."
Holub did confirm that police last year responded to 11 complaints regarding unruly behavior in Gordon Park, but said none involved alcohol or drugs. Most turned out to be "kids being kids" hanging out in the park at night after the park had closed, he said.
A total of three tickets were issued during the 11 responses, Holub added, two for minors violating curfew and one to a minor for possessing tobacco.
Despite being refuted by someone with a solid handle on the community's crime statistics, Park District officials months later were still peddling their dubious claim at a Village Board session where Atlantic Realty's proposal was being considered.
When this reporter asked Park Commissioner Tim Kelpsas for an explanation, Kelpsas pinched his thumb and forefinger together and drew them across his lips. He wasn't talking.
Is that the response residents of La Grange and their other elected officials can expect when they direct their own questions at Kelpsas and other Park District officials in the aftermath of Friday's court ruling?
Will they be left to come to their own conclusions about why Park District officials repeatedly say things that just aren't true?
Whether or not they get a formal response, any reasoned conclusion they make likely will fall into one of two categories: Either Park District officials truly were clueless about the contract they drafted and approved, or they knew exactly what the contract said and chose to deceive the public in hopes that the Gordon Park deal would be consummated with as little public interference as possible, and in apparent violation of the law.
Neither conclusion will engender public trust in the Park District's future actions.
But taking further action on La Grange Place is unavoidable, and it requires the active and necessary participation of the Park District. The mixed-use development would be the single largest private investment in the history of La Grange, according to Patrick Benjamin, the Village's director of community development.
The Village Board of Trustees, after considerable time, money and effort had been spent to review the project through numerous public hearings, approved it April 14. Atlantic Realty appears ready to proceed, even in the shadow of a sagging economy. The YMCA needs to close on the sale of the former Rich Port site in order to build a new facility elsewhere in the community.
Meanwhile, the Park District, blinded by either stupidity or arrogance—or perhaps some combination—just ran the project smack into a wall.
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