Ever since voters in a Nov. 2008 referendum approved a proposal by the Park District of La Grange to sell 2.82 acres of Gordon Park by a margin of 55 to 45 percent, district officials and their supporters have pointed to the referendum as "overwhelming" proof that the public backed the sale and the use the its proceeds to renovate the remaining 14 acres of Gordon Park.
But in the eyes of Cook County Circuit Court Judge Susan Fox Gillis, who last Friday approved the sale, the referendum was merely an expression of opinion not fact. Consequently, the referendum results were not allowed into evidence during the four-day trial. Gillis labeled them "irrelevant" and similarly disallowed resolutions passed by the La Grange village board of trustees and District 102 school board that also supported the sale and its perceived benefits.
Also, a public survey commissioned by the Park District earlier this year, and conducted by Public Research Group (PRG) of Naperville, never made it into evidence either.
The survey found that only 27 percent of the district's residents supported spending momey to renovate Gordon Park. Helping to finance the planned renovation of the ball fields and providing other recreational amenities was the primary reason cited in court by Park District Attorney Rob Bush for selling the 2.82 acres, which comprise the northwest panhandle of the park.
While Gillis was certainly aware of the referendum and the resolutions, it is uncertain whether she was familiar with the survey findings, detailed in a 60-page report prepared by PRG.
It was submitted to the court by Bush just a couple weeks ago, when the judge was out of town, so late in the process leading up to the trial that Bush failed to include one of the report's authors, David Emanuelson of PRG, on his witness list.
Consequently, and somewhat ironically, Bush's oversight allowed both Emanuelson's planned testimony and the survey report to be quashed by an objection from Tom Beyer, one of the attorneys for the La Grange Friends of the Park, a group of residents that opposed the parkland sale. Beyer persuaded Gillis to disallow both.
Beyer later explained his action, saying that while the findings in the report may have supported his group's contention that the sale was not in the puiblic interest, he could not risk having Emanuelsom take the stand without knowing in advance the entire scope of his planned testimony.
As a result, Gillis made her final determination in support of the Park District without having to formally consider the referendum and survey, the only two statistical, albeit contradicting, indicators of public support for the issue before her.
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