Friends of the Parks

This awful organization has filed a lawsuit to prevent a museum being built on a parking lot. They’re not «friends of the parks» — they’re just opposed to progress and full of their own importance.

The guys are standing in the way of progress. instead of supporting both the Lucas Museum and Obama’s Presidential Library they are forcing the hands of the developers and pushing these institutions to other states. Friends of the Parks? Hardly. They’re just fans of parking lots and derelict buildings.

I am not a fan. Friends of the parks– maybe– friends of the lake– In no way shape or form. Do we want a landfill in Lake Michigan? FOTP has been pushing the LAST 4 MILES initiative for a few years now. It seems that no matter what– they want landfill in our lake and our neighborhood parks drained of funds for this debacle.
In Chicago, we are privileged to live beside the largest lake in the nation. This group would like to fill in portions of our lake to extend beach land. They come into communities and push their agenda– regardless of the feelings within the communities themselves, ecological impact on the wildlife, or the impact on this immense water source itself. Using the argument that over 50 years ago this was a plan –does not work… seriously. Have we not learned anything about care for our environment?
Ambush would be a word that accurately describes their tactics.
In Edgewater, we have 3 lakeside parks, a large span of beach, the start of the lake shore path, and over 6,500 condo units on Sheridan Road. We also have 2 completely unused lakeside park properties that could be revamped for public space. FOTP has determined that we need to extend the lakefront beaches. (oh ya– why don’t you try that in Evanston, where you cannot access them without paying??)
FOTP held invited participation meetings to determine how people would like to see the beaches extended. No effort to determine a representative sample was made, in fact, some of the people involved in the design meetings are not even from the neighborhood.
Obviously the words random stratified sample are gibberish to this group. Representative sample is one that is used incorrectly. Weighted, unrepresentative sample would be a nice one to describe their efforts.
They have used the ideas of 70 people to attempt to build what they are calling community based plans to fill in the beach and park lands in front of high end real-​estate. A great deal of the people involved in the drawings have nothing to lose– they live west of the lake. The 4^th meeting– where some of the community members found out about this– was a horrible mess. Architects were presenting drawings. Concerns of safety, property values, etc. were not addressed. Instead, we were told how the architects were donating their time (sure– altruistically– they see no possible $$ for them down the line? GET REAL). The option of no extension was never presented.
Who died and made this group GOD?
Yeah– this whole thing was voted down in a referendum– but FOTP is not giving up. It is sad really. It makes you wonder what they are really trying to achieve. They have been the spokes people for Daley on this one. It seems like the word ETHICS means nothing to this group. If you want the real scoop on the LAST 4 miles… go to