Snake Oil Sales*Person* Gail Schechter takes yet another page out of the Alinsky playbook to bring the Obama flavour of Kool-Aid back to Wilmette. (Listen for a collective “PHEW!” exhaled by Winnetka taxpayers.)
Just when we thought all possible damage had been done – i.e. enshrinement of 1960s collectivist policies into Wilmette’s comprehensive zoning plan and the Pyrrhic victory of the Mallinckrodt development project financed by the taxpayers of Wilmette (thankfully emerged recently out of bankruptcy) – up pops our very own seasoned welfare housing advocate to take on the deliciously blank property the village is about to develop on the footprint of the old Ford Dealership on Greenbay Road.
Here’s the pitch Wilmette President Chris Canning and Schechter fellow travelers received prior to this week’s Village Board meeting:
Dear Wilmette friends and advocates,
We have an opportunity to advocate for affordable housing in Wilmette. The site of the former Ford dealership, vacant for nearly 7 years and ultimately purchased by the Village in 2011 for $3.765 million, was finally sold to a developer for $4 million. This developer, Lexington Homes LLC, is proposing to develop a mixed commercial development that would include 110 housing units. Now the Village begins a long of evaluating the proposal and considering public input.
You can voice your support for affordable housing at the site by attending Village meetings and speaking out during the public comment period (the Village Board meets tonight, in fact, at 7:30 – the second and fourth Tuesdays of each month), or you can send a brief e-mail to the Village, care of President Chris Canning: canningc@wilmette.com. I attach my own letter on behalf of Open Communities to the Village.
This is our chance to make sure those housing units are not all “luxury” units. And this is our opportunity to support the Village in expanding affordable housing for families and people with disabilities; all of the Village’s affordable units (in four building, rental and condo) are for seniors.
Fortunately, thanks to years and years of collective effort across the spectrum – Wilmette residents, religious leaders, elected officials – the Village has several documents in place that make affordable housing a priority, including an affordable housing plan, downtown master plan, and the Comprehensive Plan.
Information on the “Sale and Redevelopment of 611 Green Bay Road” is on the Village’s web site.
If you would like to work with me on a more organized effort, please contact me and we can get together – and perhaps revive “Wilmette Citizens for Affordable Housing.”
I would be remiss if I didn’t share with you how sad I feel about the New Year’s Day passing of Mimi Ryan. It was she who called me here at the Interfaith Housing Center back in October 2001 when Loyola University announced it would sell the Mallinckrodt campus, and she urged me to organize an affordable housing effort because the late Rayna Miller would have wanted us to do so. Mimi and I worked together for all these years – on Mallinckrodt, on the Wilmette affordable housing plan, on advocacy around the Ford site when it was first vacated, on pulling together “Wilmette Citizens” through the St. Francis Xavier Peace & Justice Committee… And so it goes: I write to you because Mimi Ryan would have wanted us to advocate. Thank you and peace, Gail”
Located near the site (formerly 529 Greenbay Road) of the old Central Hotel, an historic, crumbling second-story residence building for the needy (demolished in the 1980s), the vacant lot seems ideal as a cause celebre for Gail Schechter as she takes a break from her attacks on private ownership in Winnetka. One of her earliest fellow travelers, Mimi Ryan, summarized their credo at a meeting of the Park and Village Boards during the Mallinckrodt negotiations:
I don’t believe we have, you have, a responsibility to provide market-rate housing for people in this community,” said former village trustee and MUM [Mixed Use for Mallinckrodt] member Mimi Ryan. “I think we do have a moral imperative to do something really good with this building. The rates are too high. . . To me it gets down to the bottom line of why you have to have $3 million or $4 million back from that building. I don’t understand that. Why can’t it be less? Then the developers, whoever they are, might be able to put in some more truly affordable housing.”
Even in the Age of Obama, not everyone is hoping to change everywhere into the European Social Democracy model. Kelly O’Donnell, a New Mexico-based radio host, today took up America’s Founders’ arguments in a blog on rule of law and property rights:
But what factors allowed America’s stunning growth in economic power in such a short period of time? This economic success was driven by a firm Rule of Law regime which supported the Constitution’s unique defense of private property. . . Yet, if the government takes away the rewards of ambition, leaving behind only the risks, then productivity will fall precipitously.”
Read the rest here. If we cannot change things in Washington, maybe we can still hope to keep our freedoms intact here in Wilmette.
conservativeBrand 
Jan 10, 2013 @ 03:07:56
The well-intended efforts of the Wilmette citizens who wanted to save Mallinckrodt have been rewarded; the building is there and so far has survived bankruptcy in spite of the generous support of Village taxpayers and building code waivers.
The park area that is the most significant part of the public-access legacy also survives; mostly under-used (when compared to other parks in Wilmette) and remains one of the most expensive under-used parks ever purchased anywhere.
The well-intended efforts of the Interfaith Housing Coalition again hopes to employ social engineering by forcing “affordable” housing in a private development on Greenbay Road, however the marketplace has already succeeded in that goal by crushing home prices in our Village.
Perhaps the Interfaith Housing Council should create “affordable” housing the old fashion way; by raising capital and purchasing homes that can then be made “affordable” and used to meet IHC goals.
Jan 10, 2013 @ 17:31:02
Unfortunately, all those well-intentioned Wilmette citizens allowed themselves to be the tools of the left as they move towards turning the North Shore into Evanston. Mallinckrodt is a sad story, in the end.
Jan 10, 2013 @ 21:03:14
The voice of Wilnetka
is heard in the land …
it’s greedy and selfish
and hates all things planned.
It knows fairness and reason
are threats to be banned,
for the world is its oyster
and its head’s in the sand.
Jan 12, 2013 @ 17:10:52
Nice rhyming. Not Constitutional though.
Jan 12, 2013 @ 16:32:31
Why not campaign for the people who believe these things to take in one homeless person each? that will (1) give them a chance to show that they truly practice what they force others to do and (2) will eliminate the need for all that “free” housing. I would start with the list of all of the people who signed any petitions and spoke in front of any public bodies – start a petition requiring THEM to let one homeless person each stay with them – surely they have a free sofa at least?
Jan 12, 2013 @ 17:13:47
Good thought. What has happened in the past is that even lower income workers in the area don’t really want to live in government subsidized housing, and the standards for “neediness” have to be lowered. Why not just let the free market for real estate operate, providing an opportunity for those who really want to live in Wilmette (or anywhere else) to save the money and live proudly in their homes.
May 15, 2013 @ 22:47:58
It’s difficult to find knowledgeable people on this topic, but you sound like you know what you’re talking about!
Thanks