I’ll be away from the computer most of the week, but back on track next Monday. I apologize, but there are several good stories in the works and also some very good news.
One more week
June 7th, 2010 · by Elaine Johnson · 21 Comments · Uncategorized
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I hope this is not a license to dumb down the chatter on this wonderful web site, I’ll be a troll here as long as Mark and E.J. have me ( I hate the fact thsat I might drive readers or bloggers away or inspire other DG web sites where Earl McGuire is ban and rightly so).
Da Hawks!!!! Chicago Black Hawks # 1. Way to Go Chicago Black Hawks!!!
Being at the Chicago Blackhawks victory parade at East Wacker Drive and North Michigan Avenue Friday, that was sweet! For what it’s worth the Downers Grove parking garage was already full by 8:00 a.m. Chicago Rocks! Go Blackhawks!
Love all the bandwagon fans! LOL
Did anyone sustain any wind damage or power outages when the monsoon blew through Friday evening?
We were without power for around 15 hours. I hate throwing food away! But TG the basement is dry!
Meat,
If you’re out there, I have to admit that the homeless in the library is a danger. The recent story of the retired school teacher who was murdered by a homeless young man whom she had befriended while working at her public library brought to light a danger that I had not even considered when discussing the homeless situation at our public library. This woman tried to help this young man, even let him live in her home for a time, and then he came back to her home and murdered her. This woman met this man while at her job at the library and tried to help. It’s very sad, but is a real danger to those who work at our libraries.
Always out here…
Sorry Trish, we don’t patronize the library here in town. Last Fall my wife had a scare when she was leaving with our kids, there were 2 disheveled and drunk men (former hard working-family men, but now victims of the economy I’m sure) screaming at one another in the vestibule, directly in her path. She was encouraged by the woman at the desk to ‘walk around’, a directive that was accompanied by a smirk and an eye roll, which my wife interpreted as ‘your the problem, not them’.
We go to Elmhurst. The staff there is blunt, they don’t tolerate drifters, period.
…and as long as you brought it up, has anyone else noticed the young man with the baggy tattered pants and weather-worn back pack who has moved into downtown? I’ve seen him laying down on the sidewalk in front of Another Round, sleeping off a buzz at Main Street station and harassing people for change in front of Every Day’s a Sundae. He seems very at home here.
Why wouldn’t he be?
Police non-emergency (630)434-5600
Please call when you see this behavior going on…We have ordinances against everything that Meat has mentioned(malicious mischief,disorderly conduct, obscenity,panhandling,etc). Don’t walk around them and go to another town. Let the library staff know that you will not tolerate ambivalence on their part. If there is a consistent effort to make them know that this is unacceptable in this town maybe we will see a change.
Is he the same guy who we see sleeping in the little park area north of Ogden on Main Street on the west side of the street? We have seen this guy camping out by a picnic table quite a few times recently. He is a younger looking guy with his belongings around him sleeping on what looks like cardboard.
I have seen him camped cat-a-corner to Aurlieo’s (sp). Anyone else notice the increased police activity and baggy pant white – tee guy who strolls up and down at the Maple split near Fairview? Where the dry cleaner used to be. I have seen this guy and others cuffed at the site numerous times.
As for the library – staff there made it very clear to me that they would not tolerate my discriminitory attitude towards thier homless patrons and that they had as much right as I had to be there. SORRY but if I was having a yelling match at the library they would call the cops I am sure – but a mentally unstable person pacing and yelling – let’s just leave the poor soul be and help him find a new non-fiction book.
Call the police yourself…(630)434-5600
I called on a gentleman pacing around the back of Patriot’s Park and talking to himself and I had 3 squads in about 5 mins to move him on his way. I have not seen him since.
A person commits disorderly conduct when he does any act in such unreasonable manner as to alarm or disturb another and to provoke, make or aid in making, a breach of the peace. Acts which shall be deemed to be disorderly conduct, and are prohibited, include, but are not limited to, the following:
(a) Abusive words or gestures. Uttering profane, obscene or abusive words or performing profane, obscene or abusive gestures directed to and within the view or hearing of another, with the intent to provoke a breach of the peace.
I wanted to do some panhandling to take care of a few extra expenses, but wouldn’t you know it – a Panhandling permit from the village costs $175, and it’s only good for 30 days. That means a lot of work just to cover my startup cost, so I decided against it.
Read your article in yesterdays paper, Elaine! Congratulations, but when are you going to fill us in on your new opportunity? It sounds exciting!
Always liked your column and looked forward to reading it. Sorry you won’t be in the Sun anymore.
The panhandlers I can tolerate, it’s the unlicensed door-to-door solicitors that are the real problem this summer.
One guy (shaved head, baggy pants, dirty white T-shirt, chains and neck tattoos), let’s call him “Mr. Stereotype”, came knocking asking for money to send him on his class summer trip. He insisted that my wife knew his mother then gave me some white bread name and later claimed that he lived on Brookbank. Mr. Stereotype is simply too old to be a student, yet he was very articulate and/or well rehearsed when presenting his story. His speech really made me wonder if the true goal was to engage me in conversation while someone else slipped into the house via the back door. I told him to have his mother call my wife.
I later found out two doors down Mr. Stereotype got into an argument with the lady of the house who knows every man, woman, child, dog and cat on Brookbank and told him in no uncertain terms that she did not believe his story. He left calling her a real “C” and dared her to call the cops. (Gosh, the kids on Brookbank have foul mouths) The police arrived and picked him up a few blocks away. Then a white Ford van with a dented side passenger door, driven by a 400 pound woman in a housedress, was seen by all of us on the street collecting the rest of her workers on Carpenter Street.
The doorbell was rung two days later by a stout man with a clipboard. “You probability don’t recognize me with out my helmet”, he exclaimed. “I used to play for the Washington Redskins”, and he handed me a crude laminated card with some BS typed on it. “That’s nice” I said, but I think your ride is looking for you. He turned to see the white van rolling by and asked when would be a good time for him to come back. “Never”, I said.
I think there is a story here. If you check with the DG Police, I’m sure you’ll be able to confirm that a traveling band of door-to-door solicitors is working the area.
First time I read and post here using IPad. I first saw this product in person on the BNSF commuter tran ride back from Chicago to Downers after the ticker-tape Victory Parade for the Blackhawks. The staff at The Naperville Apple Store very helpful. You might have to wait a moment till staff serve you, because the store is very busy currently. Any wait time in my opinion is worth the wait. Even a crave man like myself when it comes to tech products can figure this awesome product out. On a scale of one to ten, an eleven plus. I don’t plan on having anymore kids, but if I do Steve Jobs McGuire if boy and if a girl Patty Apple McGuire (Patty=IPad). Can you see any woman in her right mind agreeing to that? In all seriousness I think all the products Apple keeps coming out with rock!
All you have to do is ask them to show you their permit to solicit. If they have one, they are supposed to display it prominently. If they don’t have one, then CALL THE POLICE… The problem is, I’m not sure how much “research” is done by the village before giving out solicitation permits to these groups.
I just don’t understand why everyone is so reluctant to call the police when someone they are unsure of shows up at their door… DON’T ANSWER IT and make the call! Better to feel foolish if they DO happen to be legitimate than DEAD if they are bogus!
On Sunday June 13 I was attending my son’s soccer game at Doerhoffer at 10:30 AM. A man, who I have seen all over DG, entered the park off of Saratoga, literally screaming at the top of his lungs about him being the F-ing commander in chief as well as the F-ing Supreme Court Justice. He was obviously yelling at the imaginary person next to him and he was pissed. He proceeded screaming the entire time as he headed north west on the path to the other side of the park near the tennis courts on Venard. He kept walking right out of the park. He shook up all of us. A couple parents called DG police, and no one bothered to come by. I have seen this middle aged, scruffy bearded man on Main Street too. These people are a danger to others. If this guy had any kind of weapon, I’m sure he would have hurt someone – he was so furious with his imaginary companion. He’s gonna hurt someone real one of these days.
The issue of drifters menacing residents in the village (notice I didn’t say ‘temporarily homeless due to a cruel economy’, I said drifters-there’s a difference) is not new here, its been noted, discussed and beaten to death.
The problem continues (worsens) because the village has neither the will nor the desire to address it.
How about some potential solutions?
1. Signs at the Metra station spelling out clearly NO PAN HANDLING
2. Relocate the methodone clinic out of the downtown and further up the tracks (NIMBY?? You bet!)
3. Can the downtown be rezoned to exclude Hotels? That would rid us of the largest single enabler of the Drifter lifestyle-The Tivoli Motel. Crack heads and John’s will just have to take they’re vices somewhere else.
4. Discourage loitering in the library. Nearly impossible to enforce, I know, but the situation at certain times of the year is ridiculous.
5. Call police. Do you see a temporary shelter constructed in a local park, just adjacent to where your kids are playing? Call. Someone screaming obsenities at imaginary foes?? Call. Someone throwing punches in the air and talking to himself? call (the exception being when The Hawks lost in OT and I was leaving Another Round). Someone break into the empty house across the street and squat (yup, happened in our neighborhood, and I ) called. Sleeping at the Metra? Call.
PADS in town does a noble job in offering shelter and dignity, and I know for a fact that many homeless families have sought shelter there. However, I have yet to hear anyone complain about a ‘family’ of drifters getting drunk on cheap wine and screaming at their kids in the park. If anything, they value the chance at a warm bed more than any f us will ever realize, and would never do anything to jepordize it. The drifters? That’s become a lifestyle; beg, drink, drunk, scream, menace, pass out, repeat.
More people live downtown and use its amenities then at any time in the village’s history. Do we have to wait until there’s an incident?
It is not illegal to be an untreated mentally ill person strolling through the park (even if you are screaming your head off), walking from 75th to Yorktown and back everyday, or to stroll main street mumbling to yourself while grabbing a smoke and yes past your children riding on thier bikes thru town or enjoying ice cream with thier friends near the train station. The police can only move you on your way. DG is a nice town where the streets are safe to sleep on and wander all night long. Each of these people was invited here and given train/bus or car fare in order to get here by a local outreach or transitional living program. DG Chamber proudly lists the Tivoli Residental Hotel on thier website, 155.00 per week plus tax – such a deal.
Only when a tragic incident happens will everyone suddenly realize that the untreated mentally ill wandering the streets can be quite dangerous.