Residuals in motion

One worthwhile area of reporting might be the thinking behind the switch of the cycling and swimming venues between Douglas and Washington Parks. Seems a neighborhood like North Lawndale (Douglas Pk.) could have used pools more than a velodrome. And wha's this talk about "moving" pools to other parks after 2016. How does one "move" a swimming pool?

Photo of swimmer at Crane Tech Prep High School during Spring Into Sports, by Eric Young Smith.

New life blooms in Washington Park

One remarkable thing about the final planning "summit" in Washington Park on Saturday morning was that the big room at St. Edmund's Church was almost full by 9:30 a.m. despite two inches of fresh snow outside. Another was that after a full year of sometimes-contentious planning meetings – and at least six detailed rewrites of the evolving plan – the crowd was as enthusiastic as ever. These 50 people and about 170 other participants had gotten to know each other across the months of talking, touring and debating the future of their community.

And they were feeling pretty good about the whole darn thing.

The meeting itself was almost perfunctory. After Alderman Willie Cochran welcomed the crowd and cracked a few jokes, community leaders ran through the high points of the plan and then declared the formal part of the meeting over. But there was "Willie's Chili" in crock pots on a table in back, and flowering bulbs in decorative pots for everyone to take home, and sign-up sheets for each of the strategy areas.

People talked, committed themselves on the sign-up sheets, talked some more, took photos and promoted their latest programs. They did business, talked about the economy and wished each other a happy holiday.

They hung together for more than an hour talking about all the things that people in a healthy community talk about, and to me, that's a pretty clear sign that the planning process worked. Now the hard work of implementation can begin.

Read Richard Muhammad's full report on the Washington Park NCP web site. Also thanks to Richard for the photos.

The potential of a new web site

Lynda Jones (right) keeps track of the discussion in the Health and Wellness group.

Lynda Jones presented the brand-new Washington Park NCP web site today to about 65 participants at the neighborhood's third community planning meeting. The site went live late yesterday after about a month of intensive work loading stories, photos, maps, directory listings and calendar items.

As program manager for Washington Park NCP, Lynda jumped right into the decision-making process on the web site, sorting and editing and making decisions about what content would be most useful for users. That's a big trick to web site creation: it's not really a technical job, though there are always glitches and tricks that you have to get past. Building a web site is fundamentally about presenting information, and to do it well, you have to make choices.

Lynda and the leaders of Washington Park NCP have a nice tight focus for the site. First, it will be the central repository for information about the Washington Park planning process -- meeting reports, lists of goals, and drafts of strategies and programs as they are developed. Second, it will be a "neighborhood portal" where residents and others can learn about who's doing what. That includes business and organization listings, of which there are more than 100 already, a calendar of events, stories and plenty of photos about what's going on this summer and beyond.

Today's meeting provided a preview of what's to come. At the youth and education breakout group, Torrey Barrett of the K.L.E.O. Community Center told about how on a recent Friday afternoon, the organization's staff decided to do a barbecue for themselves to celebrate the weekend. They started cooking outdoors "and 20 or 30 kids showed up and asked if they could have some food, so we sent someone to the grocery store for more food and ended up spending five hours out there with the kids, talking and hanging out."

The breakout group liked the possibilities here, and suggested a summer schedule of "corner actions" that would have different organizations and churches sponsoring barbecues on Friday nights, but not just for themselves. All groups would be invited to round up kids from the local corner or anywhere else and bring 'em on over. Their families would be invited, too, and once there the hosting organization could promote its programs and meet others with similar goals.

"Collectively, we've probably got enough things going to keep the youth busy all summer long," said Barrett.

If you want to track how this idea plays out, visit the web site at washingtonparkncp.org. With information from enough neighborhood residents and institutions, the web site could become a binding force as the community plans (and implements) its future.