Make a contract to preserve the trees
I write to express my disagreement and shame for the shortsighted intergovernmental plan that will result in losing 340 trees at Ackerman Woods in Glen Ellyn.
The village and park district boards hold the village's natural resources in the public trust. That trust includes precious open spaces such as Ackerman Woods that are increasingly threatened and endangered.
Of all parties, the Glen Ellyn Park District Board should shoulder its duty to preserve the mature trees of Ackerman Woods in its natural state. Instead, the park district glibly presents the guise of providing playing fields, with the secondary result of accommodating more retail. No possible replacement of new trees or fields could right this wrong.
The village board has passively succumbed to a five-year-old contract that has now been exposed as misguided and uniformed, with irreversible negative consequences for the village. Attorney Diamond mildly claimed that such contracts cannot be broken at the May 12 village board meeting. But it should be his duty to advise the board on the options for breaking, renegotiating, or revising this contract as circumstances warrant.
The board has not even begun to weigh a penalty for breaking the contract against the damage to Ackerman Park. Instead of shrugging and saying, "The decision was made years ago to expand Five Corners and require more water detention basins," it's time for reason and foresight to prevail. Both the village board and the park district board need to take a stand. Can they show us the determination and intelligence to set themselves apart as civic leaders who do find a way to preserve irreplaceable natural spaces?
A village whose leaders hold on to a precious resource such as a stand of mature trees will set itself apart from the thousands of blatantly ugly American communities that are peppered with parking lots and storefronts. As for those who would prefer more retail development and construction at Five Corners or elsewhere, let them go sit under a tree! To paraphrase Wordsworth, "one impulse from a vernal wood will teach them more" than sitting in an asphalt parking lot in front of a store.
Cathryn Wilkinson
Glen Ellyn