Effort from the grassroots saved the trees

Are those trees in Ackerman Park in Glen Ellyn bending in the wind? Or bowing in appreciation to the people who saved them from destruction?

In one of the most impressive, effective grassroots campaigns we have seen in some time, hundreds of Glen Ellyn residents beseeched Glen Ellyn park board members to not proceed with a project that would have meant having to cut down 340 trees in the park.

And just days after the park district said it had absolutely no intention of halting the leveling of trees to make way for soccer fields, no matter what anybody said, the park board reversed itself. It voted to keep the trees and lose the soccer fields.

This change of heart would not have occurred without the campaign to save the trees, led by David and Melissa Creech. It wasn't just lobbying out of emotional attachment to the trees. Citizens did their research on the project. Armed with information, they asked intelligent questions about the need for soccer fields and didn't like the answers. They took their case to the community. To the press.

In the end, the rationale for destroying the woods got sawed down, not the trees.

Yet, this change of heart did not have to occur. We have seen other instances of citizens rallying against an act of perceived injustice by government, only to be ignored, paid lip service, or outright ridiculed.

To their credit, park board members listened to the citizens and decided the best thing to do was to open once closed minds and leave the trees be.

Some might say that is caving in to special interests, though you'd probably be hard pressed to find someone that wouldn't agree that there is something special about those few wooded areas that have survived the spread of development.

It's better to see this as an example of bending to the public will for all the right reasons. That is how those who made the trees their cause see it. They aren't gloating. And that is what park board members seem to think. They aren't chagrined.

At a time when cynicism about those in government is running deep, it perhaps is hard to believe in the concept of a participatory democracy; that those governed can effectively use their right to assemble to change the minds or the thinking of those who do the governing.

But what happened in Glen Ellyn does not have to be an isolated example. Ask the citizens of West Chicago, whose own grassroots campaigns have led to the removal of radioactive waste from the city and put an end to plans to build a solid waste transfer station right outside the city's borders.

The battle to save the trees goes on - some 40 trees in Ackerman Park are still threatened by a proposed flood control project.

But so far, a group of citizens have done good in shedding their apathy. And a governing unit has done good to not take consent of the governed as some quaint notion.