Clark Park Boathouse Discussion

Clark Park is a pristine river front park which contains acres of green space and a half mile river front trail, soccer fields, native gardens and a state-of-the-art BMX trail. Also, it has a public canoe/kayak launch and is a recognized butterfly sanctuary and bird watching habitat.

We oppose constructing a 2 acre sized boat warehouse/crewing facility which will negatively impact the park - it will be too large for Clark Park and introduce a 3 story building, surrounded by concrete, increased vehicle traffic, and will interrupt existing activities at the park. The public demands a period of public review to investigate moving the facility to a larger park or a different location.

A much smaller boathouse facility could be constructed at Clark Park, containing canoes/kayak, badly needed washrooms and a public water source, concessios and possible bike rental. Green Space is the most valuable resource in the parks, especially in this one-of-a-kind riverfront park - it must be protected for future generations.

http://www.change.org/petitions/chicago-park-district-and-the-city-...

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Permalink Reply by Thunder Snow on May 9, 2012 at 4:20pm

http://www.chicagoparkdistrict.com/departments/board-of-commissione...

The commissioners meeting just started, streaming live. Clark Park is item #20, they're on item #6 right now (4:19 PM).

http://www.cpdit01.com/resources/pdf-library/board.agenda/Board%20A...

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Permalink Reply by Thunder Snow on May 9, 2012 at 4:44pm

A fellow from CPAC (Howard Lucke?) just made a good reasoned plea to hold off the vote today, and presented their petition. But Mr. Lucke followed a young Logan Square Latina who hopes to get a rowing scholarship to Yale after refining her rowing skills at the new Clark Park boat house. Then a mother of an autistic boy hopes her son can get the opportunity to learn rowing at Clark. Finally, a group of breast cancer survivor rowers are supporting the boat house. So it will be interesting in about half an hour to see if the vote gets tabled or not.

4:45-my connection to the meeting just dumped, with a British voice saying "the URL to this link is invalid. Please contact your content provider...." Is it just my connection or did everyone just get booted off the live stream of the meeting?

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Permalink Reply by James BlackHeron on May 9, 2012 at 4:45pm

Crap, my chromebook won't run the plug-in for watching.

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Permalink Reply by Tim S on May 9, 2012 at 4:53pm

Hope they didn't hand in the original petition from Change.org as it was flawed with bad talking points and outright lies... then again I hope they did especially if the wording was changed as that negates any signatures as they would then have been collected under false pretense.

I watched the 3 groups/people who came out in support and the one group against. Interesting to see over the web.

Woah that is a creepy voice telling me I am unable to connect too.

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Permalink Reply by Thunder Snow on May 9, 2012 at 4:57pm

Either the Park Commissioners are having streaming problems, or they've decided to cut us all off the stream. I had a solid connection from 4:05-4:45, then just the British voice. Tried Internet Explorer, Mozilla Firefox and Mozilla Aurora--no connection. If anyone is connected to the meeting stream, please update us here as to whether the contracts for Clark & Ping Tom get approved.

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Permalink Reply by Kevin C on May 9, 2012 at 5:00pm

I was disconnected on Safari; no luck on Google Chrome or Mozilla Firefox. I just assumed it was the man trying to keep me down.

Thunder Snow said:

Either the Park Commissioners are having streaming problems, or they've decided to cut us all off the stream. I had a solid connection from 4:05-4:45, then just the British voice. Tried Internet Explorer, Mozilla Firefox and Mozilla Aurora--no connection. If anyone is connected to the meeting stream, please update us here as to whether the contracts for Clark & Ping Tom get approved.

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Permalink Reply by Thunder Snow on May 9, 2012 at 5:03pm

...or the Park District employee running the stream decided to go home at 5:00 and pulled the plug?

Kevin C said:

I was disconnected on Safari; no luck on Google Chrome or Mozilla Firefox. I just assumed it was the man trying to keep me down.

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Permalink Reply by Kevin C on May 9, 2012 at 5:05pm

Well sure, there's that.

Thunder Snow said:

...or the Park District employee running the stream decided to go home at 5:00 and pulled the plug?

Kevin C said:

I was disconnected on Safari; no luck on Google Chrome or Mozilla Firefox. I just assumed it was the man trying to keep me down.

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Permalink Reply by Carter O'Brien on May 9, 2012 at 6:54pm

Dang, totally missed it. Theoretically it will be available in the archive section... maybe?

Kevin C said:

Well sure, there's that.

Thunder Snow said:

...or the Park District employee running the stream decided to go home at 5:00 and pulled the plug?

Kevin C said:

I was disconnected on Safari; no luck on Google Chrome or Mozilla Firefox. I just assumed it was the man trying to keep me down.

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Permalink Reply by Bill donahue on May 9, 2012 at 7:05pm

I have been in court all day, so have had no news from the Board of Commissioners meeting. Even though I am assuming the worst, I am hoping for the best.

For those of you who have any doubts about how the gigantic behemoth will take over Clark Park (you know, "rah rah go boathouse", please ride over to the park and see that the proposed rowing facility/boat warehouse has been staked out by the park district. Yes, it will look like a 40,000 SF spaceship on two floors has landed in a two acre landing pad at Clark Park, (what was mistakenly referred to as 3rd floor, in this case rooftop improvements such as the observatory deck, have recently been cancelled according to the Park District).

I really wish that some folks could restrain themselves, there have been no "outright lies" or anything approaching that on our part. I will take the beating for describing a 3rd floor, but does it really matter any more, we can stop talking about it - its still every bit of every other way it has been described. Its huge, it will dwarf the remaining green space, it would be smack in the way of a bridge, and its not the building that we have been asking for to address long standing concerns, not even close. It really is a use that was brought up almost overnight and then dropped on us without warning. It hardly seems fair and it certainly is not the way decisions should be made about community parks. 9.45 Million is being spent in a park where we cannot get a sinkhole fixed in the parking lot that one of your children could fall in, no replacement fence slats, a rusting hulk of athletic equipment sits on the bike/ped way for over 5 years, a dead tree leans precariously above the walkway for 6 months. Nothing is done.

Finally, we have met with Gia Biagi (director of strategy and policy CPD)and had a splendid meeting, and to her credit she apologized for the treatment the PARK has been receiving and promises big changes - and bike racks immediately!! I am not convinced that this would be happening unless we were preparing to swallow the big boathouse??

Also, I wil be posting on our facebook page later on, the presentation made by a respected rowing group who says that Clark Park IS NOT the ideal location for a rowing facility such as this, and he describes and analyzes the alternate locations which still could be chosen.

BTW, the Bloomingdale Trail, another major infrastructure improvement, had years of community involvement, lots of citizen input and committees - even deciding on who the contractors would be.

Why did this boathouse have to be rushed? Also, some of the sleuths on here should ask, where did the money come from? Even if the park district pays up front, they clearly do not have the funds to do this project, why is there no disclosure about funding? Qui Bono?

Please keep in touch with the advisory council at:http://www.facebook.com/ClarkParkAdvisoryCouncil