One of the things you do when you move to Oak Park is “buy in.” You buy in to an older, smaller home than you might get further afield. You buy in to saying hi to your neighbors and closing their garage doors if you spot them open. You buy in to diversity, inclusion and complicated conversations about those commitments. You buy in to taxes because our streets get plowed and our emergency calls responded to and our libraries are great. You buy in to volunteering, helping out, pitching in. You buy in, sometimes after asking questions and doing research, to trusting your neighbors who give countless hours to help find a best path forward.
You buy in because the promises of living in a place like Oak Park are real. Good schools, community, public services, community, volunteerism and another heaping side dish of community.
We think our daughter, now in kindergarten, will love the new pool and performing arts spaces in 10 years. But whether she does or doesn’t was barely a measurable part of the equation for our family in considering supporting the upcoming D200 referendum.
We understand there might be another thing in another year asked of us. If it’s as well researched and well thought out and does as much good as this referendum, well, we’ll support that too. If it’s for early childhood education or to improve affordability for renters or any number of things not directly applicable to our exact situation — sign us up.
We are more than OK with bearing some of the burden for things we may never see the benefits of — whether that’s in a global sense of trying to combat climate change so the world is safe and inhabitable centuries from now or investing in things like smart infrastructure choices for our local high school.
That’s what civil society is all about, right? We do things to make our lives better, our children’s lives better, and future children’s lives better.
Julie Burwell
Oak Park
