COMMUNITY ACTIVISM IN OAK PARK: COMPETING AGENDAS ...
COMMUNITY ACTIVISM IN OAK PARK: COMPETING AGENDAS ...
COMMUNITY ACTIVISM IN OAK PARK: COMPETING AGENDAS ...
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efreshments and appetizers and making copies of the meeting agenda, list of objectives,<br />
and sign-in sheet.<br />
We held our first meeting in November of 2005 at the neighborhood multi-service<br />
center in Oak Park. To our surprise, only two people attended our first meeting, one of<br />
which was the owner of the Jersey Market that was threatened with closure by the city,<br />
through eminent domain. He also brought a friend. Daniel stated he attended our Oak<br />
Park Neighborhood Latino meeting because he wanted us to hear his views about why he<br />
wanted to keep his liquor store open and was hoping that we could help him accomplish<br />
this in some way. We were interested in hearing his story and were sympathetic to his<br />
reasons for wanting to keep it open. We understood that the neighborhood benefited<br />
from the liquor store being open, but did not know how to further persuade community<br />
members to think differently about the liquor store. Many community members felt<br />
strongly about their decision to close the liquor store and city representative were already<br />
in the process of closing down the store. We brainstormed what changes Daniel could<br />
make at his liquor store to make it more “neighborhood friendly.” After our meeting we<br />
wished Daniel the best of luck and told him we hoped to see him speaking with<br />
community residents, at more Neighborhood Association meetings, to propose his<br />
changes to the store. Although we were a little disappointed about the low attendee turn-<br />
out of the meeting, my fellow Oak Park Neighborhood Latino board members and I were<br />
happy we got to meet the owner of the liquor store.<br />
After our first meeting we did not attempt to have any more meetings because we<br />
felt we did not have the time and resources to coordinate meetings and gather attendees<br />
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