Problems in the neighborhood? Use these tips to do something about it! (Find this guide in printable PDF format at EVA Problem Resolution Guide ) If there’s a problem in your neighborhood - such as a dangerous building, persistent garbage, or illegal activities - you can do something about it! While there’s no simple, one-step solutions; here’s some guidelines for achieving an effective resolution. Persistence often yields results. First, try to talk directly to the people involved in creating the difficult situation. Sometimes this is impossible ... such as when you could be physically threatened. But you may be able to clear up problems that are really simple misunderstandings - and keep some measure of goodwill instead of developing an adversarial relationship. Talk to your neighbors and try and enlist their assistance in solving the problem. Doing things alone is always more work. And, if you’re the only one complaining, no matter how justified your opinion may be, you’re vulnerab...

This Weekend September 15th & 16th,Noon-6pm 1st Annual Do-Division Street Kid Fair, in conjunction with the Do-Division Street Fest & Renegade Craft Fair, September 15th & 16th, at Andersen School Playground, on the corner of Division & Wolcott. Don't miss fun activities for the whole family! Sponsored by your neighborhood children's shoe boutique, Sole Babies,2033 W. Division St., Chicago, IL 60622 ALL PROCEEDS GO TO THE ANDERSEN SCHOOL PLAYGROUND $10 Donation for a Day Bracelet $15 Donation for a Weekend Bracelet ALL DAY! Pony Rides Craft Tables Clowns (Sunday) Face Painting (Sunday) Balloon Sculpting (Sunday) Inflatable Rides & Concessions On Stage - Saturday 12:00-12:45 ARCC Ballet 12:45-1:15 Peanut Buddy & Jams 1:30-2:15 Bubbles Academy 2:30-3:15 The Musical Zoo 3:30-4:15 Bubbles Academy 4:30-5:00 The Musical Zoo 5:00-6:00 Family Dance Party On Stage - Sunday 12:00-12:45 The Puppet Place 1:00-1:45 Mary Macaroni 2:00-2:45 The Puppet Place 3:...

Dominick's Finer Foods plans to recruit 90 workers from the West Town community at its new store to open this month at 2021 W. Chicago. Two-thirds already have been hired, Wynona Redmond, the grocer's public-affairs director, told the East Village Association at this week's membership meeting. The store will employ 140 employees on the rebuilt Edmar Foods site. At about 42,000 square feet of space, the store is half again as big as the West Loop store at 1 N. Halsted, or about three-quarters the size of the 424 W. Division location near the Cabrini-Green housing project. The West Town store opens Sept. 27 with an invitation event and a week of promotion to follow, including a Wells High School band performance. The store is expected to keep hours till midnight and will include a meat market, Starbucks coffee stand and U.S. Bank facility. The building will have about 133 parking spaces on the building's roof deck and sides, accessed from Lee Street. Three I-Go ride-sha...

The recent shootings resulted in a standing-room-only turnout at the Beat meeting on Wednesday September 5; Aldermen Flores and Waguespack were also in attendence. Community members have another opportunity to show their concern at a special open-air police Roll Call, where police convene at the start of their shift at relevant sites in the neighborhood. This Roll Call will be FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 7 at 5:30 p.m. at 1037 N. Honore Street, the site of the most recent shootings.

By Scott A. Rappe The ongoing construction at Division Street’s newest restaurant, Boundary, has moved to the public way. East Villagers were recently horrified to see two fenced tree pits removed and paved to provide a larger seating area for the restaurant’s outdoor café. This is an egregious usurpation of public property for private profit. Long before this became the City’s hottest destination, private citizens fought to have those tree pits installed to beautify a desolate stretch of Division Street. Those fences were installed at taxpayer expense and were maintained for years by the East Village Association members at its annual spring cleanup. Like parkways throughout Chicago, the responsibility for planting and maintenance of these little patches of green space rest with the adjacent property owners. This responsibility does not include removing them. Although many have been abandoned, over the years individuals have adopted tree pits to give them the care they deserve. A...

by Mary Szpur What a pleasure it was to see the wonderful turnout at East Village Association’s August barbecue at Happy Village! Thanks to all our neighbors and friends who came out to enjoy good food, to mingle, and to learn about your local community group. I hope that some of you came away with a sense of what EVA has accomplished in the past, and why it continues to exist today. I also hope that if you didn’t join as a member that night, that you will do so soon. Our strength lies in numbers. EVA’s mission statement is printed in every newsletter, but to summarize: We are a civic group working together for the common good of the community. We exist to assemble and disseminate information about the community. We serve as a forum for education about and discussion of community issues. I would like to thank a number of people to whom we can attribute the success of the EVA barbecue: Dominick’s for donating the food. Julie and Guy Rudloff for organizing and purchasing the food and sup...

by Greg Nagel The recent EVA BBQ was a success in terms of turnout, membership drive, and food. Unfortunately, Alderman Flores was unable to attend due to unforeseen circumstances, and Alderman Waguespack arrived late in the evening. EVA members will have another chance to speak with Alderman Flores as he has agreed to be the guest speaker at our October meeting. I have a meeting scheduled with Alderman Burnett and will report on this at our next General Membership meeting.

by Greg Nagel Violence is one of the issues that pretty much trumps all issues. Sure we all like pretty streets and want to recycle, but not getting shot will pretty much take priority always. Some members have asked me to speak to the Aldermen regarding the recent shooting at Anderson school playground. It has been stated by the Aldermen that they believe this wave of violence relates to several young men who are members of gangs returning to the neighborhood after being gone for sometime. The best sources of information regarding violence in our neighborhood are the CAPS meeting. The front page of this newsletter lists the various Beats in our area and the corresponding meeting time. The next Beat 1322 CAPS meeting on September 5 will include two State’s attorneys doing a mock interrogation of police officers, to teach us how to be on the look-out for gang related activity, who or what we'd be looking for, and even some role playing. The 13th District will hold an "Outdoor C...

6:30 PM August 13th, 2007, Happy Village Tavern Treasurer reported that we gained approximately $265 from new memberships at the night of the Bar-B-Que. We now have approximately 90 members. Secretary will write thank you notes to Carol Scully of Dominick’s and Phil McFarland of Lava Lounge-Café Piccolo for their donations to the Bar-B-Que. The 32nd Ward Alderman will also get a note for his appearance that night. Bar-B-Que sign up sheet – Julie will update membership of people who signed up and paid dues. John will take the list of people who signed in but didn’t sign up and send them a hardcopy of the September Newsletter as a welcome packet to join. Newsletter The board agreed that the current printable format will remain and will be issued monthly – see this for details. The distribution to the majority of the members will be via email in pdf form. Each month, at least 25 printed copies will be traditionally hardcopy printed each month to bring to the general meetings, for m...

by Ronda Locke The Commercial Park Playground Renovation committee has a lot to be grateful for! First, thanks to the entire East Village and surrounding communities for coming out and making our second Kids Fest a huge success. Kids Fest 2007 helped raise $11,500 (net) towards the playground renovation. Secondly, the committee would like to thank Dominick’s and American Eagle Bank of Chicago and our secondary sponsors; Gymboree, Baker’s Joy and Creative Cafe for their generous contributions. And finally thank you to Windy City Mini Mart (Chicago Avenue) and Alderman Manny Flores for their generous food contributions. The community, especially those with children under 12, enjoyed music and other stage entertainment, pony rides, petting zoo, face painting, crafts, wall climbing and purchased numerous donated items from local businesses in our silent auction. A good time was had by all. Commercial Park playground renovation is slated to break ground this Fall but our committee still nee...

EVA President Mary Szpur recently announced the addition of two members to the EVA Board of Directors. Steve Rynkiewicz is the current webmaster of www.eastvillagechicago.org and a long time resident. Also a long time resident of the area, John Scheer, who has been working hard on increasing EVA membership has agreed to serve on the Board. Congratulations and Thank You for your service!

by M. Isaacson This report is for those of you who are using your Blue Carts. We'll talk about those empty carts another time – this report's topic is the materials you're putting in the carts. Are you recycling everything you could be, or perhaps trying to recycle things that belong in the garbage? A lot of our trash is plastic, and it's true many plastics can be recycled. But not all plastics are equal! And not all of them are recyclable with the Blue Cart program. Many plastics have a recycling symbol around a number on the bottom. You can put plastics with numbers 1,2,3,4,5, and 7 in the blue carts. Plastics that cannot be recycled in the blue carts are Styrofoam (#6) and plastic "film", such as plastic bags or plastic wrap. I've heard some people complain that they should be able to recycle plastic bags in the blue carts, since stores like Jewel and Dominicks collect these bags for recycling, and use them to make a plastic lumber. But just because it...

by Greg Nagel Communication is at the forefront of what we do and the printed hard copy newsletter is and has been a major part of that effort for many years. However, the internet which allows for email and the establishment of the EVA website presents an opportunity for savings. By using email and the internet to disseminate information it will eliminate several hours of production work on each newsletter, it will also eliminate the Kinkos production cost, and is better for the environment. This time and dollar savings can then be put towards other goals and initiatives. However, most people have access to the internet but not everyone does. Also, the printed newsletter is a visible advertisement of our organization within the community. The board has been wrestling with these questions and I'm excited to present to the organization, on behalf of the Board, what we feel seems to be the best of both worlds: The electronic newsletter will be emailed to all members every month. Quar...

by Scott Rappe In the wake of the article regarding the Pizza Hut property in last month's newsletter I have contacted all of the surrounding community organizations and both Chambers of Commerce encouraging development of more than a typical free-standing franchise on the site. All of the feedback I have received has been positive and it is on the agenda of several organizations as a matter to be considered. I presented EVA's position to the Planning, Development & Zoning Committee of the Wicker Park Bucktown Chamber of Commerce. They were very receptive to the idea. They subsequently wrote a letter to Alderman Flores expressing support for EVA's position. The committee will seek a formal endorsement of the idea from the Chamber's Board ofDirectors at its next meeting. I received an email from the West Town Chamber of Chicago Chamber of Commerce stating that the Board of Directors "agrees that independent businesses should be encouraged as opposed to large co...

At the EVA general membership meeting last night, the subject of this summer's multiple shootings in and around our community was discussed, as many residents are very concerned about these recent violent incidents in our neighborhood. As a first step in dealing with this problem as a group, we urge EVA members to attend the September CAPS meeting tonight, Wednesday, September 5, at 7 pm, at the 13th District police station on Wood Street, south of Augusta, on the second floor. We decided at last night's meeting that a "show of force" with as many people present at the CAPS meeting as we could get, voicing their concern and asking for solutions, might be effective. So, we want you there. Several specific suggestions for improving police presence and community vigilance were discussed at the EVA meeting, and we hope these suggestions are brought up at the CAPS meeting as well. If you are concerned about this important issue, please attend the CAPS meeting tonight. M...