Last gasp for the toboggan slides?

1216 Views 6 Replies 6 Participants Last post by Teetotalist, Apr 14, 2008

OZ

Discussion Starter · Apr 7, 2008

Crook County - who else?

http://www.suntimes.com/news/metro/8808 ... 07.article

Snip:
Palos Park Mayor John Mahoney is leading a group of residents Tuesday to the Cook County Building to protest a forest preserve commission plan to demolish the shuttered Swallow Cliff toboggan slides in Palos Township.

"I've had numerous people come to me to do something," said the first-year mayor. "They wanted me to organize something."

Mahoney and a group of residents will board a bus about 8 a.m. outside the Palos Park Village Hall, 8901 W. 123rd St., for the trip to downtown Chicago.

"I'm told [the public] isn't allowed to speak during the meeting," he said. "I'm hoping they extend me a professional courtesy."

Mahoney said he will ask commissioners to "leave the slides alone until all possible options have been exhausted."

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Ejoe

· #2 · Apr 7, 2008

What I dont understand, is if the county FPD has no money for the slides, why is a huge job being done at the little red school house?? Went there yesterday, have no idea what they are doing but they have a major construction project going on. Plus the entire lot will need to be re-done due to construction traffic destroying it. I have visited the trails there all my life, but found it funny that they would be tearing up nature for more man made things........in a nature center! We have enough zoos and centers, we need the open spaces, not more buildings.
but anyway.....where is the money coming for that?

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basspike

· #3 · Apr 8, 2008

Fix papoose first

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fishrelease

· #4 · Apr 8, 2008

Priorities are where?

Ok, this was a winter that would've been perfect for the tobbogan slides to be used for months. The same trash sits in the same out of the way places away from parking lots at many forest preserve locations, ie: Saganashskee, Sag Quarries, the bicycle trails, the Des Plaines River shorelines, the north side of 131st Street and by 135th at Tampier, the east and south shores and woods by Maple. The printing budgit was cut. No more publications on the latest forest preserve creel surveys. Yeet, there are lots of people driving around in trucks on the pay role, and not doing, seemingly anything. Meanwhile, the trash still sits for decades at all the places I mentioned. What are these employees paid for? Only to empty the trash out of garbage cans and that's it? I tried to get jobs in local park districts and county jobs like this for years. A whole lot of people make really good money and get benefits, while the areas seem like they are never cleaned up. Why doesn't the county clean house and employ people who will do work?

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OZ

Discussion Starter · #5 · Apr 10, 2008

He gone

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lonecanoeist

· #6 · Apr 10, 2008

Cook County is going to spend over $ 900,000 to demolish the slides.They say fixing them would cost over $1.5 million. Brilliant choice

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Teetotalist

· #7 · Apr 14, 2008

Fourteen years ago my good friend traveled down a Swallow Cliff slide on his mountain bike - wearing all available hockey gear. The thought of it makes me grind my teeth. It almost made him urinate on the way down; and he was considered crazy.

But ... even back then I do not remember those slides - or the ones in Western Springs at the beginning of the Brookfield Zoo trail - being used in wintertime. The sentimental side of me wishes that they would stay and hopefully be restored, repaired and/or maintained. On the other hand, if they demolished the two chutes at Swallow Cliff and somehow managed to recreate the slope of the those slides, it really would made it much more fun for the kids. An open hill. Imagine sliding down that hill with a plastic circular slide!

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