West Rogers Park Community Organization

Welcome to the WRPCO Website. We hope you will stay for a while and look around.  If you are a resident of West Rogers Park or West Ridge, WRPCO is your organization, renew or please consider joining if you are not yet a member. 

LET'S TALK TIFs IN THE 50th WARD!

The West Rogers Park Community Organization, West Rogers Park 99% Group & The IVI-IPO Far North Chapter present:

An Illumination of the 4 major Tax Increment Financing Districts in the 50th ward.

- How much property taxes do these TIFs extract every year?
- Where does the money go?
- What can you do about it?

Featured Speakers:

Tom Tresser, of the CivicLab's TIF Illumination Project (TIP). TIP is investigating and exposing what TIFs do to us on a ward-by-ward basis. http://www.tifreports.com/

Ben Joravsky - Award winning political reporter at the Chicago Reader. (See all his articles @ http://www.chicagoreader.com/chicago/ArticleArchives?author=847359)

Tuesday, June 11
6:30pm to 8:30pm
Devon Bank Community Room
6445 N. Western Avenue
(Limited Free Parking)

For more information and to help with spreading the word, contact:

Ahmed Khan, 847-219-1069, chair@wrpco.org http://www.wrpco.org/
or
Myron Perlman, 773-338-2037, myronperlman@sbcglobal.net

The short URL for this Facebook Event page = http://tinyurl.com/TIF-Forum-June-11.

The evolving schedule and documentation of past meetings is at http://tifreports.com/tif-town-meetings.

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The WRPCO Annual General Meeting, was concluded Wednesday, March 20, 2013, at Devon Bank, 6445 N. Western Avenue. We elected new Officers and nominated members to the Board and had a presentations on three issues of interest to the community. Please go to Officers and Board for details on the new Board.

Pictures of the event, courtesy of member Shahrukh Hassan

Please click Annual Meeting for more details.

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The new year means it is time to renew your membership—or start it for the first time—in WRPCO. Our dues are still a very reasonable $10 per year for individuals and $20 per year for families. Please use the easy and safe link on our website to join or renew: membership

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2013 WRPCO Community Concerns Survey

WRPCO announces the launch of the 2013 Survey, the third. Please help us all by taking the survey, at this link: WRPCO2013Survey

Hard copies will be available at our meetings and events or  here

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The West Rogers Park Community Organization and the High Ridge YMCA thank everyone who attended the opening of  UNITED THROUGH ART: A PORTRAIT OF COMMUNITY, Tuesday, February 19, 2013 at the High Ridge YMCA.

This was the opening of this new exhibition of children’s self-portraits,  originally shown in May 2010 at Devon Bank. The event included performances from students from our local schools and dinner. It’s a wonderful view of our diverse neighborhood. Details at United through Art at The Y.
Thanks to René Sanchez, the Executive Director, and to the Y Board. The High Ridge YMCA will be displaying the artworks for some time.

In the 2009 – 2010 school year, the Education Committee gathered student representatives from area schools to create art based on a theme of their own choosing. Their effort is documented on this site in “United Through Art”

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School Strike Update

Chicago Public Schools have announced revisions to the 2012-2013 school calendar to ensure students receive a full school year. All schools will have seven make-up days to complete the days lost during the Chicago Teachers Union strike.

Track E schools will have the following make-up days:

• Five days from Fall Intersession: October 15-19
• President’s Day: February 18
• One day added to the end of the school year: June 19

Track R schools will have the following make-up days:

• Two days from Winter Intersession: January 3-4
• President’s Day: February 18
• Four days added to the end of the school year: June 19-21, June 24

For the entire calendar please visit www.cps.edu/calendar.

WRPCO provided information to the West Rogers Park community about programs available during the teachers strike in the Chicago Public Schools. Previously posted content is available, click here.

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2012 WRPCO Community Concerns Survey RESULTS

In summary, the results of the 2012 Survey are as follows:

Respondent demographics were biased towards older, female, long-term residents who live east of California. Details are in a report, "2012 Community Concerns Survey Demographics."

In all, 123 surveys were completed and not everyone answered every question. This compares to 176 responses in 2011. Of the 123, 64 provided some contact information: (61 Name, 38 Mailing Address, 49 E-Mail Address, 29 Phone Number); 84 respondents left at least one question-related or open-ended comment.

The question that received the most comments was “Shopping Options and Availability of Goods and Services” (48 respondents or 39%). The area of community concern that received the least comments was Intergroup Relations (29 respondents or 24%).

More details about all the comments are in the report, "2012 Survey Comments." WRPCO is reporting respondent comments only and does not endorse or oppose anything therein.

As in 2011, 2.5 represents a neutral score and lower scores represented either greater dissatisfaction or a lower priority for elected officials within the context of each question. Higher scores mean the opposite.

All indicators of priority for elected officials were down in 2012 from 2011. The question was modified in 2012 from a focus on the Alderman to “elected officials,” and 2011 was also a local election year.

The level of satisfaction on almost all questions was higher. However, only scores on the last three questions, on citizen participation and visioning, and the first three, related to streets and shopping, appear significant.

Changes in satisfaction as well as the lower scores on priority appear more significant for these last three questions, with the changes in the first three somewhat less so.

In 2012, respondents appear to be significantly more satisfied with their opportunities to participate in community planning and visioning over 2011, and they also assign these a lower priority for elected officials.

This appears to be true to a lesser extent with streets and sanitation services, condition of streets, and shopping options in the community.
 

Results are posted on our new Survey Page. See link on right sidebar.  Contact WRPCO info@wrpco.org for more details.

WRPCO gets questions and concerns about environmental questions, community "green" issues,  local access to libraries and recycling. For local updates Click here