Hinsdale Official Takes Village Staff To Task

HINSDALE, IL – The chairman of a Hinsdale commission said Wednesday he reported a temporary sign that was illegally posted in the village parkway, but village staffers have done nothing about it.

At a meeting of the village’s Historic Preservation Commission, the panel’s chairman, John Bohnen, said he spoke with the village’s code enforcement officer about the sign three weeks ago.

Bohnen said the sign, which reads “Managed by Horizon,” was outside the FedEx office on First Street. He said he wouldn’t have mentioned the situation publicly if the problem had been taken care of by Wednesday’s meeting.

The sign is “polluting our historic downtown,” Bohnen said. “And then our village, having been made aware of this for at least three weeks, has not seen fit to have it taken down.

Bethany Salmon, the village’s planner, said the village only has one code enforcement officer.

But Bohnen said he had spoken with the code officer and that she said she would go right over there.

Salmon said the code officer did, but the village has had an issue with getting in touch with the property management company.

Bohnen said the sign could be taken down in the meantime, to which Salmon said she believed the code officer was going to contact the police, who remove signs.

Bohnen offered to do it because he walks by the sign every day.

“This is nonsense. A temporary sign is up for five years,” he said.

He brought up another instance of a sign violation near First and Washington streets. Two signs are hanging, one in tatters, about a framing shop that has not been in business for four years, he said.

“I would like these to come down. It’s clutter,” Bohnen said. "How can we sit here and talk about doing the right thing when we don’t marshal our own village with the leftover nonsense? I’m convinced our staff doesn’t ever get out of their chairs and walk around the downtown. Take a lunch hour and see how many violations there are, and let’s clean it up."

Salmon asked Bohnen to tell her about all the sign violations he has seen. He offered to take her to lunch and then walk around the village.