Board Meeting Focused on Bemis Woods Access

The otherwise standard Board of Trustees Workshop Meeting on Monday night brought out two passionate local advocates of creating easier access to the Bemis Woods bike path. Western Springs residents Bradley Kulat and Robert Gawlikowski attended the board meeting in order to voice their concerns about the safety of the crossing from the south side of Ogden Avenue to the north side, where Bemis Woods is located, without a signal or clear pedestrian path.

While the meeting moved quickly through the rest of the agenda in order to allow board members to ask questions about items that will be up for a vote at next week's board meeting, when the agenda came to Public Works and Water, Trustee Jim Maragos ceded the floor to Kulat's PowerPoint presentation.

"You cannot access the forest preserve without a car... because you cannot cross [Ogden] without endangering your life," Kulat began.

"You're not the first resident who has pointed that out to us," replied an empathetic President William Rodeghier. "It's a little more complicated because of the jurisdictions involved."

Kulat's presentation argued that Western Springs and La Grange residents do not take full advantage of the resources of Bemis Woods because it is too dangerous to get to on foot or by bike, a point that Maragos agreed with, citing the lack of a sidewalk on the north side of Ogden from Wolf Road to the entrance of Bemis Woods.

"I agree that the only safe way to access [Bemis Woods] is by car, and it's a tragedy because it's the exact opposite of what this is supposed to be," agreed Maragos, also a frequent user of the bike path.  "We have pursued this to the forest preserve level... but they want us to maintain and own the bike path on their property, so we're trying to get pressure on the commissioner level to break some of this logjam... [We don't know] if it's even legally possible for us to own land on the forest preserve property."

"It's almost as if they don't want to do this by establishing requirements that we can't meet.  We're essentially willing to fund the project...and it's not a big deal from a construction standpoint and certainly not from a maintenance standpoint," Village Manager Patrick Higgins explained, reflecting the frustration exhibited by the board over being able to solve a seemingly simple problem. 

Ultimately the board members recommended that residents work toward getting the attention of Cook County commissioners, which the Village Board itself has been unable to attract. Maragos suggested using the opportunity of 2010 being a Cook County election year in order to start a petition to attract attention to the cause.

"There's a long line of people behind us who are concerned and willing to step up," Gawlikowski said as the conversation about Bemis Woods continued after the meeting adjourned.