The Chicago Park District needs to do a better job of providing public toilets in its parks. Along the lakefront, there are no public toilets available from September to May despite the fact that the lakefront remains a popular destination. If unheated restrooms need to be closed during colder months, a portable toilet should be provided outside these closed restrooms.
Even during the summer, these restrooms have official hours of 11 a.m. to 7 p.m. Does the city really not want people using the lakefront before 11 in the morning or after 7 in the evening? Those hours are incredibly limited for what many consider to be Chicago’s No. 1 public space.
If the city is really unable to open its restrooms outside of these hours, then that is another reason why portable toilets should be made available.
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On Sundays, all of Chicago’s park field houses are closed. This effectively means that you cannot visit and enjoy a park on a Sunday for any extended period of time. If a single portable toilet was made available, this would significantly increase the usability of the park.
If you visit any Cook County Forest Preserve lands, a public toilet is always made available. It is the city’s responsibility to provide the same basic level of service, with public toilets within its public spaces, regardless of the weather, the day of the week or the time of day.
Thomas Baker, East Village
Honoring our young voters
As a nation, we must honor the wisdom and power that young voters bring to the ballot box. Whether you are 18 and voting for the first time, an apprentice fighting for the right to organize, a military recruit serving with valor, a student working to pay for college, or a new parent fighting for the welfare of your child, you are the future. We honor you.
You are often credited with incredible energy and optimism. However, we must also recognize your remarkable vision for a better future and ability to chart a pathway to that future. Whenever you think “My vote doesn’t count,” remember the game-changing impact your collective voices have had on issues such as climate change, gun control and women’s rights.
We desperately need young adults to vote for a future that stops climate change, allows women to make their own health care choices, and makes health care and prescription drugs affordable for families.
Thank you for rising up this November to vote for the future you deserve.
Bruce Lane, Cary
Encourage students to help the disabled
I hope that every parent of a child or adult with a developmental disability is either out recruiting adults who are looking for work to steer them towards being a direct support professional in day programs or group homes, or encouraging high school students.
Illinois can’t continue to fight the battle to hire new DSP workers by getting into a bidding war with big corporate retailers. The Illinois developmental disability community needs to get creative.
Non-profit organizations need to appeal to students’ sense of community service and how working with people with special needs can benefit them by providing personal, professional and academic growth. Non-profits need to differentiate themselves from big business, or this problem will never be solved and children and adults like my son cannot afford to missing out on being part of communities because they can’t get outside.
That is why Senate Bill 3972, establishing the Community Care Connections Program to provide high school credits to students who receive a direct service professional certification, was passed in the Illinois General Assembly.
Mike Baker, Schaumburg
Democracy is the issue that eclipses all others
I continue to be amazed by how many people remain oblivious to the risk to our democracy in the upcoming election.
Republicans are working hard at a multiple-step plan to lock themselves into permanent power without the benefit of majority support, doing everything that they can to frighten voters about the economy and crime.
Think about it. What policy details can you remember from advertisements by Republican candidates for national offices? Their pitch is “Crime is scary;” “Inflation is scary;” “Nancy Pelosi is scary;” and, of course, “Joe Biden is scary.”
I’ve been around for a while and I know that things like the economy and crime are cyclical. They get worse. They get better. They get worse, again, and they get better, again. In 246 years of nationhood, neither has destroyed the United States.
Democracy is not cyclical. It takes special circumstances and people to initiate a successful democracy that could be difficult to replicate if democracy is lost. If we preserve our democracy, we can fix the rest of the problems. If not, we will have only the “solutions” that those who hold power decide that we will have.
I will vote for the people whom I believe will let me vote them out if I don’t like what I am getting. For me and from now on, the persistence of democracy is the issue that eclipses all others.
Curt Fredrikson, Mokena
