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Support the community food drive      
sponsored by State Rep. Daniel Biss.
Details here


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Take the Skokie Voice Public Safety Survey!

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Save the date: Wednesday, June 20
Skokie Voice Community Forum on Public Safety

Details here

Village of Skokie Considering Multi-Unit Rental Building Program

On May 16, the Village of Skokie Public Safety Commission voted to recommend that the Village Board consider a proposal to require licensing of multi-unit rental buildings.

In a media release dated April 12, the Village stated that under the proposal, owners of all rental buildings with two or more dwelling units would be required to obtain a license in order to ensure that property standards are upheld, buildings are secure and are managed and maintained in compliance with municipal codes. The release also stated that similar programs are common in many suburban communities. 

UPDATE: The Village Board will take up the matter at its July 16 meeting. (Check the Village of Skokie website for further information, or call Village Hall at 847.673.0500.) 
 
Skokie Voice supports this proposed program as a means to promote public safety
and compliance with property standards. The SV statement delivered at the May 16
Public Safety Commission meeting appears below.



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Skokie Voice Economic Development Survey Results
Click here for details!

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View the video of the Skokie Voice Community Forum on Economic Development.
(Courtesy of John Sachanda/
JYS Group Inc., Hinsdale)

Based on resident interest and input, Skokie Voice chose economic development as the topic for our first Community Forum of 2012. Through these forums we uphold our mission to facilitate communication between residents and Village leaders on a range of important local topics. We convene experts and other key players on forum panels and then open the discussion to input from the community in Q&A segments.
    Watch this space for details of our next Community Forum, which will focus on public safety, in mid-2012. If you're not already receiving SV e-mail updates, fill out our contact form --  and SV will put you in the loop!

COMCAST broadcasts SV forum

Comcast will broadcast SV's economic development forum at
8 p.m. on March 26 and at 7 p.m. on April 2, 9, 16, and 23
on Skokie Access Channel 35 and Channel 19 elsewhere.


Feb. 22, 2012
SV Community Forum draws 125 residents

                                                                                                                                                                 View the entire story on the SR website.

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Players probe economic development

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Village of Skokie Economic Development Director Tom Thompson (from left) and Marketing Director Ann Tennes respond to moderator Brian Novak at the Skokie Voice  forum at Oakton Community Center.                                     
(Photo: Mike Isaacs/Sun-Times Media)

By MIKE ISAACS 
February 27, 2012 

If there was a need for evidence of  the ambitious and aggressive push for economic development in Skokie right now, it may have come just in the introductions  of last week’s community forum sponsored by the Skokie Voice residents’ association.    
   
    Assembled in one room were key players when it comes to economic development in the village ranging from village leaders to ad-hoc organizations to the Skokie Chamber of Commerce.
   “Our goal tonight is to not only discuss what is being done with economic development,” said Skokie Voice moderator Brian Novak, “but also get a sense of the next steps.”
    Village of Skokie Economic Development Coordinator Tom Thompson and Marketing Director Ann Tennes enthusiastically relayed efforts in recent years to bring new businesses to Skokie and to make existing businesses better thrive.
    The village has especially played an active role in its efforts to revitalize downtown Skokie and the West Dempster Street Retail District. In both areas, the village has tax increment finance zones, and has offered commercial property owners grants to come to Skokie or to spruce up their existing
places.
    Tennes said that since 2009, the village has especially set its sights on downtown Skokie having hired an outside consulting firm to provide a retail market analysis there.
    Taking recommendations from the report, the village has concentrated on downtown’s growing daytime population; using its diverse and growing number of downtown restaurants as the centerpiece of a marketing campaign; and staging more downtown events to foster “an air of
vibrancy” about downtown.
    With West Dempster Street, the village has bought up dilapidated retail strip shopping centers with an aim toward redevelopment. A new prototype Oberweis dairy store and hamburger joint will open in the highly visible corner at Dempster Street and Niles Center Road, properties that the village acquired.
    Tennes and Thompson last week hinted at an announcement in a couple of days regarding the recently-shuttered Skokie Theatre in the village’s downtown. Two days later, it was revealed that Gorilla Tango Theatre, a Chicago improvisation theater company in Chicago’s Bucktown neighborhood, would expand and buy the theater with an April reopening.
   Thompson called the village’s overall economic development goals “straightforward.”
    “We want to enhance the commercial and industrial tax base,” he said.   
     Randy Miles, president of the Independent Merchants of Downtown Skokie, summarized the long and steady list of contributions his organization has made to downtown. IMODS has worked with the village on a number of measures around enhancing the downtown area.
    It has also partnered with the Skokie Park District in bringing the Backlot Bash, a weekend festival toward the end of summer, to downtown.
    “IMODS was created in 2005 with one mission and one mission only in mind,” Miles said. “And that was to work with the village to extend the TIF, which was due to expire that year.”
    The TIF was extended to its legal limit of 23 years, and IMODS since then has worked with the village on how best to use the TIF funds for economic development, expanding its mission statement.
    Valerie Shuman of Downtown Skokie Alliance said her group was formed during last year’s proposal for a controversial “road diet” on Oakton Street. The initiative would have narrowed the Oakton roadway and created wider sidewalks to try to make the street more pedestrian friendly.
    But Village Trustees listened to a series of complaints from residents and turned down the measure. Downtown Skokie Alliance, which includes some downtown merchants not associated with IMODS, was also against the plan.
    “Our interest is in thinking forward and working toward a vibrant downtown and bringing useful and helpful facts and ideas to help decision making in that area,” Shuman said.
    The new Dempster Street Merchants Association was represented by Shalom Klein, who runs a business with his family on Dempster. “We were all concerned and frustrated, and also encouraged, about the fact that there has not yet been a community of Dempster Street businesses,” Klein said. “What we’ve tried to create is an opportunity to empower and connect these small businesses up and down Dempster Street.”
    Klein said his group hopes to partner with other communities where Dempster Street is located to try to bring traffic up and down the street.
    Howard Meyer, executive director of the Skokie Chamber of Commerce, is only the fourth chamber director since 1940. The chamber was formed in 1927. It now has 650 member businesses representing 115,000 employees in the community.
    “We have a mission of furthering the needs and resources of small businesses in Skokie and throughout the North Shore,” Meyer said.
    The Skokie Voice event, attended by about 125 residents, was its first forum of 2012. It has staged a series of community forums on key issues to village life, providing residents with an opportunity for input and to ask questions to players.
    A Skokie Voice online survey taken before the forum provided the basis for some questions to the panelists.
    About two-thirds of nearly 100 residents who responded to the survey said they do the majority of their shopping and dining in the village. The survey also included opportunity for written comments about what the village can do to keep and attract businesses and where people shop outside of Skokie.
    While some survey respondents specifically mentioned bringing a Trader Joe’s grocery store to Skokie, Thompson said that just isn’t likely to happen — especially with the store’s recent announcement that it is expanding into Evanston.
    Thompson said the village worked to recruit Trader Joe’s but the company wants greater distances between its stores. A Trader Joe’s in Glenview is closer to Skokie than to Evanston.
    Thompson said there are other opportunities for new businesses to come to Skokie including some kind of coffee house for downtown, an oft-repeated request. 
    Residents attending the forum had opportunity to speak out about economic development as well.
    They made suggestions ranging from paying more attention to upgrading “ugly” small strip shopping centers to creating a more unified vision for Skokie. One resident suggested that the village hold a “design competition” among graphic designers to promote the village’s economic development
opportunities.

Read the Skokie Patch story on the forum.

                                                                        Jan. 25, 2012
                                      Community Safety Update    
    Village of Skokie announces overall crime rate down for 2011

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The Village of Skokie has issued a media release stating that crime in Skokie decreased overall by 4 percent in 2011 from 2010 levels.

Contacted by local media outlets for comment, Skokie Voice has released the following statement:

The Skokie Voice Residents’ Association welcomes the Village of Skokie announcement that crime in the Village decreased overall by 4 percent in 2011 from 2010 levels. Skokie Voice appreciates the dedication of the Skokie Police Department to keeping our community safe, including the SPD’s recognition that resident engagement is vital to this process.

To that end, Skokie Voice initiated the June 2010 Town Hall meeting at which residents expressed significant concerns about public safety, especially at a number of parks. The Village responded with increased police patrols – and Skokie Voice has continued to serve as a conduit for such concerns.

Members of the SV Community Safety and Housing committees met with police and other Village officials throughout 2011 regarding long-term safety trends, and in June 2011 Skokie Voice presented a community forum on housing issues. In November 2011 Skokie Voice urged Village officials to consider increasing resources to be allocated to the Police Department and Property Standards Division in the FY 2013 Village budget.   

Skokie Voice will invite Village officials to participate in a community forum on public safety to be held in mid-2012. We will continue to work for open communication and cooperation between residents and Village leaders – which will contribute to Skokie remaining a safe and thriving place to live and work.

LOCAL MEDIA COVERAGE
Read the Skokie Review story.
Read the Trib Local story.

Click here

Elsewhere on the SV website:

Read our Mission Statement
Get membership information
Get info on SV committees and Board of Directors
Contact SV with your comments and questions
Sign up for e-mail updates from Skokie Voice

Visit the Skokie Voice archive

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