MUST READ: FROM SAVE OUR COMMUNITY CENTER

An open letter to Alderman Joe Moore
Saturday July 26th, 2008
RE: YOUR PLAN TO TRANSFER CONTROL OF GALE COMMUNITY CENTER TO THE BOYS AND GIRLS CLUBS

Alderman Moore,
In your effort to secure a Boys and Girls Club for the Rogers Park Community, you have proposed to the Chicago Park District that they allow the Boys and Girls Club to occupy, operate and manage the yet unopened Gale Community Center at 1610 W. Howard. Many residents of this community and your constituents in the 49th Ward, whom we have polled, find this use of a public park facility unacceptable at the very least and illegal at worst. We strongly urge you to stop this process immediately, withdraw your requests to use the Gale Community Center for such activities and allow the Center to open without delay under its original intent as a public Park District facility for the neighborhood.

Additionally, we strongly urge you to pursue the opportunity to bring a Boys and Girls Club into the Rogers Park community at the free-standing Gale School Annex. Principal Richard Glass has gone on record welcoming the Boys’ and Girls Clubs to utilize the school and Arnie Duncan, CEO of the Chicago Public Schools, fully supports and encourages the Boys and Girls Clubs continued use of CPS facilities. Currently the Boys and Girls Clubs are located in 24 CPS schools in Chicago and over 600 nation-wide. It has been and continues to be a very successful partnership. We highly advise you to focus your time and energy in securing such a facility for the Rogers Park community.

We also insist that you create a community panel, representative of all the stakeholders in this process, to work with you in securing such a facility for the Boys and Girls Clubs in the Gale School. Together, in an open and transparent process, we can have both our new public park field house and a Boys and Girls Club in Rogers Park.

Sincerely,
Committee To Save Our Community Center

S.O.C.C. Steering Committee
Mike Luckenbach
Maryon Banks
Toni Duncan
Sister Cecilia Fandel
Don Gordon
Eva McCann
Carla Tomino

cc: Honorable Richard M. Daley, Mayor
Mr. Tim Mitchell, Superintendent Chicago Park District
Mr. Arnie Duncan, CEO Chicago Public Schools
Mr.Gery Chico, President Chicago Park District Board of Commissioners
Mr. Richard Glass, Principal Gale School
Ms. Erma Tranter, President Friends of the Parks