By Jordan Marsh
The lawsuit was filed because of Rita Gonzalez, a working-class mother of three who never finished high school. In 1987 she and her family had moved from their small apartment on 19th Street near Damen to northwest-suburban Addison so that she could be closer to her new job, which would pay her almost as much as the two full-time jobs she was working in Chicago.
Dismayed by such incidents, Gonzalez began to wonder if there was something she could do. She’d never considered becoming an activist. “All my life I went to work, I came home, cleaned, ironed, got ready for the next day of work–and that was it. I never read newspapers, I didn’t know who the village [leaders] were. I never paid attention to any of that stuff. I was just a mom.” But then she happened to see a newspaper article that characterized an impromptu Hispanic parade on a traditional holiday as a riot and stated that the police had had to be called in. Gonzalez, who’d watched the parade, was offended by the mischaracterization and decided to organize another parade. In 1992, realizing she could do it more cheaply through a not-for-profit organization, she founded Hispanics United of DuPage County.
Redevelopment can mean many things, from improving infrastructure such as streets and public transportation to constructing new schools and parks to demolishing buildings. The vagueness of the term and the lack of specifics made Gonzalez think that village officials had an agenda they weren’t discussing. “If there were any claims they were making, they were simple things that they could have fixed. So I started suspecting maybe they’re just trying to wipe out our neighborhoods.”
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The state TIF law requires municipalities to prepare a detailed redevelopment plan for each TIF district, and in March 1994 the village released its plan for the district containing the Green Oaks neighborhood. On March 7 village officials held a public hearing. According to a transcript that later became part of the court record, one landlord asked about the fate of the buildings in the neighborhood. “My point is what happens to Green Oaks? What happens to the people I have living in my building? You’re not explaining to me what’s going to happen in that area.”
Village trustee Larry Hartwig, who would become mayor (the title changed) in 1995 when Russotto died, replied, “We are not necessarily going to buy land….All that is is an option.” The landlord pressed for more information on the plans for the area, and Hartwig told him twice that the village had “no plans at this point.” Later in the meeting Hartwig said, “The village would like to do the least possible to accomplish its goal….You know the old story, the government that governs the least governs the best. I think we’re committed to that.” He continued, “That’s why we wanted public input all the way. If we already had decided that, then I think your reaction tonight would be, ‘What’s the story, guys? You never let us know, you never discussed it or anything, and here you’ve got decisions made already.’ We haven’t made those decisions. We want to discuss that, and we want public input all the way–and that’s what we are getting.”
In July the village had released its redevelopment plan for the proposed Michael Lane TIF district, and on September 6 it held another public hearing. By this time the redevelopment plans and the continuing Green Oaks demolitions were getting a lot of media coverage, much of it focused on the charges by Gonzalez and other activists that the plans were discriminatory. But village officials didn’t seem to care. They were blunt about demolitions in the Michael Lane area. According to the hearing transcript, when a tenant in the district asked whether he should look for another apartment, Russotto said, “I would look now.”
