Letters

06/10/2009 10:00 PM


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Choose Pete’s

The alderman and the developer (Gates) have both pushed for Food4Less (“Waiting for a grocery,” May 14). What we have to deal with is typical Chicago politics where our elected officials do not keep the interests of the voters in mind, but what benefits them, and their under-the-table deals. Pete’s is a full-service grocery store which will provide a positive environment for the neighborhood with high quality produce and meat. Food4Less offers nothing but the same for a deteriorating neighborhood. We deserve better!

Katherine Quickery
Near West Side

Why Pete’s is best for Madison, Western

Pete’s Market is the best fit for this area Food4Less (“Waiting for a grocery,” May 14). Of the three, Pete’s has the best prices, yes, even cheaper than Food4Less. Food4Less gives the impression that it is cheaper, but it’s really not. Their produce and meats are overpriced. Not to mention the fact that their produce is pathetic, often consisting of 5 percent of the whole store. It’s basically a glorified Aldi’s — aisles and aisles of canned food and frozen TV dinners. Jewel has good produce but is too overpriced.

Jorge Camarena
East Garfield Park

For Food4Less

Food4Less is more than I could have hoped for as a partner in the community (“Waiting for a grocery,” May 14). If you haven’t been to one recently, visit their new location in Chatham at 87th and the Dan Ryan. The produce and bakery selection is great. They customized cakes for my son’s mad scientist birthday that were an absolute hit. And the prices really help my family out in being able to eat healthy meals and not killing our budget. They really seem to be going where people need them rather than just cherry-picking and closing.

Dawn Rucinski
Tinley Park, Ill.

Help everyone in Westhaven Park

I have owned a condo in the building since the beginning, and for some reason I get along with the majority of CHA residents (“Challenge of the mix,” May 21). We see each other in the hallways and in the elevators and exchange greetings. I believe that some of the condo owners are a bit standoffish, causing the CHA residents to be uncomfortable.

We all have to remember that we are humans, and have our own issues. Things will not get better until we start working together and I blame condo owners and CHA residents equally.

It is my opinion that the condo owners blame all CHA residents when there are few units causing all of those recorded disturbances.

The problem with CHA is that they are not doing anything about those problem units, making condo owners lash out against the CHA tenants.

I believe that security benefits both condo owners and the CHA tenants equally.

Ned Mahic
Near West Side

Kudos to PDNA

The folks behind the Prairie District Neighborhood Alliance have a done a great job organizing events fostering relationships between residents and local businesses (“Recession dining,” June 4). Kudos to them for their efforts and success.

John Jacoby
Prairie District

Great column, Bonnie

This note is long, long overdue, but I just wanted to take a moment out of my day to congratulate Chicago Journal and its columnist, Bonnie McGrath, on one of the finest examples of journalism I’ve seen in a community newspaper in more than 20 years. Her article, “The Temples of Doom” (March 26, 2009), was just exemplary. In my humble opinion, the column spoke implicitly to the heart and soul of what anyone vested in this historic neighborhood is going through right now, as the once serene South Loop community becomes increasingly saturated by, and succumbs to far too many students, too many dogs, derelicts and hideous, greed-driven development.

It’s writers of this caliber that make publications like The Journal more than just a local newspaper, but absolutely required reading.

Ronald E. Childs
South Loop

Angry about red-light ticket

Bring the city to it’s knees: abide by all rules and regulations. Pay your meters, obey all traffic signs to the letter. Don’t run red lights.

What’s the impetus for this latest broadside? We’re staring is disbelief at a violation mailed to us purporting that ‘we’ were in a red light violation to the tune of $100. For what? And how does the city quantify a ‘purported’ violation to the tune of 100 dollars?

Does the city expect to fill their coffers with overly sensitive hi-tech (misnomer here, for sure) cameras nefariously calibrated tocapture the minutest red light infraction when there really wasn’t one?

If you’re stuck in the intersection because oncoming traffic would not relent — the MO of most Chicago drivers — nor decelerate with the yellow light, with even some eeking through the fresh red light or when traffic clogs the intersection and although you are able to enter the intersection, the lights are in change mode and before you know it the flash confirms your worst fear — that you’ve been photographed by the traffic cam.

“I think I’ll write to the alderman,” my spouse, the driver at that precipitous moment, mentioned. To which I fired back, “Don’t waste your time.” As I had recently written to Alderman Fioretti and still have never received a reply, save for a perfunctory reply from a staff member claiming that I would receive a word from the Alderman. I’m still waiting.

Anyway. This has got to stop. I’m not impressed at all with this city if it can only pillage its citizenrywith highly questionable technology to capture traffic fines. People — abide by the rules and let the city find other ways to balance its budget

Mel Cragwell
South Loop

Kerr’s grand history

Thanks for including Lake Claremont Press with such great local publishers as Charles Kerr and Third World Press (“Luscious tables of lit,” June 4). I wish more people knew about Charles Kerr’s tradition of publishing radical, anti-establishment books in Chicago since the late 1800s (and of Penelope Rosemont and the late Franklin Rosemont and their crew, who have kept it going most recently). My favorite titles in their collection are about Chicago’s early countercultural world(s) and free speech forums: From Bughouse Square to the Beat Generation: Selected Ravings of Slim Brundage — Founder and Janitor of the College of Complexes; Hobohemia: Emma Goldman, Lucy Parsons, Ben Reitman & Other Agitators & Outsiders In 1920s/30s Chicago; and The Rise & Fall of the Dil Pickle: Jazz-Age Chicago’s Wildest & Most Outrageously Creative Hobohemian Nightspot.

Sharon Woodhouse
Lake Claremont Press


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