For five years the city’s been battling Hyde Parkers over how to prevent erosion at Promontory Point, the peninsula at 55th Street. And now the make-or-break vote in the impasse has come down to Senator Barack Obama, a politician who apparently can’t stand to take a stand.
Over the last five years the residents have fought the city at the state, local, and federal levels. They’ve formed the Promontory Point Community Task Force, packed public hearings, written letters to editors, and raised about $100,000 to fund their own studies and reports. For the most part they’ve cleared every obstacle the city has put in front of them. They even devised their own plan to stem erosion by installing new limestone–complete with wheelchair ramps for accessibility–so the Point would continue to look much as it does today.
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In 2003 they agreed to settle their disagreement with the city through mediation. A private mediator decided in the Hyde Parkers’ favor, ruling that the residents’ preservation plan would cost less than the city’s concrete wall and do as good a job of protecting the lakefront, but the city walked out of the mediation process just before the ruling, and needless to say hasn’t abided by the mediator’s ruling.
Last spring the Hyde Parkers got a break when their congressman, Jesse Jackson Jr., took their side. (Whether he was doing so to prepare for a mayoral run in 2007 or because he’s an ardent preservationist is a subject for another debate.) Jackson offered an amendment to the federal Water Resources Development Act, which funds the project, to permit funding only for a preservation plan.
Apparently he’s still studying.
“I think [Obama] wants to make everyone happy, but I don’t know how he can make everyone happy here,” says Spicer. “[Former Hyde Park alderman] Leon Despres says there are two parts to an elected official’s job. Ninety percent is housekeeping and ten percent is leadership. Every now and then you have to take a stand.”
Specifically, he’s referring to the fact that the lakefront got the most votes in the Tribune’s unscientific online survey. Of course, it wasn’t a completely spontaneous expression of public sentiment. People could vote as often as they wanted, and Burton e-mailed friends and allies urging them to do just that. “I recommended that they vote for the lakefront and not vote for Lake Shore Drive,” says Burton. “I can’t stand Lake Shore Drive–I think it’s an abomination. Well, not only didn’t Lake Shore Drive make the final seven, no other road made it. I think this vote sends a message about how people feel about the lakefront versus roads.”
