Former Oak Park village manager Parker
on the way out in Maywood

By ERIC LINDEN

Former Oak Park Village Manager Allen Parker, who left that position in
a controversial firing, reportedly will be let go from his current job
as village manager in Maywood, the suburb that is adjacent on the west
of both River Forest and Forest Park.

Parker has been Maywood village manager since 1996. Reports in Maywood
said the seven-member Village Board of Trustees would approve Parker's
ouster at a meeting scheduled for next Monday, April 17.

Parker's reported firing as Maywood manager has drawn mixed reaction in
village government circles, as correspondence has circulated that calls
both for a change in the manager's office and for continuing with Parker
as manager and the progress made during his tenure. Among other
indications that Parker's firing will be coming soon was that he is not
listed with the village hall officials on the front page of the latest
issue of Maywood News, a newspaper published by Maywood village
government and distributed throughout the village.

Parker's tenure as Maywood manager ended more than two decades of
frequent changeover in the Maywood post. And unlike his departure in Oak
Park, Parker's firing in Maywood apparently will be without much drama,
as the village board has moved recently to change several practices
enacted by the manager.

By contrast in Oak Park, the village board in September 1995 was divided
in directing Parker's resignation because of a specific incident. The
four Oak Park board members asking for Parker's ouster charged that he
had taken unauthorized and inappropriate vacation time and additional
compensation. The three Oak Park trustees supporting Parker's continued
employment in Oak Park said the charges really were minor, involved
miscommunication and could have been rectified easily.

With two elections since then, none of those on the Oak Park board that
ousted Parker remains on the village board today. The Oak Park manager's
post, in effect the chief operating officer of village government, was
filled on an interim basis by John Eckenroad and then by new Village
Manager Carl Swenson, who remains in that position now. Swenson was
selected by the village board over Eckenroad, who had applied for the
job and who now holds the post of president of the Oak Park Development
Corporation.

As with Oak Park, the membership of the village board changed in Maywood
since Parker was hired initially. The Maywood village board now
includes, among others, Maywood residents Kimberly A. Lightford, who is
also an elected Illinois state senator, and Wanda Sharp, an elected
state representative who recently was defeated in a re-election bid in
the Democratic primary on March 21. Both Lightford's 4th District and
Sharp's 7th District include parts of Oak Park and Forest Park, and both
women are members of the Proviso Township Democratic Party, which is
headed by committeeman Eugene Moore, formerly the 7th District state
representative and now the Cook County Recorder of Deeds.

Parker was Oak Park village manager from December 1992 to September
1995, during which time he and the village board at the time set in
place some new economic development initiatives. Included in those moves
were steps that led to development of the Shops of Downtown Oak Park at
the southeast corner of Harlem Avenue and Lake Street. Since signing on
with Maywood village government, first as an economic development
consultant and later as manager, Parker also has stressed efforts toward
new development for Maywood, which unlike Oak Park has a somewhat
depressed tax base and business community.

Chief among the economic development measures undertaken in Parker's
tenure is redevelopment of the former site of American Can Co. on St.
Charles Road in Maywood. That company left its Maywood location in 1973,
taking 800 jobs out of the village, and a succession of village hall
officials and administrations has been unsuccessful in bringing about
new development. Soon, village government said in the Maywood News,
Aetna Plywood will be opening a new facility on the former American Can
site. With headquarters now in Barrington and with facilities on
Chicago's North Side, in Elk Grove Village and in Rockford, Aetna, which
fabricates and distributes laminate particle board, will be combining
those locations in a new 150,000-square-foot building on the American
Can site. It is estimated by Maywood officials that more than 75 jobs
will be created in the village.

Village hall still was waiting, however, for final clearance from the
Illinois Environmental Protection Agency. A village government Tax
Increment Financing (TIF) fund has been used to spend $30 million to
alleviated environmental conditions on the American Can site, and the
EPA soon will issue a final ruling on whether the Aetna development can
proceed. Once the EPA approval comes in, village hall said, construction
would begin May 1, with occupancy of Aetna's new building expected some
time in November.

Filling the American Can site has taken all of Parker's tenure at
Maywood village hall. Also still continuing are discussions to bring
major new shopping and movie theater developments to a 30-acre site near
the Eisenhower Expressway and First Avenue. An office building at the
northeast corner of those two streets and the nearby Fourth District
Circuit Court complex would remain in place, but, pending negotiations,
the adjacent buildings and parcels owned by the Commonwealth Edison
electric utility would be cleared to gain space for the new
developments.

Those proposed developments, and others, have been assisted by creation
of TIF funds, which reserve property tax increases to fund the costs of
attracting development. Currently, approximately one-third of Maywood is
in a TIF district. The major TIF district in Downtown Oak Park was in
place before Parker came to Oak Park village hall, but while he was
manager in Oak Park, additional TIF districts were created by the
village board on Madison Street and along Garfield Street near Harlem
Avenue adjacent to the Eisenhower Expressway. Neither of those last two
TIF districts has resulted in new development, although a proposal
remains on the table to build a new Sleep Inn hotel/motel near Harlem
and Garfield.

Also at Maywood village hall, Parker has revamped the Finance Department
and changed practices in the Police Department, including an increase in
community policing, which works to boost interaction and trust between
police, residents and businesses.

"My lawyer is talking to them," Parker said about the prospects of him
being let go as Maywood village manager.