Trouble is growing for two women because of the bright bluebells, brown-eyed susans, and wildflowers that bloom in the Cook County Forest Preserve in Des Plaines.
About 15 years ago, the women began clearing out vines and weeds, collecting trash, and planting species native to the woods, which is near their condo buildings.
Then a neighbor reported them.
They shouldn’t have planted anything, said Steve Mayberry, spokesman for the Forest Preserve District of Cook County.
They stopped in May but could still be fined for encroachment.
Both said they were only trying to help the preserve, and besides, there is no clear line dividing the preserve and the city.
Several cement poles with the initials “FPD” are scattered throughout the area, but it’s difficult to determine the precise boundaries, they say.
“People were dumping trash, bicycles … we cleaned up the section,” said Irma Lehmann, who is retired. “We shouldn’t be penalized for that.”
When Lehmann and her friend, Peggy Losik, a nurse, moved into their Des Plaines condos, they saw garbage, chunks of cement, cans and tires piling up in the preserve. Garlic mustard and poison ivy were choking out other plants, they say.
Lifelong gardeners, they both thought, “let’s clean it up.”
Using their own money, they bought bags of dirt and seeds. They planted species natural to the area, like jack-in-the-pulpits, Solomon’s seal, and bloodroots. The women dug up rocks and bricks to make a border for the plants, built a small stone bench, and cleaned out weeds.
Soon flowers bloomed, birds and butterflies visited, and a space had been created for neighbors to walk by and enjoy, they say.
But it all stopped when their neighbor said she had contacted the forest preserve. Since, neighbors have told Losik and Lehmann that forest preserve employees have inspected the area. That frightened the women from planting anymore.
They contacted their alderman, who called the Friends of the Forest Preserve, an organization that works with volunteers and the forest preserve to maintain the land. Executive director Benjamin Cox said encroachment has been a persistent problem, prompting the forest preserve to become more aggressive against those who plant on its land.
“Anybody anywhere that utilizes the land without permission … technically, that’s encroachment,” Cox said.
Typically, the most serious encroachers are businesses, forest preserve officials said. While the women could be fined for what they did, Mayberry says a conversation is more likely.
The preserve has a volunteer program that supplies materials for people who want to clean up the land, he says. Trouble brews when people do so without telling the forest preserve.
Losik and Lehmann didn’t know about the program. And even though their carefully-tended area has become overrun with weeds in the last four months, they won’t return for fear of being fined.
“We hoped they would look at it as a help and not a hindrance,” said Losik. “We thought we were helping.”
jmdelgado@tribune.com
Other ideas for this unused FPD land:
“Area Man Turns Unused FDP Land to Off-Road Motorcycle Park for Youth”
“Organization Develops Neglected FDP Land for 4×4 Mudding”
“Local Family Clears Forest Preserve for Bean Crop”
Bottom line, that space was not theirs. These criminals seized it as their backyard and treated it as such. Worried about cars getting stolen and shootings and what police should be doing? How about, oh maybe, stop committing petty offenses so law enforcement can actually focus on real crimes?
If the FPD is handing out gardening space for tax payers, sign me up for my parcel. I want to grow sunflowers and need a home for my cherub bird bath and gnomes.
Typical Des Plaines law enforcement and their misplaced lack of priorities. I guess that explaines why I was approached by an officer trolling the library who told me that I had to put my sandals back on. I was working at my computer at one of the out of the way cubicles and my feet were curled up under my legs! Where were they when my car was being broken into?
Steve Mayberry, you should be ashamed to have your name attached to such a statement. “They shouldn’t have planted anything” How embarrassing for the FPD. Creating a beautiful garden out of a garbage dump is backbreaking labor, and very costly as well. I hope these two women take advantage of the volunteer program they now know about and maybe recoup some of their own money. Their time and labor is a gift to us.
Just one question: what can we do for the poor soul who is so bitter about life as to make it her mission to complain (ad nauseum) about beauty?
Who is Gladys Kravitz?
One needs to remember that the Friends of the Forest Preserve are not paid by the Forest Preserve and are not official spokespeople for the Forest Preserve.
The suggestion that these well meaning ladies would be fined for doing what they perceived as a good deed was a ridiculous mistake.
With better communication and guidance, I would expect that these ladies will be welcomed to continue their good work.
Snalg2 – I AGREE 110% with you! Gladys Kravitz has nothing better to do then this? Use your power for good and actually HELP Des Plaines with the issues that are REALLY at hand-that is, if you are really SO concerned with being a “do-gooder!” Or is this a case of just another nosey neighbor who has way too much time on their hand trying to stir the pot.
Anyone besides me think Barbyr is the wacked-out neighbor who prefers rot and ruin to a nice flower bed?
There’s a fine line between cleaning up the public area and extending your garden. The next owner of the condo might feel it would be helpful to put a fence and then you’ve just lost some public land. Pick up trash? Fine. Turn a wildlife area into a rockery? Not fine.
Dave, with all due respect:
1. Cleaning up trash and planting native flowers and shrubs is not “altering an ecosystem.” It is restoration. Or, in this case, rescue.
2. If these ladies had, all those years ago, “organized and worked with the FPD,” the trash would still be lying there, and they’d still be waiting to plant their first seed. This is not a system that encourages citizen initiative — unless there’s money in it for somebody.
And that makes their commitment even more admirable! The FPD ought to be ashamed of themselves.
Lots of mistakes have been made in our relationship with nature under the best of intentions. I do not know enough about law to judge the event as encroachment, but I understand enough about our environment to know that one does not alter an ecosystem without serious consideration and the opinions of experts. Maintaining a suburban home garden does not make one an expert in prairie and forest restoration.
If these two would have organized and worked with the FPD, there would not have been a problem.
Well, must have been barbyr who reported her. Hey, Gladys Kravitz, get a life. We need more people like these gals who are willing to take action to do what lazy people who are not. Wow, people getting involved in their community; imagine that! Thank you ladies for doing a great job!
Once again “common sense” is not common. These lovely ladies took a garbage strewn area and enhanced it with native plantings. Wow what criminals. Ladies, please note that your good deeds are appreciated and although you may no longer be able to provide such pleasentness for yourselves or others please find other avenues to express your talents. I miss not being able to garden.
Oh and be sure everyone lets the preserve know when the garbage comes back. They should spend large parts of thier budget cleaning stuff up I guess. fools.
Barbyr – for the record, we are not discussing prostitution, pot smoking or any of those other grimy things you brought up. The subject is the forest preserve, and the dolts who punished two women for cleaning up garbage and planting flowers. It’s hardly equatable with speeding tickets.
Ah! Cook County at its finest! Bureaucratic drones perfectly willing to let junk pile up in the Forest Preserve, yet fiercely reactive when volunteer citizens step in and do the work left undone while the drones sit around drinking coffee. Apparently, no good may be done in the Forest Preserves for which the drones cannot take credit. And as for Madame Defarge, perhaps she might better spend her time reporting little kids for operating lemonade stands without a County license.
Here we go again, with all you people condoning other people breaking the law. It’s almost a knee-jerk reaction. Your not-so-logical thinking always takes the same track:
1. Don’t the lawmakers have anything better to do?
2. The lawbreakers were only trying to help / didn’t know they were breaking the law.
3. They didn’t hurt anybody.
Well, as usual, you don’t know all the facts, you just shoot your mouths off. I might add that all you facile, fallacious arguments could be made for a speeding ticket, a prostitute, a marijuana smoker and any number of other victimless crimes. But I don’t see you crying for the speed limit signs to come down, or welcoming the ladies of the night to your neighborhood street corner.
Your interpretation of the law is selective. You only want the laws you like enforced, and its a good thing our governments do not listen to you.
DaveK17 is right. The FPD should be gutted of personnel that didn’t make it their priority to care for the land we’ve entrusted them to manage. Didn’t they notice that a former junkyard suddenly became clean? Who did they think did the work – the forest elves?
Unbelievable. Two women take the initiative to make their community a better place, not bothering with the snail’s pace of beaurocracy, and they are threatened with a fine? Leave people alone when they are doing something proactive and positive, and do something constructive like catching criminals. These women could have been made aware of the resources available for volunteers without this scenario turning into a mess. Petty stupidity should be fined!
I recall an old Indian saying that the White Man invented laws when he forgot how to be a Human Being. This situation kinda recalls that sentiment.
While it is understandable that the FPD does not want any old haphazard plantings going on, and probably unlikely these knowledgeable people will be fined and may being working through the volunteer program in the future, the situation does show some of the stupid inequities in our legalistic system; and how “authorities” infantilize us all and stifle citizenship and initiative, while remaining incapable of action themselves.
Perhaps the FPD should be sued for not taking care of the land they were entrusted to care for — leaving all that garbage lying around, creating a potential health hazard and eyesore. And, perhaps the FPD should be forced to pay these people $30/hour retroactively for the work the FPD should have been doing in the first place.
Then, finally, the FPD and the ladies should take all that garbage — and leave it on the doorstep of that busybody neighbor.
No good deed goes unpunished. These ladies should be applauded for their voluntary efforts to improve their view of the park district property. If they are fined they should send a bill in the amount of the fine to the park district for the clean-up work they did.
And the neighbor should get a life.
There are so many other problems in this city and they’re chosing to focus on a couple of women who clean up an area to make it look more presentable? What about the taggers who deface buildings in the city, or the people who dump garbage in every place but a garbage can? AMAZING that the city of Chicago isn’t praising these women for doing something to improve the quality of life in their city.
Doesn’t the nosey neighbor have anything else to do? I think the garden looks beautiful and they should be thanked for their kindness, now go and catch the bad guys elsewhere.
Why in God’s name would a neighbor report them?? Stupid laws in a nasty world…