AustinTalks (http://austintalks.org/category/news/page/180/)
Members of the Coalition to Save Community Banks are planning to protest today outside the Chicago office of the FDIC inspector general. The group formed last year after federal regulators seized Park National Community Bank.
Rowing is more than just good exercise for some West Side teens. They’re learning the sport can lead to college scholarships and travel oversees, program organizers say.
Dozens of West Side youth spent spring break attending a week-long youth empowerment and job readiness program. They’re guaranteed jobs this summer, and community leaders hope that means fewer juvenile arrests.
Today’s the deadline for applying to be the next representative in Illinois House District 78. Former lawmaker Deborah Graham resigned the seat last month after being appointed alderman in Austin’s 29th Ward.
The Greater St. John Bible Church choir has released its first record. The 65-member choir produced the 11-track CD, now available in Austin, late last year.
Churches in Austin are leading efforts to get West Side residents to complete the 2010 Census form. Much is at stake, says Friendship Baptist Church pastor Reggie Bacchus.
State Rep. Deborah Graham (D-Oak Park), who will be sworn in Friday morning as the next 29th Ward alderman, will help choose her replacement in the Illinois House. The four-term state representative will be one of seven elected Democratic Party officials who will interview and select who will represent the state’s 78th District, which includes some of the west suburbs and parts of Chicago’s Austin neighborhood, and be the Democratic nominee for that seat in the November general election. Graham’s replacement must be named 30 days from the date she steps down from the Illinois General Assembly. Having a successor in place will be important as lawmakers could be preparing to cast votes on critical matters such as the state budget and a possible tax hike. Graham is participating in the process as the committeeman from the 29th Ward.
Sherron Parker, a fifth-grader at May Community Academy, 512 S. Lavergne Ave., was once just a normal kid attending school in her Austin neighborhood and hanging out with her friends. But since winning first place in her age group in a community-wide spelling bee last year, Sherron, 10, is now like a rock star. “Everybody is nicer to me at school,” said Sherron, who won a computer and trophy for correctly spelling the word “cookie.” “When I won I was like, ‘I feel great,’ loud and enthusiastically. I was really happy.”
The buzz is spreading through Austin once again that the 2nd annual Spelling Bee is coming up on April 8, 9 and 10, at the Austin Town Hall, 5610 W. Lake St. Registration packets have gone out to 23 neighborhood schools.
No matter what the outcome in the Park National Bank seizure, the situation has broken down barriers between the Austin community and Oak Park residents. It’s the silver lining in the cloud that has hung over those two communities since October. That’s when the popular neighborhood bank, located in Oak Park, was seized by federal regulators, said Rev. Marshall Hatch, a member of the Coalition to Save Community Banking, a grassroots organization formed in response to the takeover and forced sale. “There’s much less of a barrier between Austin and Oak Park,” said Hatch, representing the New Mount Pilgrim Missionary Baptist Church in West Garfield Park. “This has brought people together.
When federal regulators seized Park National Bank and its parent company last October and turned operations over to US Bank, it caused an outcry through Chicago’s West Side and into Oak Park. And the fight is not over. On Saturday, March 13 at 10 a.m., the Coalition to Save Community Banking will meet at the Light of Liberty Church of God and Christ at 2 W. Washington Blvd. in Oak Park. The group will then march to Park National’s former headquarters at the corner of Austin Boulevard and Madison Street where it will stage a protest over the loss of the community bank that had invested heavily on the West Side.