Oak Park residents encouraged to attend tonight’s park meeting

As a daily walker in Oak Park, I recently realized that I had not seen the park ranger in a couple of months. I asked a worker for the Simi Park District and was told that the regular ranger was laid off and that other rangers only patrolled Oak Park occasionally.

A few years ago the residents of Oak Park approved a special tax assessment specifically to pay for a full-time ranger. By what authority does the park district allocate our tax monies elsewhere? For the fifth year in a row our tax assessment for the parks has been increased.

I read that the sheriff’s department has cut back on the number of deputies assigned to the unincorporated areas of the county, which includes Oak Park. We are clearly not receiving the level of police services that we are paying for.

The park district board has scheduled a meeting for the public to review the budget on July 15 at 7 p.m. in the new community center. Let’s see to it that Oak Park monies are spent on Oak Park.

Irv Katz

Oak Park