Letter: New Sidewalk Is A $2M "Solution Looking For A Problem"

The following was written and submitted by Broucka Sarnoff & John Ropiequet

The City of Highland Park has approved a $90,000 budget to design a $2 million sidewalk to be constructed on the east side of Sheridan Road between Roger Williams and Dean Avenues. We believe that this will be money poorly spent for a project that offers little public benefit and that threatens to wreak havoc with the landscape. In exchange for the "green tunnel" that Highland Park has had on that stretch of the road since it was built in the early 1920's as it approaches Rosewood Beach from the south and the north, we would have an eight foot high concrete retaining wall that cuts into the hill along the road and takes out dozens of large trees.

What is the proposed public benefit? Does the City need to spend $2 million dollars for another way for residents to go to the beach? There are already three ways to go. There is a path, and the stairs through Rosewood Park, and then there is the road down to the beach off Sheridan, which can be walked on, driven on and biked on.

Essentially, the money would be spent to close a quarter mile "gap" in the sidewalk.

We do not believe that this proposed public benefit is worth the money and the destruction of the forest that Highland Park, a "City of Trees", is justifiably proud of. We have a lakefront ordinance that prohibits clear cutting of our bluffs and another ordinance that restricts tree removal without justification. The City would be removing 70 healthy trees. To our knowledge, no one is unable to reach the beach because that sidewalk is not there. This proposal would solve nothing. Instead, it is a solution looking for a problem.

John L. Ropiequet
Broucka Sarnoff
Highland Park