Adecades-old charter gives the little-known Illinois Medical District Commission a virtual kingdom on the near west side. The commission is a low-profile seven-man board whose members are appointed by either the governor, the mayor, or the president of the Cook County Board. Founded in 1941, its original purpose was to oversee the construction needs of the area’s major hospitals, Stroger (formerly Cook County Hospital), Rush-Presbyterian-St. Luke’s, and the UIC Medical Center. But over the last decade the commissioners have expanded their mission, developing a master plan for transforming about 560 acres between Congress, 15th Street, Ashland, and Oakley into a mini-empire of research facilities, clinics, and labs.
Best of Chicago voting is live now. Vote for your favorites »
Bill Lavicka, a west-side activist and resident, fought to save those homes just as he’d unsuccessfully fought to save the homes and businesses near Maxwell Street. He’s been battling the commission since 1987, when he decided to build a memorial to Vietnam veterans on two adjoining vacant lots on the east side of the 800 block of South Oakley. Lavicka himself served in the war–he was a navy lieutenant–and he wanted to create a tranquil, gardenlike memorial where fellow vets could come to reflect. He already owned the lot to the north, but since the Illinois Medical District owned the land to the south he went to the commissioners and asked if they’d sell the lot to him. No go, they said: the commission can sell property only if it’s to be used for medical purposes. “So I said, ‘Why don’t you donate the land?’” Lavicka says. “And they said, ‘We can’t transfer land unless it’s for medical reasons.’”
He spent the next two years pleading with various planners and politicians to use their influence to change the regulations. Finally he convinced former Illinois attorney general Neil Hartigan to write a letter to Park Livingston, a former president of the commission, advising him that in Hartigan’s opinion the commission did have the authority to set the vacant lot aside as a park, “which could then be used in conjunction with the adjacent memorial.”
It eats at Lavicka–whose oldest son and nephew are currently serving in Iraq–to think that the memorial may be uprooted. “It’s a sacred site,” he says. “Tearing it up would be desecration.”
“What’s one lot to you guys? You have over a thousand,” Lavicka said.
“This is such a small lot of land in a city filled with vacant lots,” she went on. “I don’t know why they can’t find a reason to keep it for vets.”
