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January 2008

Anthony T. Calderone, Mayor of Forest Park

Dear Friends & Neighbors, Happy New Year!

I trust your Holiday Season and welcoming the New Year went well. It occurs to me that each New Year brings new beginnings and as a resident you deserve the very best Your elected officials and village staff shOuld be the very best, and the community should be stable and strong. And last, but not least, you deserve the best news reporting possible.

With a recent local election behind us I had the chance to reflect on the type of reporting your local weekly newspaper offers you, as a resident. When I think about the terrible job they did during and after the election it dawned on me that you, as a resident,
missed out on what is truly going on in your village. Your local weekly news periodical is so concerned about writing negatively about me, your Mayor, that they miss much of what is really going on in town.

For some reason, they seem to try way too much to compare our community with our neighbor to the east. Odd as it sounds, I believe it to be true; although I am sure they would never admit it.

The reality of this absurdity is that The Forest Park Review is owned, operated, and maintained by long time Oak Parkers. In and of itself, this does not make the paper bad, what makes it bad is the childish jealousy of the positive changes in Forest Park that the owner of that paper seems to have; as well as his take
on the operations of each when comparing our two communities

For those of you who have lived here for sometime there was a point in our short-term history when Forest Park wasn't bustling
like it is today. Back then they tended to make fun of our quaint
community. Simply put, our town did not meet their standards. I say, So what? Why the fuss? Why should we be like them or they like us? We are completely different towns with completely
dynamics. I am not trying to be like them and don't understand why it would important to them that I am.

Time and time again I find so many errors in their reporting that it’s becoming a joke. On one recent occasion I had, a conversation with the editor about a story he wrote after I had provided him with correct, useful information Instead he chose
to “assume” instead of gaining his facts What kind of reporting
is that? They seem to want to be the conspiracy agent of
Forest Park and I question how this can best report what's going on here at home. Now of course, they will put a different spin on this story. They will publish a piece about why they write what they contrive, but I'm not buying it and neither should you

You deserve a better reporting system in a weekly newspaper. You should be enlightened about all facets of the community. News coverage should be complete, thorough, and most of all, factual. Heck, just a couple of weeks ago on the front page they wrote a story about the Holiday Walk on Madison Street complete with coverage on Schauer’s “Ace” Hardware. I read the article, and went back and read it again and said to myself wait a minute Schauer’s is not “Ace” anymore, they switched
to “Do it Best”. How did they miss this when after all this is a local, very longtime great hardware store in downtown Forest Park ? I surmised they simply didn't put the extra effort in getting the facts. This is a recurring theme in their news coverage.

I often wonder what the residents of this community think when they pick up the paper and find it chock full of short, incomplete reporting. You'll have to be the judge on that one.

I have bitten my tongue so many times when I read a “bash” on me that I cannot resist setting the record straight any longer. This New Year brings a new perspective for me and at the top of the list is to correct the very misleading reporting taking place in
our weekly newspaper. This misleading of the public is unfair and downright sickening. The notion of listening to a very small number of malcontents who end up framing the content of the so-called news they report is absurd at best. I suppose they
think this type of reporting sells newspapers. I wonder if their
circulation truly increases using this tactic.

So, in the meantime, your village will do its best at communicating factually-based, thorough information to you,
by way of several different media. Our website is one, our quarterly newsletter is another, and thanks to the owner-editor
of this news periodical, this is yet one more As we move
forward I plan to find more.

I want to work with the residents of Forest Park to continue to make this place we call home the very best it can be, and I will continue to always place your trust first and foremost in my decision-making process.

God Bless each and every one of you and I trust 2008 will bring you great Health, Wealth, and Happiness, as well as the truth about our great Village.

Anthony T. Calderone, Mayor

Village of Forest Park Website

Suburban Journals Editor Comments

Mayor Calderone is writing about the Forest Park Review in his complaints and he is praising "the POST" a bi-monthly news magazine mailed to all residents of Forest Park.