Joy of tobogganing slides into memory in Cook County

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Chicago Sun-Times
By Mark Brown, Columnist
February 21, 2007

I was driving through Western Springs past Bemis Woods on Tuesday morning when I noticed the Cook County Forest Preserve District's sign for the toboggan slides.

"Closed for the 2006/2007 season," said the sign, as if this were some temporary condition.

Who are they kidding?

The toboggan slides at Bemis Woods have been closed since 2000.

Closed for the season, since 2000
There is no plan to reopen them. There is no plan to tear them down. There is no plan.

The same holds true for the toboggan slides at Dan Ryan Woods on the Southwest Side and Deer Grove in Palatine, both of which closed about the same time.

The Forest Preserve District's other two toboggan runs -- Swallow Cliff in Palos Park and the Caldwell Woods Jensen Slide on the Northwest Side -- were last opened in 2004.

My boys were probably in the second grade the first time I searched in vain for an open toboggan slide. Now they're as tall as me and never got a chance to go.

Closed for the season?

One of the best winter recreational activities ever made available to Chicagoans and suburbanites has been literally allowed to go to pieces -- that being the current condition of the Forest Preserve's toboggan facilities.

If there is a more glaring, continuing symbol of the past incompetence in Cook County government, it doesn't come to mind.

The toboggan runs were one of those rare little bright spots provided by the government, a source of joy for generations of Cook County residents. This was something that put a smile on a child's face. How often does county government get a chance to do that?

And now we pretend indefinitely that the toboggan runs are only temporarily closed and that, anyhow, the thrill of speeding down an icy hill is a relic of the past, as if nobody would be interested in doing that any more.

I've always maintained that people would gladly pay for the privilege, especially in flat-as-a-pancake Chicago.

Heck, the kids in my neighborhood ride their sleds down a 15-foot train embankment and don't quit until they've scraped all the snow off the side of it.

It is true that there are weightier budget issues facing the Cook County Board and President Todd Stroger this week as they attempt to close a budget shortfall, serious questions about closing health clinics and laying off prosecutors.

But county officials should make no mistake as they go about their business: The closed toboggan runs are still something that sticks in the craw of the people who pay the taxes and wonder what they get in return, even if those bothering to register complaints are fewer and fewer as the memories recede.

It was former County Board President John Stroger who shut down the toboggan runs after they fell into disrepair. The Forest Preserve District didn't have enough funds to fix them up, he said at the time. Another factor was an outside auditor's calculation that operating the toboggan slides cost taxpayers $53 a ride when you factored in the featherbedded labor costs.

Rather than strip away the inefficiencies, Stroger used the audit for cover to justify allowing the toboggan runs to continue to deteriorate and then close entirely.

When the issue came up two years ago, the cost of repairing the slides was pegged at $1.5 million, and forest preserve officials said they were studying their options.

On Tuesday, Steve Mayberry, Todd Stroger's spokesman, said the district is still in the process of studying the issue to determine how much it would now cost to repair or replace the facilities. "At this point, we're still waiting for the report," he said.

If you know anything about county government, you know such reports can take a long, long time.

No cash for repairs, but $13.2 mil. 'surplus'
Mayberry says I shouldn't try to connect the toboggan issue to the county's decision a few weeks back to transfer $13.2 million in "surplus" funds from the Forest Preserves to help bail out the county's operating budget, as the county had bailed out the Forest Preserves in 2001 and 2002. OK, no connection. The Forest Preserves have no need for $13.2 million.

County Commissioner Peter Silvestri seems to understand my frustration.

"This joke that they're closed for the season has to end," said Silvestri, who wants the county to reopen the toboggan runs, find a private contractor to do so or tear them down.

Mayberry said he hasn't fielded any complaints this year about the toboggan runs. I imagine that's because most people have long since given up and moved on as their children grew older.

"There's a generation being lost now. They don't even know what a toboggan slide is," said Commissioner Forrest Claypool, who tried for two years straight to force the reopening of the toboggan runs without any luck.

Tell you what: If the Toddler can reopen the slides, I'll get him a toboggan -- and a helmet.