It isn’t always easy here – you have to want it to work and you have to work at it. Small business is especially hard. I have been lucky to spend the last five years helping to build a Chamber of Commerce that supports the many unsung heroes who own and operate those businesses that…
Businesses close for reasons usually related to profitability. While tempting to assign blame or to suggest mismanagement, cost structure is often the “villain.”
The President just confirmed zero raises for civilian federal employees in 2019. “Federal agency budgets cannot sustain such increases,” he wrote. Budget season means setting priorities and making difficult choices for any organization. Last week, Village of Oak Park staff began sharing 2019 budget priorities with elected officials and the public. Over the next few…
Three good friends ended up in the hospital this weekend. All unrelated, all unexpected. All crazy scary. All keen reminders that life can go awry at any moment. Are you prepared? Can you put your finger on critical information, when needed? Do you have the right contact numbers stored in your phone? Do you have…
The happy ending is, “good things come to those who wait.” However, most of this story is, “when it rains, it pours.” To those businesses who purchased sponsoring images in the Oak Park River Forest “community montage,” your prints are finally ready. If you even remember, that is, since you committed to the project last…
Tiny micro-small independent businesses often are too small to benefit from “pro-business” policies and programs. These businesses add community character even if they aren’t economic engines.
Disseminating information to business owners is a key function of the Chamber of Commerce
Val Camilletti deserves all the good said about her in the wake of her passing last week. She was a tremendous person for her kindness as much as her influence and knowledge. I can only add my own admiration to what already has been said. So let’s talk about Val’s Halla instead. This “little” record…
My block party morphed from the traditional potluck into a paid affair. For the two plus decades I’ve lived here, we alternated one side of the street bringing appetizers and the other bringing entrees. I’ll admit it was always a gamble, usually resulting in an overabundance of pasta salads. Still, I was shaken when the…
A consultant listed four of the most pressing issues in our community: education, housing, food security and transportation. Because people do not have equitable access to these four intrinsic needs, he said, people’s access to livelihood, opportunity and quality of life are threatened. Yet missing from this list of top things we were to care…
Oak Park - River Forest Chamber of Commerce 