Community Corner

Year in Review: The Stories that Affected Darien in 2011

Take a look back through the stories that shaped 2011.

It started with a few early afternoon flurries on Feb. 1. 

Soon Darien was enveloped in a whiteout that persisted through night, dropping nearly 24 inches of snow by the time it was done.

Power outages left residents shivering in a few neighborhoods, but most had their electricity restored by early morning.

Find out what's happening in Darienwith free, real-time updates from Patch.

"In my professional career that started in 1985, this is the most challenging and probably the worst storm I can remember," City Administrator Bryon Vana said. 

Nonetheless, managed to clear 98 percent of Darien’s roads by 11 a.m. Feb. 2. 

Find out what's happening in Darienwith free, real-time updates from Patch.

As the sun came out that afternoon, to dig out driveways and parking lots.

 

House Republicans proposed a spending bill in February that would have slashed funding to key energy programs by 50 percent. 

The result, Argonne officials said, would be the elimination of about one-third of the Darien-area lab’s workforce. 

U.S. Sen. Dick Durbin, D-IL, and called the cuts thoughtless, warning they could have a ruinous impact on U.S. innovation.

“Research, innovation and educational training are part of the basic infrastructure that builds this country,” he said. 

In March, Darien City Council passed a resolution . 

“[T]he loss of these jobs would be devastating to both the City of Darien and the region, with laid-off employees moving out of the area and reduced revenues for businesses supported by these employees,” the city’s resolution read.

Congress voted on a compromise bill in April that ultimately .

A contentious election season divided Darien in the weeks leading up to the April 5 consolidated election. 

Allegations of dogged Kevin Monaghan, JoAnne Ragona, Tina Beilke and Joerg Seifert, known as Team Darien. (The complaint was .) 

Other residents said Mayor Kathleen Weaver during a City Council meeting on the eve of the election. 

Weaver ultimately with nearly 54 percent of the vote, while challenger Monaghan received about 46 percent.

Newcomers Beilke and Seifert unseated incumbent aldermen John Galan and Carolyn Gattuso.

After the election, incumbent Alderman Sylvia McIvor, as well as Beilke and Seifert, within the new makeup of the City Council.

As former Police Chief Bob Pavelchik prepared for retirement in May, the city considered eliminating the position.

The city released a proposal that would have transferred the chief’s administrative oversight to City Administrator Bryon Vana, while splitting the operational duties between Deputy Chiefs John Cooper and David Skala.

Residents mobilized against the idea, speaking out at City Council meetings and on Darien Patch. 

The city scrapped the plan and went through another round of proposals before deciding to conduct an outside search for a new police chief who would serve in a traditional capacity.

Summer storms in June and July socked the area with high winds that for as in some areas of Darien.

The city wanted answers and called ComEd to City Council meeting in September to explain what could be done to prevent a repeat of this summer. 

“For 20-something years, we had no power outages. Now we have chronic power outages,” Alderman Joe Marchese said during the meeting. “Living across from (neighbors), I have to tell you there are times when we’re out for an hour and they’re out for three days.” 

A ComEd representative pledged the company would remediate the problem through a revamped tree-trimming program and by making its circuits more reliable.

It’s been only four years since Darien mom Paula Evans started the Foundation for Angelman Syndrome Therapeutics.

But in that time she’s help revolutionize the search for a cure. 

The group won $250,000 in August from the Vivint Gives Back Project — exactly how much money is needed to launch a clinical trial of a drug that has cured symptoms of the rare genetic disorder in mice. Children born with AS are unable to speak and experience motor difficulties, as well as frequent seizures.

At the heart of Evans’ fight for a cure is her who was born with AS. 

With a clinical trial expected to start early next year, Evans now has hope that one day Ainsley will move and speak like any other child.

“It has been a phenomenal year for us,” Evans said.

 

Ten years later and the memories for most as ever: the first plane striking the World Trade Center just before 9 a.m.; the opaque smoke that for days cut across the New York City skyline; the cry of “Let’s roll” that rallied passengers on United Flight 93 to take down the terrorists on their plane.

Darien honored the victims of the Sept. 11 attacks with three ceremonies. 

Both and fire protection districts held ceremonies to dedicate memorials displaying steel beams recovered from the twin tower wreckage. 

Longtime Darien resident Tom Jones spoke at each ceremony about escaping from the south tower on Sept. 11, 2001.

“As I was in the stairwell with all those other people fleeing the building, it was the New York firefighters who were entering the building,” he recalled.

for a moment of silence as well as a tribute to the fallen from the Darien Police Department and VFW Post 2838.

Amid the sadness also : Patch spoke with eighth-graders at who were too young in 2001 to remember the attacks.

Rather than being afraid of terrorism, the kids said they have grown up assured that the U.S. will do everything in its power to prevent such attacks from ever happening again. 

After a summer-long search conducted with the aid of a citizens committee, Mayor Kathleen Weaver announced Ernest Brown was her pick for Darien’s police chief.

Brown came to Darien as a 28-year veteran of the Chicago Police Department, serving most recently as bureau chief for the patrol division. 

Some residents over Brown’s background, including a civil rights lawsuit that resulted from a raid he ordered on a 2001 community basketball tournament.

Brown at a City Council meeting in September. 

“I’ve had some tough assignments like most people in law enforcement at every level no matter where your jurisdiction is,” he said. “Some of those assignments required equally tough decisions, and even more than tough decisions, unpopular decisions. So when you (make) unpopular decisions, you make people unhappy.”

During the same meeting, several aldermen used to select Brown, arguing they had been promised the opportunity to meet him prior to Weaver’s nomination.

“I have credibility with the people who support me,” Alderman Joe Marchese said. “I have to be able to tell them the process is transparent, that I had some input into that process. And I did tell them that. And I didn’t have that input.”

The council that night by a vote of 4-3. Brown officially assumed the role Nov. 16, promising he to the Darien Police Department.

The story that shattered Darien in March 2010 got some closure in September. 

Jacob Nodarse, of Countryside, pleaded guilty but mentally ill to his role in the murders of three members of the Kramer family. 

As part of the deal, Nodarse agreed to testify in the trial of co-defendant Johnny Borizov, who is accused of orchestrating the crime that was intended to target his ex-girlfriend, Angela Kramer. 

Nodarse awaits sentencing, pending Borizov’s trial. He could spend anywhere from 45 years to the rest of his life in jail. 

After 10 years of talking and planning, redevelopment of the downtown business district took a significant turn in 2011. 

0.8 acres of city-owned property at 7501 Cass Avenue, the former home of a Shell gas station, for $1.95 million. 

The sale was , however. Some residents questioned whether it would be prudent to bring another bank into Darien that wouldn’t generate sales tax revenue. Alderman Joerg Seifert said he worried a drive that cut from the Chase lot to Plainfield Road would lower the value of remaining properties at the site.

City officials said that a bank, as well as a Plainfield Road entrance to the development, has been part of the plan for the site since at least 2009.

Chase has until June to close the sale on the property.


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