Week in Review: May 6

We can't be everywhere and neither can you. The "Week in Review" is designed to bring you up to speed on local news in Oak Park and River Forest. Let's get to it:

Unsolved Mysteries: After, police are now exploring the possibility that the recent series of choking robberies may be the work of multiple offenders, or perhaps a pair working in tandem.

Black in Oak Park: Eireann Dolan authored a poignant guest essay in Wednesday Journal detailing the plight of Gregory, a young black boy with autism from Chicago's Austin community who's had the cops called him by Dolan's Oak Park neighbors. She writes: "It's these 'concerned citizens' that bother me — the ones who find Gregory threatening enough to their existence to call the police."

Governing on the Road: Village officials two Chicago properties built by Interfaith Housing Development Corporation, the agency looking to convert the long-vacant Comcast building on Madison Street into a 51-unit affordable housing project.

New Look: The Oak Leaves debuted its new website this week.

OPRF Administrators Get Raises: Principal Nate Rouse, Assistant Superintendent for Curriculum and Learning Phil Prale and Chief Information Officer Mike Carioscio are among the OPRF brass to get raises, according to TribLocal. Despite the salary bumps for administrators, school officials say overall spending on personnel is down.

District 97 Strikes Back: "It is unfortunate that fighting this lawsuit will force the district to waste valuable time, energy and money that should be invested in meeting the needs of the families we serve," members of the Oak Park Elementary School District 97 . The letter addresses the recent lawsuit filed by a resident and an anti-tax group alleging the wording on the district's recent referendum ballot question .

Failed Bank Fights Uncle Sam: Whether or not the Oak Park-based FBOP Corp., which saw its nine banks seized by the FDIC, can continue funding its decades-old pension plan is at the heart of recent lawsuits. "On one side, the government agency that insures pension plans says no way, and wants an immediate payment of almost $52 million to help pay FBOP's retirees," writes Wednesday Journal. "On the other side, FBOP says it hasn't missed any pension payments since the company was taken over in 2009, and any accusations that it can't fund the pension plan are "arbitrary and capricious.""

Doling out the Dough: And several local youth organizations will now share $25,000 in grant money.

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