By Ashley Mackin | SDUN Editor

At the Uptown Planners meeting on March 6, an election was held to determine the new Board of Directors, which will serve for four years. Of the nine candidates, seven were elected to the Board and there were 184 votes cast.

The new Board will consist of: Ernestine Bonn of University Heights, Thomas Fox of Bankers Hill, Beth Jaworski of University Heights, Jim Mellos of Mission Hills, Joe Naskar of Mission Hills, Christopher Ward of University Heights and Matt Winter of Hillcrest.

Bonn said she is serving her last term and said she hopes to get a lot done. Including this term, Bonn will have served 16 years on the Uptown Planners.

“My main desire to have another term is to see the completion and adoption of the Uptown Community Plan,” she said. “We have to pay attention and not repeat what happened in Uptown during the flush years when development was everywhere [with] condo conversions, the loss of many historic resources and outsized buildings that were not sensitive to the built environment.”

New to the Board is residential representative Chris Ward, who has lived in Uptown since 1998 and moved to his University Heights home in 2009. He is the chief of staff for Assemblymember Marty Block and previously served as an environmental and urban planner.

Ward said he intends to stay in Uptown his entire life. “I want to make sure that Uptown planning is carefully and thoughtfully approached so it remains an enjoyable place for all to live, work and play for decades to come,” he said. “We need to respect the wishes of the distinct communities within Uptown and recognize the differing priorities and character that they desire for themselves.”

He said he is excited to be a new member of the Uptown Planners, and looks forward to “doing my homework, engaging the public and integrating community feedback, and contributing to the Board’s critical decisions over the coming four-year term.”

Leo Wilson has been on the Uptown Planners for eight years, and was Chair for seven of those years, but will no longer serve on the Board.

“When I came on, the issues were totally different than they are now,” Wilson said.
“The nice thing about Uptown [Planners] is it’s been the most effective planning group in the city. We’ve got half business representatives and half residents, so we’ve got some of the most qualified people on any planning group. I think they’ll do just fine,” he added.

“Sometimes when you retire, you worry about what will happen after you, and the nice thing about this election is I can say, ‘I’m not worried.’ It’ll go [well], so its nice when you can look at things and say ‘my leaving the scene is not going to impact how well Uptown Planners runs,’” Wilson said.

Wilson also said there was a larger turnout from the Middletown community, which spans along the Southwest side Mission Hills, than he has seen in prior years. On the new Board, Mellos and Naskar will represent Mission Hills and Middletown. “In the past, we’ve had a problem getting a Board member [from] there and probably about 90 voters, since there are some interesting issues in Middletown, turned out [at the meeting] from that one community,” he said.

At the April 3 meeting, which will take place at the Joyce Beers Community Center at 6 p.m., the Board will designate the officers, including the new Chair.