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PROPOSED RESOLUTION
HONORING LITTLE VILLAGE ENVIRONMENTAL JUSTICE ORGANIZATION (LVEJO) ON THEIR 30TH ANNIVERSARY
WHEREAS, the Little Village Environmental Justice Organization (LVEJO) was founded in 1994 by public school parents who learned about the potential exposure of their children to dangerous particles during school renovations at Joseph E. Gary Elementary; and
WHEREAS, under the leadership of the organization's first Executive Director, Victor Ceballos, LVEJO worked with neighborhood youth on local campaigns against polluting factories; and
WHEREAS, in 2005, LVEJO's community organizer Kim Wasserman-Nieto became the Executive Director, a position she would hold for eight years; and
WHEREAS, LVEJO conducted important surveys and maps of the neighborhood to understand the environmental problems that the community needed to address; and
WHEREAS, through this grassroots process, LVEJO identified the Crawford Coal Power Plant, Celotex, and the 31st CTA bus line as important environmental justice struggles; and
WHEREAS, LVEJO's organizers waged tireless grassroots campaigns to close down the Crawford and Fisk coal power plants, remediate and convert the Celotex site into a new public park, and permanently re-establish the 31st bus route in the neighborhood; and
WHEREAS, led by LVEJO and the Pilsen Environmental Rights & Reform Organization (PERRO), another environmental justice group in Pilsen, the Clean Power Coalition successfully retired the Crawford and Fisk plants in 2012; and
WHEREAS, this community victory represented a resounding example of community power and the necessity of community organizing; and
WHEREAS, for her exemplary leadership and commitment, Kim Wasserman-Nieto was awarded the prestigious Goldman Environmental Prize in April of 2013; and
WHEREAS, in 2013, LVEJO also won the Celotex superfund campaign and worked with the Chicago Park District to design the first public park to be built in Little Village in 75 years, the new...
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