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Train derailment, drowning most memorable stories of 2012
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The five most-viewed stories in 2012 on the Glenview Announcements website:
1. Missing autistic teen found safe by jogger in Glenview
2. Boy, 4, drowns in public pool in Glenview
3. Parents shaken after Glenview pool fatality
4. Glenview man dies after fall into fire pit
5. North Branch pizza and burger opens in Glenview
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- Accident scene a jarring sight in quiet Glenview
- Parents shaken after Glenview pool fatality
- Cops close case in drowning of Glenview boy
- New fire station part of Glenview downtown development proposal
- Glenview village board expected to approval project
- GBS 50: Glenbrook South history, through the decades
- GBS 50: Capsules of time reveals school history
- Dist. 225 trustee, brother agree to trading settlement
Updated: December 27, 2012 9:40AM
GLENVIEW — Looking back at 2012, these are five news stories that had Glenview talking, including the train derailment and Glenbrook South’s Golden Anniversary.
1. Train derails, kills Glenview couple
On July Fourth, a northbound Union Pacific coal train derailed and collapsed the Shermer Road Bridge, south of busy Willow Road.
Below, Burton and Zorine Lindner were riding in their Lexus at 1:45 p.m. when tons of splayed steel and black coal killed the Glenview couple who lived blocks from the fatal scene.
By 5 p.m., the roadway was filled with massive crane trucks and backhoes pulling the wreckage apart and scooping coal.
Until sundown, the curious pulled up in vehicles and bicycles, peering down Shermer Road with digital cameras, hands over their mouths in disbelief.
The coal-covered workers only stopped at 10 a.m. July 5 when a car bumper was found, leading to the Lindners.
The next day, a muscular man guided his metallic blue Harley-Davidson Rocker into a parking lot.
He dropped to a knee, head bowed and openly wept on the pavement, as wreck site workers and police looked on.
Bob Cichowicz said his uncle taught him how to ride a bike.
“My son and I were apart for a while due to some things between my ex-wife and me. Burton extended an olive branch between us, said Cichowicz, a 1985 graduate of Skokie’s Niles North High School.
A Union Pacific executive said on July 16 that temperatures — more than 100 degrees — may have caused the deadly crash when heat kinked or buckled the tracks.
Working with the Federal Railroad Administration, UP will file a public report in five months.
In October, Northbrook and Glenview elected officials signed a memorandum of understanding with UP on replacing the bridge and handling traffic during construction.
UP will pay $10 million to build a new state-of-the-art bridge over 18 to 24 months.
2. Boy drowns in park district pool
On a hot, muggy afternoon on June 15, the Glenview Park District aqua center should have been filled with summer-crazed children, swimming, laughing and splashing in glistening blue water.
But Roosevelt Pool surrounded by aromatic pine trees and flowering shrubs was silent, closed since 4-year-old Vicente Cardenas was pulled unresponsive from the water the previous day, later losing his life at Glenbrook Hospital.
Cardenas was part of a summer camp from Wesley Day Care Center, 727 Harlem Ave., Glenview.
State officials announced the facility itself passed a state inspection.
In early September Glenview police completed an investigation into the drowning death and administratively closed the case without filing charges.
3. Large mixed-use projects to reshape downtown area
Glenview trustees and plan commissioners in late November began reviewing two sizable mixed-use projects for downtown and the commercial corridor at Sanders and Willow roads west of I-294.
The downtown proposal featured 139 apartments and first-floor retail on the south side of the 1800 block of Glenview Road between Pine and Church streets.
The project also will demolish Fire Station 6 at 1815 Glenview Road and build a new facility just south of Village Hall on Waukegan Road.
The Sanders/Willow plan is a residential, four-story complex with 290 apartments, including one of the largest Mariano’s grocery stores in the area at 90,000-square feet.
Other proposed businesses are L.A. Fitness, Chase Bank, Starbucks with a drive-thru, a Chipotle restaurant and a Gardner School for preschoolers.
“This project is a great opportunity for the community and hopefully bringing in new businesses, said Plan Commission Chairman Steven Bucklin.
4. Glenbrook South celebrates golden anniverSary
What a day to be a Glenbrook South High School Titan.
On Feb. 25, 1,400 people associated with Glenbrook South attended the sold out 50th Anniversary Gala & Variety Show.
Graduates from every decade since the school opened in 1962 found one another again in familiar hallways.
Walther Sherman, 85, was South’s first football coach in 1962. By the 1964-1965 school year, the first graduating class had won the conference title.
“The students were great. Sports was always a big part of Glenbrook South,” said Sherman, who also was the school’s athletic director and Physical Education Department head.
The 50th anniversary ended with the annual student Variety Show in the Norman E. Watson Auditorium — two hours of sharp, well-rehearsed song, dance, stage media and skit comedy, backed up by the student pit band.
More than 400 students and staff were in the two-act show, with another 40 working on the tech and stage crew. Thirty-seven acts were cast, while 140 acts auditioned.
5. District 225 trustee settles illegal trading charges
A trustee for Glenbrook High School District 225 and his brother agreed to pay more than $14.5 million to settle illegal trading charges against them.
In July, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission said the trustee, Northbrook resident Jeffrey Wolfson, and Robert Wolfson of Massachusetts, engaged in naked short selling.
In committing the violation, they failed to locate shares involved in short sales and did not close out the resulting failures, stated a news release from the SEC.
Jeffrey Wolfson said in a recorded telephone conversation, “What I sell them is not guaranteed. It never gets delivered. It’s funny paper,” said the SEC, adding the transactions were July 2006 to July 2007.
“The Wolfsons made approximately $9.5 million in illegal profits from their naked short selling transactions.”
Wolfson resigned from the school board in August, saying he bought a home out of district; however, Wolfson stressed it was not related to the settlement and the need to raise money.
“I bought a spectacular piece of property on (Lake Michigan) in Glencoe for a fraction of what it was worth. I upgraded,” he said.
