Running head: THE LETTER AND THE SPIRIT OF PARKING 1

The Letter and the Spirit of Parking:

The Case of the Sunset Knoll Parking Lot
Kevin Dover
Northern Illinois University











THE LETTER AND THE SPIRIT OF PARKING 2

The Letter and the Spirit of Parking: The Case of Sunset Knoll Parking Lot
There are certain parts of a town that are easily seen and widely recognized and in which
the citizenry will participate in proactive actions to rectify a defect, things like education and
security tend to fall under this auspice. And then there are those components of the town, that are
integral to the infrastructure and functioning of it, but go under the radar, unnoticed, and almost
always require reactive measures to fix a problem that is quickly ballooning and spiraling out of
control, like water and parking. And it is that last component, parking, that will be the focus of
this paper.
It can be argued, rather strongly, that without parking a town simply cannot function. It is
parking which aids in stabilization and structuring of the transportation system of a town. It is
parking which allows the traffic to flow as it does, as well as rules, regulations, and laws,
amongst many other factors, but the important point here is that parking is one of these key
factors affecting the overall transportation system of a town. And not unlike a traffic jam, and
perhaps even more so, a lack of parking can completely destabilize the flow of the transportation
network. The question then arises as to why it is so often not an utmost concern for the citizenry,
and it is because it is usually viewed simply as a backdrop of the transportation network rather
than one of its binding components.
The case to be examined in this paper is the intergovernmental agreement between the
Village of Lombard, the Lombard Park District, and Glenbard High School District No. 87 in
regards to the creation of a parking lot in Sunset Knoll Park, for the purposes of parking
expansion for Glenbard East High School. This paper will move through five sections.
The first section will introduce the agreement. The second section will make explicit the
geography of the locale. The third section will contain the analysis of the agreement. The third
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section will be broken into two. The first part of section three will deal with the letter of the
agreement, and the second part of section three will deal with the spirit of the agreement. The
fourth section will contain my personal survey of the agreements implementation and offer up
my recommendations for the future. The fifth section will include summary remarks and
conclude the paper. Lastly, an addendum will follow up the fifth section looking at this
agreement and its relationship to federalism.
Section I: Introducing the Agreement
The agreement in question is entitled: An Intergovernmental Agreement between the
Village of Lombard, The Lombard Park District and Glenbard High School District No. 87 in
Regard to the Expansion of the Parking Lot in Sunset Knoll Park. Like most agreements, its title
is literal and is the simplest explication of the matter at hand. This agreement was deemed
necessary because the citizenry of the Village of Lombard were filing complaints against the
students of Glenbard East High School who, due to a parking shortage, were parking on the side
streets of Wilson Avenue, between Main Street and Finley Road.
Sunset Knoll Park, which is a holding of the Lombard Park District, is located to the west
of Glenbard East High School and contained a parking lot which could hold up to fifty cars and
was mostly underutilized. The Village of Lombard seeing this, combed with the complaints of its
citizens, found this to be a viable solution. This agreement was then penned bringing together the
interests of the Village of Lombard, the Lombard Park District, and Glenbard East High School.
Pursuant to this agreement, the Lombard Park District agreed to expand the parking lot to further
fulfill the needs of Glenbard East High School, alongside the needs to the Village of Lombard as
well.
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Each partner in this agreement was held to particular obligations. The Lombard Park
Districts obligations were first to design, bid, contract, and construct the parking lot itself. The
Lombard Park District was also to enter into a license agreement with Glenbard High School
District No. 87, representing Glenbard East High School, for the utilization of the parking lot.
This license was necessary so as to preclude the citizens of the Village of Lombard from making
use of the parking lot, as the parking lot was to pass from the Lombard Park District to Glenbard
High School District No. 87 for Glenbard East High School.
In support of this the Village of Lombard was obligated not only to assist the Lombard
Park District in the making sure that the parking lot met the codes and ordinances of the Village
of Lombard, but also to reimburse the Lombard Park District for seven/twenty-thirds of the total
cost. In addition to this, the Village of Lombard agreed to provide the technical expertise
necessary for the completion of the project. Lastly, the Village of Lombard entered into an
agreement with the Glenbard High School District No. 87 which would allow them to continue
to utilize the south side of Wilson Avenue for student parking.
The Glenbard High School District No. 87, like the Village of Lombard, was obligated to
reimburse the Lombard Park District for a portion of the cost. Glenbard High School District No.
87s portion of this came out to eight/twenty-thirds. Glenbard High School District No. 87 also
entered into a license agreement with the Lombard Park District which would essentially give
them parking control over the lot settled in Sunset Knoll Park. This license allowed Glenbard
High School District No. 87 to preclude anyone but their students from parking in the lot. To
protect this, signs were posted, making clear the hours in which this parking lot could be used
only the by the students of Glenbard East High School.
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The last portion of the agreement was the inclusion of three different indemnification
agreements, each of which is meant to protect the other parties from being condemned from the
action of the others. The most important of these was that which was initiated by Glenbard High
School District No. 87, which would hold the Village of Lombard and the Lombard Park District
harmless for actions which partook within the confines of the Sunset Knoll Parking Lot per their
licensing agreement. One other key component about this agreement was the shared
responsibility for the cost and upkeep of the lot between the Lombard Park District and Glenbard
High School District No. 87, further cementing this abiding relationship which must persist over
the course of this arrangement.
Section II: Geography
Glenbard East High School can be best described as a closed campus. Being that
Glenbard East High School is a closed campus it has rather severe strictures placed upon it
making it difficult to create spaces for parking. The bounds of Glenbard East High School are
fixed to the point of rigidity and could only be changed by tearing down residential housing,
which surrounds the high school on all sides but the east. Glenbard East High Schools eastern
side though is Main Street, which is a four-lane road which cuts through the Village of Lombard,
so this bound is just as fixed as the other three. The only bound, seemingly unconstrained, is the
vertical.
On the eastern side of Glenbard East High School, it is buttressed, all the way up the hilt,
by Main Street, a four-lane road which cuts through the entirely of Lombard north-to-south. On
the western side of Glenbard East High School it runs directly into residential housing, again
buttressed up to its hilt. On the southern side of Glenbard East High School it again runs directly
into residential housing, and is again buttressed up to its hilt. On the northern side, buttressed
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like the other three, to Wilson Avenue, a two-lane throughway between Main Street and Finley
Boulevard. All of these boundaries are rigid and are unlikely to change unless the Village of
Lombard faces a dramatic dip in population growth. This paragraph may seem to be a mere
reiteration and it is, but it is necessary to demonstrate how dramatic Glenbard East High School
is constricted within its location.

Given the residential housing on the western and southern sides of Glenbard East High
School, there are little fixes that could be implemented intergovernmentally without the tearing
down of the housing. So Glenbard East High School was forced to act upon its eastern and
northern borders. On its eastern borders, a new street light was put into place and Main Street
was expanded to a four-lane road. This was largely successful at reducing the traffic logjam and
increasing overall control of this particular street sector during the peak times of the beginning
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and end of the school day. Addressing the problems on Glenbard East High School northern side
has been much more problematic.
This is so because Wilson Avenue is shared with residential housing and the easements,
owned by the city, cannot really be encroached upon safely. The problematic, itself, is the issue
of student parking on the southern side of Wilson Avenue, making the street unsafe, and turning
a two lane wide throughway and crimping it to one and a half lane throughway. This constriction
of the traffic flow has been an issue for years, and the agreement under consideration in this
essay was constructed to address this very issue.
Section III: Analyzing the Agreement
The agreement was introduced in section I shall now be analyzed. This section will be
broken down into two basic sections. The first section will deal with the letter of the agreement,
or rather the agreement as it is written on the surface. The second section will deal with the spirit
of the agreement, or rather the purpose of the agreement. This second section is largely
interpretative. Being as such, this reading is only one of many and will rely on the authors
understanding of the agreement as well as the physical geography of the locale.
The Letter:
The letter of the agreement was stated explicitly within the agreement and will be quoted
in full:
WHEREAS the parking problems experienced by the SCHOOL DISTRICT relative to
Glenbard East High School also impact the VILLAGE and the neighborhood surrounding
Glenbard East High School, in that the VILLAGE has jurisdiction over the streets in the
vicinity of Glenbard East High School, and has received complaints from the residents of
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the neighborhood surrounding Glenbard East High School (Village of Lombard,
Lombard Park District, & Glenbard High School District No. 87, 2009).
Pursuant to this the agreement was fulfilled up to the letter, at least in the way that the three
parties to the agreement saw it. In fact, the agreement, and its subsequent implementation were
an example of a win-win for all of the parties involved. Each of the parties came in with a single
desire, to assuage the complaints of the citizenry of the Village of Lombard in relation to the
parking on the side streets of Wilson Avenue by the students of Glenbard East High School.
Each of the parties brought their resources to the table, and when they were combined
intergovermentally combined, the parties were able to successfully address the problem, at least
to a degree. The agreement was almost perfectly balanced, and each side contributed in almost
perfect equanimity. This equanimity also included the indemnification clauses, which were also
balanced, just as the obligations. So at least in this manner, the agreement was ultimately quite
successful, but there was a problem, and that problem was the parking that was allowed to
remain on the south side of Wilson Avenue, between Main Street and Finley Road.
The problem with which they were confronted was the parking of the students of
Glenbard East High School spilling into the side streets off of Wilson Avenue, between Main
Street and Finley Road. The parking lot, constructed in Sunset Knoll Park, achieved this end.
The parking lot set in Sunset Knoll Park has taken the parked automobiles on the side streets off
of Wilson Avenue, between Main Street and Finley Road, and slotted them into the parking
spaces built for this purpose in Sunset Knoll Park.
This interpretation is propped up further by one of the obligations of the Village of
Lombard in regards to the Glenbard High School District No. 87, and it shall be quoted in full:
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D. Allow the on-street parking along the South side of Wilson Avenue, between Lincoln
Street and Edson Street, to remain for use by faculty, staff and students of the
SCHOOL DISTRICT (Village of Lombard, Lombard Park District, & Glenbard High
School District No. 87, 2009).
It is this piece of the agreement that allows the prior interpretation to stand, and for the
subsequent fulfillment of the agreement to appear sounder even in light of the actuality of the
parking situation at Glenbard East High School. It is this codification that the next section of this
analysis shall deal with, but suffice to say, it is this troubling included obligation that has allowed
the rectification of the Glenbard East High School parking problematic to be left partially
unresolved, even with the ample and more than sufficient parking located within the Sunset
Knoll Parking Lot, created specifically because of this very agreement.
The Spirit:
The ultimate purpose of this agreement was to address the parking problem that is created
by the students at Glenbard East High School. This purpose has been left largely unfulfilled. Yes,
the creation of the parking lot did empty the side streets off of Wilson Avenue, between Main
Street and Finley Road, but it did nothing about the parking on the south side of Wilson Avenue.
Well that is not wholly true, as the agreement did the opposite of addressing the Wilson Avenue
problematic, by codifying the ability of the students to continue to park on the south side of
Wilson Avenue, which effectively makes Wilson Avenue a less efficient and less effective
throughway from Main Street to Finley Road.
It begs to question why this codification was added to the agreement as it seems to
undermine and run in the face at the spirit of the agreement. Plus given the agreement to expand
the parking lot in Sunset Knoll Park, this obligation seems all the more questionable. There does
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not seem to be a detectable reason why the Village of Lombard made this capitulation to the
Glenbard High School District No. 87. There does not seem to be a rationale, at least from the
Village of Lombard side. It is really this agreed upon obligation that truly undermines the
effectiveness of the ability of the agreement to fulfil its function.
Because of this continuation, and codification, of the Wilson Avenue problematic, it is
difficult to assess this agreement as a success. Its primary purpose was to address the parking
problems associated with Glenbard East High School, and it has only partially been able to
address this issue. This becomes much more salient and cogent in the next section with the
authors personal survey of not only the parking around Glenbard East High School but also the
parking lot that was created with this agreement at Sunset Knoll Park.
Section IV: Personal Survey and Recommendations
The agreement was designed to allay the complaints of the citizenry of the Village of
Lombard whose houses bordered Glenbard East High School. Prior to this agreement, the
students, due to the extreme shortage of parking spaces, were parking their cards on the side
streets off of Wilson Avenue between Main Street and Finely Road.
This agreement was successfully in addressing these complaints, but it has failed to
address the Wilson Avenue problematic during the school hours, especially since the parking lot
at Sunset Knoll Park is more than sufficient to absorb the students who are still parking on the
south side of Wilson Avenue. The Wilson Avenue throughway is severely constrained and is a
dangerous road to drive down, especially during the hours when school begins and ends.
The agreement, as written, was implemented properly. The letter of the agreement had
been met. The spirit, or purpose, of the agreement, although, has not. In the personal survey
conducted on April 22, 2014, it was noted by the author that the parking lot located west of
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Glenbard East High School in Sunset Knoll Park was more than seventy-five percent empty.
This is problematic, as the purpose of the agreement was to deconstrain the parking surrounding
Glenbard East High School. While the side streets off of Wilson Avenue, between Main Street
and Finely Road, were empty, stemming from the properly implemented agreement, the south
side of Wilson Avenue was still heavily cluttered with automobiles.
This scenario on Wilson Avenue is not only problematic it is dangerous, and this danger
has persisted even with the building of the parking lot, which was constructed to address the
parking problems associated with Glenbard East High School. The eastern side of Glenbard East
High School has largely been rectified, with the addition of a new stop light at the entrance of
Glenbard East High School and the widening of lanes has allowed for greater accommodation for
traffic, reducing logjams and increasing control during the peak hours at the beginning and end
of the school day. The side streets off of Wilson Avenue, as noted previously, have also been
addressed successfully. On the other hand, the problematic of Wilson Avenue has been left
unaddressed, and has turned what is normally a two-lane throughway into a crimpled one-and-
half lane road, making it much more difficult to traverse and dangerous during the peak times at
the beginning and ending of the school day.
The parking lot expansion at Sunset Knoll Park was designed explicitly to address the
Glenbard East High School parking on the side streets off of Wilson Avenue. This has already
been notated as a success. The agreement did not address Wilson Avenue, in fact, it did the exact
opposite because contained within the agreement is the codification, by the Village of Lombard,
allowing Glenbard East High School to make use of the south side of Wilson Avenue for student
parking.
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Therefore this paper is suggesting that rather than expanding further parking or
modifying land easements, the students should rather be compelled to make use of the parking
lot gifted to them for the expressed purpose of making Wilson Avenue safer, more efficient, and
overall a more effective throughway between Main Street and Finley Boulevard. Given this, it is
the authors recommendation that the Village of Lombard make it illegal to park on Wilson
Avenue between Main Street and Finley Boulevard, thereby forcing the students and the school
to make use of the parking lot that was built solely for their use.
Section V: Summary Remarks and Conclusion
The letter of the agreement was the allaying of the complaints of the citizenry of the
Village of Lombard in regards to the student parking on the side streets off of Wilson Avenue
between Main Street and Finley Road. This agreement successfully addressed the letter of this
agreement. In direct contrast, the spirit of the agreement was left unfulfilled.
The spirit of the agreement was to rectify the parking problem associated with a closed
campus high school. This was not successfully addressed, as automobiles still litter Wilson
Avenue, on the south side, between Main Street and Finely Road. This is a problematic that
could have been addressed by compelling the high school to utilize the Sunset Knoll Parking lot
to its fullest, rather than that, the Village of Lombard included a clause that would strictly protect
the ability of the high school to continue to park on the south side of Wilson Avenue. This
should have been a prescriptive measure implanted as a stricture freeing up the throughway of
Wilson Avenue.
Ultimately, it has to be said, that this agreement was only a partial successes, as the
parking problem surrounding Glenbard East High School still persists, but it is not as bad as it
used to be, and some of the complaints of the citizenry of the Village of Lombard have been
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addressed. This conclusion is propped up also by the emptiness of the parking lot at Sunset Knoll
Park on the day that the author visited the site. The codification, in the agreement, about the
parking on the south side of Wilson Avenue does not seem to make sense, and makes the
addressing of this problematic all the more difficult.
Addendum: Federalism and the Sunset Knoll Parking Lot
This addendum will look at the features of federalism and how they relate to the Sunset
Knoll Parking Lot, which will be framed as a case study in this section. The first section will
define what federalism is and extrapolate on some of its key features. The second section will
apply the first section to the case study of the Sunset Knoll Parking Lot. The last section will
offer summary remarks and conclude the addendum.
Federalism:
In this section federalism will be defined. This term could be defined in a negative
fashion, but instead of taking that route, it will be defined by its salient features Federalism will
be defined first followed by the defining of anti-federalism.
Federalism is:
a system of authority constitutionally apportioned between central and regional
governments In the American system, the central, of national, government is often
called the federal government; the regional governments are the states. The federal-state
relationship is interdependent: neither can abolish the other, and each must deal with the
other (OToole Jr. &Christensen, 2013, p. 3).
The salient components from this definition are that a national government exists. This layer of
government is in a relationship with subnational entities, states and localities. These relationships
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are interdependent and cannot be easily torn asunder. Implicit in this definition is the idea of the
states being viewed as sovereign entities.
This definition, though, needs to be broken down, as this definition was drawn from the
literature looking at federalism from the federal level. But the definition does not really shift that
much as it is drawn down from the national level to the local level. The relationship between the
federal government and the state is analogous to the relationship between the state and its
localities, and it functions in nearly the same way. On the most local level though, this
relationship takes a dramatic turn.
On the local level the idea of federalism becomes real, in the prior definition the power of
mandating existed, on the local level this power is lost, and instead these smaller government
entities are essentially forced to work together to accomplish any task, as they basically lack the
ability to really compel the citizenry to action in their particular locations. These entities must
engage in what is called intergovernmental relations which is how our many and varied
governments in the United States deal with each other and what their relative roles,
responsibilities, and levels of influence are and should be (OToole Jr. & Christensen, 2013, pp.
3-4).
Case Study:
The case under examination is in regards to the creation of a parking lot in Sunset Knoll
Park. To make this happen three parties had to come to an agreement. They were the Village of
Lombard, the Lombard Park District, and the Glenbard High School District No. 87. The Village
of Lombard was in control of the streets and the vicinities surrounding Glenbard East High
School. Sunset Knoll Park was under control of the Lombard Park District, and the high school
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itself was under the auspice of Glenbard High School District No. 87. These were the players and
their respective pieces.
Glenbard East High School is situated in a rather geographically inconvenient place, and
as such has outgrown its campus and has sprawled out into the surrounding areas. This sprawl
caused worry amongst the citizenry of the Village of Lombard who complained that the students
of Glenbard East High School were invading their neighborhoods by parking their automobiles
on their residential side streets. The Lombard Park District was in possession of a parking lot
west of Glenbard East High School in Sunset Koll Park which was underutilized.
Seizing this opportunity the three parties decided to utilize this parking lot to quell the
complaints of the citizenry of the Village of Lombard. Within this agreement the Lombard Park
District agreed to expand the parking lot and accede to the Glenbard High School District No. 87
the lot for their use in a license agreement. The Glenbard High School District No. 87 and the
Village of Lombard agreed to reimburse a portion of the cost back to the Lombard Park District
in the creation of this parking lot.
All three parties gained quite a bit from this agreement, and each party was intermingled
with the other in at least one of the obligations. This made this agreement not only a rather
complex one to create, but also made it one that is richly intergovernmental in nature. This
agreement is a classic example of federalism at the local level, and all sides to the agreement had
a similar vision about the project.
Interestingly, and demonstrated a point from the first section, the most powerful
government entity in this group, the Village of Lombard, did not make use of its position to
compel the other parties to the agreement into positions that they would find undesirous. Instead,
the Village of Lombard joined in the agreement, as an equal party, striving for a resolution that
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would make all of the parties happy, and overall accomplish the task of the agreement, which
was the allaying of citizenry complaints in regards to the parking situation at Glenbard East High
School. And this task was mostly accomplished.
Summary Remarks and Conclusion:
Given the definition of federalism and the extrapolation ending with intergovernmental
relations it can be said that the case study presented about the Sunset Knoll Parking Lot is a good
example of the implementation of these definitions. Within the agreement three different
government entities had to work together for the accomplishment of a single task, the allaying of
the complaints of the citizenry of the Village of Lombard. This task was mostly accomplished,
and it was achieved through federalism and intergovernmental relations. And the agreement
while not wholly successful in its implementation was completely successfully in regards to
federalism and intergovernmental relations.
The intergovernmental engagement that these three parties decided to partake in
demonstrated the power of not only federalism but of cooperation between superior and
subordinate levels of government. This agreement could have easily been stifled if the Village of
Lombard decided to shift to more coercive measures. Rather than moving in that direction, the
Village of Lombard made a conscious choice to bring a problem and its solution together. And it
is really this last remark that highlights the federalism of this agreement.
The Village of Lombard had a salient problem which was created by Glenbard East High
School. The Lombard Park District had an underutilized parking lot. And instead of leaving this
parking lot to become a blight, the Village of Lombard and its two other partners entered into an
agreement to utilize this parking lot to address the problem. And in the end this agreement was a
successful implementation of federalism.
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References
OToole, Jr., L. & Christensen, R. (2013). American intergovernmental relations: An overview.
In L. OToole Jr. & R. Christensen (Eds.), American intergovernmental relations:
Foundations, perspectives, and issues (pp. 1-32).
Village of Lombard, Lombard Park District, & Glenbard High School District No. 87. (2009) An
intergovernmental agreement between the Village of Lombard, the Lombard Park District
and Glenbard high School District No. 87 in regard to the expansion of the parking lot in
Sunset Knoll Park. Retrieved from
http://www.villageoflombard.org/documentcenter/view/10355.