Highland Park discuss steps to create permanent July 4 mass shooting memorial
HIGHLAND PARK, Ill (CBS) – The City of Highland Park is just at the beginning of the process of deciding how to permanently honor the lives lost during the July 4 mass shooting.
That will be the focus of a City Council meeting Monday night. CBS 2's Noel Brennan had the story on the next steps for how a permanent memorial will replace a temporary one.
The city has been maintain a temporary memorial at the Rose Garden, but a meeting on Monday night will be all about planning for what comes next: a permanent place for people to remember and honor the lives lost.
"We moved onto this block when there was nothing and now it's this amazing block and we love it here," Dawn Pye said.
It sounds like business as usual, but at the Style Shack in Highland Park, rarely does a day pass for Pye without a reminder.
"We don't forget," she said. "No."
Around the corner from her shop, a shooter killed seven people during the July 4 parade.
"Every now and again, because this is the community that it happened in, a person would walk in who was directly affected and there's that moment where you have to say something," Pye said. "You have to acknowledge. So yeah, it doesn't go away."
As the nation mourns the latest mass shooting in Monterrey Park, California, Highland Park moves forward with plans for a permanent memorial.
"We still hear about the shootings on the TV," she said. "There has to be a place. It can't just be like I said, a flag at half-mast once a year to honor those people."
On Monday night, the City Council was expected to go over next steps for the memorial. That will replace a temporary one at the Rose Garden next to City Hall.
"I think it will just be a reminder, a place to go even if it's just you need a quiet space and you want to remember those people," Pye said.
The city said the permanent memorial will be a place of remembrance, reflection and respite, but decisions about its location, design and form will come later.
"I haven't really heard too much to be honest and I think that that is the right way to go is to ask the people who were directly affected," Pye said.
Business as usual has changed, but Highland Park moves forward.
"Did everybody forget?" Pye said. "Not at all."
The temporary memorial will remain open until a permanent one is put in place.