Joliet prison woods, disc golf, and what the ...?

The name Grabavoy is familiar to people who have been around Joliet for some time.

There was the Grabavoy Hardware store on Collins Street that opened in the late 1940s and stayed for the rest of the century but is gone now.

Ted Grabavoy, one of the brothers who ran the store, became chairman of the Will County Board in the 1970s.

And now there is Mark Grabavoy who is carving out a disc golf course in the wooded state land that is included in the lease Joliet has on the Joliet Correctional Center property.

His parents ran the old Southern Fried Donut Shop long gone from the East Side, Mark said, and he used to work there.

Mark has been at the center of a controversy that brewing the past two weeks as neighbors of the wooded area demanded more information about what he is doing in the woods behind their homes.

Mark Grabavoy seems to be a nice, well-meaning guy.

But the neighbors are nice, too, and you can’t blame them for wanting more of what people call transparency when it comes to the project behind their houses, especially once the area close to their houses became a dumping site.

At one point concrete with rebar was dropped off, and that’s when Alma Montero said she had to ask Mark, “What the ....?”

We won’t finish the question, but you can imagine how you would feel if a large pile of concrete with rebar appeared behind your house.

Grabavoy, who grew up just down the street from the area himself, said he had nothing to do with the dumping.

Montero and other neighbors say they have their suspicions.

I can’t sort out who’s to blame, especially when Grabavoy is giving up a name of the company he alleges did the dumping to city officials.

But I do know Grabavoy has been given access to the woods with a pat on the back from city and Joliet Area Historical Museum officials who like his idea of turning the area into a disc golf course that could become a destination site because of its unique setting.

Grabavoy has helped organize disc golf tournaments at the Old Joliet Prison that have turned into fundraisers for that cause, although he said some funds also are being used for his disc golf venture.

It’s important to note that the neighbors say they are not against the disc golf course. They just want better control of what’s happening, especially when there have been fires in the woods behind their homes.

Those are controlled fires being done to get ride of invasive honeysuckle brush, Grabavoy told the Joliet City Council Prison Committee this week.

Even so, the city has now drawn up a written agreement governing what Grabavoy can do in the woods, and open burning is out.

That’s probably for the best since open burning is against the law in Joliet. It’s illegal for Montero and the other neighbors. I mean, what the ...?