The Lake Forest City Council’s decision to terminate one board and take steps toward abolishing a second one is drawing concerns from residents fearing limits on citizen participation in addition to a lack of public notice.
Following an initial vote at their April 21st meeting, the City Council formally approved on May 5 to dissolve the city’s parks and recreation board. However, a similar plan to discontinue the city’s legal committee was tabled amid some community backlash.
City officials pointed to a lack of substantive work for the two committees to tackle as the reason to discontinue their presence on the two advisory boards. Moreover, they did not want to ask residents to volunteer their services and then spend it on rather mundane matters.
“The last thing you want to do is waste people’s time,” added Alderman Ted Notz, 2nd.
However, the proposal troubled the League of Women Voters of Lake Forest/Lake Bluff Area.
“The League of Women Voters believes that democratic government depends upon informed and active participation in government and requires that governmental bodies protect the citizen’s right to know by giving adequate notice of proposed actions, holding open meetings, and making public records accessible,” League President Carol Russ said in a statement. “In this case, many well-placed and well-informed community members were unaware of the imminent change. Public confidence in government requires mutual trust. We respectfully state that open discussions and timely communication in advance of significant actions are always the best policy.”
Mayor Stanford “Randy” Tack said at the May 5 meeting that the city was not trying to hide anything as he referred to a plan to replace the Parks and Recreation board with a new subcommittee composed of three City Council members.
“We are not removing the ability of the public to know what we are doing, to participate in what we are doing,” Tack said. “We are actually increasing the connection between the decision makers and the public because you have the ability to unelect somebody if you don’t like the way they are performing.”
The fate of the two boards surfaced publicly at the April 21 City Council meeting. After some discussion, council members unanimously agreed to dispense with both committees on the 21st, with a second and final approval vote set for May 5.
While the vote on the Parks and Recreation board occurred as scheduled on May 5, in an unusual turn of events, the City Council tabled a final vote on the legal committee as opposition surfaced to the idea.
Art Mertes, a member of the committee, advocated for its continued existence.
“From my point of view, the legal committee is a useful check and balance in the governance framework of Lake Forest,” Mertes told the City Council. “It utilizes volunteer, unpaid talent that are attorney residents.”
He later added, “It does add rigor and inquiry to the process of managing the city’s legal affairs.”
Resident Rommy Lopat said city officials should change operations if there are not enough substantive assignments for the committee.
“If this is the case, they should be offered meaningful work,” Lopat said. “They should be offered meaningful policies and issues to discuss.”
While she voted for abolishing the legal committee in the first vote, Alderwoman Nancy Novit, 1st, said “constructive” work remains in place.
“I can’t believe we can’t address this in a more responsible way,” Novit stated at the May 5th meeting.
The legal committee’s charge is to manage litigation management policy, legal decisions and opinions, corresponding contracts and ordinances in addition to relevant materials “in order to promote the efficient and effective management of litigation and threats of litigation” against the city, according to the city’s website. They meet quarterly.
Former Mayor Michael Rummel mentioned in an interview that the committee was formed in 2005 as the city faced a series of lawsuits at the time, remembering that he wanted an independent panel to review the current litigation.
“All I was looking for was verification that what we were doing and how we were spending the citizen’s money was being done correctly,” Rummel said.
In 2018, the legal committee played a role in the selection of a new law firm, following the resignation of longtime city attorney Victor Filippini. The members interviewed law firms, eventually recommending Ancel Grink to be the city’s new attorney, according to city spokeswoman Dana Olson. Later that year, the City Council asked the Legal Committee to review the city’s ethics ordinance.
The City Council eventually voted to table the proposal on May 5th. Olson was not certain when they would take up the issue again.
In the meantime, with two of the four legal members set to step down soon, Tack said he would contact the Lake Forest Caucus to vet residents who now might be interested in joining the committee.
While the status of the legal committee up in the air, the City Council abolished the Parks and Recreation Board, which had been in operation since 1996, according to Olson.
The members served in an advisory role on parks-related issues to the City Council, without any spending authority. Lake Forest is the rare North Shore community where parks governance is part of the overall municipal government and a separate Park District does not exist.
The City Council is replacing the parks and recreation board with a subcommittee of Alderman John Powers (2nd) Peter Clemens (1st) and Alice LeVert (3rd).
“We are the people you hold accountable,” said Powers, who will be the subcommittee chairman.
City officials noted an ad hoc committee of residents may be created if necessary if an issue arises requiring additional attention.
“These groups have proven to be a successful model, engaging highly qualified individuals who want to contribute without a long-term commitment. Notable recent examples include the advisory groups for Deerpath Community Park improvements and the new police station project,” Olson wrote in an e-mail.
Daniel I. Dorfman is a freelance reporter for Pioneer Press.
