On the morning of Dec. 2, 1998, Tom Mick, fresh from a four-year stint as a U.S. Marine, walked into the Park Forest Village Hall for a job interview with then village manager Janet Muchnik, who was seeking an assistant.
Something on his resume intrigued her. For two years, while working toward his master’s degree in public administration at Northern Illinois University, Mick was an assistant to the Glencoe public works director. To Janet Muchnik, this was important.
A public works department is the municipal comparison to that of a physician tending to the health of the patient. Streets and sewers are the veins and arteries of the community while homes, schools, and businesses make up its beating heart. This municipal doctor is always on call, making sure the streets are plowed in winter, infrastructure is repaired in summer and there is enough money in the bank to pay the bills.
“That’s the kind of experience I was looking for,” she said.
And that is the kind of experience the village got from Mick since he was hired first as her assistant and as village manager when Muchnik retired in 2004.
Mick quickly redefined the working definition of his job as he managed the day-to-day operations of the village and providing oversight of the nine operating departments and their respective staffs. A good doctor makes sure the patient gets 24-hour-a-day care and that is done with the hiring of village employees, all of which serve the public in one way or another.
Through the years Mick shared his wedding and the birth of three children with the village, and when his beloved White Sox won the World Series in 2005 he even shared the winner’s trophy with the village for an afternoon.
Earlier this month, in a letter to all employees, Mick announced his retirement, to take effect on June 20, 2025, and part of the letter referred to a hiring system in which people “are hired on what they know rather than on who they know.”
Both Mayor Joe Woods and former Mayor John Ostenburg heaped praise on Mick from others, Woods said having Mick at his side while “lobbying for dollars in Springfield and Washington has proven to be an enormous advantage.” Ostenburg noted that others have called Mick “is the best village manager in the state.”
Village managers must work smoothly with the Village Board.
“He always keeps us informed,” said Village Trustee Theresa Settles. “Each trustee gets a weekly informational packet from him on what is going on in the village, from police and fire reports to events and our duties.”
Over the years, Mick has produced nearly 1,100 of these weekly 6-to 9-page, single-spaced reports for the board.
On Saturday, when asked at a village staff party at the Aqua Center what it would be like to walk away from his chair, Mick, who had returned from vacation for the event, paused, smiled, and said “surreal.”
As it will also seem for the village.
Osuch retires
On Jan. 5, 2007, the basement of the Park Forest Library flooded causing library Director Barbara Osuch to scrap plans she may have had for its use, leaving the Park Forest Historical Society to move its files and eliminate the area from further use.
In 2019, the COVID-19 pandemic changed the way all libraries transact business with the public.
Those two events helped Osuch craft a new vision for a library which serves residents of both Park Forest and Olympia Fields. Books and printed materials which had not felt the touch of a human hand for years if not decades were stripped from the shelves.
A new common space was created and, as library patronage dropped sharply, Osuch implemented plans, including programs and even a “no-fine no-matter” policy, in an attempt to bring readers of all ages into the building originally designed as a book repository began to take on a different shape.
Now, after 21 years as library director, Osuch announced her retirement and was honored at a dinner last week in which she was honored by a resolution from the Illinois Senate.
No successor has been named, but the Library Board named longtime employee Mary VanSwol as interim director.
Jerry Shnay, at Jerryshnay@gmail.com, is a freelance columnist for the Daily Southtown.
