Municipal elections throughout the Chicago area loom, and it’s gratifying that most of these contests are dominated by inherently local issues such as property taxes and economic development rather than supercharged toxicity of national politics.
Still, elections come frequently in these parts and the danger always is that voters will opt not to participate, especially so soon after a hotly contested national election, leaving only the most engaged to determine their villages’ and townships’ leaders for the next four years. We chose several municipal mayoral elections to interview candidates and make endorsements (you can find those endorsements on the Tribune’s website), and we came away with renewed appreciation for those who put themselves out there and dedicate the time and energy to running for local office. Win or lose, you all deserve credit and appreciation. Whatever craziness is going on in Washington, these local elections reassure us that government by the people for the people will persist.
Also, the April 1 municipal elections are a welcome reminder that, as much as Chicago’s challenges suck up much of the political oxygen in the region, there’s a vast array of suburban communities striving every day to make their collective lives better.
Like Chicago with its 77 (officially recognized) neighborhoods, some of which are thriving and some of which are struggling, some suburbs are grappling with far tougher issues than others. The south suburbs in general face a property tax emergency after last year’s spike in residential tax bills, and in the face of that crisis some communities sadly are seeking leaders who can minimally function.
The best known example, of course, is Dolton, where voters at long last will have as their mayor someone other than Tiffany Henyard, who’s under federal investigation and whose questionable-at-best spending and behavior have made the village a national spectacle. In a recent interview, Casundra Hopson-Jordan, who’s running against Dolton Trustee Jason House to succeed Henyard, said, “It’s been like a nightmare that just won’t go away.”
Tribune Editorial Board endorsements for 2025 suburban elections
Whoever voters choose, thankfully it won’t be Henyard. Dolton must dig out from Henyard’s disastrous tenure, and April 1 marks the beginning of that journey.
Just 10 miles south of Dolton is financially struggling Ford Heights, where voters have five mayoral candidates on the ballot. They’re all vying to succeed former Mayor Charles Griffin, who was convicted last year of stealing thousands in taxpayer funds and was sentenced in January to four years in prison.
Staying in the southland, Homewood Mayor Rich Hofeld, who has served in that role for 28 years (you read that right) and is in his late 80s, faces a challenge from Brady Chalmers, 39, former digital director for the Cook County Democratic Party and now in business for himself. Hofeld is something of an institution in the city he says he loves, but what struck us about Chalmers’ challenge was his focus on tax-increment financing districts. Under Hofeld, the village has used TIFs extensively for economic development; Chalmers calls for ending the TIF dealmaking and releasing property tax funds captured in TIFs in order to provide more funding to the schools.
The use of TIFs captures headlines in Chicago, and progressives have railed for years about how Chicago mayors and aldermen have zealously guarded TIF accounts to grease development deals at the expense of Chicago Public Schools. But many suburbs employ them extensively as well. TIFs most definitely are on the ballot in Homewood.
One long-term suburban mayor who finally chose to retire is Skokie’s George Van Dusen, who first took that office in 1999 and had served on Skokie’s Village Board since 1984. Three are running to succeed him: Ann Tennes, former director of communications for the village; interior decorator Charles Isho; and attorney David “Azi” Lifsics, former chief counsel to 50th Ward Chicago Ald. Debra Silverstein, whom Van Dusen has endorsed over Tennes even though she worked for Van Dusen for more than two decades.
Van Dusen says Skokie is doing well, but there are plenty of important issues his successor will have to address, including a community land trust idea key to developing more affordable housing in a suburb that historically has been a good destination for middle-income families but is becoming pricier.
Back in the southland, Flossmoor Mayor Michelle Nelson is running for a second term against challenger village Trustee Joni Bradley-Scott. A major issue in the race is the village’s firing last year of police Chief Jerel Jones, the details of which Nelson says she isn’t at liberty to discuss.
Nelson cast the tie-breaking vote on the Village Council to terminate Jones’ contract. Jones, who was Flossmoor’s first Black police chief, filed a wrongful-firing lawsuit alleging racial discrimination, which the village settled in October for nearly $60,000. Bradley-Scott has cited a lack of transparency around Jones’ removal as a key issue in her campaign.
Chicagoans will remember how Garry McCarthy, Chicago police superintendent under Mayor Rahm Emanuel, challenged Emanuel for mayor after Emanuel axed McCarthy. Emanuel later bowed out of that 2019 campaign, and McCarthy went on to lose in a race won ultimately by Lori Lightfoot.
Of course taxes and finances are at the heart of most municipal elections, and voters’ first task really is to ascertain who among their choices will be the best stewards of public funds.
In northwest suburban Hanover Park, incumbent Mayor Rod Craig, who’s been in that office for 18 years, is facing a challenge from Mark Elkins, president of the board of commissioners for Hanover Park’s Park District. Craig supports approving a 1% grocery tax to preserve the $600,000-plus of revenue the village otherwise will lose when the grocery tax implemented at the state level (and passed onto localities) expires. “It’s a revenue source we just can’t walk away from,” he tells the Daily Herald.
Elkins opposes a locally imposed grocery tax, arguing that it’s tax relief the village should provide.
Municipalities throughout the state are wrestling with the same question following Gov. JB Pritzker’s initiative — approved last year by the General Assembly — to end the grocery tax and allow municipalities to keep it if they enact it on their own. The buck has been passed, and Mayor Craig has accepted it. Hanover Park voters have a clear choice.
Even locally, there’s no avoiding some of the hot-button issues roiling our national politics, such as the future of diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) policies that President Donald Trump has targeted. In an emotional race for five seats on the board for Oak Park and River Forest School District 200, two critics of an equity-based curriculum in that school district are running and being opposed by a slate of four candidates defending the district’s current approach.
The critics, Nate Mellman and Josh Gertz, oppose a three-year-old freshman curriculum dubbed Honors for All and meant to redress academic disparities between white students and Black and Hispanic students. They propose having students at risk of struggling in their freshman years take intensive summer school classes in the summer before high school in order to prepare.
Their opponents — a like-minded slate of incumbents Fred Arkin and Audrey Williams-Lee, as well as Kathleen Odell and David Schaafsma — say the current approach is best for all students and that reversing it would be to go backward.
While Chicagoans — perhaps blessedly — don’t have to vote, suburbanites have plenty to consider April 1. Get educated on your choices, folks, and make your voices heard. An engaged and informed electorate is the best antidote to the feverish political wars destabilizing our country.
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