Running on a call for term limits – among other philosophies – current Park Ridge City Clerk Sal Raspanti announced that he is going to challenge incumbent Mayor Marty Maloney in the municipal election next spring.
Raspanti, 61, announced his candidacy for mayor in a September news release he provided to Pioneer Press. He is currently in his first term as city clerk, elected in 2021.
“Over the past several years, I’ve listened closely to my fellow residents. They’re worried about the safety of their families, their investments, infrastructure…they are concerned about the wellbeing and future of our city. I am running for those residents, and my goal is to ultimately preserve what makes Park Ridge a special place, while at the same time building upon the best of what our community has to offer,” he wrote in his release.
He will challenge Mayor Marty Maloney in the April 2025 election, seeking to unseat the incumbent who announced his reelection bid this summer. Maloney joined the Park Ridge City Council as alderman of the 7th Ward in 2011. He was appointed acting mayor in 2015 after the death of then-Mayor David Schmidt.
“I am aware the Clerk has entered the race for Mayor. Over the last few years he has run for multiple offices, and I am interested to hear about his specific plans for the City of Park Ridge,” Maloney said in a statement to Pioneer Press.
Maloney was then elected mayor in 2017 and re-elected in 2021. With Maloney nearing a decade in office as of today, Raspanti calls for capping how long the north suburb’s elected leaders may stay in office.
“It’s time for our city to consider term limits for elected officials. All of the volunteers who participate on our city boards and commissions have term limits and so should our elected city officials,” Raspanti stated in his release. “Term limits help prevent complacency, in addition to ensuring a steady flow of fresh faces and ideas. They also help sever ties to special interests and encourage voter turnout by more candidates reaching more residents through their campaigning efforts.”
There have, to date, been no others who have expressed intent to run or officially filed mayoral candidacy papers. As of now, Maloney and Raspanti are set for a two-candidate showdown in the 2025 municipal election.
“It will be a very exciting six months,” Maloney told Pioneer Press.
In his candidacy announcement, Raspanti mentions his “long history of civic involvement in Park Ridge,” including his 2011 election to alderman of the 4th Ward. As part of the City Council, he was head of its Public Safety Committee, and was liaison for the Intergovernmental committee, Economic Development Task Force and Police Chief’s Citizens Advisory Task Force. Before being on the City Council, he was appointed in 2009 to the Planning & Zoning Commission. He was elected a park board commissioner in 2005 and had stints as president, vice president and treasurer during his time in that office.
Additionally, Raspanti was a member of the Oakton Sports Complex Citizens Advisory Task Force, and for about seven years coached youth soccer and softball teams. He retired in 2017 from his executive role at a property insurance company after working there for nearly four decades, according to the news release. He and his wife of 38 years, Anna, have two adult children and one grandchild.
“As a resident of Park Ridge for over 55 years, and having spent my professional career with the same company in our city for 38 years, this town is embedded in who I am as a person. I care deeply about our city and am running for all my fellow residents, both long-standing and newcomers who call Park Ridge home,” he wrote.
In announcing his reelection bid, Maloney said there was a time in his current term that he considered walking away from the City Council at the end of his term in 2025.
“Some of the developments that have happened (in the last year) have really made me rethink that, and that’s why I’m going to be running again,” the mayor previously said.
Development, and other current and potential opportunities in Park Ridge, are part of Raspanti’s reasons for running too, he said.
“Our city is ripe for redevelopment and we need to get serious about economic development. We’ll be addressing important issues and projects over the next several years. With my candidacy, citizens will have an option to vote for a leader who is able to commit full-time to ensure the charm and character of our community remains intact as we navigate through these opportunities,” he stated.
The mayor of Park Ridge is considered a part-time position and comes with an annual salary of $12,000. A full-time city manager oversees the city’s day-to-day functions.
Pioneer Press report Richard Requena contributed.
The Park Ridge native, who joined the city council as the alderman of the 7th ward in 2011, was appointed as acting mayor by the city council in 2015 after the death of then-Mayor David Schmidt. Maloney was elected mayor in 2017 and re-elected in 2021.
“I have no desire to do anything other than serve as Mayor of the City of Park Ridge; if, for some reason, I was not successful, then I would pivot to retirement,” Maloney told Pioneer Press. “But on the flip side, I have no desire to run for something beyond in Springfield.”
Maloney, who announced his run for mayor to the public in early June through social media, said there was a time in his latest term that he was considering walking away from the City Council at the end of his four-year term in 2025.
“Some of the developments that have happened (in the last year) have really made me rethink that, and that’s why I’m going to be running again,” he said.
The mayor of Park Ridge is considered a part-time position and comes with an annual salary of $12,000. A full-time city manager oversees the city’s day-to-day functions.
“I think that’s the right way to do this,” Maloney said of the city manager type of government for Park Ridge. “From my perspective, that’s the right way to run a city; it’s the way we, you know, best deliver services to the residents.” Maloney said the current system allows him to get feedback from residents, and for him and the city council to deliver on policy.
In July, the Park Ridge Planning and Zoning Commission preemptively approved lifting the city’s ban on cannabis dispensaries from operating in Uptown. In order for the ban to officially be lifted, the City Council would also have vote to reverse it. Maloney said he would not support the lifting of the ban because of the centralized location of the Park Ridge Library in Uptown.
“The library is a magnet for kids in town… there are rules and distance regulations when it comes to dispensaries not being allowed near parks and schools within certain distances. I don’t think it’s insane to treat the library in the same manner, because it does function in a way where it does attract a lot of kids.”
Maloney said Sociale, Park Ridge’s only cannabis dispensary, “has been a great neighbor for the city of Park Ridge and the people that live around the dispensary have zero problems to speak of.”
Maloney also pointed to incoming development as the thing that he’s excited to see in Park Ridge, like the expanded outdoor dining service for restaurants in Uptown.
“I think we can have the smart development that is in character with Uptown take place,” he commented. He said that South Park’s business district has also been growing, which will lead him and the City Council to think of creative parking solutions to remedy the demand from drivers.
The city, like the Park Ridge Park District, Maine Township High School District 207 and Park Ridge-Niles School District 64, is also using funds to reinvest in itself, Maloney said. The city is renovating its Fire Station 35 at Devon and Cumberland Avenues and also plans to renovate Fire Station 36 at Oakton Street and Greenwood Avenue. The city also recently acquired a home in the Mayfield Estates area of Park Ridge and plans to demolish it and use the land for flood mitigation, Maloney said.
The city also recently lost out on a $1.2 million to $1.3 million revenue source, the grocery tax, when Illinois Governor J.B. Pritzker approved the state’s 2024-2025 budget, Maloney said. The 1% grocery tax will remain active until Dec. 31, 2025.
“We have to figure how to fund that, and honestly, how to do that without impacting people from a property tax perspective,” Maloney said. “We’ve been very fortunate, we’ve been flat on our property taxes and certainly that would be the way I’d like to see it go, if not start reducing. But it’s a challenge when we have some of the infrastructure needs that we do.”
