Mayor Takes Final Bow at Village Board Meeting

The stage was all Dave Heilmann’s Tuesday night, as he bid farewell to the village and lowered the curtain on his eight-year-run as mayor of Oak Lawn.

The outgoing mayor, who lost his bid for a third term to Sandra Bury, presided over his last village board meeting before the mayor-elect and three new trustees are sworn in next month.

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Heilmann was effusive in his pre-meeting banter as he recognized Oak Lawn Community High School’s state drama champions, something he did best helming the village board meetings.

As if a hint of what to expect, Trustee Bob Streit (Dist. 3) accused the new village board members of already “flexing their political muscle” by preventing him and fellow trustee Carol Quinlan (Dist. 5) from placing a new ethics ordinance on the board agenda.

But the evening belonged to Heilmann. Before a packed audience that included his wife, Erica, Heilmann thanked village employees, the residents and his fellow village board members.

“Despite the worst of disagreements you put your names on a ballot and left your home and you went up here and you served,” Heilmann said. “I thank everybody who's sitting on a board and committee as well.”

Heilmann recalled his early years as mayor when the village inspector called to tell him of a 600-pound pig running loose in a residence.

“I hope you don’t get calls like that, but if you do, Sandy, call me and we’ll have a laugh,” Heilmann told Bury from the dais.

The outgoing mayor spoke of the steep price of being elected and losing friends when he had to turn down their requests for jobs with the village because of ethical breaches. In the end, it wasn’t the possibility of losing an election that kept him awake at night, but the attacks on his character during the bitter mayoral campaign.

“You realize early on the price of getting elected. It’s a steep one,” Heilmann said. “The fact that after you try and you’ve lost friendships over trying to not violate someone’s ethics, then turns around and becomes a weapon that someone throws at you, and people believe it. It’s hard.”

He thanked those who reached out to him after the election, including a former Oak Lawn mayor from 1973 who lost his son and wife to cancer.

“He asked me how I was,” the mayor said. “I asked him how he was doing.”

Heilmann said he looked forward to bringing his focus back to family.

“I walked into here eight years ago with a smile I thinking I could give that attention back to my family, I walk out of here with a smile,” Heilmann said.

Watch the video excerpts of Mayor Heilmann’s farewell remarks.