Mayor Wants Dist. 1 Residents’ Input in Selecting New Trustee

Mayor Dave Heilmann wants Oak Lawn residents to be part of the selection process when he appoints a new village board trustee to take the place of

Hurckes, who represented Dist. 1 on the since 1998, resigned last month to go back to his old job as chief of staff for U.S. Rep. Dan Lipinski (D-IL). Hurckes’ last day as a village board trustee was Aug. 31.

A community meeting for Dist. 1 residents will be held at , 91st Street and Meade Avenue, starting at 7 p.m. Sept. 20.

Should the village board reject the appointment, the mayor would get to choose a second applicant. If the village board rejects the mayor’s second choice, the mayor appoints one of the two applicants.

Hurckes ran unopposed and was re-elected to a third term on the village board last April. The appointed trustee will fill the seat until the next consolidated election, in April 2013.

Heilmann sent letters to the 341 registered voters who cast votes in the Dist. 1 trustee race in April from records obtained at the Cook County Clerk's office. In a letter to those constituents, the mayor wrote:

“This will be your trustee for the next 20 months. This is the person who you need to rely on as your point person in village government … I don’t think that I, or the board, should just review a few resumes and tell you who we think is. That excludes the very people who will be represented by the new trustee.”

Heilmann wants interested applicants for the Dist. 1 trustee’s seat to speak to residents, so that residents can have "personal input" in the decision.

“I will then take your choice and make it my recommendation to the village board,” the mayor said.

At the village board’s last regular meeting and on Aug. 9, Trustee Bob Streit (Dist. 3) called for the selection process of a new trustee to be conducted in the open.

“When a vacancy occurs, the assumption is that the decision to elect a replacement is wired,” Streit said, “because after all, that is the Chicago way. In fact, it has been the Oak Lawn way.

"Hopefully this process will be open and transparent. Oak Lawn citizens don’t have the tolerance for treating public office like a legacy that can be passed on like a family inheritance," Streit added.

Streit said he’d like to see village trustees involved in the process “so that we are all in agreement in order to find the most qualified person to serve Oak Lawn.”