Jan. 24, 2001

Referendums, but not many candidate
contests, in local Election 2001

By ERIC LINDEN

An Oak Park village trustee seat, two River Forest elections and two tax
increase referendums in River Forest will be the only non-school
election contests in the village this April.

Oak Parker John Troelstrup has filed enough nominating petition
signatures to qualify for a spot on the ballot as a candidate for
trustee on the village board, which sets policy for the village
government. Troelstrup served as an elected village trustee from 1993 to
1997 and ran unsuccessfully for village president in 1997.

One of the River Forest park referendums asks voters to approve a
seven-percent increase in the park district's share of the property tax
bills to cover operating expenses, where the tax rate has not increased
in many years.

And the River Forest park board also is seeking voter approval to issue
$1.8 million in bonds to fund a reconstruction of Keystone Park at Lake
Street and Keystone Avenue. The park district's plans for the park call
for a host of new features and is aimed by officials at turning the park
into a so-called state of the art park and facility..

Also in River Forest, contests shape up for the Park District Board of
Commissioners, which sets park district policy, and for Township
Supervisor, the chief executive officer of township government, which
oversees programs to assist youth, senior citizens and mentally ill
persons programs and which fills some other social needs.

For the River Forest park board, six village residents are seeking five
open seats on the seven-member board: incumbent Bob Altier and Steve
Dudek, Colleen Horrigan, Kathleen Nooney, James Wisuri and perennial
candidate John Hackenseck. For Township Supervisor, incumbent Veronica
Krawczyk is being challenged for re-election by Jane McCole.

Now, local voters will decide on local school boards and a host of other
local offices in balloting on April 3, but the park districts, township
government boards, library boards and others on the ballot feature
candidates that are unopposed for election.

Troelstrup, an attorney whose practice is in Downtown Oak Park, and his
independent campaign on the deadline day, Tuesday, Jan. 23, filed 670
petition signatures with the Oak Park village clerk's office. That was
more than the 400 needed to quality for ballot position against the
three-member LINC trustee slate that is endorsed by the Village Manager
Association, the dominant political group in Oak Park, which filed many
more nominating petition signatures the previous Tuesday, when ballot
filing opened.

In the race to fill three open village trustee spots, the VMA-backed
LINC campaign--which stands for Leadership, Integrity, Neighborhood,
Commitment---is supporting the re-election of Village Trustee Gus
Kostopulos and the first-time election of trustee candidates Diana
Carpenter, the president of the Austin Boulevard Alliance, and Galen
Gockel, the current Oak Park township assessor and formerly an elected
member of the Oak Park District 97 Elementary School Board.

Three trustee seats will be elected on April 3, and the LINC/VMA
campaign also supports the election of Village Trustee Joanne Trapani as
village president and Village Clerk Sandra Sokol for re-election, both
of whom are unopposed for election on April 3. Going off the village
board are two members whose terms are expiring: Village President
Barbara Furlong, who declined to seek re-election, and Village Trustee
Rick Kuner, who had asked for election slating as village president by a
VMA candidate selection committee, but who was passed over by that
committee.

Troelstrup said he wants to return to the village board to improve some
policies and practices of the current board, which was also backed by
the VMA, and he wants to insure that a new VMA-backed board would not
repeat what Troelstrup sees as lackluster performances by the board in
seeking citizen input, enacting responsible economic development and
giving greater to racial matters, among other issues.

Staying on the board because their terms do not expire until 2003 are
Village Trustees Barbara Ebner, Carolyn Hodge-West and William "J.J."
Turner. Kostopulos also would leave the village board if he were
defeated for re-election.

The Oak Park Green Party, which was affiliated last fall with the
presidential campaign of Ralph Nader, was not successful in gathering
sufficient petition signatures to qualify to hold an advisory referendum
related to changing how village government addresses citizen input
related to economic development, but River Forest voters will face the
two referendums on April 3 thanks to the River Forest park district
board, which approved the measures at a special meeting on Jan. 22.

In River Forest, park officials have long hoped to renovate Keystone
Park, and the operating costs for the park district have been running at
a revenue deficit, which the property tax increase would alleviate.

River Forest park officials estimated that the owner of a $400,000 home
in River Forest--which is about the median value in the village--would
pay, starting next year, an additional $100 per year in property taxes
if both referendums were to pass in April.

In the other non-school elections that are unopposed, the highest
profile are for three local governments.

* Incumbent park commissioners Jacques Conway, an Oak Park police
sergeant and the department chaplain and a minister, and current park
board president Tim Kelly, a local construction contractor, will seek
election to the board. Kelly first was elected in 1997, while Conway was
appointed to fill a vacancy in 1999.

* Running for four open seats on the seven-member Oak Park library board
are incumbent Steven Fruth, who was elected four years ago, and four
newcomers Betsy J. Kalmar George A. Sikorski and Naomi Law, who is the
Director of Special Education with the District 97 elementary schools in
Oak Park.

* Running unopposed for the River Forest village government offices are
the incumbents: Village President Frank Paris, Village Clerk Patrick J.
Hosty and Village Trustees Dale Rider, Nancy Dillon and Patrick J.
O'Brien.

River Forest Village Trustees Joann Heppes, Dr. Richard Prinz and Alfred
M. Swanson Jr. on the seven-member village board ran for four-year terms
in 1999 and will see their terms expire in 2003.