Trustee Galen Gockel is concerned about “Kevin and Muffy.” Muffy just made partner at a big downtown law firm, while Kevin’s dermatology practice is positively booming.
They’ve moved to Oak Park, but they don’t really want to be here.
Oh, sure, the schools are great, “but don’t ask them to get involved in the community,” Gockel said.
For Kevin and Muffy, Oak Park is a second-best alternative where they’ll stay until the kids are out of school, and they can move back to Bucktown already.
The tale is bittersweet: Oak Parkers old enough to remember winning the Fair Housing struggle now face newcomers who’d just as soon be parking their SUVs in air-conditioned garages on the North Shore. But it’s Kevin and Muffy who can afford the property tax bills.
Looking forward, Gockel says high taxes are one of his major concerns for Oak Park’s future.
Gockel, along with trustees Robert Milstein and Elizabeth Brady, will step down tonight when the board takes on its newly elected members, Jon Hale, Jan Pate and John Hedges. Hedges will serve a two-year term. The board hopes to appoint its seventh member by early June (filling out the term of Martha Brock, who earlier resigned).
Gockel says tonight will mark the end of his public service career, having been an elementary school board member, the township assessor, and a village trustee twice. He was elected to a four-year term that ended in 2005 and was appointed in November to fill in for former Trustee Geoff Baker, who resigned.
Gockel currently serves as the managing director of Festival Theatre, “which means I’m in charge of the port-a-potties,” he joked.
Looking back, Gockel says the village board’s last two years “were not an unmitigated disaster.” There was the hiring of new Village Manger Tom Barwin. There were new business district plans created, and the down-zoning of residential neighborhoods susceptible to dense development.
That down-zoning was intended to protect blocks like the 400 block of North Maple Avenue, which the New Leadership Party members of the board “jumped all over” as a cause, Gockel said. “I don’t think a VMA [Village Manager Association] board would have been so aggressive.
“On the other hand, [the board] will be remembered for its maladroit handling of downtown redevelopment,” Gockel said.
The board about to step down inherited the Greater Downtown Master Plan-created at a cost of roughly $300,000-when it took office in 2005 “and basically ignored it,” Gockel said. “The board majority distorted the meaning of historic preservation and elevated it to a spuriously dominant place in policy-making. It was self-evident that saving marginal buildings downtown would require massive public subsidies, but this was ignored.”
The inadvertent outcome was the view that historic preservation vs. redevelopment is a zero-sum game, he said.
Gockel described the NLP’s rise to power in 2005 as a reaction against the previous board and its president, Joanne Trapani. The NLP’s “coalition of the angry,” combined with a “weak VMA campaign” and “ossified VMA leadership” spelled the difference. He called the most recent election “an apology” and “an election of regret” for “an experiment that failed.”
He praised President David Pope, whom he helped elect, saying, “He’s handled a very difficult situation with a level head and a very diplomatic manner.” Pope abided by majority rule, even when he thought the wrong decision was being made, Gockel said. “He didn’t engage is post-mortems or post-facto moaning, which would have been divisive.”
He said serving under Pope was vastly different from Trapani, which he said “wasn’t the most pleasant of experiences.” Pope created an “internal democracy” on the board. “For the first time, trustees were given a genuine opportunity to be heard and were taken seriously,” he said. “No longer were they viewed as an annoyance.”
Gockel also praised Barwin, saying there is much less “social distance” between him and village staff than there was with former manager Carl Swenson.
“Barwin is just one of the troops,” Gockel said. “I think staff recognizes they and he are on the same team.”
Barwin has also cut upper-level management, going from four deputy managers under Swenson to two today, meaning more direct contact with staff. And he works better with the unions. “He doesn’t approach this as if it’s going into battle between enemies.”
Gockel has never been in lockstep with the VMA. He and outgoing Village Citizens’ Alliance Trustee Robert Milstein voted together on many measures.
“If you’re a friend of Bob’s, you’re cast into the outer darkness,” Gockel said, adding that there are still people in the VMA who won’t talk to him. Helping Pope run against the VMA-slated candidate Diana Carpenter didn’t help, either.
Still, Gockel says independence within the VMA is possible, if it’s done right-a view that “is not ad hominem and is a reasonably stated case. It’s as much the style of independence as the content.”
As for the future, Gockel suggests the village create a task force on the environment. Using its Cap the Ike task force as a model, the village needs to attract a “cross-section of fairly heavy hitters” in the community and encourage grassroots action.
And in addition to Kevin and Muffy, Gockel is worried about the Historic Preservation Commission. He suggests the new board look at the preservation ordinance to make sure it’s not giving too much authority to the commission, and to look at whether the commission is stepping beyond the boundaries of its mandate.
“I think they’re close to being out of control,” he said.
CONTACT: dcarter@wjinc.com