A nearly 100-year tradition will continue next week when River Forest Township conducts its annual town meeting.
The session will take place at 6:30 p.m., April 8, at the River Forest Civic Center Authority Building, also known as the Community Center, 8020 Madison St.
Any River Forest resident can attend and take part in any votes conducted during that meeting.
Last week in Springfield as a measure to put the future of River Forest Township government on a referendum for local voters to decide, a state legislator suggested that the annual town meeting would be a good place for a local discussion of the issue to take place. Subsequently, Rep. Chris Welch (D. -7th) pulled his proposal from consideration in the state legislature. Welch said he would look for another route than that specific committee to consider his proposal during the spring session.
For the township’s annual meeting, many of the elements, including date and time of this meeting, are set by state law.
The meeting must take place after 6 p.m. on the second Tuesday of April each year.
At least 10 days before the meeting, notices have to be posted in three of the most public places in the township. The notice sets the agenda for that meeting.
According to state law, the agenda must be set 10 days before the meeting by the township board of trustees. Fifteen or more residents could have requested an agenda item by giving written notice to Township Clerk Karen Taubman no later than March 1. The agenda for the annual meeting is posted on the township’s website.
While a financial report for the fiscal year which ended March 31 will be presented, the township budget for the 2014-2015 fiscal year will not be discussed at the annual meeting. Instead, the budget will be discussed during the township board’s regular May meeting with an eye toward approval of the budget at the board’s June meeting. The new fiscal year began on April 1.
Resolutions on mental health, senior citizen and youth programs will be approved along with intergovernmental agreements with Oak Park Township and other organizations that perform services for the township.
Reports by the Township Supervisor Carla Sloan and other elected officials also will be on the agenda.
There is no specific agenda item which reflects a possible discussion of the merger of the township government into the Village of River Forest municipal government.
A relic of government in America for well more than 360 years, the township annual meeting still is considered an important function of this form of government, according to the Township Officials of Illinois. In Illinois, the annual town meeting came to be in the early 1850s.
The annual town meeting became a part of the local government process after 1917 in River Forest. That was when citizens approved a separation from Proviso Township and created their own township to increase revenue to fund education, according to the River Forest Township website.
