I‘ve watched with interest the coverage of whether to allow our village president to formally use the title “mayor” in performing her/his official duties. Cutting to the chase, I’ll state right up front that I believe the right answer to this question is “yes,” but not for the reasons some might think.
First, I intentionally said “her/his” because this question isn’t about, and should really have nothing to do with, Anan Abu-Taleb, our current village president. It’s about answering the question: “What outcome will best serve the people of Oak Park?”
Second, I intentionally said “formally” because the practical reality is that, outside of the boundaries of Oak Park, the significant majority of folks already call our village president “mayor” (as they have for decades). Why? Because for most people, and for virtually everyone who regularly interacts within the public realm, the title “mayor” is interchangeable with “chief elected official,” which is exactly what our village president is.
So why are some folks in Oak Park concerned about the prospect of such a change? Because to them the title “mayor” equates to the role typified in so-called “strong-mayor” forms of government. Such “strong-mayor” mayors are not only the chief elected officials of their municipalities, but they are also the day-to-day chief administrators and the operational leaders of their respective governments. In a “strong-mayor” city, when the rubber meets the road, what the mayor says goes (unless explicitly rejected by the city council).
That’s not the form of government we have here in Oak Park. For more than 60 years, we have had a council-manager form of government in which our elected village board (composed of the village president and the six village trustees) appoint a village manager who is responsible for those day-to-day administrative and operational duties that, in a “strong-mayor” form of government, would be handled by the mayor and her/his administration.
Some of the tension and concern stems from a mistaken belief that any such title change commensurately results in Oak Park adopting a strong-mayor form of government. It doesn’t, and we won’t. On a related note, the overwhelming majority of “mayors” in Illinois serve cities/towns/villages in roles known as “weak-mayor” structures (just like virtually every city in the state of California and thousands of other cities in states throughout the U.S.). The significant majority of these municipalities actually function under council-manager forms of government just like Oak Park. While we often like to think of ourselves as unique, in this respect we are not.
An additional source of confusion comes from the fact that some in Oak Park prefer to think of the village president as simply the “seventh trustee” who happens to preside over village board meetings. This view is wrong. It, unfortunately, is sometimes unwittingly perpetuated by the use of terminology such as “president of the board of trustees,” which often carries the mistaken connotation that the president was somehow elected by the trustees (and is, therefore, a creature of the board itself).
We do have some elected bodies in our community that function in this way (our school boards, our library board, and our park board). However, this is not the case with the village president, whose powers and authorities come by virtue of her/his being directly and popularly elected by the people of Oak Park and from the responsibilities explicitly delineated in the Village of Oak Park municipal code and in Illinois State Statues. These statutes, by the way, don’t differentiate in any way regarding the powers vested in village presidents vs. mayors. Under Illinois law they are identical.
So understanding that there’s no legal distinction and no risk to our council-manager form of government, it’s still reasonable to ask, “Why do I support allowing the village president to use the title mayor?” The answer for me is pretty simple: Because in my direct experience, it will enable her/him to better represent our community’s interests.
Given our council-manager form of government, the appropriate role for the village president is an externally-facing one, representing the village’s interests to outside parties. In my experience, those parties more clearly understand and respond to the “mayor” of Oak Park, realizing that she/he is the chief elected official of one of the 25 largest “cities” in the state of Illinois. Unfortunately, the title “village president” is more often confused with the role of the village manager which, given our form of government, is exactly the kind of confusion we want to avoid.
While some might prefer a less active village president who simply presides at meetings and cuts ribbons, I believe that an active, externally-facing village president brings tremendous benefits to our community. We send a lot of money to Washington. We send a lot of money to Springfield. A capable and dedicated village president helps us to bring a lot of that back (to support infrastructure investments, utility investments, housing funds, public safety dollars, etc.).
Soon after being elected, I came to understand more clearly the tensions among professional life, public life, and personal life. And I concluded that I could do two out of those three roles well if I was to perform the externally-facing village president role in the way it should be performed. I stepped back from my professional life and, from age 38 to 46, took on the role of village president in a full-time capacity. There were certainly some sacrifices in doing that for our family (essentially our seven-figure contribution in foregone income in order to serve the community we love).
At the same time in that capacity, I was able to work with our trustees and our staff to help bring tens of millions of dollars back to Oak Park in order to support the policy initiatives our board of trustees wanted to advance. It was a privilege and a joy, as well as a sacrifice, to serve our community in this role.
Most importantly, the role of village president is about helping to meet the needs of all our residents, advancing policies and securing funding to support the direction that is set by our elected village board. I believe others will be able to most effectively represent our community in the role of village president in the future if they are permitted to do so under the title “mayor.” I agree with the views of those on the village board who have been quoted as supporting just such a change.
As they look to vote on this issue in the upcoming weeks, I encourage the board to move this action forward and approve this title change, not for any individual’s benefit, but for the benefit of our community.
David Pope is a former village president of Oak Park.