Oak Park Village Trustee Deno Andrews has announced he is seeking a second term as trustee in the upcoming 2021 election. Andrews, who was elected trustee in 2017, told Wednesday Journal he hopes Oak Park residents will vote for him again to so he can continue his “work toward greater government transparency, racial equity, affordable housing, environmental sustainability and financial sustainability.”
Andrews also said he intends to continue work on the “new issues we face as a community including COVID-19 recovery, policing and public safety, and the continued need to keep tax growth to a sustainable amount.”
According to Andrews, many factors contributed to his decision to seek reelection, including the rewarding nature of working as a public servant.
“I find the work to be important and long-lasting and rewarding in many ways,” he said.
In his four years on the board of trustees, Andrews believes he has worked to grow and preserve services while showing pragmatism in village financial matters.
“I think I’ve been an effective trustee who has been able to balance providing the services to the community that are needed and, at the same time, being able to keep property tax increases at sustainable levels, year after year after year,” Andrews said.
If elected for a second term, Andrews intends to continue working on rethinking overnight parking. During a July 27 village board meeting, Andrews requested the village board discuss revamping the overnight parking system to make it more equitable, which resulted in a direction to village staff to create a plan and timeline for further discussion.
“I came up with a very novel plan to provide enough parking for people who need it and still have empty streets throughout most of the village,” said Andrews.
In the last few months, the current village board has embarked on issues related to policing and racism in Oak Park. With his term about to end, Andrews would like to see that process through in his second term.
“Once we make whatever improvements to our local policing that we’re currently working on, we can’t just stop looking at it and say, “OK, we did that. It’s done,'” Andrews said. “The work is more continual.”
Andrews also believes it’s important to have some “consistency” on the board.
“I think that I’m a very reasonable trustee who really looks at all sides of an issue and makes decisions that benefit the village as a whole,” Andrews said.
Andrews joined the village board in 2017 alongside Trustees Dan Moroney and Simone Boutet. Moroney has not yet made a decision on whether he intends to seek reelection. Moroney said he plans to decide by November. Boutet has already announced she is not seeking reelection as trustee but is instead running for village president.
Andrews said he has no intention of running for village president at this time in his life, due to his busy schedule as a working husband and father.
“It’s never been in my life plan to be the village president.”
