Five candidates, including incumbent Trustees Lucia Robinson and Chibuike Enyia, are running to fill three village trustee seats on the Oak Park board in the local election April 1, 2025.
Joshua Vanderberg, James “Jim” Taglia, and Jenna Leving Jacobson are also running to fill the open seats. The village board officials are elected on a staggered cycle, meaning the three trustees elected in 2023 will serve until the next election in 2027.
In the upcoming spring election, Oak Park voters will also vote for a village clerk and a village president. The race for clerk is uncontested, with incumbent Christina Waters running for reelection.
But the race for village president is a highly contested one, with incumbents Vicki Scaman, who is president, and Ravi Parakkat, a trustee, running to fill the seat. Their positions have been published by Wednesday Journal.
The board members elected in 2025 will also get a raise. Newly elected trustees will get a bump from $15,000 to $23,000. Robinson and Enyia abstained from that vote.
The candidates’ positions are listed below in alphabetical order by last name.
Chibuike Enyia
Why he’s running
Incumbent Enyia, elected in 2021, told Wednesday Journal he’s running again because Oak Park is home. He said he wants to see the village reach its full protentional, and progress takes time.
“The work we’ve started isn’t finished yet, and I want to keep pushing forward,” he said in an email interview. “I believe in this community, and I want to keep doing the work to help it grow and thrive.”
His priorities
The current trustee said his priorities for a new term would include working together as a board, engaging the community and tackling top Oak Park issues. Those include promoting sustainability, bolstering public safety, ensuring access to affordable housing, gun violence prevention and transportation safety.
Enyia said that he wants a clearer and more inclusive decision-making process. That includes ensuring the board is responsive to concerns and ensuring equity and inclusion is built into every policy, program and conversation.
“At a time when the national climate feels increasingly unpredictable, it’s more important than ever to protect what makes Oak Park unique,” he said.
Contrasting candidates
Enyia said he’s committed to listening to every voice in the community, adding that his approach to the village trustee role is one of collaboration, humility and clear, consistent communication.
So far as a trustee, he said, he’s supported safe gun storage, sustainability efforts, affordable housing initiatives and resources for unhoused residents. He said he’s pushed for transparency in efforts such as the BerryDunn report, automated license plate readers and leaf collection. And he wrote he’s co-led efforts to improve public safety through alternative calls for response.
Enyia pointed out he’s also served as trustee through the pandemic, migrant support efforts and search for a new village manager.
“Each candidate can list their priorities and goals, but what we’ve learned is that there are always unexpected crises,” he said.
Major changes
If reelected, Enyia wrote he’d like all trustees to seek input from village commissions earlier on to better inform board decisions. He added that he’d collaborate with Village President Vicki Scaman and Village Manager Kevin Jackson to have more efficient board agendas so that they are respectful of everyone’s time. And Enyia wrote he’d work to build stronger collaboration with other local government leaders.
“I feel these issues deeply — just like every member of our community — and I share the concerns, hopes, and vision that so many Oak Parkers have for our village,” Enyia said. “You are my priority now and always.”
Jenna Leving Jacobson
Why she’s running
Leving Jacobson, who teaches Spanish at Dominican University, said she’s always felt strongly about participating in democracy and community service. After the outcome of the national presidential election, she said she felt she needed to step up in this time of instability.
“One of the ways in which we can take care of each other is by having a strong local government,” she said.
Her priorities
The candidate said she has five top priorities: access to healthcare, mental health support, gun violence prevention, response to the climate crisis and a focus on affordable housing. The first four are part of the village’s IPLAN, a five-year plan created in 2022 that identifies public health priority areas.
Leving Jacobson said the Oak Park Public Health Department is sometimes taken for granted and needs to be fully funded and supported, especially as things could change nationally under a new presidency.
Leving Jacobson, a local leader of the Oak Park-Austin Area Moms Demand Action, also said gun violence prevention has been her primary area of activism since she became a parent in 2016. She wants to invest in programs that support youth, those at risk of exposure to gun violence and survivors.
She said she will continue to push harder to meet the goals in Climate Ready Oak Park.
And community input has shown residents want a diverse and affordable community. To achieve that, Leving Jacobson said the board needs to strengthen the inclusionary housing ordinance adopted in 2019.
Contrasting candidates
Leving Jacobson said she brings a different perspective in terms of community organizing and advocacy. She serves on the board of the District 97 multilingual and multicultural parent advisory committee, works at a free health clinic and volunteered as a Spanish interpreter during the Oak Park response to asylum seekers.
“I can promise that I will always lead with my values, and I believe those are shared values, of being compassionate and believing really strongly in our commitment to equity and inclusion,” she said.
Major changes
Leving Jacobson said she’d like to find more ways in which the board can engage with increasingly diverse voices in Oak Park. Trustees might be open to hearing those voices, but the village isn’t hearing from everyone, she said.
“Not all voices are given the same amount of time and space,” she said.
Lucia Robinson
Why she’s running
Incumbent Robinson, elected in 2021, said serving in the role has been both rewarding and challenging. The incumbent said she inherited a “divisive board discourse” when elected, adding it’s important to have a “solution-focused dialogue.”
She said she’s able to build strong relationships with colleagues while providing leadership that is “thoughtful,” “compassion-centered” and focused on “fiduciary integrity.”
“I’m always, always mindful of the fact that we are spending the community’s money and that has to happen, I think, with a high degree of transparency and opportunity for the community to weigh in,” she said.
Her priorities
Robinson said she has four main priorities for a new term. Those are building up the police force, building a new police station, building up a strong economic development program and emphasizing an equity focus in village services.
The village is down about 30% of its full police staff, Robinson pointed out. She said she wants to focus on supporting their work through robust recruitment and technological tools. A new police station goes along with that.
Robinson also said she wants to focus on completing capital improvement projects such as the Oak Park Avenue Streetscape. She also wants to create and invest in partnerships that aid economic vitality efforts, like with the Oak Park River Forest Chamber of Commerce.
Robinson said she wants to help roll out the recently approved language access policy, as well as pass a language access ordinance, to ensure everyone has access to village services.
Contrasting candidates
Robinson, an attorney, said she approaches issues from a legal perspective. The development for Pete’s Fresh Market is one example of that, she said. She pushed for an amended contract with specific deadlines and a fee structure for missed deadlines.
The current trustee also said it’s important to have continuity of leadership regarding ongoing projects like Village Hall and the police station.
Robinson, the only woman of color on the current board and of the candidates running, added that she can offer diversity of perspective. She’s a third-generation American who understands the difficulty of language barriers. And in Oak Park, there’s an increasingly diverse community with a rapidly growing Latino population.
Major changes
Robinson said she wants to see greater alignment between village board goals and the budget process. Creating a more comprehensive financial policy, something the board has been planning to do, is also a priority for her.
James “Jim” Taglia
Why he’s running
Taglia, a former Oak Park trustee who owns a chemical manufacturing company, said he was encouraged by locals, including some former board members, to run again. In the 2023 election, Taglia lost his seat. He said he was sick at the time and unable to campaign effectively.
“I really miss helping people, working with people … to solve problems, to make things better,” he said. “I’ve had a long track record of doing that.”
His priorities
The former trustee said his priorities for a new term include support for public safety initiatives, minimizing the financial burden for a Village Hall remodel and potentially reinstating raking leaves into piles on the street rather than bagging for collection.
“We need to improve the responsiveness of the village to resident concerns,” he said. “That’s a really core function of a trustee.”
Taglia said he wants to prioritize the new police station by spending “what makes sense and what’s necessary.” It’s also important to him to get police staffing up.
The current board has been talking about potentially investing large sums of money into remodeling Village Hall, Taglia said, adding he wants to only fix what’s necessary, including functionality or accessibility issues.
“The average resident spends less than five minutes a year in Village Hall,” he said. “I don’t know that I want to spend $100 million so their five-minute visit is architecturally pleasing.”
Contrasting candidates
Taglia said he already knows the “nuts and bolts” of being a trustee. He spent six years as a village trustee and six years before that on the Oak Park Township board. His experience on local committees, as a trustee, as a business owner and his institutional knowledge, are what Taglia said set him apart from other candidates.
One of the ways Taglia said he’ll strengthen the board is with his deep understanding of the budget process.
“It takes two years of your four-year term, if you’re new, to get up to speed,” he said. “When I start on day one, I am plugged into that, and I get it, I understand how it works.”
Major changes
Taglia said he’d like to see more focused village board agendas presented in a way that can be discussed in about two hours. Village board meetings tend to run longer.
When he was a trustee, Taglia said meetings ran long then, too. But he said it’s important to be efficient, adding that village staff do not need heavy board oversight to accomplish priorities.
Joshua Vanderberg
Why he’s running
Vanderberg, a software executive, said Oak Park faces critical issues, including ones related to affordability, such as an increase in prices, in property taxes and in insurance.
“I do think we need to keep our eye on the ball around property taxes,” he said. “But I think the village board has a number of policy levers that it can bring to bear that can significantly impact affordability for locals.”
His priorities
Vanderberg said he also wants to focus on Vision Zero priorities to increase pedestrian and biker safety in Oak Park and wants to create a network of protected bike lanes. As an avid biker, Vanderberg said he’s worked hard to replace car trips with biking ones and recognizes kids need that protection as they walk or bike to school.
Contrasting candidates
Vanderberg said although he’s competing with incumbents, he has been following village board proceedings closely for about five years. He’s served as a member of the Civic Information Systems Commission and worked closely with the village board and Oak Park police chief to make policy changes around surveillance technology.
“I have a very data driven approach,” he said. “I dive into data sources and really try to learn what’s going on behind the scenes.”
Major changes
Vanderberg said he would bring more attention to the cost of remodeling Village Hall and building a new police station. He said he’s concerned about that process after watching developments unfold and wants to think carefully about future designs.
“Nowadays, we have more employees who work from home, and the next generation of Oak Park citizens aren’t going to want to walk into a building and fill out paperwork, they’re going to want to be doing services online,” he said.
Each candidate expressed a desire to see high local voter turnout and increasing participation in democracy for the 2025 election. Eligible residents can register to vote ahead of the April 1, 2025, election and check back for information about where and when to vote.
Correction, Jan. 2, 2025: A previous version of this story misstated which board at District 97 Leving Jacobson is on. We regret the error.
