In candid interviews with the Journal late last week both Vicki Scaman and Ravi Parakkat, the candidates for Oak Park village president in next week’s election, acknowledged that this campaign has been bruising and that the tensions in the race trace back to distrust and rifts that developed over the past four years as they have served together on the village board.
There is a level of personal animus at work in the campaign that does feel different than past campaigns for Oak Park village president. In the post-Village Manager Association (VMA) era, decades when there was essentially one-party rule in Oak Park, there have been contested races for the top job that brought intensity and clear differences on some issues. But this feels more personal.
Is it fueled by personality differences that influence approaches to governance, by an active and sometimes harsh social media environment or is it some leakage of national political toxicity into local elections?
Whatever the root of the suspicion and disdain that Parakkat and Scaman acknowledge feeling, it is a race that all parties involved are ready to see come to a close.
There are real issues that will need to be addressed by the next village board. Hard choices on building a new police station and updating village hall at a price that is reasonable top the list. But also issues of affordability, spurring economic development, property tax saturation, coping with coming budget cuts out of the Trump administration, continuing to evolve public safety while restocking a depleted police department …
There is lots to do. And Oak Park needs to forge a path of active board debate and decisions without the unproductive tensions.