We are against term limits because it is about limiting our voice, our choice and our vote in future elections. It is a bad policy for a village of our size. It is not and should not be about any one person in office today or in the future.
We already have term limits; they are called elections. We have a limited talent pool from which to source qualified candidates for office. River Forest has about 11,227 people of which 7,849 are over the age of 18 (source: Census.gov). This is a very small pool from which to source qualified candidates for political office. We cannot afford to limit that talent pool in any way. Note that five elections over the past 20 years, including the April 2025 election, have been non-contested.
Term Limits reduce the collective experience and institutional knowledge of our elected officials. Why would you want to force a “brain drain”?
Term Limits incentivize short-term thinking versus the long game. We need to govern with an eye toward the needs of River Forest today as well as tomorrow.
The president, village clerk and village board all volunteer their services, without pay or benefits of any kind. This is not the case for other municipalities across the Chicago area, including Broadview and Skokie. I mention these two towns because each has been used as examples of towns with term limits.
Some have suggested on Facebook that we need term limits in River Forest because incumbents have an advantage over newcomers to elections but a review of recent elections shows that, at least where the village president office is concerned, that is not the case. The current village president has faced opposition in two elections (2013 and 2021). In both elections, the two challengers were village trustees who were well known by the electorate. These were not newcomers who were disadvantaged by being new to village politics.
Please read this white paper about term limits from the University of Chicago Center for Effective Government: https://effectivegov.uchicago.edu/primers/term-limits.
We encourage you to Vote No to term limits in River Forest.
Thomas & Chery Cargie
RF Village Trustee 2013-2021
RF Park District Commissioner 2017-2021