For the first time in 40 years, the River Forest Community Center has a new executive director.
The non-profit’s board hired Oak Park and River Forest High School District 200 school board member Jonathan Livingston as its new executive director, replacing long time director Dick Chappell. Chappell retired on May 15. Livingston, who has a PhD. in public administration and Public Policy from the University of Pittsburgh, began work three days later.
“We believe Jonathan is the right person to lead the Community into the future,” said Community Center board member Mary McCahill, who served on the board’s hiring committee. “We took a big hit with the Civic [Center] Authority’s adversarial approach toward dealing with the Community Center and we need to get back on our feet financially and in our standing with the community and I think Jonathan is absolutely the right person to do the job.”
Livingston, 49, who moved to Oak Park in 2020, has been working as a consultant to non-profits as well as working as an adjunct professor for the University of Pittsburgh Graduate School of Public and International Affairs doing some remote teaching and course development work.
He grew up in Duluth, Minnesota and received a bachelor’s degree in English Literature from Bennington College and a master’s degree in Advocacy and Political Leadership from the University of Minnesota before earning his PhD in 2018.
According the Chappell, who was on the interview committee, the Community Center had about 30 applicants for the executive director position. The interview committee interviewed four people, including two members of the Community’s Center’s board, who applied for the executive director job.
Livingston comes to the Community Center at an important time for the non-profit which runs a highly regarded early childhood learning center at the River Forest Civic Center, 8020 W. Madison Ave, where the organization is based.
The Community Center has been the main occupant of the Civic Center since 1993 shortly after the building was purchased by a public partnership that included River Forest Township.
Up until last year the Community Center managed the Civic Center building, running its child care program there, using and renting out the gym and other spaces and subleasing parts of the building to other organizations. But last year, after more than six months of acrimony, threats and tough negotiations, the entity that technically owns the building, the River Forest Civic Center Authority, which is managed by a Board of Managers which by law is made up of the River Forest Township Board, took control of the management and leasing of the building spaces by negotiating a new lease agreement with the Community Center.
In a telephone interview with the Wednesday Journal, Livingston described the new lease as a contract of adhesion, a legal term that refers to a contract when one party, in this case the Civic Center Authority, has all the power and the weaker party, in this case the Community Center, basically has no choice but to accept the terms offered.
“The terms of the contract are pretty draconian and they certainly seem designed to limit the Community Center and its ability to carry out its programming and therefore generate the revenue after expenses that they’re traditionally used to making,” Livingston said.
The Community Center has long relied on revenue from subleasing portions of the building to supplement its revenue generated by program fees for its childcare program. But John Becvar, the River Forest Township Supervisor who also serves as the chairman of the River Forest Civic Center Authority’s Board of Managers, maintained that the Civic Center Authority needed to control the building, which needs substantial maintenance work, including a new roof in the not too distant future, and the subleases, to ensure its long term viability.
Supporters of the Community Center worry about whether the Community Center will be able to stay in the Civic Center long term and some believe that the River Forest Park District is looking to take over the building.
“The new terms are very, very, draconian and they certainly put the township in a much more hands on, very micro manager sort of role,” Livingston said. “It has the feeling of the Community Center being on probation or acting as a parolee. It reads very punitively. It’s hard to wrap my head around how it got there so quickly.”
Livingston said that he is still learning all the background and is ready to work with the Civic Center Authority.
‘I’m new here and trying to keep as open of a mind as possible and learning what’s informing the current state of things,” Livingston said.
The Community Center is also looking to restructure how it operates to deal with the new reality and its new leadership. It will do more fundraising, something the Community Center never has done much of.
“There will much more robust, deliberate fund raising efforts, both by way of individual donor campaigns, grant writing and other fundraisers and such,” Livingston said.
Livingston said that he was attracted to the job because he has a deep interest in early childhood education.
“I come to this because of my commitment to early childhood education,” Livingston said.
Livingston might take more of a hands on approach to the early childhood education program which Chappell mostly left in the hands of Early Childhood Program Director Lia Madonia-Garcia who has run the program for the past 28 years.
“It’s going to be a lot different,” Madonia-Garcia said. “Jonathan’s very early childhood orientated so we’ll definitely have a different type of support with him, a lot more education. He’ll be teaching us a lot more. He has a lot of experience in the field and a lot of resources that can help our programs so we’re excited to move forward and grow.”
Madonia-Garcia said that Livingston made a good impression on his first week at the job.
“He’s doing great, he’s fitting in amazingly well,” Madonia-Garcia said. “He’s very easy to get along with.”
Livingston and McCahill declined to say what Livingston’s salary is but the job description posted on the Community Center’s web site lists a salary range of $60,000 to $80,000.
In another change at the Community Center, long time board member George Vukotich, who had been the chairman of the board of the Community Center, resigned from the board this month. Vukotich had served on the Community Center’s board for approximately 20 years, the last 15 as chairman of the board. Vukotich said that with Chappell leaving it was time to let newer and younger board members chart the future.
“I think some different individuals have some different perspectives on what the future should be and how to get there,” said Vukovich, who is 68.
Vukotich, has been replaced as board chairman, at least on an interim basis, by board member Anne Dwyer.