Over two decades ago, Jim Farrell came to Oak Park for love and family, and now, he hopes to get even more involved with the community as a village trustee.
Farrell announced his election campaign at the Oak Park village board meeting on Sept. 1 during public comment.
The main focus for his campaign is the hot-button issue of proposed changes to single-family zoning.
“I thought I had a unique opportunity to make a difference and really raise the level of discussion about some of these important issues,” said Farrell in an interview with Wednesday Journal. “The most important one, the most urgent one, is the change in zoning that’s being anticipated and really pushed very quickly through by the current village board.”
Farrell studied urban economics and public finance at the University of Michigan and retired from being president of his management consulting company JP Farrell & Associates Inc, over a year ago. He feels his academic and professional experience offers the knowledge and training needed to help fully understand impacts zoning changes could produce.
Farrell said, from what he has seen, he feels that the “ill-advised set of policies” being proposed unnecessarily threatens property values, which in turn, will impact the funding for schools and the village.
He has been able to collect signatures for his election petition and talk to hundreds of community members at the Oak Park Farmers Market to connect with other residents in a way he hasn’t been able to before.
“I’m getting a lot of support from friends and neighbors and other Oak Park residents who simply believe in my primary message, which is the board needs to focus on stewardship. And by stewardship, I mean they need to be more careful with the public funds,” said Farrell.
He said he feels like the current board “strays too far from its mission” which he defined as “safety, police, fire, public health, street cleaning, snow removal, and managing the infrastructure for distributing water, managing sewers, roads, and parking.”
Two areas for immediate improvement Farrell identified “is setting goals appropriately and setting boundaries appropriately.”
The election season for local positions is just beginning with petition documents and certificates of nomination due in November. So far, four candidates for village trustee have officially announced their campaigns for the three board seats that will be on the ballot. The election will take place on April 6.
“It’s not too late to get in the race, and the more points of view we have on the table, the easier it is for the public to understand what the alternatives are, and so, I look forward to having that debate,” said Farrell.