Oak Park has filled the vacant seat on its Board of Trustees and is ready to move forward on various issues including sustainability.
At Tuesday June 17’s board meeting, Village President Vicki Scaman nominated Derek Eder to take over the trustee seat that Susan Buchanan resigned from last month. Eder’s appointment was approved unanimously by the other trustees.
Buchanan resigned in May shortly after the April municipal election, saying that she was burned out from the job
In his introductory remarks as a new trustee, Eder thanked Buchanan for her service and leadership on sustainability issues and he would continue this emphasis.
“I thank Dr. Susan Buchanan for her many years of service to Oak Park and as a tireless leader for climate action in our village,” he said. “I am here to continue Susan Buchanan’s climate action leadership at the village board. “
He added: “I would also like to thank President Scaman for her faith in me to assume this great role in public service, and her continued leadership of our village, and to the village board, my new fellow colleagues.”
Scaman said that with Eder signed on, the village board is ready to make more progress on its goals with his help.
“Derek is compassionate, patient, knowledgeable in government processes and he will be an incredible asset serving alongside the talented trustees elected by the residents of Oak Park,” she said. “He’s a brilliant addition to our board. We are most definitely ready to go.”
Last month, she told Wednesday Journal that she wanted to prioritize appointing someone with a similar qualities and commitment to sustainability as Buchanan to take over the vacated seat.
“I don’t know that I’m going to rush to make a decision,” Scaman said at the time. “Last time, I did an actual application process and I sought to try and put some real effort into listening to what the community was voting for when they voted for the trustee that had resigned, and so in this case I will reflect upon that with Susan and the gap that she might be leaving from the community’s perspective.”
Eder is a member of the Oak Park Climate Action Network volunteer group, of which Buchanan was a co-founder. Eder’s work to electrify his family’s “old, Oak Park Home” was highlighted in a short documentary by the village in 2023, which he has followed with a series of blog posts outlining how his family has worked to run their home as green as possible.
“Oak Park is already a leader on climate action, but we still have so far to go. According to our own climate action plan we have less than five years to reduce our climate pollution by 60%,” he said. “We have amazing, dedicated staff and several promising programs, like the Energy Efficiency and Electrification Grants and Building Benchmarking, that will help us get there, but we need to move faster. But we must do so equitably, providing grants and education while removing barriers so we can all benefit from the clean energy transition.”
Eder is a tech developer and entrepreneur, with many of his projects focused on building civic technology platforms – tech tools that help citizens understand and engage with their governments. He’s worked on projects focused on carbon emissions, legislative transparency, zoning and mass incarceration.
“I have dedicated the past 15 years of my life to serve the public good through community organizing, policy, data and technology,” he said. “It has been through the lens of technology and data that I have gained a deep and valuable education on civics, government operations and policy. I believe that technology can be a positive lever for good in our society, as long as it is centered in transparency, democracy, justice and equity.”
One project Eder developed compiled Oak Park’s village budgets from 2013 to 2023, breaking down department-by-department spending in an easily accessible format.
Eder runs DataMade, a civic technology firm he founded. DataMade’s clients include the Los Angeles Metropolitan Transportation Authority, the Illinois Department of Public Health and the City of Chicago.
He also founded Chi Hack Night, a non-profit built around a weekly event in which people from a variety of backgrounds work together to turn public data into helpful civic technology tools.
He is raising two children in Oak Park with his partner, Aya, Eder said.
“We love Oak Park for its active community, excellent schools, beautiful parks, wonderful facilities and its values and commitment to advancing racial equity and social justice,” Eder said. “As a village trustee, I will strive to live up to these values, to plug into the work that is already underway, and to join the movement that continues to guide our Village into a brighter future for all its residents.”
