We’ve lived in River Forest for 23 years. It’s a very pretty place, very wealthy, with many homes that could be termed palatial. We live in a condo building. It’s not a palace, but it is very comfortable and we have many warm, caring co-owner and resident neighbors in the building.
In our time here, we’ve engaged, on and off, with the politics of the village, rather more in the last 10 years or so. When we arrived, the village board was dominated by a Village President who had reigned from 1993-2009. An interregnum of four years ensued, followed by the current board president who has been in place since 2013.
We live in a small town next to a large town. The contrast between them is stark. My town River Forest – properly, for Illinois purposes, a “village” – has about 12,000 residents. Our neighboring town to the east, Oak Park (also a “village” in Illinois parlance), is home to about 54,000 people – almost 5 times the density of River Forest.
We pay attention to Oak Park’s political goings-on with great interest for several reasons, a major one being the very different Oak Park style of governance. In recent times, Oak Park has not had the sort of presidential dynasties that River Forest has endured. Its village board is, at least as we see it, far more dynamic and independent of its president. Of course, it’s not the circus that Chicago is, with its mayor and 50 aldermen. Oak Park and River Forest have 7-member boards, including the president.
In River Forest, 3 members of the village board have proven to be independent of the village president. The rest of the board votes almost always as a bloc with the president, who votes only to break ties. Of course, with a board that’s 3-3, ties are very common, so she votes with “her” bloc when she votes. It’s become clear over time that nearly all issues have, at least implicitly, been decided upon ahead of time, no matter opposing view from the 3 board non-adherents or from citizens. Sadly, a good stable of independent, forward-looking board candidates has not yet materialized, so instead we get a bloc of rubber stamps who seem content to follow the old village line.
The taste of this is not exactly sweet or savory. While the process seems orderly and well-oiled, it has led to some truly unfortunate, even maddening, things.
One of them is a long-ongoing project on the parcel abutting our condo building’s property. It has been “in development” for the better part of a decade. It’s smack in the center of our village, and would, had it been done with any degree of aplomb, have been a signature building. But it’s not. In fact, after several years of sometimes risible, probably fraudulent developer activity, the project was closed down by the village and, more importantly, by the bank. What’s left is a shoddy concrete platform and some cinder block columns. It is, in short, an eyesore. Over time several citizens expressed their outrage about the village president’s persistently extending project deadlines for a clearly incompetent, almost totally unfunded developer. He was required again and again to show “activity” on the site. In one memorable instance, as he came up against another ostensible drop-dead date, he managed to “borrow” a very large piece of construction equipment, placing it on the site for one day, then having it sent back to its original location. We who view the site from above frequently observed two workers (that was, for long stretches, the entire construction crew), “moving dirt”: they would use a small front-loader to relocate a large pile of dirt; the next day, they would move it back again. Why was this happening? We really don’t know how the “developer” got away with it for so long, but it is of interest that he is the son of the former Village President.
Underlying the village government is a long-standing insider ethos. You might be able to guess at that, given the long tenures of that former village president (16 years), and current president (13 years). While it’s very difficult to discern why someone would want to hold onto such unpaid jobs, it becomes clearer if you look at it as the pinnacle of an old-line network that exists for its own purposes – whatever those purposes might be.
Power in little towns such as River Forest seems to be closely guarded by the town’s old network. And it has teeth. When last the current president was challenged, at the end of that election cycle a vicious and grossly fabricated advertising mailer appeared in our mailboxes, alleging the challenger’s hidden agenda: to turn housing along a main street into “Section 8” apartments. This mailer, apparently paid for by supporter of the incumbent, wasn’t just a series of lies; it was a racist warning that our village would become a refuge for “them,” ruining our pristine housing stock. Such fears are an undercurrent in this small town, one that rises to the surface any time such ideas as multi-unit apartment buildings are proposed.
The contrasts in governing behavior between Oak Park and River Forest are clear and instructive. Citizen input in Oak Park is, in many ways, an indoor sport. Oak Park does, indeed, have its long-time residents and political gadflies who can be depended upon to give voice to their thoughts at a moment’s notice. People speak up, their opinions are noted in detail in the local weekly newspaper, and the Oak Park Village Board (never mind the two village school boards) pays attention to the input. Let me not, by the way, paint a rosy picture of arcadian life in that village. The give and take in Oak Park can be quite rough-hewn and bruising, and the village board often goes its own way. But there is give and take and it helps guide that village’s affairs. This variety of democratic activity does not exist in the little village to the west.
I’ve always appreciated contrarians. We have had them on River Forest’s board, and they have at least voiced the concerns of the citizenry from within the board itself. But unless and until the board’s membership includes at least four heretics and/or a village president who cares about no-nonsense governance and is attuned to the citizenry of the village, things will remain the same.
Sadly, a new construction development is in the works. The village government’s shepherding of this project eerily echoes that of the prior failed development: a very local developer, a mediocre architectural plan, a building out of proportion to its neighborhood, designed to build out to the lot lines with too many units on a small footprint because of the pressing need for return on investment. The village’s citizens are rightly very gun-shy about this project and are not reassured by the blandishments of the River Forest board majority or its staff. The “don’t worry your little heads; we know what we’re doing, so butt out” mentality, while hidden behind supposed “open forums” to listen to citizen input, prevails. It’s the village way. As of now.
The good news is that a growing contingent of River Forest’s people have become quite attuned to the insularity, tone-deafness and inside-the-fortress dealings of village government. They speak out and are persistent. That single candidate who a few years back ran a courageous campaign for village president, only to discover the power of the entrenched few, would likely find support and running room that was absent when she ran. Not that the knives wouldn’t come out again. They would. But she, or any good candidate, would have a shield wall up front and a stronger force behind.
Edmund J McDevitt
© March 2026