Ali ElSaffar
candidate for 2025 OAK PARK township ASSESSOR
1.What motivates you to seek this office? What skills, experiences, and perspectives would you bring to the Township, and why would those contributions be valuable in the role of Oak Park Township Assessor?
I have served as Oak Park Township Assessor for the last twenty-four years and am now seeking another four-year term. My reasons for seeking the office in 2001 are the same as my reasons for seeking re-election today—I like helping people, am interested in government and public policy, and have skills and interests that are a good fit for the job of Oak Park Township Assessor.
The most important skills I bring to the job come from my years as an attorney specializing in real estate law, my education as a Certified Illinois Assessing Officer, and my experience in the Oak Park Township Assessor’s office. My knowledge and experience in these areas allows me to help residents with assessment appeals and with a wide range of other real estate tax problems.
2.What does transparency mean to you? How would you work to put it into practice as Assessor?
In my job, transparency means providing Oak Park residents the information they need to understand their tax bills. To that end, I frequently write articles that discuss local government tax levies and explain how reassessments, appeals, and exemptions impact each property’s share of local taxes. I also meet regularly with individual taxpayers to discuss specific issues related to their tax assessments.
3.How will you balance competing interests, such as your own values and opinions, input from Township staff and Trustees, and diverse views from the community? How would you describe your leadership style and your decision-making process generally?
Occasionally, contentious issues of tax policy arise in the community. Rather than advocate for one side or another, it is often best for me to provide neutral, fact-based explanations of the policy so that taxpayers and policymakers can better understand how the issue in question will impact tax bills.
When I do take a position on a particular issue, I try to build the widest possible consensus and seek to do so in a respectful way. There tends to be a lot of rancor in today’s public discourse, but I believe an attitude of respect and open-mindedness leads to better policy outcomes while also building better relationships within the community.
4.How do you define equity? Have recent discussions in the larger community informed or changed your thinking?
In the last year, I have studied and spoken about inequities in the Cook County property tax system. I have focused on the differences in tax rates and property values in Cook County’s south suburbs and compared them to more affluent suburbs such as Oak Park.
I have found that some well-meaning tax policies that appear to treat all communities equally can end up benefiting an affluent community while harming a poorer community. I have sought to raise awareness of this phenomenon while helping to craft tax policies that provide similar benefits for rich and poor communities.
5.How do you plan to solicit feedback from people who may be experiencing this community in a different way than you? What barriers do you believe may exist in this process?
My office does much of its work over the phone. But when an in-person visit is needed, we generally expect taxpayers to come to our office.
Some taxpayers, however, cannot come to the office due to a disability or lack of transportation. My office has sought to overcome these barriers to access by making home visits to taxpayers in certain circumstances.
6.Give an example of a time when you worked to understand a situation or view different from your own. What helped you to move through that process? What hindered you as you moved through the process?
I once worked in an office with a male supervisor and mostly female employees. When a female co-worker complained about the supervisor, I commented that I had never had a problem with him. “And you never will,” she responded, “because you’re a man.”
After this conversation, I began to notice that the supervisor was indeed more respectful to me than the women who worked in his office. This taught me that my experiences can be influenced by my status, and that someone with a different status may experience life very differently.
7.What barriers do you see for community members who wish to engage with the Office of the Assessor? How would you work to reduce or eliminate those barriers?
I am proud that about one in five Oak Park homeowners sought help from my office in filing appeals in each of the last three reassessments. These numbers are much higher than they were when I first took office, and I attribute this to my efforts at outreach to the community, mainly through newspaper articles and word of mouth among community members.
But with newspaper circulation declining, it is important to find new ways to reach people. In the last few years, my office has been putting our press releases on social media, and we have also started sending the press releases directly to residents through an ever-growing E-mail list. We will continue looking for other ways to reach our constituents.
8.What is your position on the extent to which the Township includes or should include accessibility features? Please address both physical structures and virtual/information procedures.
My office helps process tax exemptions for senior citizens and people with disabilities, and my interaction with these residents has increased my awareness of the Township’s accessibility features. I think the Township generally has good accessibility features but we should be open to changing and improving them in order to better accommodate the people we serve.
9.Residents often express confusion about the disparate roles of the Village and the Township, particularly in the wake of the advisory referendum on consolidation in 2018. What steps would you take to increase the visibility and community awareness of the Township’s mission and programs?
As noted in the answer to question 7, the Township should continue finding ways to provide information about its services in the places where our residents access information.
10.What relationship do you believe the Township should have with the other local taxing bodies? How can the Township and other government bodies best work together?
Elected officials in the various local governments naturally tend to focus on their own organizations. But in my years as Township Assessor, I have focused on the viewpoints of taxpayers, who are usually more concerned about the collective impact of tax levy decisions of all local governments.
To address taxpayer concerns, local governments should cooperate and collaborate to keep the cost of government down. Oak Park and River Forest Townships, for example, have combined certain services to provide savings for both townships. This is an excellent example of intergovernmental cooperation.
11.Assessors are required to carefully balance professional impartiality with responsiveness to community members who require assistance with appeals or exemptions. How would you describe your anticipated posture with the public?
I have found that a command of the facts about the assessment system is tremendously helpful when working with the public. When taxpayers are upset about their bills, part of the reason for this is that they do not understand why their bills have changed and are concerned about it.
In my years in office, I have become very confident in my knowledge and understanding of the tax system, and I have found that this confidence is comforting to taxpayers. I can usually provide a logical explanation for the tax changes they have experienced and can also offer suggestions for how to address any problems. This approach tends to reduce taxpayer anxiety.