Activist Toolkit

1. What motivates you to seek this office? What skills, experiences, and perspectives would you bring to the Park District Board, and why would those contributions be valuable to the Park District?

The current board over the last year has been primarily single purpose focused, partially due to the background of the majority of the members, and the board needs better variety of representation. I have been a RFYS soccer coach for 5 years, coaching both boys and girls teams, and on the RFYS board for 4 ½ years. I also have been involved with the Lincoln Elementary PTO for 4 years, running the Webstore. Since my son is now moving on to Roosevelt, my time with the Lincoln PTO is over and I am looking for another means to continue my involvement in the community. The RFYS board and Lincoln PTO have introduced me to many residents of RF, and RFYS board has given great insight into how the parks are currently used and becoming part of the Park District Board is a natural progression. 

2. What steps will you take to improve and expand community engagement with the Park District and the Board?  What is your view on how local elected officials should communicate with and respond to constituents?

Community engagement starts with listening to the community. The current board disregarded the results of the most recent Community Survey by prioritizing Platform Tennis over other programs. This shows that they do not value community input and directly and negatively affects community engagement. The board should communicate the decision making process on items like this directly through comments in the board meetings and which this board has failed to do. 

3. 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 firmly believe that to understand one’s own position one should be able to lead a debate from the other side. While difficult at times to understand an opposing opinion, doing so in such a manner can give insight to opposing opinions and even refinement in one's own. 

4. Who or what is your role model for your approach to governing?

My current occupation is in IT\Software consulting, and a significant concept in this realm is the idea of servant leaders. “ A servant-leader focuses primarily on the growth  and well-being of people and the communities to which they belong (Robert Greeneleaf)”  The PD Board must remember that it has been elected to represent and serve the community and not to dictate the path forward of the PD.

5. What do you feel are the three biggest issues facing the Park District, and how do you intend to address them? How will you prioritize among competing priorities? 

Communication - The current leadership has failed to communicate why the community survey is being ignored and Platform Tennis expansion pushed to the front of the line. While Platform Tennis probably does need expansion on the number of courts, the method of which the board has pushed this agenda, and the lack of communication about the reasoning for the decision, has led to distrust of the board. 

Focus - Too much focus has been on rapid firing the Platform Tennis expansion through as quickly as possible. The focus needs to be turned back to the community as a whole, determine where the community needs reside, and then determine if/how Platform Tennis can fit into this forward trajectory of the park district. 

Project spending - For too long the park district has been hoarding a large cash reserve for the purpose of new indoor facilities. There needs to be a final decision to either move forward with this project or allocate this cash reserve for other projects.

6. What do you believe has been the most significant action taken by the Park District in recent years, and why? Do you believe the Board acted appropriately?

Creating and ignoring the community survey is the most significant action taken in the last year. Ignoring community insight is the quickest way to lose community engagement and trust. 

7. How do you define racial equity? Have recent events and discussions in the larger community informed or changed your thinking?

Parks have the potential to improve everyone’s quality of life. Racial equity at its core is when everyone has the same access to facilities, programs, etc. regardless of race. One has to have been pretty isolated from the world at large to not have recent events influence their thoughts or discussions, or to at least have thoughts about how racial equity could affect them or others. While I have not heard any specific issues within the PD, it is interesting that on the community survey that race was not a question. If this was a question on the survey, we could mine the data to see if different communities view the parks differently or have different barriers to access. 

8. How do you plan to solicit feedback from people who may be experiencing the community in a different way than you? What barriers do you believe may exist in this process?

The typical method is via a community survey. Surveys can fail when the questions are created in an attempt to get a desired response, or when the survey is ignored. Both of these will result in a less response in future surveys. One other method would be one that I useds part of the RFYS board - I have walked around during games talking with parents to get their feel on the season and organization. While limited by nature, I think engaging park users 1-on-1 in a similar manner may give valuable informal insight.

9. How should the Park District balance the needs of all residents versus facilities and resource use by more organized groups such as sports leagues?

The first thing to do is to reopen the Community Survey and analyze the results. Slow down the Platform Tennis expansion to inspect the scope and ensure that such expansion, if done, could be done in such a way that benefits the community at large instead of a single group. 

10. Park districts make use of many different sources of funding, including property tax revenues, fees, and grants. Do you feel the Park District maintains the right balance for financial sustainability and equity? What do you see as the tradeoffs?

At this point in my candidacy I have not yet made a deep dive into the funding of the park district, and I do not think I could adequately do it with only the public postings. I do know that the Park District carries a large cash reserve that needs to be understood as to how this can be used for projects and not just kept in hand. 

11. The Park District has many part-time employees. How will you balance the need for fiscal stewardship with the responsibility to pay employees a living wage?

As I am not currently on the board I do not know the wages of any of the employees and it is difficult to know if the PD currently supports living wages. The PD has a very high funding level and carries a large balance of unspent funds, so it could support higher wages in some roles, if needed. This needs to be looked at by role and responsibility, as some of these roles are designed for part time high school work, which is normally outside the living wage discussions. It appears that the current employees are satisfied with their employment and wages - I do not recall hearing any rumblings otherwise - so this may not be an issue for the Park District. 

12. Do you have any ideas or plans for collaboration with neighboring communities? If so, what are they? 

Within RFYS we have a direct outreach program for Maywood residents, since Maywood does not have its own soccer program. We should look to see if we can use similar processes for other park district programs and with other communities who may not have the same resources as River Forest. 

13. What are your ideas for creating/preserving green or natural space in River Forest? 

The Park District is 30 acres, and there are very limited, if any, opportunities to expand. Over 50% of respondents on the community survey indicated that open space is either their 1st, 2nd, or 3rd choice for the importance of amenities, and this was the top response by a large margin. Any expansion of programs must consider the structures and buildings required, and the effect on green or open space. 

14. What are the opportunities and limitations of the Park District coordinating with the River Forest Community Center?

While important to the community, the RFCC is a single building. Besides the current use of the gym, I am unaware of any other needs of the Park District that could be fulfilled by the space within the RFCC. 

15. What values and priorities would you bring to the budgeting process? Do you favor any changes in the process by which the Park District conducts its budgeting and fiscal planning?

The Park District has an extremely large capital balance, and has a mandate as a not-for-profit to spend these funds instead of saving the balance year over year. This needs to be examined in the budgeting process.

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[The above answers were supplied on 2/19/21.]