Meeting to set direction for Park Forest election process
If you still care how elections are conducted in Park Forest, you need to attend a critical meeting of the Non-Partisan Committee at 1 p.m. Saturday at a new location, Dining on the Green, 349 Main St., Park Forest.
The recent death of Al Sturges, the longtime voice and face of the committee, and the announced departure of three officers leaves the future of this vital volunteer group in doubt. Without the Non-Partisan Committee, the integrity of elections in Park Forest will be on life support and future village elections will be in danger of being controlled by political packs and greased by large amounts of money.
The twofold purpose of the meeting, originally slated for Village Hall, is to elect new officers and to see if there is enough community interest in keeping the Non-Partisan Committee alive.
For nearly 70 years, the group has managed to limit the evils of collusion and cash by cutting a deal with all candidates. For the price of a signature on a piece of paper pledging that you will run as an independent, any candidate states their views at all-candidate forums sponsored by the committee. Slating, the political tool by which candidates work in conjunction with each other, is the red line drawn in the political sand.
We hammered on this topic before. If the Non-Partisan Committee is to survive, it must have a clear voice from the public, but without leadership there is the fear that the group will not be able to state its case for an independent election next April.
From the days when candidates and voters crowded into living rooms to discuss issues to in what was once a more-or-less Republican suburb to more recent times when these sessions were held in Village Hall of an overwhelmingly Democratic bastion, the no-slating rule seemed to work most of the time for most of the people.
The Non-Partisan Committee was established in 1955, when the village was still setting the rules it wanted to live by and when the mayor, Henry Dietch, proclaimed there was no Democratic or Republican way of picking up trash. Good government, he said, depended on the support of all citizens.
Other communities also hold nonpartisan elections, but a public oversight group seeking pledges of independence from office seekers is a matchless opportunity for all candidates to focus on issues, not on cronies bent on securing power.
The last two local elections were different as one village trustee admitted passing petitions for two office seekers and other candidates began “liking” each other on social media. There were rumors of secret “handshakes” between candidates and a pop-up group was caught passing out flyers publicizing their choices outside Village Hall.
Park Forest’s ethics and anti-nepotism ordinances are vital parts of its political structure, but without an independent group overseeing elections, they are only words on paper.
Snow Angel
Before we leave the dungeons of winter, I need to write a personal note of thanks to an unknown neighbor.
Every now and then someone will ask me why we prefer living in Park Forest. It’s easy to come up with good answers to a bad question. But here is just another motive for sticking around. There is a “snow angel” on our block who makes it his or her business to clear the sidewalks up and down Shabbona Drive after an overnight snowstorm.
I am not certain about the identity of our kind neighbor, although I have a good idea as to who it is. Since that task is done in the early morning hours and before I have enough courage to face the day, I, and along with others on our long block have not been able to thank the person, who never leaves signs calling attention to the effort.
The goodness of neighbors is one of the things that binds me to this diverse community. The poet Robert Frost once wrote that “good fences make good neighbors.” But from where we view the world, fences should never be too high to keep people apart.