Highland Park council hopefuls focus on healing
July 4 shooting shapes agenda for candidates
Incumbents Tony Blumberg and Adam Stolberg are among six Highland Park City Council candidates running for three open seats this spring, with at least one new member set to join the panel after Michelle Holleman opted not to run for another term.
The City Council elections are taking shape as Highland Park continues to come to grips with the Fourth of July parade shooting in which seven people were killed and dozens injured.
Each candidate — some who were at the parade — spoke about their commitment to doing everything in their power to help lead the city’s recovery and shared priorities, including reinvigorating the city’s downtown, improving sustainability and continuing to develop intelligently while adding affordable housing.
Blumberg said he had planned not to seek another term, but friends and supporters told him the city needed his help in the recovery effort. He said constructing a permanent memorial and helping those affected “indirectly, in ways that are unexpected” are key priorities, and that “it’s important to make myself available.”
“I want to run because I want to provide some institutional knowledge,” he said “I want to run because of the need for stability as we’re coming through this.”
Blumberg said his connection with Highland Park remains deep after raising his children there and observing how the community has evolved.
“One of the concepts in development that has worked in recent years is improving foot access and making it easier for local residents to get into the downtown,” he said. “Increasing residential
opportunities immediately around the downtown is very important, and we’ve seen that happen.”
Stolberg has been a council member since winning a special election in 2017 after Paul Frank won a seat on the Lake County Board. He is the president and chief executive officer at Advantage Management, a property management firm he cofounded after about 15 years of working at the Park District of Highland Park.
He said the council, “wanted to make sure that we did everything right” in the months following the tragedy, noting that people saw things “most people outside of a war zone don’t see.”
“We’re still involved in (the response) to this day, and will be for many years,” Stolberg said. “We set up enough of the right facilities and opportunities for people who are grieving to get the help they need, the counseling they need, someone to talk to.
“It didn’t just stop when the sun went down on July 4. For most people, that
was just the beginning, and they’re experiencing all sorts of post-traumatic issues, loss and fear.”
He said the City Council is “involved so heavily now in a level of service” he never expected, but its core priorities are still there. Stolberg also said the council has made important investments in public safety, infrastructure, “community vibrancy” and capital projects, including a new fire station.
Sharon Narrod, a former bank manager who also worked as a teacher in Highland Park and Mundelein, said she felt the time was right in her life to “devote the kind of attention to be a responsible, fully functioning” council member.
“I (do not) just judge from the outside, and I think that really describes me, quite frankly,” she said. “I don’t jump to conclusions. I don’t have many knee-jerk responses to things.”
Narrod said she has a “supreme interest” in examining the city’s expenditures — and seeing “what parts of the community benefit or
don’t benefit from those expenditures” — and working to address any inequities in investment.
“I know a lot of people from all different areas of the city,” she said. “There’s a perception by some residents that the focus is always on what’s east of the tracks or the focus is always on those who afford whatever it may be, whether it’s an increase in real estate taxes, where the money goes for construction or there are neighborhoods where flooding is a big issue.”
She said she would like to see the city’s affordable housing efforts “as expanded as reasonable” so people can afford to stay in the community instead of moving out.
Highland Park Sustainability Advisory Group Chair Kelly Nichols, the manager of advocacy and engagement for Chicago nonprofit Respiratory Health Association, said she has the right mix of experience with organizing, policymaking and community engagement to serve the city.
“I’ve always been a person
who embraces the idea that change starts from information and gathering data, then making intelligent decisions about the best future for our community,” she said.
Nichols said her involvement in the community has grown through her time working on sustainability with the advisory group over the years and is particularly focused on improving the city’s “climate resilience” and its ecological footprint in the coming years.
She shares goals of improving the city’s downtown appeal and would like to see Highland Park be a community where people growing up there, including her own kids, feel happy to stay close to home and make their lives in the area.
“I would really love to see the ability for Highland Park to have a little bit more of a downtown area that people are as excited to hang out in as they are in Highwood,” Nichols said.
The two other candidates, architect Yumi Ross and realtor and Ravinia Brewing co-owner Jeff Hoobler, also want to bring new life to the city’s downtown, which has a range of retail and food options but has not been immune from the same challenges other Lake County communities have faced.
Ross said she wants to bring her “architect’s eye” to the city’s design and planning efforts, and that her tenure as a District 113 school board member and frequent volunteer in the community has uniquely prepared her for City Council.
“I feel I bring a crucial new voice to City Council, but all the more impactful as a new voice because it’s a voice grounded in excellent, deep experience in the community,” she said.
As the president of the Art Center Highland Park, Ross said she also understands how the city can maintain its healthy arts scene and ensure the arts can be a “huge economic multiplier.”
Hoobler said the City Council has lagged on supporting small businesses as neighboring communities like Lake Forest, Glencoe and Wilmette attract new and thriving businesses.
“(We have) a big downtown business district area, but I think altogether eight different, small-business areas where you can have these little pockets of restaurants,” he said. “What tends to happen is when you get a good operator, you set them up for success by making it easy for them to open and giving them the things they need, (and) they’re successful.”
He said the city must do everything in its power to “make the process easy” to attract businesses, then keep in touch about important issues. He said he wants to ensure that young families in particular have representation, pointing out that he has a child in elementary, middle and high school.
“(The council) is just not thinking the same way a person who had a 2-yearold might, or a person who has an eighth grader might, or a person who has a high schooler might,” he said.