Recently, Wednesday Journal requested our comments on River Forest term limits for an article running this week. Additional details are included here to underscore and remind readers of the history and context behind the term-limits initiative.
Fundamentally, the term-limits initiative was a last-resort message to an entrenched administration that for years has dismissed constituent concerns about decisions, projects, and spending — see, for example, the failed Lake-Lathrop development, rezoning the commercial districts, pushing for a testing lab near family homes (EMSL), improper flood control, secret invitation-only neighbor meetings, and unwanted installation of traffic barriers, to name only a few.
As Wednesday Journal knows, the successful second citizen ballot initiative arose only after the first attempt was blocked by the administration. During the first attempt, the administration arranged to keep trustees sympathetic to term limits off the electoral board. The remaining board — which included a trustee with an obvious conflict of interest — voted the question “ambiguous,” keeping it off the November 2024 ballot.
Residents then urged the village board itself to draft its own resolution for the April ballot. Despite a 90-minute discussion, the board voted 4–2 to “do nothing,” suggesting voters were uninformed and claiming 2026 would be a better time, conveniently when no village office was up for election. This meeting was a missed opportunity for the village board to listen to the constituency to craft a referendum question that avoided any alleged ambiguity.
Voters succeeded the second time, despite the blatant “no” campaign against term limits, coordinated and managed by the husband of a trustee also interviewed in the Journal article. The real concern of some board members is not policy or wording, but power. This disingenuous position prevails with the continued unsupported argument that the voter-approved term limits are not binding.
River Forest residents voted by a 52% majority to enact term limits. Term limits are now the law in River Forest. All that is required is a simple administrative action: update the River Forest code to reflect term limits for board officials.
Will our village administration continue to “do nothing?”
Debbie Borman, Sue Foran, and Patty Henek
River Forest