Village clerk candidate Sharon Patchak-Layman apparently has plans to use the clerk’s office as a political rallying tool. The clerk’s office is a “prime place to get more involvement” by citizens in the affairs of local government, she said Thursday 3/19 at a candidates’ forum at Irving School. The election is set for April 7.  The clerk “should harness parents” and others and use her office as “a way to bring a network together.”

Her running mate on the “It Takes a Village” slate, trustee candidate Julie Samuels, had a few minutes earlier identified herself as “a community organizer,” with the goal to “facilitate meetings” between trustees and citizens. The present board “is broken,” said Samuels, who ran as Green Party candidate for state representative in 2004 and lieutenant governor in 2006, unsuccessfully both times.

Patchak-Layman, on the other hand, has won three school board elections, two for Oak Park elementary schools and one for Oak Park and River Forest High School, and now is halfway through a four-year term on the latter. This is her second run for village clerk, the village’s only elected position that is paid and full-time. She ran the first time four years ago. She would continue at her high school board position — as a citizen doing volunteer civic work, she told me.

The incumbent clerk is choosing not to run again after 16 years in office, having worked eight years before that in the village’s community relations department.  Her predecessor held office for 20 years.

The clerk is to be the village’s “eyes and ears, to tell people what’s going on at village hall,” Patchak-Layman said, emphasizing her responsibility “to citizens.” Her opponent, Teresa Powell, had a somewhat different emphasis. “Elected, we [office-holders] represent all of you,” she said, adding that the clerk is to work “closely” with village board and calling it “critical” that there be “openness and trust and willingness to work together.”

Samuels further emphasized her claim that the board is “broken,” alleging lack of “public discussion” of legislation. She is suspicious of what’s discussed in executive sessions, she said. “The board seems to know a lot” at open meetings. “How did they come to know it?” she asked.

But the current village board has had fewer executive sessions than previous boards, countered a trustee opponent from the other slate, the Village Manager Association-endorsed “Responsible Leadership” party, Collette Luecke. In any case, she said, executive-session agendas are announced beforehand.

The commission system — mostly involving citizen appointees who vet issues prior to board consideration — has suffered a “demise,” said Samuels, who gave her “guarantee” to restore it and to get trustees to attend commission meetings. On the other hand, she bemoaned the length of board meetings as a needless drain on the time of its members and said time requirements discourage people from running for the board.

“Responsible Leadership” (VMA-endorsed) trustee candidate Collette Lueck agreed that there is “not enough public input,” but denied that commissions are “dead,” adding that Oak Park has more of them “than any other village in the state” and that most commissions have a full complement of members. Moreover, hearings are held by the board “for many things, as [recently] citizens wanting to sell bread at Farmer’s Market, [who] came prepared to argue their case and convinced the board. It’s not unusual,” she said.

Discussing delays encountered when seeking building permits from village hall, “It Takes a Village” presidential candidate Gary Schwab called the situation “appalling.” He also accused his opposite number on the “Responsible Leadership” slate, incumbent David Pope, of asking at a previous forum whether there is such a problem.

Pope explained that he’d been kidding. Indeed, it’s a much discussed matter, extremely unlikely to have escaped him in his six years on the board, the last four as president, and based on his normal cautious manner, unlikely that he would have misspoken in the matter.

“It Takes a Village” candidate Kathryn Jonas twice addressed the empty-storefront issue, each time urging adoption of the “Main Street” economic development program in use by neighboring Forest Park. This is the program of National Main Street Center of the National Trust for Historic Preservation, in Washington.

In this she echoed her predecessors in the last two campaigns to unseat incumbents, one of them successful, the other not, the incumbents being those endorsed by the Village Manager Assn. (VMA), whose candidates have held sway with only two brief interruptions since the 50s.

“Don’t vacate commercial buildings until there’s something to replace them,” Jonas argued, referring to commercial sites awaiting development. Oak Park has an “incredible” number of commercial “buildings without tenants,” she said. The village should have “a single entity,” as Forest Park does, where “the Chamber of Commerce handles everything,” employing the “Main Street” model.

Her argument is based on the acknowledged thriving character of Madison Street west of Harlem, the Oak Park-Forest Park divider, where Oak Parkers once went for hard drink — long ago in German taverns, more recently in Irish bars — until Oak Park went wet some 20 years ago. Oak Parkers still do, for that matter, and one might argue that Oak Park has little to compare with the liveliness and boom quality of that strip.

Nonetheless, the VMA-endorsed Glenn Brewer observed that Madison Street in Forest Park “has empty storefronts too,” without saying how many.

Asked how trustees would go about getting federal stimulus money for Oak Park, Solomon mentioned “urban farms” as a good idea. Lueck noted incumbent President Pope’s familiarity with other mayors and possibilities of making joint requests. “It helps to be known,” she said.

The clerk candidates, asked about past managerial and labor-negotiating experience, candidate Powell noted that she supervised a staff of nine in nine of her 13 years at Blue Cross, Patchak-Layman that she had a staff of “16 to 20” at Pilgrim (Church) Nursery School in the 80s. Powell said she’d been a union member as a Chicago Public Schools employee, Patchak-Layman that as a school board member she has negotiated with unions.