Mike Basil, who joined the Wilmette Village Board in 2007 on a pro-business platform, has stepped down three months shy of his expected exit date to take a position in new Gov. Bruce Rauner’s administration.
Basil announced his departure at the end of the board’s regular Jan. 27 meeting. He starts his new job as general counsel for the Illinois Department of Central Management Services the week of Feb. 16.
Village President Bob Bielinski said he will quickly appoint a trustee to fill Basil’s position until the April 5 election. The pick could well be one of two newcomers, Senta Plunkett and Dan Sullivan, who are running unopposed for seats now held by Basil and outgoing Trustee Allan Swanson.
The board may get a resolution seconding Bielinski’s pick in time for its next meeting on Feb. 10, Village Attorney Michael Zimmerman said Jan. 27.
Basil, an attorney whose practice has focused on commercial litigation, disaster response, and contract disputes and negotiation, will head the CMS legal division.
Central management services handles procurement, fleet management, and employee benefits for the state, and also works with municipal governments to provide procurement and vehicle savings. Basil’s legal division has a staff of roughly 35, and also deals with state labor relations.
Basil supported Rauner in the Republican primary and in the general election. He said mutual friends suggested his name to Rauner’s incoming administrative team, and he was first approached about a job before Christmas.
He said he accepted the job offer earlier this month and told Bielinski about a week prior to the board meeting. He will also be resigning his position with the law firm of Clausen Miller.
When he made his announcement, Basil praised the colleagues he was leaving, saying, “It’s been a great experience to serve with all of you, and I want to tell everybody in Wilmette … that you’re in great hands.”
Bielinski, in turn, said he was honored to serve with Basil and invited him to return to the board in May, when the new trustees are officially seated, “to have a proper send-off.”
After the meeting, Basil said he was excited about his new job, but would miss the collegial nature of municipal service.
“The focus here by the staff is on all the right things. Our agreements and disagreements are handled all the right way,” he said. “It’s not always that way at the state level.”
There will be some similarities, he said: “One thing that CMS does is to work out intergovernmental agreement with local governments to help them achieve economies of scale in services.
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“Some of that is actually pretty close to, and overlapping of, a lot of the things I’ve been seeing and doing here over the past eight years.”
Basil first ran for Village Board in 2006, telling voters the board then was hostile to business, pointing to its downtown building moratorium and zoning decisions that prevented business development projects in the downtown area.
He also pressed for and eventually helped institute streamlined permit approval procedures for businesses and contractors, after he took the dais in 2007.
During his tenure, he also helped kick-start Wilmette’s downtown master plan – now a part of its comprehensive plan and its zoning code – by bringing in expertise from the Urban Land Institute to write it, and then finding a $100,000 RTA transportation grant to fund it.
He touted those accomplishments when he ran in 2013 to succeed retiring Village President Chris Canning. He lost that two-way race to Bielinski, but retained his seat on the board for a second and final term.
In his first term, Basil successfully eliminated a vehicle sticker discount Wilmette had once offered owners of low-emission, high-mileage cars, saying it discriminated against other car owners. During his second term, he also opposed efforts by some Wilmette residents to make renewable energy purchases the default service in Wilmette’s electrical aggregation power purchase plan.
Moving on Up
Who: Mike Basil
Old position: Wilmette village trustee
New job: General counsel, Illinois Department of Central Management Services