As three members of the Wilmette village board left and Village President Bob Bielinski welcomed their successors – Kathy Dodd, Joel Kurzman, and Steve Leonard – to the dais Tuesday, laughter mixed with accolades for the departing trustees.
Bielinski thanked Trustees Cameron Krueger, Ted McKenna, and Carol Ducommun for helping create a more economically lively downtown, for making village finances easier for officials and residents alike to grasp, and seeing projects such as the West Park sewer storage project and the Elmwood Dunes Preserve completed.
Bielinski also praised Ducommun, saying, “I will always remember you for what you taught me about communication and how important it is and how often it isn’t done well.”
But he also poked gentle fun at McKenna and Krueger, who were leaving office after their second and final four-year terms.
“Cam and Ted, I will always think of the two of you together in one sentence,” Bielinski said. “I was getting a little nostalgic tonight. I’ve never served on the board without Cam and Ted.”
“You guys came along at a really tough time, 2009, in a midst of a horrible recession,” Bielinski said, noting that the two had served during a time when the village had to cut back staff and economize in other ways to maintain services: “It was not as much fun as the last two years.”
McKenna and Krueger comprised the “fun side” of the dais, Trustee Julie Wolf said. “Your humor will be missed. We will not be laughing as much without you,” she said.
Krueger thanked Ducommun, who chaired the board’s finance committee during her one term in office, saying, “I can’t say enough about you, and about how confidently people can sleep at night, knowing you had your eye on the village.”
Then he elicited more laughs, telling McKenna that “it’s been a pleasure sitting beside you. I’m going to miss lowering your seat every week so you’d be shorter than me.”
Twitter: @pioneer_kathy