Naperville’s process for filling vacancies on municipal advisory boards and commissions “is not sufficiently open and transparent,” a 10-month study from the League of Women Voters of Naperville concluded.
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The league is advising the new mayor and Naperville City Council to act quickly in reviewing and revising the process of how people are appointed to the city’s 19 boards and commissions as 40 positions will be up for appointment or reappointment as of May 30, according to the study.
LWV President Susan Craighead said the council frequently follows the recommendations of its appointed advisory bodies so these groups can have a large impact on the city.
“It behooves us to have an application process that everybody understands and that attracts and appoints the best people,” she said.
When the league was looking to address a public policy issue in the community, several members saw gaps in the procedures for mayoral appointments and sought to research best practices.
“We could see that there were some issues in the transparency of making the appointments and the application process,” Craighead said.
The need for the study became more apparent last spring, she said, when several nominees, one of whom was the founder of Awake Illinois, drew criticism from the public that incited a series of letter- and email-writing campaigns, online petitions and a storm of attacks on social media from both sides.
Questions also were raised about the lack of a formal process for vetting potential appointees.
Per city code, appointments to Naperville boards and commissions are made by the mayor and confirmed by the council.
Yet, according to the study, only the mayor has access to any submitted applications and is the only one to review applications, conduct interviews or look outside the applicant pool to fill vacancies.
City code says council members are given a written biography of prospective appointees in confidence at least two weeks before a vote, and the public is alerted of the nominees’ names when the upcoming meeting agenda is published.
But Craighead said the code does not appear to have any requirement for an appointee to submit an application or to be interviewed, something the league would like to see changed.
The league supports “a standardized and well-defined interview process,” including a requirement for all Naperville residents interested in a vacancy on a board or commission to fill out an application, she said.
They are also suggesting council members be given the ability to see applications and, in some cases, the mayor should tap stakeholders for their input, Craighead said.
While the group supports transparency, there also is room for limiting public availability of application information, she said.
Some changes can help the community better understand the importance of boards and commissions, she said, and some help the community better understand how to apply and what it means when they apply.
Compared to other benchmark communities, the study suggests Naperville’s process is not in keeping with best practices for other communities of its size and stature, Craighead said.
Twelve of the 14 municipalities surveyed allowed someone beyond the mayor to see applications for boards and commissions.
“There are always best practices, and we can always do things better,” Craighead said.
She emphasized that the league is not telling the city what to do or how to do it.
“We are expressing concern and suggesting openness about pieces of the process. But we’re not giving them a step-by-step rubric that we think they should follow,” she said. “They’re the city; they need to figure out how to hopefully achieve these things, though we would work toward helping them understand our concerns.”
The league was strategic in the release of its study, waiting until late April to avoid influencing the April 4 election and before May 30, when more than 40 terms on advisory boards and commissions expire.
At the end of May, according to the study, 18 first-term seats expire and 11 second-term seats expire.
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Nine seats on the Liquor Commission have undefined dates expiring May 30, and three unexpired terms are now vacant because they were occupied by people who were elected to the council.
Five vacancies also were carried over from former Mayor Steve Chirico.