The Clarendon Hills Village Board has taken a measure to shorten its meetings and is discussing the possibility of reducing the regular meetings from twice a month to once each month.
The ordinance passed June 5 by the board removed some of the more formalistic practices the village had, where it recessed to committees and then had set committee reports from each board member, said Assistant Village Manager Zach Creer, who takes over July 1 as village manager.
“The old practice was not one any of our staff, or the village attorney saw anywhere else, but likely was something that may have carried over from the very early years of the village, where they may have had more of a commission form of government,” Creer said. “That was the major change to shorten meetings. We also discussed allowing staff to present, rather than the Village Board presenting individual items, since the staff member likely wrote the memo on the subject.”
Creer said several recent midterm resignations by board members had a common theme that village staff heard as well.
“The town has changed a lot over the years, and now a lot of the board members have kids at home in dual earner households, so being able to fit it all in people’s lives was becoming difficult,” he said.
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Village President Eric Tech said that the rationale for looking into ways to shorten Village Board meetings is that the number one feedback he received from outgoing board members and from people he asked about serving was that the meetings were too long and too frequent.
As for moving to one monthly meeting, rather than two, Creer said the board often only had one meeting a month under current structure, usually because of the meetings falling close to a holiday, spring break or summer vacation.
“President Tech suggested we could take a more organized effort to move to a single meeting, while keeping the other date open for any items that needed further discussion for a possible special meeting,” Creer said. “In the end, that may work better for interested community members as well, since the entire special meeting could then be dedicated to the issue.”
Creer said staff is still working out some details that would be needed if the change to one monthly meeting is made, including moving payables to a 30-day-plus cycle, any required ordinance changes, moving to make some approvals administrative, rather than board, and working with vendors to make sure the village will not receive any late fees.
“I am in no rush to impose any changes,” Tech said. “We will simply experiment with these to see what works and what does not over the next few months.”
Chuck Fieldman is a freelance reporter for Pioneer Press.