Arlington Heights board removes limit for commission chairmen
Commission chairmen in Arlington Heights can legally serve more than three years after the village board changed ordinances Monday to bring them into compliance with practice.
The change allows the village president to decide whether it is in the village's best interests for a chairman to serve more than three consecutive years.
Phillip Walter, who unsuccessfully opposed Arlene Mulder for mayor in the April election, urged the board to maintain the three-year limit.
It is important to bring new ideas to village commissions, he said.
The board violated ordinances 11 times in the last two years by allowing chairmen to serve longer than three consecutive years, Walter said.
He also said that the environmental control commission has had the same chairman 12 of the last 16 years, and the youth commission the same one for 12 of the last 15 years.
Walter also said the board was acting a week after he wrote to Mulder pointing out the problem. However, Bill Dixon, the village manager, said the staff had been working on the changes for some time.
Trustee Joseph Farwell said continuity is important when commissions are working on big issues, and the mayor should not be required to replace chairmen.
Work by the housing, planning and design commissions was critical for creating formulas that resulted in the building of Timber Court, a private development that includes some moderate-priced housing, he said.
Faced with 17 commissions, finding an experienced member willing to take over as chair sometimes can be difficult, said Mulder.
She also said during an interview earlier in the day that she had been appointing the chairman of the police and fire commission but recently learned that commission should elect its own chairman.
The youth commission is a special case because the majority of the members are young people, and an adult who is not a village staff member should be chairman, said Mulder. A new chairman, Thomas Middle School teacher Sharon Takahashi, was named Monday. Katherine Scortino was the longtime chairman.