Winfield village board needs to act with decorum
We live in a time of incivility — from anonymous postings on the Internet to the daily partisan screeching on talk cable TV.
So the fact that incivility should be infecting one of our suburban village boards — local politicians emulating their brethren on the national stage apparently — probably shouldn’t be all that surprising. But when things get out of control, someone needs to step up and be a voice of calm and reason.
So we are happy to see Winfield Village President Deb Birutis taking on the leadership role and trying to set rules for her warring village trustees to live by.
The rules are simple, declarative and characterized by common sense. It’s a list that shouldn’t be necessary, but one that will get the job done if trustees abide by it and approve it when they meet to discuss them in December.
Birutis is asking the board to: pay attention, listen, be inclusive, refrain from gossiping; show respect, be agreeable, apologize, give constructive criticism, and take responsibility.
Sounds like rules Mom and Dad would give their children, and it’s wise counsel for any governing board. Why is it that with the three new board members taking their seats last May, these standard behaviors are missing?
“We have been working with this issue for the past six months. It doesn’t seem to be getting any better,” Birutis said.
In fact, it’s gotten worse. One trustee narrowly avoided censure last month from the board after angrily confronting a resident after a meeting.
Bickering among board members is a regular occurrence at Winfield meetings. And village staff members filed a report detailing struggles they’ve been having since the new members started their terms, including one unnamed trustee reminding staff that he would be village president in two years.
Those kinds of threats are shameful and have no place in village business. We urge the Winfield board to clean up its act and follow Birutis’ advice before things get out of hand. Winfield need look no further than the village of Buffalo Grove to find out what happens when board members refuse to work with each other. In November 2010, former Trustee Lisa Stone was the first public official in Illinois to be recalled, after a year and a half of a confrontational style that was counterproductive.
We hope Winfield trustees are not headed in that direction. We’re no fans of recall. But we’re also no fans of continued bickering that gets in the way of doing village business. As Birutis said last week, the village board needs to focus on strategic planning initiatives such as updating infrastructure, developing a town center and addressing stormwater issues. That’s what village trustees are elected to do and that’s what they should be focusing on moving forward.