Activist Toolkit

[Ali ElSaffar has not submitted answers to the Activist Toolkit questionnaire.]

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1. What motivates you to seek this office? What skills, experiences, and perspectives would you bring to the Township, and why would those contributions be valuable in the role of Oak Park Township Assessor?

2. What does transparency mean to you? How would you work to put it into practice as Assessor?

3. How will you balance competing interests, such as your own values and opinions, input from Township staff and Trustees, and diverse views from the community? How would you describe your leadership style and your decision-making process generally? 

4. How do you define equity? Have recent discussions in the larger community informed or changed your thinking? 

5. How do you plan to solicit feedback from people who may be experiencing this community in a different way than you? What barriers do you believe may exist in this process?

6. Give an example of a time when you worked to understand a situation or view different from your own. What helped you to move through that process? What hindered you as you moved through the process?

7. What barriers do you see for community members who wish to engage with the Office of the Assessor? How would you work to reduce or eliminate those barriers? 

8. What is your position on the extent to which the Township includes or should include accessibility features? Please address both physical structures and virtual/information processes.

9. Residents often express confusion about the disparate roles of the Village and the Township, particularly in the wake of the advisory referendum on consolidation in 2018. What steps would you take to increase the visibility and community awareness of the Township’s mission and programs?

10. What relationship do you believe the Township should have with the other local taxing bodies? How can the Township and other government bodies work best together?

11. What lessons learned from the adjustment of services during the pandemic do you believe will be applicable going forward, even after the pandemic abates?

12. Assessors are required to carefully balance professional impartiality with responsiveness to community members who require assistance with appeals or exemptions. How would you describe your anticipated posture toward the public?