Activist Toolkit

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

Candidate’s video response

I seek the office of Oak Park Village President because we need a more inclusive and transparent government. We need to start living up to our Village’s ideals of equity, inclusion and diversity. I will use my ability to listen, network and facilitate to bring community members, commissions and trustees to the same table. With my skills in data analysis and my attention to detail, I will work to bring about progressive, participatory budgeting that benefits the whole, and not just the few. 

I am an organizer and a caretaker, but I am first a mother and I use that heart and gut instinct to guide most things I do. It is why, before I even knew who I would become, I volunteered as an emergency medical tech when I was still a teenager. I care about people, and I will use those lessons, and the ones I continue to learn today, to serve everyone in the community with compassion, kindness and empathy. 

I am a proud biracial Latina woman, and those life experiences that come along with that rich heritage has motivated me as an organizer and activist and made it clearer to me the importance of having a partner in local government.

2. What is your broad vision for the future of Oak Park? How will you promote substantive discussion, build consensus among trustees, and rally public support for your vision?

Candidate’s video response

I envision an Oak Park that works for all of us. 

We need an elected leadership that is bold and clear-eyed about how to make decisions that dismantle racist systems. I have been promoting substantive discussion in Oak Park for several years by listening with an open mind, and considering all points of view. Listening is the first step toward solution, and I promise to create opportunities for all community members to engage with the board and have a voice in our community’s common future. 

While I do not believe that unanimity among seven trustees is necessary, making sure each trustee is, and feels heard is an important step toward consensus building. As Audre Lorde said, “Set expectations and create patterns for relating across our differences.” With this empathetic yet objective approach, I have been rallying public support for many years and am regarded as highly skilled in engaging community participation. 

3. What are the three biggest challenges or opportunities you expect the Village of Oak Park to face in the coming years, and how would you work with your colleagues to address these challenges or realize these opportunities?

The three biggest challenges and opportunities our Village faces are: Creating and implementing participatory budgeting; producing a response to Covid-19 that fortifies our state-certified Health Department; and prioritizing the outcomes for Black residents that includes the voices of small business. 

Oak Park needs to align our values with our finances. I will work to limit property tax increases, restructure our user fees, and implement progressive taxes at the state level so we can fully fund public health, education, and social services. Certainly part of that involves a participatory budget, meaning the community has a hand in deciding how the Village spends a portion of the budget.

To tackle the Covid crisis, we need to collaborate. We need to work with our Health Department and local health providers to facilitate vaccine distribution. We must underscore clear and effective communication and ensure that it reaches every corner of our Village. 

Finally, I would help bring back the Director of Business Services position or use the Oak Park Economic Development Commission contract to deliver those services. The Village should end economic development incentives that encourage big buildings and recruit large tenants. Instead, I would listen to the needs of BIPOC entrepreneurs and our 12 business districts to find ways to direct those incentives to the places that need them most. I would also encourage the Economic Development Commission to take on initiatives that help grow our existing businesses.

4. How will you balance competing interests, such as your own deeply-held values and opinions, input from village staff and fellow board members, and diverse views from the community? How would you describe your leadership style and your decision-making process generally?

From parenting four boys and working at the Park District, to organizing with Oak Park Call to Action and The People’s Lobby, I have years of experience bringing people together. Through listening and mutual respect, I expect rigorous and productive democratic discourse. 

My candidacy has always been powered by a network of support and accountability. Made up of family, friends, activists, and elected officials, that network has helped me refine my positions and organize. My leadership is collaborative. I call it co-governing. I can call upon anyone in this network for advice and support on any of the brave initiatives I am proposing. And I am accountable to all of them as a result. 

I will continue to seek the advice of experts and all other community members before making decisions. I will defer major policy decisions to the appropriate commissions every time, and I will ensure that all our residents have access to our budget, agendas, and policies. 

I sought the input from over 35 content experts when developing my platform. We did not always agree on every point but the plans we developed are comprehensive and inclusive. I will continue to employ that type of co-governing as Village President.

5. What values would you bring to the budgeting process? What changes do you favor in the process by which the Village conducts its budgeting and fiscal planning?

Oak Park needs to align our values with our finances. I will work to limit property tax increases, restructure our regressive fees, and implement progressive taxes where possible so we can fully fund public health, education, and social services. 

Certainly part of that involves a participatory budget, which means, simply, that the community has a hand in deciding how the Village allocates the budget. Our current budget document is indecipherable. We need a people’s budget and a participatory process to get there. 

And we don’t have to do this alone. We need to work with our sister governments, not only at the school and park districts and the township, but the county and the state, too. We can’t just pass along responsibility and silo ourselves. Collaboration with these entities leads to better programs and access to new resources. 

We must shift our reliance from regressive to progressive revenues, partner with our sister governments, and bring transparency to the budgeting process.

6. How will you balance the community's desire to reduce the property tax burden with the promotion of equity, diversity, and quality of life in the Village?

Our current economic development strategy is a race to the bottom, where tax breaks recruit corporations and developers. I will pursue an economic gardening strategy that uses those tools and others to support our existing business ecosystem, especially for Black and brown entrepreneurs. 

Economic Gardening is about nurturing the environment that each business exists in and understanding the differences between Madison, North Ave, Roosevelt, the Arts District, Austin, and Harlem, for example. Economic gardening requires deeper knowledge of Oak Park’s business ecosystem, and not just putting all of our attention into large high rise developments downtown. It’s a poor strategy that only serves a few people to bribe large developers to build luxury apartments.

Real estate is the backbone of our local economy. When we approach real estate and business development as a community, we can leverage for equity for people who have been shut out, as well as grow the wealth of our community as a whole. Decades ago our community had very strong leadership that was forward thinking and understood that diversity was a key driver of property value, and that bringing greater diversity into Oak Park could make it a much more valuable community. We never got to doing inclusion properly.

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

I have been integrally involved in equity campaigns in Oak Park for the many years. One thing I have realized is that I am always evolving, growing and learning and that is true for my understanding of equity and what that means in Oak Park. 

I believe a robust and comprehensive Racial Equity Policy must be the ruler by which all things are measured. We must ask how ordinances affect our historically disenfranchised neighbors; even the most well-intended ordinance can cause harm if we are not asking. None of us can know what we have not experienced or endeavored to learn. I always strive to lead with this idea because it helps me stay open to learn and make better decisions. When we know better, we do better. 

We must make sure we have a diversity of lived experiences on all of the elected boards in the Village. That is the best possible way to ensure that all aspects racial equity are considered. And by focusing on eliminating racist policies, remembering that they are there whether we like it or not, our economy, our institutions, and our government works better for everyone.

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

That is something I work toward every day. Bringing people together for a common purpose, whether it’s the change I affected at the Boy Scouts of America and Scouts for Equality, or through my work to coordinate the Oak Park Mutual Aid society, or my role at the Park District, reaching out to community members, soliciting ideas, feedback, and participation is my passion. One way we can do all of these things systematically, at the board level, is to have a participatory style budgeting process. Not only does this look at the budget holistically, but it brings people into the process.

For example, I will create a six-month people’s budget task force that would review our revenues, identify collaboration opportunities, and create an accessible budget document and process within one year. Our current budget document is indecipherable. We need a people’s budget and a participatory process to get there. The invitations for this collaboration must be intentional and appropriate and people must feel that they are met where they are. It is not enough to say “the door was not locked” and put the onus completely on the invited.

9. How will you help smaller and locally-owned businesses survive and thrive in Oak Park, especially in the wake of the pandemic? Do you believe it is appropriate for the Village of Oak Park to provide incentives or supports specifically directed toward minority-owned businesses? Why or why not?

One of the main reasons I am running for Village President is because I believe we need a firm commitment and meaningful action on racial equity, democratic participation, and real economic development at Village Hall. I want to ensure that black and brown residents, renters, and others who have been excluded in the past, have a seat at the table. I’ll ensure that all decisions are made through a lens of racial equity. Our nation’s history of racial discrimination means that today’s race-blind policies often increase racial disparities. I’ll use racial equity impact assessment tools to evaluate who benefits and who is burdened by each Village decision. 

Our current economic development strategy is a race to the bottom, where tax breaks recruit corporations and developers. I will pursue an economic gardening strategy that uses those tools and others to support our existing business ecosystem, especially black and brown entrepreneurs. 

We also want to see more innovation come out of Oak Park. Our town has a great reputation and is known around the world for fantastic architecture. We can turn that into more revenue. Bringing outside dollars into our community directly brings revenue into the Village budget. It lowers taxes for homeowners. It makes our businesses more sustainable. It helps to create more success stories that motivate more people to grow their businesses right here at home. It creates more jobs. Instead of us fighting over some crumbs, we’re working together to bake cookies.

10. Rental units comprise about 41% of Oak Park’s housing stock. In what ways should the Village better serve the needs of renters who reside in our community?

Despite the threats to fair and affordable housing in Oak Park, the majority of the current Village Board has ignored the input from its commissions, committees, and community at large. In the past four years, the Village stopped collecting essential racial demographic information necessary to cultivate stable integration throughout Oak Park; failed to document or address increasing housing and rental costs; and reduced funding of our nationally recognized Oak Park Regional Housing Center. 

The majority of the new housing in Oak Park is unaffordable to most of the community, disproportionately affecting our seniors and working families. We need a strong, effective inclusionary housing ordinance able to incent developers to integrate affordable units. 

The current inclusionary housing ordinance doesn’t go far enough and that’s because it was pushed through without input from informed residents. 

I will immediately begin a targeted listening tour to hear the unique needs of renters in our village and hopefully on our board. I would host “coffees with cate” and offer childcare to ensure that everyone can participate. Then I would seek to prioritize those needs and work with trustees to bring them into policy. 

I will also continue to lobby at the State level to eliminate the State controls on rent levels.

11. How will you collaborate with neighboring communities? Discuss a specific initiative you would wish to undertake. What benefits and challenges would you anticipate?

As a natural facilitator and bridge builder I have already made connections with community leaders and elected officials in neighboring communities. I would continue to work with those partners to help further the vision of more progressive candidates across the western suburbs who share my common goals. 

There are many groups and individuals in Austin, for example, doing work that needs to be lifted up, supported, and shared. I would propose a small business committee that brings together businesses on both sides of Austin Ave. to share ideas and collaborate--because we don’t have to do this alone. We need to work with our sister governments, not only at the school and park districts and the township, but the County and the State. We can’t just say “that’s their responsibility” and stay on our side of Austin, Roosevelt, North and Harlem Avenues. Collaboration with these entities leads to better programs and access to new resources. 

My current relationships that span Cook County will serve the entire community in experience and in spirit.

12. Debate at the Board table and in public has grown increasingly contentious in recent years, as individual trustees have leveraged the power of social media, national media, and local organizing to bring attention to issues they care most about. What strategies will you employ to channel this energy toward a more productive discussion and the creation of better policies for Oak Park?

This moment in Oak Park calls for steadfast dedication and critical examination, with subsequent remedy, of harmful systems. We must abandon weaponized democracy that has been used to silence. We need a more welcoming and effective invitation for anyone and everyone with agency or interest to take part in our Village’s decision-making processes. I want to bring back public participation and that includes elected board members as well. 

I would defer to commissions before agenda items are brought to the Board, and monitor significant items to be sure that they move through the process efficiently. Oak Park has 20 citizen commissions and more than 100 commissioners nominated by the Citizens Involvement Commission (CIC) and appointed by the Village President. As Village President, I commit to allowing the CIC to perform their duty and the village board to vote and approve their recommendation unless extraordinary circumstances arise. People of color and renters are under-represented among their membership. If elected, I will work closely with the CIC to recruit and appoint commissioners that reflect the diversity of our population and make this data publicly available. 

I will listen, consult, consider, and act. These are my strengths. And likewise, I would expect our Board to listen and respect Oak Parkers. Oak Park is not immune to the issues the larger society is struggling with, including systemic racism, extremism, divisiveness and a growing divide between the rich and the poor. These are issues that demand a different approach, that demand fruitful and effective peer-to-peer relationships at the Board level.

13. How will you work with your colleagues to ensure that Oak Park remains economically and racially diverse? Give an example of an initiative you support that would have a significant positive impact on racial or economic diversity.

We need to work much harder to make our Black and Brown neighbors feel safe, supported, and welcome. The Village Board needs to stop trying to defund the Oak Park Regional Housing Center. We need to fully fund it. Specifically, the Village should incent Oak Park landlords to work with the Housing Center to find tenants. 

As recently as 2013, fair housing tests completed by HOPE Fair Housing Center showed poor results, meaning that we still have some bad actor landlords discriminating against people of color here. It’s time to test regularly and hold landlords accountable. This is an essential strategy to maintain racial diversity. 

The Oak Park Regional Housing Center has been challenging stereotypes and undoing racial steering for almost 50 years. This organization is the backbone of our commitment to racial equity and integration. 

The Village should continue and increase contracts with the Housing Center to provide high quality, mandatory training for landlords in our community so that they understand the practices fair housing laws require and the best practices to create safe, integrated buildings. We also need to make sure the Housing Center is fully funded for multiple years at a time. This is one of the best investments the Village can make to sustain a racially equitable and integrated Oak Park.

14. What do you see as the most pressing issue relating to housing in Oak Park? What policies would you advocate to address this issue? Do you consider support for affordable housing to be a core function of our village government? Why or why not?

The only way we’ll really know if Oak Park is integrated is by collecting data each year from tenants. For decades, the Village collected data from landlords on the collective racial composition of their tenants. Now the Village relies on the gross estimates of the American Community Survey, which is collected from 1% of the population and covers five-year time periods (2015–2019, for example). This data masks any discrimination and resegregation in individual buildings. The village needs to survey renters, analyze the data, and identify in a timely fashion where affirmative marketing and other integration efforts are needed. The Oak Park Regional Housing Center would be the ideal delegate agency for this work. 

Our housing policies and programs are still woefully inadequate to solve the problems we face today. Segregation by race or income always hurts Black and poor people disproportionately, and inevitably hurts the entire economy.

15. What impact can a municipality such as Oak Park have on climate change, and how will you prioritize that work among other issues?

We need to start by looking at these issues as environmental justice issues. We need a much more aggressive plan for addressing climate change so we can be a model village. Our priorities should be transportation, climate related property damage and clean energy. 

We need to invest in safe streets for walking and cycling, so that people who would prefer these options may do so safely. I will work to establish a policy in Oak Park to guide the reinvestment of safe, accessible streets for our community. 

Climate change is here and is hurting Oak Park residents, but it’s not hurting all of us equally. The biggest impacts are flooding and heat waves. We know that both of these disproportionately impact people of color, elderly, and disabled people. 

I will work with Village staff, the Environment and Energy Commission, and residents to conduct a climate vulnerability assessment to identify and advance adaptation strategies that center on those who are most affected by climate change. I will also put the Village on a path to 100% renewable power by 2030, beginning with Village assets and then through aggregation.

16. In recent months there have been calls to defund the police or reimagine public safety in Oak Park. How do you define public safety? Would you begin from the premise that the Village's police budget should increase, decrease, or remain flat? Why?

We know what makes people safe. It’s good jobs, good healthcare, affordable housing, and accessible community services. The problem is that we’re funding policing and incarceration to the detriment of those things.

I will help create a truly independent Citizen Police Oversight Commission, where commissioners are diverse and have true oversight authority, including subpoena powers. 

I would suggest that we change ambiguous and harmful laws, like the bike registry ordinance, to reduce field interrogations. About one in five Oak Park residents are Black. So there is no reason eight out of ten people stopped for police field interrogations are be Black. And 95 out of 100 youth stopped by police are also Black. These stops criminalize our neighbors, causing trauma and other health problems. 

Since policing is such a significant portion of the budget and police are currently expected to address issues far beyond their prescribed job, I believe we must remain open to all possibilities for organizing our budget, including the police budget.

17. What do you see as the most pressing issues relating to development in Oak Park, both residential and commercial? What policies would you advocate to address those issues? In which areas of Oak Park would you prioritize residential and commercial development?

Zoning and development regulations should serve the goals of Oak Park first, then developers. Not the other way around. 

Oak Parkers appreciate and welcome development that occurs with a legitimate review process, input from neighbors, committees, and experts. But since the current administration started, we’ve completely reoriented that to give preference to quick, easy development review, less resident oversight, and millions in Village revenues dumped into the pockets of developers. 

I would trust the Plan Commission on planned development ordinances rather than dismiss it. Over the past four years, we’ve seen the Board vote against their recommendations on major projects. That would not be my practice. 

I believe density is important near our transit stations and along major corridors, but not at the expense of our neighbors. I would use Village incentives to encourage affordable housing and invest in entrepreneurs, especially people of color that want to expand or improve buildings in Oak Park.

Within one year, I would work with the Board to adopt priority development goals. Then I would require each of our development commissions to identify objectives for their work that aligns with those goals. Each quarter, the commissions would have the opportunity to report on their progress in meeting those objectives.

18. Following work done in Evanston, recent community discussions have focused on reparations for Black Oak Parkers, with particular interest in policy changes to help support Black home ownership. Are you supportive of reparations, in principle? Would a discussion on this issue be helpful to the Oak Park community? How should such a discussion proceed?

I am supportive of reparations in principle and in practice. We have a duty to the people living today who experience the repercussions of generations of oppression. Government has and does benefit from the free labor and torture of Black people stolen from Africa. Government has benefited from denying Black, brown and Indegious people access to systems of wealth. Government is therefore responsible for the repercussions from that. 

Oak Park has also permitted the development of 1,500 units of new, mostly luxury, apartments, but less than 100 new affordable housing units. The last time Oak Park really took a deep dive into these issues was ten years ago and the number-one recommendation was to increase affordable housing. 

Structural racism exists because of policies and practices that created and continue to enforce racial injustice today. We need to engage in a real process to reckon with our own participation or complicity in that history and move toward a reconciliation that includes reparations, as was done in the City of Evanston. 

I would work directly with Village Trustees, Housing Programs Advisory Committee, The Housing Center, and Oak Park Residence Corporation to usher in a new era of coordination to get these things done. This begins with a real strategy and agreement around roles. The Village can’t do it alone and it never has.

19. Advisory referenda have appeared on the ballot in Oak Park over the past few years at the direction of the Village Board. Do you believe non-binding referenda such as these are a useful tool for governance or civic engagement? Why or why not?

No. What we need is a government that encourages participation every day. There are already structures in place that facilitate participation, such as the commissions. We need to utilize these systems to their full capacity. 

Instead of non-binding referenda, I prefer transparent collaboration. My candidacy is already powered by a network of support and accountability. Made up of family, friends, activists, and elected officials, that network has helped me refine my positions, build an organization, and it is how I will win the office. My leadership is collaborative. I call it co-governing. I can call upon any one of this network for advice and support in the initiatives I am proposing. And, I am accountable to all of them as a result. 

I will seek the advice of experts and others before making decisions. I will defer major policy decisions to the appropriate commissions every time, and I will ensure that all our residents have access to our budget, agendas, and policies. And when I refer to access, I mean that constituents can find the information they’re looking for, but also understand it.

20. Oak Park Trustees share responsibility for oversight of the Collaboration for Early Childhood. Do you support this example of intergovernmental cooperation? Are there other types of intergovernmental cooperation that you would support?

Yes. I support the Collaboration for Early Childhood and other examples of intergovernmental cooperation including The Oak Park Homelessness Coalition and InterGovernmental Assembly (IGov), which I would reprioritise. We should take advantage of any opportunity to be in shared proximity. Shared space, leads to sharing of ideas which leads to shared solutions. 

I believe one of the most durable and meaningful collaborations the Village has ever undertaken is the data sharing agreement through the Homelessness Coalition where our public schools and the Collaboration for Early Childhood found a way to mitigate the barriers of the continuum of care for at risk youth. A caring and motivated group of people saw the barrier to providing service and then identified the means to eliminate that barrier. This is a model for the Village and for the entire municipality.

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[The above answers were supplied on 2/19/21.]