This is a follow-up to A Memo to Northbrook’s Next Village Trustee.
With Trustee Kohler’s resignation earlier this year, Illinois law requires the Village President to appoint someone to fill the open seat until the next municipal election — in this case, April 2027 — when voters will choose who serves out the balance of the term through April 2029. That means the 2027 election will feature not just the usual three Board seats, but a fourth as well.
An interim trustee with less than a year in the role before voters weigh in will have limited ability to reshape the agenda. The real opportunity is to diversify the Board with someone who will ask fresh questions, expose roadblocks, and force clearer public discussion around key issues like affordable housing, economic revitalization, public safety facilities, and community engagement before the 2027 election.
In BerryDunn’s recent presentation to the Board about the strategic planning process, the number-one barrier to greater community engagement was ‘Political Division and Governance,’ defined as perceived partisanship, closed-door decisions, and an unresponsive board discouraging participation.
That is worth emphasizing. A year after a close and divisive local election, and after relatively little visible public effort by the Board to broaden engagement or repair trust, this appointment presents an opportunity to begin breaking the perception that national party partisanship has bled into our theoretically non-partisan village politics.
The President has now made her choice, announcing in an April 10 letter to the Village Board her intent to appoint Tamara Reese to the seat after a process in which the full Board was involved from the outset and provided input along the way. The Board will vote Tuesday night to confirm the appointment, presumably unanimously, as is customary.
In her letter, the President wrote that “we received 15 applications from engaged residents. Following an initial review, an outstanding group of candidates was invited to participate in a second round of video interviews. From that group, the field was narrowed to four exceptional finalists, each demonstrating a strong commitment to Northbrook and bringing rich talents from both personal and professional endeavors.”
She also explained her decision: “Ms. Reese has not previously campaigned for or served in public office, and I believe she will bring an independent perspective and fresh ideas to the Board. She brings demonstrated leadership through her involvement in District 28 schools and local organizations, along with a Master of Public Health degree and a practical, community-focused approach to program development, policy, and engagement.”
To many, the appointment follows a familiar path — Reese’s background is deeply rooted in Northbrook’s District 28 schools, making her the third consecutive new trustee with deep District 28 ties — and may not look like the outside-the-box choice many of us hoped for. I suspect some residents will roll their eyes: another performative process, a predetermined outcome.
Perhaps. But upon deeper investigation, one part of Trustee-elect Reese's background stands out: her role in the District 28 referendum effort. District 28 residents voted overwhelmingly to approve $94.9 million in bonds to fund renovations at three schools and the construction of a new school building. Reese served as chairwoman of the Citizens for District 28 bond referendum committee and said afterward that the result reflected a grass-roots effort that got all stakeholders involved. District 28 later praised the citizens committee, saying it “covered every base” and did everything it could to get the word out. Whether one thinks the referendum itself was right or wrong, spearheading a successful local effort to get residents to overwhelmingly agree to raise their own taxes is no small feat.
It also speaks directly to one of the Board’s more obvious weaknesses. For years now, they have talked about communication, engagement, transparency, and trust — and it was the most notable theme of this year’s State of the Village. Reese is arriving with recent, visible experience helping lead a high-stakes local effort that required stakeholder outreach, message discipline, public persuasion, and community-facing leadership.
The last time the Village went through an appointment process was in 2023. At that time, the public case for the appointee leaned heavily on familiar civic credentials, prior elected service, and the now-familiar hope that the person chosen might help improve community outreach. This time, the President put more emphasis on the breadth of the field, the seriousness of the process, and the idea that someone without prior public office could still bring an independent perspective and fresh ideas. That is a healthy shift, at least in how this year’s appointment was framed.
Full disclosure, I put my name in for this opening, just as I did in 2023, and went through the full process myself. Though I assumed I was a long shot, I found it hypocritical to encourage as many residents as I did to jump in and not do so myself.
This year’s process struck me as thorough, serious, and fair. As described above, fifteen applicants submitted materials online. A smaller group was then invited to complete a second-round video interview consisting of six questions, with up to three attempts per answer and a three-minute maximum for each response. From there, four finalists were invited to in-person interviews with the full Board. The questions and the interaction with the Board were serious, and the trustees seemed curious and committed to finding the best person to fill the role. The following day, the Village President personally called candidates with the news. I came away impressed by the tone of the finalist interview, the way the trustees approached it, and my conversation with the President afterward.
While I fear the Village will simply thank all the applicants and move on, I hope that is not the case. The President herself told us in January to stop armchair-quarterbacking and get involved. Now it is the Board’s turn to act. Many, if not all, of the applicants should be invited into commissions, task forces, advisory roles, or other meaningful opportunities to serve. If we are serious about widening the aperture, building a stronger bench, and reconnecting with more of the community, there is no more obvious place to start.
A year from now, four seats on the Village Board will be on the ballot. Two long-serving and highly respected trustees may decide not to run again, making the election even more consequential. Local elections rarely get the oxygen of national campaigns, but they shape far more of what residents actually live with: taxes, infrastructure, development, housing, public services, and the civic tone of the town. We need more people paying attention and more people stepping forward so that Northbrook residents have real choice at the ballot box next year — and then show up and vote.
I have already written about how our affordable housing policy appears to be getting in the way of developing Northbrook and revitalizing our downtown. I have also written about the lack of urgency around long-deferred efforts to deal with decaying public safety and facility infrastructure, and about how the time and energy of some very talented residents was essentially wasted for well over a year. In the coming weeks, I intend to write more about several other subjects now squarely in front of the Village: the FY27 budget, Northbrook’s draft strategic plan, and the latest push around communications and engagement. That last topic will be discussed at this week’s Committee of the Whole meeting, where a5 Digital and Branding — the architects of the “True North” rebrand — will present recommendations for an updated Village Communications Plan. I cannot attend because of a conflict, but I am interested to see what is recommended and how the Board chooses to proceed.
We need more residents better informed about what is in front of us. Fifteen people just raised their hands. The Board should treat that as a new beginning.