Transparency
West Chicago’s city government should make its proceedings open and accessible to the residents that city officials serve, proactively inviting the community into the decision-making process. It shouldn’t be hard to go to city hall or the city website and find the information you’re looking for.
Solutions
Improve City’s Website Navigability
Make Key Information More Understandable
Increase Communications and Community Outreach
Strengthen Freedom of Information Act compliance capacity
- Improve City’s Website Navigability
- Include more information on the city’s transparency portal.
- Enhance searchability of all city documents.
- Make Key Information More Understandable
- Create better visualizations of key metrics like city hall income and expenses, employee compensation, profit and loss for each city department, siting of new potential developments, source sites of regulated polluting emissions, air quality, water quality, city-owned properties under development, etc.
- Increase Communications and Community Outreach
- While some information is available to the public, city hall can do a better job reaching residents to invite them to participate in decision-making, including listening sessions and butter publicizing public hearings and city council, board, and commission meetings.
- Many residents have never met their alderman or even know who they are. City council members can put more effort into reaching out and participating in activities in their wards.
- When new developments are underway, city hall should actively inform residents and invite public participation, through multiple rounds of communications through all available venues in English and Spanish.
- Strengthen Freedom of Information Act compliance capacity
- The current FOIA officer is also the Executive Officer Manager balancing multiple responsibilities. The City of West Chicago has a history of evading compliance with FOIA requests by requesting extensions to the deadline, refusing to provide information based on unfounded claims (such as that the requests are unduly burdensome), or redacting information on documents provided without explanation. The City can allocate more resources to the FOIA position so that public requests under the Freedom of Information Act are fulfilled in a timely and thorough manner.
Accountability
West Chicago residents resoundingly voted no to video gambling in the city in a non-binding referendum in March 2018, with 70% of voters rejecting the proposition. Three years later, in November 2021, West Chicago’s City Council quietly approved the measure to introduce video gambling into the city, directly going against the public’s expressed wishes.
This is one example of many where West Chicago’s elected officials have directly violated public concerns to further the interests of a select, small group, with no consequences. City employees and elected officials work for the people of West Chicago, and should be held accountable to the public for failing to act in the best interests of the community they serve.
Improve City’s Website Navigability
Make Key Information More Understandable
Increase Communications and Community Outreach
Responsiveness
The residents of West Chicago need elected officials and city hall employees who actively seek residents’ feedback on important decisions that affect their daily lives: From how to handle water rate increases, to what residents want to see in city-sponsored activities like festivals & parades, to what businesses residents would like to see in their neighborhoods and the downtown area. The City of West Chicago should provide more opportunities for residents to speak their concerns, including listening sessions, more public forums, town halls, and more informal meet and greet events.
Elected officials and city employees should not only listen, but also should provide thoughtful & informed responses to resident concerns. All too often, residents speak up at city council meetings only to be met by silence and stone faces.
