Candidates, Start Your Engines: Election Season Begins in La Grange

Interested in helping out your community by serving in local government? You've got 12 opportunities to try for a seat this November in La Grange.

The Citizen's Council of La Grange announced today that applications are now available for those who want to run and would like the support of the council backing them up.

The Citizen's Council of La Grange is a nonpartisan organization that helps residents make informed decisions in local races by, "seeking, evaluating and recommending candidates for the village, library and park district boards," according to their website.

Katie Justak, vice chair of the council, said she expects a lot of participation in the race this year, considering one of the open seats is for the position of village president, currently held by Liz Asperger.

Open this year is the position of village president, three open village board trustee seats, the position of village clerk, four library board trustee seats and three park district commissioner seats.

To download the prospective candidate data sheet and application, click here.

The first part of the application process consists of questions gathering basic information about the prospective candidate such as level of education and degrees attained, a current place of employment and the number of years a candidate has lived in the village. The second part consists of an essay portion designed to gather information about a prospective board member’s experience for the position and why they are running.

For the first time this year, the essay portion of each application will be made available to the public online on the council's website, Justak said.

"[The essays] will give [residents] more insight into why the candidate is running in their own words," Justak said. "It's an opportunity to inform the greatest possible audience."

The council has set an application deadline of Oct. 10 for all materials to be submitted in order for a candidate to be considered.

After submitting an application, candidates will go through a slating process at the council's meetings, which will consist of each candidate being interviewed by council members and the public. Slating interviews for the library board positions are scheduled for Nov. 7, park board interviews are scheduled for Nov. 14 and interviews for the village president, clerk and board positions are scheduled for Nov. 28 at .

Want to be a part of the process, but don't want to run? . More information can be found on the council's website, or by attending one of their monthly meetings held on the second Wednesday of each month at Village Hall.