The Ranked Choice Voting Committee needs your help. Please take the time to email the Oak Park Trustees and urge them to place the binding Ranked Choice Voting Referendum on the April 2023 Oak Park ballot. There are only a few Board meetings remaining on their 2022 calendar, so it is very important that they hear from us now about agreeing to place this on the ballot. Do you want to know more about RCV? Go here to get the facts. Don't know what to say in your email? Use this sample email letter as a start. We need to show the Village President and Trustees that it is important to let Oak Park voters decide whether they want Ranked Choice Voting for the Village President, Clerk, and Trustees in elections starting in 2025. Contact Peggy Kell with any questions.

You're invited to a fun social evening to learn about Ranked Choice Voting and to enjoy some outstanding beers from one of our local breweries. On Wednesday, December 14, from 6:30-8:30pm, we will be sampling and rating a flight of four beers at One Lake Brewing, 1 Lake Street, Oak Park. Tickets are $25, which will include the local brews and some snacks. You can always order your dinner to go along with the beer. Check out their menu here. There are a limited number of tickets, so don't delay. Buy your tickets here (scroll down to find the link). Invite a friend!

The SAFE-T Act is being worked on in the legislative veto session on November 29, 30, and December 1. Please ask your legislator to vote for a Pretrial Fairness Act Trailer bill that: retains the presumption of release in all cases,

ensures that people currently jailed for the inability to post cash bond can request a hearing to evaluate  their eligibility for release, and maintains the essential features of the Pretrial Fairness Act.

And please oppose SB4228.

A “trailer bill” must be passed during the Veto session to clarify some parts of the Pretrial Fairness Act (part of the SAFE-T Act  passed last year) to ensure that the Pretrial Fairness Act will be properly implemented in January of 2023. Trailer bills of this sort are not unusual following complex omnibus bills. 

The League is advocating for a trailer bill that will ensure fair and efficient implementation of the PTFA. However, SB4228 has provisions that would increase the number of people eligible for detention in jail.

• The PTFA requires that people who are detained must be brought to trial within 90 days. But SB4228 would change that to 120 days.
• SB4228 creates a presumption of detention for certain crimes.
• SB4228 provides that only people charged after January 1, 2023 would be exempt from cash bond.

The Oak Park Housing Center will be having a Holiday Champagne Brunch to celebrate their 50th Anniversary. At this exciting community celebration, the Housing Center will honor our vibrant communities and their longstanding support of a more equitable and inclusive housing landscape. December 10, 10:00am-2:00pm, at St. Catherine of Siena's Maguire Hall, 38 N. Austin, Oak Park. You can buy your tickets here.

Our event at the Goodman Theatre was attended by 21 members and their guests. Although the play was less about politics and voting, it was riveting and well acted. Everyone seemed to enjoy it, and we netted $279.24. Thanks to Beverly Graham for putting this outing together.

Voting centers are not authorized after 2022 in Illinois. For Suburban Cook County voters, there were two voting centers available on Election Day: one at Union Station and the other at the 69 W. Washington pedway. Chicago voters had voting centers at all the early voting sites, which included one in each ward plus the Loop super site. 

We urge you to contact to contact your legislator to pass a bill during the veto session to make voting centers permanent. If such a bill would pass with 70 votes in the House and 36 in the Senate, it could become law immediately and therefore enable the use of voting centers for the upcoming 2023 elections in February (Chicago) and April (local municipal). Remember, there are just 3 more days for the veto session; November 29, 30, and December 1.

It is with a heavy heart we report the recent passing on November 14 of one our Lifetime members, Barbara Ballinger. A member since 1959(!), Barbara was truly a community treasure. You can read a wonderful article from the Wednesday Journal about her life here. And if you were not lucky enough to witness five of our Lifetime Members interacting with each other from the May 2018 Annual Meeting, you can enjoy the video of this distinguished panel here.

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