West Cook News

The trustees of Oak Park do not want their village annexed by Chicago, as mayoral candidate Garry McCarthy suggested earlier this week.

"I don't envision any way I would support such a proposal," trustee Dan Moroney told the West Cook News. "The issues and challenges facing suburban municipalities are unique to the city of Chicago."

Moroney said neighboring municipalities require the autonomy to set their own policy that maximizes the health of each individual community.

Fellow trustee Jim Taglia agreed, saying McCarthy was "barking up the wrong tree."

"Oak Park has maintained its independence from other communities for over 100 years because we value having direct influence over our schools, libraries and other municipal services—something we would lose if we were rolled into a city the size of Chicago," Taglia said in an interview with the West Cook News. "We aren’t just another neighborhood extending west of the city, nor do we want to become the next Crimea.

"As a trustee, I have an obligation to do what’s best for all of Oak Park, even if that would mean losing my job as a result of an annexation effort," Taglia said. "While I feel Chicago is a great city, it’s hard to ignore the problems they continue to face in so many areas—or how Oak Park could possibly benefit from being annexed."

McCarthy suggested annexing several suburbs of Chicago in order to help generate revenue to help pay pension payments, according to the Chicago Sun-Times. The suburbs McCarthy suggested were Norridge, Oak Park, Oak Lawn and Evergreen Park, according to the article.

McCarthy spoke up about annexation during an endorsement session with the Chicago Sun-Times editorial board, according to the article, and he suggested that it would be a "double-barreled" solution because Chicago has suffered such a dramatic loss in population in recent years, as well as helping to pay pensions.

McCarthy called the annexation a "political football" and said that annexing the suburbs would expand Chicago's tax base.