Not long ago, all eyes were on the 2025 Special Election Nov. 4. Zohran Mamdani won the bid for New York City mayor, Abigail Spanberger was elected governor of Virginia, and the Georgia Public Service Commission election received record turnout after YouTuber Hank Green spread advocated against foul play in this small administration. However, despite the immediate access with which Trojans now engage with national policy, few have an equally close relationship to the administrations that affect them most.
“I know a lot about national politics; not state politics, not local politics,” senior Jackson Pelhank said. “National politics is a lot easier to come across, because everyone faces it, whereas local politics has a more narrow reach. Right now especially, I think it’s a lot more interesting. I don’t even know where to go to find stuff about local politics.”
DGN’s one-semester civics requirement exists with the goal of educating DGN students on governmental affairs in order to create a responsible student body. However, the most popular civics courses in this category, such as AP US Government and Politics and US Foreign Policy, focus primarily on federal affairs.
“I think the services that the village provides that most people don’t think too much about are arguably the ones that are the most important,” Village Manager David Fieldman said. “Just think about when you turn on your water faucet in the morning. That’s a village service. Providing safe, clean, reliable drinking water, making sure that your streets are driveable and that your sidewalks are walkable–things that a lot of times, people may not think too much about, are at the core of the services we provide.”
Fieldman’s job is to meet with the town’s departments and inform the department heads on how they can enforce policy passed by the Village Council. This currently includes a new policy called Guiding DG, a four-pronged community improvement plan that includes new legislation on land contracting, environmental sustainability, and more.
“We also did an active transportation plan. So think, how do we make our transportation system safe and efficient for walkers, bikers, and micro-mobility device users? And finally, a streetscapes plan for the downtown and Fairview areas, and that really speaks to what our plan is for the things like benches and streetlights, traffic signals, and recycling bins,” Fieldman said. “That was a big undertaking. Putting together those four interrelated plans was a major accomplishment of a product.”
One of the village administration’s top priorities will always be managing the town budget. In contrast to this past fiscal year, Downers Grove is looking at a likely property tax increase of 2.5 percent for the next fiscal year and a slight increase in sales tax due to current economic concerns.
“Downers Grove tends to compare pretty well to Elmhurst, and they’re actually cutting about three and a half million dollars from their budget this year because of concerns,” Village Commissioner Leslie Sadowski-Fugitt said. “We, luckily, have managed our budget a lot better. We actually had a little bit of excess this year, which is going to go to smooth our public pensions.”
Balancing the budget while providing for Guiding DG initiatives has been the focal point of the Village Councils’ meetings this season. Launched April 4, 2024, the program will continue to address municipal greenhouse gas emissions, revise district zoning, and oversee pedestrian-focused adjustments to the downtown and Fairview areas, among other things.
“I think our biggest challenge has been balancing how we progress and continue with our efforts; not just maintenance and things we have to do, but some of these bigger Guiding DG projects that we want to get done, while also making sure that we’re being a little fiscally conservative,” Sadowski-Fugitt said. “Our ambulance fees are mostly paid by insurance companies. And if the federal government slashes some of Medicaid, there could be a chance that we could lose over a million dollars from that. So, a lot of this uncertainty has been really challenging to the plan.”
However, “local government” doesn’t only include municipal management. Equally relevant is the county administration, managed for DGN’s Downers Grove, Woodridge and Darien citizens by the DuPage County Board.
“I would describe the role of a county board member as someone who represents the taxpayers to really try to best understand what the constituents’ needs are and allocate those tax dollars in the most appropriate way,” DuPage County Board member Kari Galassi said. “We also do things with policy, but our main responsibility is setting budgets and determining where those tax dollars are best spent and making sure that we’re really good stewards of the money that’s being paid into the system.”
The offices that the County Board budgets for include the offices of the Sheriff, County Clerk, and County Recorder, as well as the County Care Center and the roads that bridge unincorporated land between municipalities. However, the responsibilities of the County Board extend even further.
“We just finished the Crisis Recovery Center, which is kind of a first in its kind mental health facility,” Galassi said. “I would say the softer side of my job is getting out in the community and at any community engagements that I can and meeting as many people in the community, at different events.”
While all of these local services have a much closer relationship to individual citizens than those at the federal level, it is also true that individual citizens have much more say over who gets to make them. However, while nearly 64 percent of the U.S. population voted for president in 2024, turnout for Downers Grove’s next local election March 17 is projected to hit an all-time low.
“Our elections get the worst turnout because they’re in the spring. We get, if we’re lucky, 15 to 20 percent of the population who will come out and vote,” Sadowski-Fugitt said. “I don’t want to be elected by 15 to 20 percent of the population. I want to actually know that my value set is what the community is looking for.”
