After 26 years in office, outgoing Skokie Mayor George Van Dusen recalls highlights, including work with Obama
Skokie Mayor George Van Dusen recalls being appointed as mayor by his colleagues on the Village Board during a historic blizzard that saw 21.6 inches of snow fall at O'Hare International Airport in January 1999.
'It was in the midst of a 72-hour continuous snowstorm when I became mayor, and I began to wonder… what was I thinking?' he said.
'… We survived the snow storm and then I ran for mayor in 2001, and I've been re-elected six times since then,' Van Dusen said.
Van Dusen announced to the village's staff in November that he would not seek re-election. In a statement, he said he wishes the succeeding mayor, board of trustees, and clerk the very best and will continue to be actively involved in community affairs.
Van Dusen insisted, in an interview with Pioneer Press, that many of his achievements came out of working with other leaders representing Skokie and the greater area, including U.S. Sen. Dick Durbin, U.S. Rep. Jan Schakowsky, Evanston Mayor Daniel Biss, state Senator Ram Villivalam and former President Barack Obama. The connections he made, Van Dusen said, were authentic, personal and rooted in serving residents and allowing schools, the library and park district to thrive.
That mantra might be best summarized in an election that he lost in 1990 to Jeffrey Schoenberg for the Illinois House of Representatives District 58 by 250 votes, he recalls.
'Jeff and I were friends. In fact, during the campaign, Jeff's father passed away and I suspended campaigning while he sat shiva (a week-long Jewish mourning tradition) and that's kind of how we were together,' Van Dusen said.
Introduction to politics
A Detroit, Michigan native, Van Dusen was earning a doctoral degree in history from Loyola University of Chicago in 1972 when he was invited to hear former U.S. Sen. George McGovern, a South Dakota Democrat, speak at a campaign event for former U.S. Rep. Sidney Yates of Illinois, also a Democrat. Van Dusen, who was more familiar with McGovern at the time, said McGovern was a role model to him and the reason why he attended the event.
Van Dusen said he was impressed by Yates when he met him. Van Dusen volunteered for Yates' re-election campaign in 1972 doing mostly precinct work, he said, and after Yates won re-election, Van Dusen accepted an offer to work for the Congressman, and did so from 1973 to 1999 as the director of suburban operations.
'What I liked about Yates was his integrity, his intelligence and the way that he would communicate with people. He was a remarkable person,' Van Dusen said.
In that role, Van Dusen said he learned what it was like to see leaders work, negotiate and have candid conversations on what each person could do in terms of lobbying, funding and persuading people from across the aisle to agree to work with them. One of the bigger projects that Yates delivered on that needed bipartisan support was funding for the Metropolitan Water Reclamation District's Deep Tunnel project, which cost $2.5 billion in 1994.
Van Dusen, when asked if he had considered seeking higher office, said he did not want go higher than mayor. He said he was happy with his family life, his wife Susan Van Dusen being a novelist, and taking care of two boys between the pair of them.
Van Dusen taught U.S. History and Government as an adjunct faculty member of Oakton Community College from 1999 to 2022.
Oakton Street Yellow Line 'L' Train Station
The Chicago Transit Authority's Oakton Street Yellow Line 'L' train station was opened at 4800 Oakton Street in April 2012 and cost $20 million to build, according to previous reporting. Of that, $14 million in funding came from Congestion Mitigation and Air Quality federal grants and $6 million came from the village's tax increment financing district.
Van Dusen recalls attending a CTA meeting years prior to the station being built when a 'tall, skinny guy in the back of the room' raised his hand and asked a really good question.
'We answered it as best we could, and after the meeting I went up to introduce myself and (he) said, 'Well, it's nice to meet you. My name is Barack Obama.''
Obama, a state senator at the time, would continue to get his name out when he ran for U.S. Senator for Illinois. Van Dusen said when Obama visited Skokie's Festival of Cultures, he called Van Dusen to reconnect.
Van Dusen said he could do Obama one better for his 2004 primary race for U.S. Senator, when he was facing Dan Hynes. 'I'm endorsing you, as a matter of fact,' Van Dusen said to Obama, who later easily won the primary race and then the general election against Republican Alan Keyes.
'Oh, well, you're the first mayor in Illinois to endorse me,' Van Dusen recalls Obama telling him. 'Is there anything I can do if I win?'
'I took him (Obama) down to Oakton Street, and I looked over and said, 'You see that spot?… I need a CTA station there. I want a downtown (Skokie) CTA station,'' Van Dusen remembers saying. He told Pioneer Press that he didn't expect Obama to remember the conversation.
Van Dusen remembers attending an election party for Durbin after Durbin was named Deputy Majority Leader of the Senate, and ran into Obama by coincidence, after he had taken office as a U.S. Senator in 2005.
'I haven't forgotten that CTA station. You call my office next week, and I'll set up a meeting,' Van Dusen remembers Obama saying.
With additional support from Durbin, Schakowsky and then U.S. Rep. Mark Kirk, Van Dusen said he found enough support from D.C. to get the funding for the train station.
Van Dusen said Kirk wanted to support the project, but did not ultimately take credit publicly, for fear of backlash for crossing political lines, because Kirk was a Republican, he said.
'(Kirk) didn't put politics ahead of what was the right thing to do…' Van Dusen said, before coming back to an old adage he firmly believes in. 'Those kinds of relationships — they're formed and they're perpetuated because of trust. Mark Kirk knew he could trust me. I knew I could trust him, and the same thing with all the others.'
Schakowsky fondly remembers the CTA stop being instrumental for downtown Skokie's development. 'It resulted in having this amazing center right there in Skokie that continues to grow and to be such an incredible asset for the community and many communities at large,' she said.
Economic view for the village
In 1990, the Village Board voluntarily froze the village's property tax levy. Van Dusen has long held that the village's reliance on sales tax has been intentional to allow for other governing bodies, such as schools, the library and park district to take a larger portion of property taxes, as they don't have the ability to seek other forms of revenue. Recently, the Village Board approved that property tax freeze to be extended.
According to an interview with Skokie's Village Manager John Lockerby, 72% of the village's revenue is closely tied to the village's gas tax, food and beverage tax and sales tax.
In October, the village board approved the first reading of site development plans for Westfield Old Orchard Shopping Center to redevelop the mall and build hundreds of apartments and thousands of square feet of retail space. Per the developer, 3.5% of the units will be rented at affordable rates.
Working with others
Village Board Trustee Edie Sue Sutker, the longest current serving trustee going back to 2004, also did not run for re-election in the April 1 race.
'I find Mayor Van Dusen to be a very dedicated and steadfast leader who always thinks of the whole village of Skokie as his priority,' Sutker said. 'What I learned from him is that good policy requires thoughtful compromise, and even when he (Van Dusen) doesn't agree with you, he's always willing to listen to you.'
Sutker said she was encouraged by Van Dusen to take the reins on her proposal to initiate a co-responder program between police officers and mental health counselors to respond to individuals having a mental health crisis. She said she was inspired to propose it after the murder of George Floyd, and studied and researched what the program would look like.
'Now that program is very successful in the village of Skokie,' Sutker said, 'and it's because of Mayor Van Dusen's willingness to listen to me, and to believe in me, that the project was successful.'
Congresswoman Schakowsky also has known Van Dusen for decades.
'George has welcomed everybody,' Schakowsky said, noting that Skokie's demographics have changed significantly over the years.
Van Dusen said he has known and worked with Schakowsky for close to 40 years, going back to his career with Yates. 'My boss's office was down the hall from hers, and I'd see her all the time… I can call Jan and she will answer my phone call, and she will be brutally honest, and vice versa.'
Schakowsky commented, 'I think George is really the guy who has moved along in the right direction always in a city that has changed in many ways and gotten more and more diverse and welcoming to people across the community.'
Additional achievments
Throughout Van Dusen's tenure as mayor, he has accomplished much, including winning the Visionary Leader award in the Chicago Metropolitan Agency for Planning's 2023 Regional Excellence Awards.
After Pfizer, the pharmaceutical company, closed its plant in Skokie in 2003, laying off thousands of employees that had patronized downtown Skokie businesses, Van Dusen championed an effort to bring in the Illinois Science + Technology Park, which today is home to life sciences and research companies.
Van Dusen also supported, collaborated and pushed for the North Shore Sculpture Park, the North Shore Center for the Performing Arts and the Illinois Holocaust Museum and Education Center.
'(Those projects) are about education and the importance of art and architecture in our lives,' Van Dusen said. 'We're a community that embraces and promotes education, promotes the arts and activities that bring all of us together as people.'
Van Dusen said the sculpture park began as a project to develop a trail along the channel on the east side of McCormick Boulevard, which is land owned by the Greater Chicagoland Water Reclamation District. Van Dusen said the project began with his predecessors, Mayors Jackie Gorell and Albert Smith.
With a long-term lease approved by the GCWRD, the village improved the strip of land as a walkable green space, one half mile at a time, Van Dusen said.
He credited a group of residents who asked for the village to add artwork to the park. Van Dusen said he reached out to Lewis C. Weinberg, an arts advocate and then-president of Fel-Pro, a vehicle part manufacturer that at one point was one of the village's biggest employers.
Weinburg had an in-house sculpture, Van Dusen said, and loaned sculptures to the trail for free. Since then, the sculpture park has seen dozens of sculptures loaned or donated, curated by experts from the Art Institute of Chicago and the Milwaukee Art Museum.
Notable sculptures include a statue of Mahatma Gandhi, a memorial to Ricky Byrdsong, a Northwestern University basketball coach who was murdered in a hate crime, and a ring of national flags at Dempster Street titled the 'Flight of Nations' to signify the village's diversity, Van Dusen said.
For the performing arts center, Van Dusen said he helped facilitate a contract that helped it become the arts center it is today. The performing arts center is owned by the village, according to previous reporting, and named its main theater in honor of Van Dusen last month.
Van Dusen said the village worked out a deal with a landowner in northern Skokie to locate the Holocaust museum there. He said it was important that the museum be able to stay in Skokie because of its history tied to an attempt from a neo-Nazi group to march in the village.
Van Dusen was also the president of the Northwest Municipal League Conference, a member of the Board of Directors and Legislative Committee of the Illinois Municipal League, and a member of the Board of Directors of the Chicago Metropolitan Agency for Planning, a founding member and long-time chairman of the Solid Waste Agency of Northern Cook County and served as a member of the Board of Directors of the Illinois Humanities Council and a member of the National Public Radio Illinois Community Advisory Board.
Parting words
Van Dusen will hand over the reins of village government to Mayor-Elect Ann Tennes on April 21.
'I'm done in public office,' he said. He plans to spend time rewriting and seeking a publisher for a novella he has written, as well as lending a hand to various causes and assisting a foundation that has asked for his help.
The following are excerpts from the mayor's statement to his staff.
'It has been an honor to serve as your Mayor and to lead our Village Skokie these past 26 years. The Village is in very good shape. Due to aggressive economic development the Village has kept a cap on property tax levy for thirty-five consecutive years…'
'One of my proudest moments was the opening of the Illinois Holocaust Museum and Education Center, a nationally acclaimed museum fighting hatred and bigotry…'
At the April 7 Village Board meeting, Van Dusen and four trustees on the village board read proclamations for their years of service to the village. Van Dusen shared these words at the penultimate meeting he would chair.
'In truth, nobody does it alone. You do it together,' a choked up Van Dusen said, his voice cracking and faltering. 'I appreciate the village staff, the professionalism. There is no better staff in the country.'
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