Oak Park trustee Susan Buchanan once targeted by InfoWars resigns, citing burnout

Chicago Tribune

15-05-2025

Susan Buchanan, a leading advocate of climate action and sustainability, has resigned from the Oak Park Village Board, leaving the board with a vacancy until a replacement is appointed.
Buchanan unexpectedly resigned her position on the Village Board on May 9 with two years left on her term, saying she was burned out and no longer had the bandwidth to serve. The recent death of her two parents within seven months brought things to a head, and she felt that she no longer could serve.
'I think I was kind of burned out for the whole last year,' Buchanan said in a telephone interview. 'Just feeling less interested. The leaf ban was an especially annoying time and I got to the point of sending my siblings copies of the angry letters I would get just for the entertainment value because it all seemed so silly.'
Last year the Village Board voted to require Oak Park homeowners residents to bag their leaves instead of just raking their leaves into the street as they had been accustomed to doing. The change was controversial and generated strong opposition.
Buchanan said she got tired of dealing with the vitriolic emails that came to her and other board members on that and a host of other issues.
She got her first and perhaps worse taste of that vitriol in the fall of 2019, less than six months into her first term on the Village Board. Buchanan received threats that caused her and her family to leave their home for a couple days after she had what she described in retrospect as a 'hissy fit' when she told two white male Village Board members, Deno Andrews and Dan Moroney, to 'shut up' when they asked for the term 'systems of oppression' to be clarified during a discussion of the village's diversity statement. Despite apologizing for the comment after the meeting, her 'shut up' comment went viral when a video of her comment was posted on Infowars, the website hosted by conspiracy theorist Alex Jones.
That was a difficult time but did not dissuade Buchanan from running for reelection in 2023. After finishing first in a field of 11 candidates in 2019 Buchanan finished third in a five candidate field in 2023, but was reelected.
Other issues, such as the debate over how to handle the migrant crisis and the Village Board's refusal to adopt a resolution calling for a cease fire in the Gaza War, also generated a stream of angry emails that wore Buchanan down.
'We would get these waves of template emails where one particular activist group would write a template email and we would get dozens of the exact same email,' Buchanan said.
Buchanan, a physician and a professor for UI Health, was known for her advocacy for sustainability and climate issues and for stronger police oversight. She was proud of her role in passing the village's climate action plan. And she said that was proud of getting a COVID-19 vaccine skeptic removed from the village's Board of Health.
Looking back Buchanan said that she just gradually lost her zest for the job.
'I can't really explain it,' Buchanan said. 'I'm not sure why I went from finding it really stimulating and exciting to go to meetings to actually not wanting to go to meetings or do the prep work that was required.'
At the May 13 Village Board meeting, the first meeting since Buchanan resigned, current board members who served with Buchanan praised her.
'She was a great mentor and always championed the right causes,' said Trustee Chibuike Enyia.
Trustee Cory Wesley said Buchanan will be missed.
'She's been a great ally on this board table — even when we disagree, and she's always given me a different view and perspective on a number of different things,' Wesley said. 'I'll miss having her here to talk things through and also a lot of those jokes that don't make it on the microphone.'
Recently reelected Village President Vicki Scaman also praised Buchanan, who endorsed her in the recent village president election.
'Susan pushed us outside of our comfort zone in the right direction on several topics,' Scaman said, highlighting Buchanan's advocacy on sustainability and police reform. 'She really reminded us, at every opportunity, our obligation, from her perspective, to move forward, to make progress on those things that were, as she perceived them, most important.
Scaman has 60 days to appoint a replacement to serve out the remaining two years of Buchanan's term and then the Village Board has 30 days to approve Scaman's nominee.
Because Buchanan's resignation came as a surprise, Scaman is just beginning to think about how to go about finding a replacement. Scaman said that she has not yet decided whether to have a formal application process to fill the vacancy as she did in 2022 when then board member Arti Walker-Peddakotia resigned from the board, but is leaning against it. In 2022 Scaman ended up appointing Wesley who had finished fourth in 2019 village board election, just 51 votes behind Walker-Peddakotia. Such a process is not required by law.
In the April election, Lucia Robinson, who was running for a second term on the board, finished fourth receiving 5,116 votes but finished 1,099 votes behind third place finisher Jim Taglia.
'She's definitely somebody that I have enjoyed working with immensely,' Scaman said, adding that Robinson was a hard worker and came to every board meeting very prepared. But Scaman said that she will consider a variety of factors and is not yet focused on anyone in particular because she has been processing Buchanan's departure from the board.
Scaman said she will be looking for someone who cares about the same issues as Buchanan did, but she will also look at the skill set of those currently on the board and think about what the board needs in terms of skills, perspectives and representation.
'I'm starting with a bit of a listening tour with my colleagues,' Scaman said.
Scaman said that she would prefer to make her appointment fairly quickly, noting that the board is about to begin a goal setting process.
'If at all possible I would want to land on a decision much sooner than the 60 days,' Scaman said.