Riverside Community Alliance

The Caucus started the year off by putting the call out for public relations, advertising, website and marketing professionals for the “April 2111″ [sic] campaign. And cash – they accept cash, according to this letter.

Thanks to the three Caucus members who made us aware of this.
– Mark D. Shevitz

Residents’ ability to know what is happening at Village Board meetings should not be limited to their ability to attend the meeting, watch it on Riverside cable or check out a DVD from the library. RCA campaigned on the promise of putting video of board meetings online, so residents could more easily find out what [...]

In the past, the Village Board would vote on an ordinance at the same meeting it was introduced. As a result, residents would not have much – if any – time to research an issue or raise pertinent questions prior to a board vote on an issue. RCA felt that residents deserved more time to [...]

Flooding of homes along the Des Plaines River has been a longstanding issue in Riverside. Past Village Boards claimed they were limited in what they could do to help alleviate the problem.
Shortly after being sworn in, RCA worked with members of a resident flood control group to look at what the village could do. RCA [...]

In the past, Village Board members had their board packets delivered to their homes each week by Riverside police officers. RCA did not feel that this an appropriate use of public safety resources, and ended this longstanding practice shortly after being sworn into office. Village Board members now pick up their board packets instead of [...]

Before RCA was elected to the Village Board, the plan was to build a new 19 spot parking lot at cost estimated by the village’s Director of Finance at $885,000 to $1,095,000, depending on the availability of grant money. The RCA thought the village could do better than nearly $50,000 per parking spot.
Once RCA was [...]

One of the keys to an open and transparent government is giving residents easy access to information about how their tax dollars are being spent. RCA campaigned on putting the village checkbook online. In the summer of 2009, with the help of village staff, that promise became a reality.
Riverside’s check register reports, a detail of [...]

Past Riverside Village Boards relied on executive search firms to find senior level staff, costing the village tens of thousands of dollars in fees. After the resignation of our former Village Manager, two RCA board members – Mike Gorman and Lonnie Sacchi – took it upon themselves to conduct the search for both the interim [...]

RCA campaigned on making Riverside government more open and transparent. One of the first things we did when we were sworn in was keep our campaign promise to change the policy of restricting public comment at board meetings.
We ended the old policy of giving residents only 5 minutes each to speak and did away with [...]