The Riverside Community Caucus has endorsed two incumbents and a new face in village politics to run for a trustee seat alongside the current village president for the upcoming board of trustees consolidated election next spring.
Village President Doug Pollock and trustees Aberdeen Marsh-Ozga and Elizabeth Kos will run to retain their seats on the board alongside resident Joseph Fitzgerald, the RCC announced Oct. 21.
Marsh-Ozga will seek her second full term on the board while Pollock and Kos are making a first run for their respective positions. Both were appointed to their seats last November in the aftermath of former Village President Joseph Ballerine’s resignation. Pollock, a trustee at the time, was chosen to replace Ballerine while Kos, then the chair of the Riverside Parks and Recreation Board, was sworn in to fill Pollock’s seat.
Fitzgerald, a newcomer to the behind-the-scenes of Riverside, is a former president of both the Riverside Art Center and the Pav YMCA, which serves the village, North Riverside and other nearby communities. He is also a past member of the A. F. Ames Elementary School PTA.
Nick Fournier, a former Riverside Chamber of Commerce board member, also sought the RCC’s endorsement but dropped out of the race in the first week of October.
Trustee Megan Claucherty, a first-term board member whom the RCC endorsed in 2021, was notably absent from its slate of endorsements this year. In response to an email from the Landmark, Claucherty declined to confirm if she will seek re-election. Riverside’s municipal code allows members of the village board to hold their seats for up to three consecutive terms, so Claucherty is eligible to run again.
The RCC’s endorsed candidates traditionally run as a slate, which makes the signature-collecting and petition-filing process simpler, but they are not required to. Residents whom the caucus has not endorsed can seek to run independently, but the Landmark has not identified any such candidates.
Fitzgerald told the Landmark he had been considering a run for trustee over the last couple years, but he felt inspired to run this year by the community.
“I had a number of the current incumbent trustees informally reach out, and then the caucus formally reached out. Some of my neighbors are in the caucus, and some of the business owners [who] are in the caucus would pull me to the side and say, ‘Are you ready this year?’” Fitzgerald said in an interview. “I don’t want to say peer pressure, but there was a lot of support.”
He said members of the board and the RCC got to know him naturally as his family became ingrained in the Riverside community since moving to town in 2017.
“I’ve tried always to make myself active in the community. I have a 12-year-old, so over the past seven years since we’ve been here, I’ve been doing stuff with Little League and the parks. Even though it was informal, we meet the people that are there,” he said. “I run a lot, so I always see them walking down the street, and we stop and talk.”
He said he was also familiar with trustees as a former president of the Riverside Art Center, which the village board had engaged during his tenure.
After participating in the RCC’s community forum on Oct. 6, the same day he said he and the other candidates learned Fournier had dropped out, Fitzgerald said he was glad to earn the caucus’s endorsement.
“I was happy. I was relieved. It’s nice to know that you were able to put your thoughts out to the caucus and the general public and then have some really good discussion afterwards,” he said. “I think the meat and potatoes of what happened was, after speaking with people that are very involved in the community and that want to be invested, I think they want to see people who are going to be as invested as they are at the table for them.”
He said that aspect of the position — listening to Riversiders — was one he prioritized as a potential new trustee.
“You have to invest the time to go out in the community and put your ear to the ground and listen or proactively ask some questions,” he said. “People want to be invested in the community, but maybe they’re not going to make it to the meetings, or they can’t make it to a committee, or maybe they don’t even know it exists. How do you bring some of those outside voices to the table?”
Kos did not respond to the Landmark’s requests for comment about her endorsement by the time of publication. Pollock and Marsh-Ozga said they were pleased to learn the RCC had endorsed them to retain their seats.
“As a current trustee, I very much appreciate the RCC’s endorsement. They know my qualifications, they know my long history of service to the community, and they’ve seen how I interact with village staff, residents and our broader community,” Marsh-Ozga said. “I think that there’s a lot we can accomplish when we work together, and I look forward to the opportunity to serve Riverside for a second term running with Doug and Joe and Elizabeth.”
“I have a great appreciation for the caucus. They got me involved in Riverside village government way back in 2012, and I know from experience in other municipalities that it’s sometimes hard to find good people for village office. They serve that function of not only recruiting but also vetting candidates,” Pollock said. “As far as this year’s process, I’m honored they have the faith in me to support me for a full term as village president.”
