Howard Roin presided over his second meeting as Glencoe’s village president last week. He moved into his new role with one simple goal.
“We live in a lovely community,” he said. “I want to keep that.”
Roin’s roots in the village are deep. He speaks of being raised in Glencoe to parents who were founding members of the village’s Am Shalom synagogue and then moving back to the community in 1981 with his wife, Judy.
After serving in other capacities in Glencoe over the years, he was elected village president in April.
“I will work with the Village Board and staff to preserve what is best for our inclusive village and to make improvements where we can,” Roin said. “As efficiently as possible we will provide the services residents expect, we will maintain our infrastructure and we will maintain our world class responsive staff. We won’t be able to make everyone happy all the time, but in Glencoe, the government is here to help.”
In 1985, he was elected as a village trustee where he served the traditional two four-year terms. After leaving the Village Board, he joined the Glencoe Caucus and the village’s zoning board as a member and then moved up to chairman.
Last year, he decided to run for the village presidency to succeed Larry Levin, who was not seeking reelection after eight years. Roin received the endorsement of the Glencoe Caucus, leading to an unchallenged run in April’s election.
“Howard has a true understanding of what it means to live in Glencoe and what Glencoe is and wants to be as a community,” noted former village president Scott Feldman.
While still senior counsel at Mayer Brown LLP, Roin stepped back in May 2020. He describes himself as mostly retired from the prominent Chicago-based international law firm.
Now at home, Roin is ready for a new perspective on the village.
“I’m looking forward to seeing what Glencoe is like during the day,” he said.
He will see a village where he has not been a trustee for almost 30 years. Getting to know the nuts and bolts of issues can be a challenge, according to Feldman.
“As always, and especially for someone who has not been a current Village Board member, the most important factor is to get to know village staff and where the current and ongoing hot spots are.” Feldman said. “It is a familiarization question.”
Roin did not think a steep learning curve was ahead of him, noting he has been studying the issues.
“I haven’t been on the Village Board for a while but I’ve stayed in touch with different caucuses,” he said.
Roin will preside over a community where safety mitigations tied into the coronavirus have mostly been lifted. He has questions about life in a post-pandemic village.
“I am really curious whether people will commute as I did five days a week. That is what I did for 40 years,” he said. “If they don’t, that means instead of going to lunch in the Loop, they’ll be using Glencoe. It’s a question we just don’t know.”
Overall, the sleepy downtown Roin recalls from a previous generation is gone now, energized by Writers Theatre.
“Writers Theatre transformed our business district beyond our wildest hope so that Glencoe used to be a place if you went downtown after 5 p.m., the place was desolate,” he said. “Now we have restaurants and the parking spaces are filled and it is kind of exhilarating.”
Yet he acknowledges there are challenges for the village, which has a 2021 budget of slightly more than $29 million and separately faces a net pension liability of $24 million for its police pension fund, according to Finance Director Nikki Larson.
“We don’t have business to put the arm on to pay for us so we don’t have the luxury of the Northbrooks of the world have, so it is mostly on the backs of the residents and homeowners of Glencoe,” he said. “I certainly don’t have a magic bullet, but you continue to look.”
A question ahead for Roin is whether the Village Board wants to ask voters to switch to a home rule form of government.
Glencoe is one of the few communities along the North Shore without home rule. During the Levin administration, there were discussions about the subject.
For Roin, home rule is a familiar subject, as he was on the Village Board in 1988 when residents handily rejected a referendum on the matter.
“I thought it was right then and I think it is right now,” he said. “Depending on what the rest of the board thinks and the timing, we may try again and of course, the voters will decide. My view is the limits that are imposed on Glencoe by not being home rule are not helpful.”
Yet he is not sure if the time is right, given that he believes it would an extensive public education campaign.
Just before taking office, Roin said he very impressed with the staff and the people in the community interviewing for spots on the various boards and commissions.
“I’m looking forward to working with a first class Village Board which has lots of ideas about how to maintain Glencoe the place that it is,” he said.
Daniel I. Dorfman is a freelance reporter.
