Member Orientation

Simply, the Caucus is each of you and every other resident of Winnetka who is 18 or older.  The Caucus Council are up to 68 of your neighbors who volunteer each year to help our Village choose its leaders and develop plat8orms, using an annual survey, to tell our leaders where they should focus their efforts. 

Our work on the Caucus Council is only as good as the participation level of our neighbors.  We can only choose leaders from those residents willing to raise their hands to serve.  Our platforms are only as good as the responses we get on our annual survey.  We do not, and our Rules don’t let us make up the platforms.

And I want to make it clear that despite what some may say or think, we are not a political party.  A political party is organized around a set of principles that guide their positions.  The Caucus Council organizes each year before any platforms have been written and before any candidates have been selected.  Typically, we don’t know each other nor do we necessarily share common political views.   So from January to September each year, we attend board meetings to learn what is important to our neighbors  and in years where board members will be up for re-election, we review their performance to help us decide if we will re-slate that individual.  We then solicit candidates for any open board seats.  These are time-consuming tasks and we take our work seriously.  In fact, every opportunity I get to do so, I thank our Caucus Council volunteers because many of them have families and work obligations, but they are giving back to our Village with their time and determination to do a good job. 

Irma Villarreal

Chair, 2011 Winnetka Caucus Council