As COVID-19 continued to dominate the headlines, 2021 was yet another year of anything but business as usual for Oak Park’s 350 full-time municipal employees.
Even though mitigation measures began to ease the impact of the pandemic on municipal service delivery in 2021, Village employees still had to balance making sure core public services continued, while also keeping themselves, their colleagues and their customers safe.
The streets still had to be plowed, water leaks fixed and building permits issued. The Fire and Police departments still had to respond effectively to thousands of requests, including 911 calls related to crimes and medical emergencies.
The year also saw the Oak Park Department of Public Health — one of only a handful of state-certified municipal public health departments in Illinois — pivot from the formidable role of tracking and reporting information on positive COVID-19 cases to taking on the daunting task of vaccinating residents.
So how did the Village do in 2021 with services beyond the pandemic? Here’s snapshot of some of their activities from the year just ended…