Nearly 1,200 Elmhurst residents who signed a petition asking for a public vote on the Wilder Park bandshell's location now have no path to the ballot, after the board president who formally recommended the referendum turned around and voted against it.

Board President Kevin Graf and Executive Director Jim Rogers co-signed a memo recommending that the Elmhurst Park District board approve Resolution R-03-26, which would have placed a non-binding advisory question on the Nov. 3 ballot: "Shall the Elmhurst Park District locate a 54 Foot Long, 41 foot deep, 21.5 foot high new bandshell on the east lawn of the Wilder Mansion in Wilder Park?"

At that evening's meeting, Graf voted no. The board rejected the referendum 5-2.

Graf told the board before the vote that his signature should not be read as support. "The item is before the board to address the only available procedural path for the board to act, and that is if an advisory question is considered for the ballot, it must be placed there for board action under the Illinois park code," he said at the Monday, Aug. 10 meeting, according to Patch.

Rogers offered a similar explanation, telling Patch that all staff recommendations are phrased in the affirmative to give the board a mechanism to discuss and vote. He said whether he personally supports an item is irrelevant to the procedure because he is not an elected official and does not cast a vote.

Petition organizer Andrea Hutchinson had praised the recommendation during public comment, asking the board to follow it, unaware Graf intended to vote against it.

As we reported Aug. 11, the 5-2 majority included Graf, Meghan Scarsella, Tim Sheehan, Claire Kubiesa and Susan Smentek. Board members Vince Spaeth and Carolyn Ubriaco dissented.

The sequence is unusual. Patch reported finding no comparable case of a park district board president co-signing a staff recommendation for a referendum and then voting against it, examining recent referendums in La Grange, Naperville, Oak Park and Northfield. In the Elmhurst Park District's own 2024 tax referendum, the board voted without any written recommendation at all.

How the dispute reached this point

Residents led by Hutchinson and Claire Cronin gathered 1,183 signatures on a citizen petition seeking the same advisory question. Rogers rejected that petition in a July 30 letter, calling it "invalid as a matter of law" under state statute, as Patch reported Aug. 5. Chicago election attorney John Fogarty publicly disagreed, saying state law contains no explicit restriction on citizen petitions to park districts.

The board voted 4-3 in January 2026 to build the bandshell on the east lawn. Graf was part of that majority. A 2025 park district survey had shown residents overwhelmingly preferred a different location, citing concerns about sightlines to the mansion, sound, traffic and parking.

The bandshell is part of a $90 million bond referendum Elmhurst voters approved on Nov. 5, 2024. Of that total, $85 million is earmarked for a new Wagner Community Center. Soil sampling at the east-lawn site has already been completed, with eight borings done as of July 2026, according to the park district's referendum page.

What happens next

With the 5-2 vote, the east-lawn bandshell proceeds under the mandate of the 2024 voter-approved referendum. Residents who signed the petition have no remaining ballot recourse.

At the Aug. 10 meeting, Spaeth asked that Rogers' rejection of the citizen petition be placed on a future agenda for discussion. Graf said he would not allow it.