A veteran official at the DuPage County Forest Preserve District is expected to take over this week as temporary chief after the announcement earlier this month that the district’s executive director is resigning effective Tuesday.
The job of caretaker executive director is expected to be filled by Richard Utt, the district’s longtime head of government services. He is to take the job only for the next month or until an interim executive director can be named.
The announcement is to be made Monday by Dewey Pierotti, the County Board member who also serves as Forest Preserve Commission president.
Pierotti also is expected to announce that top Forest Preserve District staff members have until Friday to express interest in filling the job of executive director on an interim basis. Pierotti is expected to interview candidates the week of May 5 and recommend an interim chief to the full Forest Preserve Commission by May 21.
The outgoing executive director, Art Strong, announced April 17 that he intended to resign after a little more than two years in the position. In his letter of resignation, Strong cited “fundamental philosophical differences” between him and commission members over the management and operation of the Forest Preserve District.
Though largely unnoticed by the thousands of DuPage residents who enjoy the district’s 23,000 acres of forest preserves and golf courses, there has been an undercurrent of tension for about a year among forest preserve commissioners and senior staff over management issues. It was apparent last week that Strong’s underlings already had begun jockeying among themselves for the position of interim executive director.
Pierotti has said that he wants to name a temporary forest preserve chief and then review the job description for the position before launching a search for a new executive director. He also has said that he would prefer that the new executive director be a DuPage resident who knows what county residents “want, expect and deserve from their Forest Preserve District.”
Utt is believed to have been Pierotti’s choice to fill the job temporarily because he is said to be considering taking early retirement from the district and is not interested in filling the position on a longer basis.
Dissatisfaction with Strong had been building for several months.
He had been parks and recreation director for the city of Indianapolis for 12 years before coming to DuPage in September 1992 as deputy executive director and heir apparent to longtime forest preserves chief H.C. Johnson.
Some commissioners said Strong was handicapped from the start because he was an outsider forced to fill the seat of a man widely regarded as a district institution. Strong complained that he lacked the authority he believed he needed to effectively manage the district.
