Please don’t call Sandra Sokol at home early on Tuesday.
After 24 years working for the Village of Oak Park, the last 16 with a hefty schedule of long late-night meetings and early-morning hours as village clerk, Sokol is hoping for a leisurely first day of retirement.
“May 4, I’ll swear in the new village clerk,” Sokol said. “On May 5, I’ll sleep in.”
After four terms as clerk, Sokol decided not to seek re-election this year. Her quiet presence will be sorely missed by the numerous colleagues and residents who have come to trust Sokol’s knowledge, advice and memory of all things Oak Park.
Village President David Pope said he will miss her terribly.
“She’s terrific,” Pope said, noting that it will take some time to adjust to not seeing Sokol taking notes at Village Board meetings. During those meetings, Pope would occasionally call on her to give insight and perspective on issues.
Her firsthand knowledge of the village dates to 1972, when she arrived in Oak Park with her husband, David, and two young sons.
They chose Oak Park for its reputation for diversity and quality education and bought a home on South Taylor Street even though some warned against moving to a neighborhood that was changing racially.
“We bought our house because we loved it and it was in our price range,” she said. “We had a great block.”
They lived there until a couple of years ago when they moved to a condo.
Sokol, 67, had been an elementary school teacher in her native New York City, but in Illinois she was initially a stay-at-home mom.
That didn’t mean she wasn’t active in the community. Education and housing issues were her passion. She was involved in starting before- and after-school day care long before it was the norm and fought redlining by real estate agents, a common practice in those days.
“We would have a lot of meetings in our house,” Sokol recalled. “If we had company over on a Saturday night, the boys would ask if it was a meeting.”
After finishing a master’s degree in human services and administration, Sokol took a job with the village’s Community Relations Department in 1985. She focused on community policing and other public safety issues. After eight years in community relations, Sokol decided to run for village clerk when her predecessor retired. The decision surprised her husband, because Sokol had never enjoyed public speaking or sought attention.
“Running for office was not easy for her,” he said. “She’s grown tremendously.”
While Sokol has been surprised at the lamentations over her retirement, her husband is not.
“People know how hard she works and they appreciate it. … She’s there as human service,” David Sokol said.
Village Manager Tom Barwin, who joined the village staff about 2 1/2 years ago, said Sokol made his transition to the job much easier.
“She’s a people person. She really believes government here to serve the people,” he said. “She’s kind of like the village mom in a way.”
And, like most moms, she has collected plenty of keepsakes, plaques and mementos over the years, not to mention mounds of papers that have piled up on her desk, table and file cabinets. She is slowly working her way through stacks in hopes of leaving a tidy office for the incoming clerk, Teresa Powell.
But next week it will be time to relax and enjoy some of life’s simpler pleasures like cooking, attending her book club and reading something other than village documents. She also intends to get back to weaving on the loom that was moved from the family house to the condo.
“I want to play with my friends,” Sokol said, noting that so far she has turned down all offers to serve on boards and commissions.
But it’s not likely she’ll sit on the sidelines for long.
The community is invited to bid Sokol farewell at a reception from 6 to 9 p.m. Wednesday in the Carleton Hotel, 1110 Pleasant St. in Oak Park.
