RIVERSIDE-BROOKFIELD Also serving North Riverside
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Vol. 36, No. 39
September 29, 2021
@riversidebrookfieldlandmark
World’s largest bronze gorilla at Brookfield Zoo PAGE 3
Entire Ames School classroom placed in quarantine PAGE 7
Former D208 board chief picked to fill board vacancy
Mike Welch chosen from field of 10 applicants by West 40 director By BOB SKOLNIK Contributing Reporter
The Riverside-Brookfield Township High School District 208 school board is back to full strength. After operating with only six members for nearly three months after the resignation of Tom Jacobs, on Sept. 24 Mark Klaisner, the executive director of the West 40 Intermediate Service Center, appointed former RBHS school board member and former board president Mike Welch to serve out the remainder of Jacobs’ term. Klaisner chose Welch after the District 208 school board could not agree in August on a replacement. In picking Welch, Klaisner went someone who had served on the school board for eight years from 2009 until 2017 and was its president during his final two years. See WELCH on page 13
FILE
Richard Scheck served as North Riverside mayor from 1989 to 2009, a tenure that endeared him to residents who benefited from low taxes and subsidized services and to village employees who reaped from generous benefits and steadfast loyalty.
Richard Scheck, 5-term North Riverside mayor, dies at 78 Grew modest piping business into national presence
By BOB UPHUES Editor
Richard N. Scheck, a self-made businessman whose five terms as North Riverside’s mayor transformed the village’s political landscape and also bolstered its reputation as a commercial hub of the western sub-
urbs, died Sept. 26, 2021 at the age of 78. Physically imposing with a personality to match, Scheck was the unquestioned leader of North Riverside from 1989 when he was first elected mayor until 2009 when he retired. His VIP Party dominated local politics during that time and beyond, until its dissolution in 2020.
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Even after VIP ceased to exist, its legacy lives on in the North Riverside United Party, which maintained the old VIP board majority with former VIP stalwarts who continued to receive Scheck’s support to the end. See SCHECK on page 10
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