Forest Park’s village council appointed Mayor Rory Hoskins’ administrative assistant Rachell Entler as an interim village administrator amid cheers from the department heads in the audience.
The special meeting Tuesday took place a week after Mayor Rory Hoskins told the Review that he had no firm timeline for when a village administrator would be appointed and said that department heads could take over some of the administrator’s functions on interim basis. He also said that he had no specific candidate in mind, and denied rumors that Entler was in line for the job. Entler served on the village council as the public property commissioner from 2015 to 2019.
The vote was unanimous after the council spent nearly 80 minutes in closed session.
The previous village administrator, Moses Amidei, was placed on administrative leave Aug. 22, and the village council approved his severance agreement during its regular meeting about one week later.
After the council approved her appointment, Entler thanked the commissioners and the village staff.
“We got some work to do in front of us and I’m very much looking forward to it,” she said.
Tanya Friese, an assistant professor at Rush University Medical Center and a Forest Park resident, emailed a public comment supporting Entler’s appointment as both interim and permanent village administrator.
“Rachell is uniquely qualified as she knows the village and its diverse population,” she wrote. “Her educational background is well-suited to this position, and I’m able to speak to this, as my doctoral degree [from Rush] is in systems leadership.”
Friese added that she knew Entler “all of her life.” She said that being a good village administrator takes “someone who knows, and is dedicated to the village to help it adjust, and not just survive, but thrive.” That someone, she said, is Entler.
Under the commissioner form of government, the village council runs the village, with commissioners responsible for their respective departments. In practice, much of the responsibility for day-to-day village operations is delegated to a village administrator and department heads.
