How a 14-member Council divides its work — and what the 2026 record shows
BOTTOM LINE:
In 2026, every final action taken by the full Council on an action recommended by a committee majority, adopted that action without change.
Have you ever tried to get 14 friends to decide where to go for lunch?
Large groups can make decisions, but it becomes harder as the group grows. Elmhurst uses a practical solution: it divides much of the City Council’s detailed work among four standing committees, each composed of only three or four aldermen. That makes the work more manageable. It also changes where ward representation exists while issues are being studied and recommendations are being formed.
Overview
Elmhurst has fourteen aldermen, two from each of seven wards. The City Code establishes 4 standing committees, 2 with three members and 2 with four members — fourteen committee seats in all — and provides that each alderman serves on only one standing committee.
No ward currently has an alderman on every committee. Six wards are represented on two of the four standing committees. Ward 5 has both aldermen on Finance, so it is represented on only one of the four. Committee leadership is also unevenly distributed: there are only four chairmanships for seven wards, and the Mayor appoints the chairs and members subject to Council consent.
The 2026 Council minutes show why the committee stage matters. The committee report dispositions at 13 regular meetings through July 20, 2026 were reviewed. 112 distinct committee matters produced 114 reports and recommended actions.
Of the 112 distinct committee matters reviewed, 107 — 95.5% — initially entered the Council through the consent agenda.
Of the 110 committee matters on which the full Council took final action, all 110 — 100% — adopted the action recommended by the committee majority without change.
Four small committees make a 14-member Council workable
Section 2.09 of Chapter 2 of the Elmhurst Municipal Code1 divides broad areas of City business among four standing committees:
| Standing committee | Members | Principal subject areas |
|---|---|---|
| Development, Planning and Zoning | 3 | Economic development, building, housing, planning and zoning. |
| Finance, Council Affairs and Administrative Services | 4 | Revenues, expenditures, purchasing, personnel, budget, appropriations, data processing and public-improvement financing. |
| Public Affairs and Safety | 3 | Licensing, public transportation, cultural activities, safety and traffic-control signs. |
| Public Works and Buildings | 4 | Streets, sidewalks, forestry, lighting, parking, sanitation, garbage collection, water, sewers and municipal buildings. |
Section 2.09(c) says each alderman shall be a member of only one standing committee. Because the four committees contain fourteen seats in total, a fully staffed system places every alderman on exactly one committee.
The arrangement is understandable: a group of three or four can study a subject more efficiently than fourteen people trying to do every piece of detailed work together. But the efficiency comes from dividing the Council — and therefore dividing ward participation — by subject matter.
Two aldermen do not guarantee broad committee representation
The Code guarantees each alderman one committee assignment. It does not require the two aldermen from a ward to serve on different committees, and it does not require every ward to have representation across any minimum number of subject areas.
Voters elect their aldermen, but they do not elect their committee representation.
Under Section 2.09(a), the Mayor appoints the chairman, vice chairman, and members of each standing committee, subject to the advice and consent of the Council. The current assignments2 distribute ward representation as follows:
| Ward | Development, Planning and Zoning | Finance | Public Affairs and Safety | Public Works and Buildings |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Veremis, Vice Chair | 🚫 | Belanger | 🚫 |
| 2 | 🚫 | Hill | Sienko, Vice Chair | 🚫 |
| 3 | Jensen, Chair | 🚫 | 🚫 | Bram, Vice Chair |
| 4 | 🚫 | Talluto, Chair | 🚫 | Baker |
| 5 | 🚫 | Nudera, Vice Chair Virgil | 🚫 | 🚫 |
| 6 | Nardini | 🚫 | 🚫 | Bastedo, Chair |
| 7 | 🚫 | 🚫 | Brennan, Chair | Irby |
Ward 5 is the clearest example of concentrated rather than broad representation. Both Ward 5 aldermen serve on Finance. The ward therefore has two committee members participating in Finance matters. But Ward 5 has no alderman serving on Development, Planning and Zoning, Public Affairs and Safety, or Public Works and Buildings.
Committee leadership adds another layer of unequal influence
Committee membership is not the only distinction. Section 2.09 gives the chairman responsibility for calling meetings and for the agenda and conduct of meetings, and for causing committee reports to be prepared. Any two committee members may call a meeting or place a matter on the agenda, so this authority is not absolute.
Other Council rules give the chairman additional procedural roles. A standing-committee chairman may reintroduce an expired referral at the beginning of a new Council. At a Council meeting, the chairman — or the vice chairman in the chairman’s absence — may remove a committee report from the agenda and return it to committee. Section 2.10 also gives the chairman’s vote a special role when competing recommendations are tied.
There are four standing committees and therefore four chairmanships for seven wards. The current chairs are from Wards 3, 4, 6 and 7. Wards 1, 2 and 5 have no standing-committee chair.
Committee reports are designed to carry completed work to the Council
The Council refers matters to committees. Committees respond by producing reports that are submitted to the full Council.
Section 2.10 describes a committee report as the product of study and investigation. The Code directs the committee to fully develop a referred matter and report its findings and recommended action to the full Council, together with a draft motion for the Council’s final disposition of the matter.
The full Council retains legal authority to accept, reject, amend, substitute or return a committee recommendation and draft motion. The practical question is how often it uses those powers to change the result produced by the smaller committee.
In 2026, the consent agenda was the normal route for committee matters
Section 2.06 establishes a consent agenda, which allows multiple items to be approved together by a single vote without separate debate on each item. Any alderman may require an item to be removed for separate consideration.
The 2026 minutes3 allow the actual treatment of committee reports to be measured rather than assumed. A review of the 13 available regular-meeting minutes from January 5 through July 20 identified 112 distinct committee matters, represented by 114 report entries because two matters also produced minority reports4.
| 2026 finding | Count | Share |
|---|---|---|
| Distinct committee matters reviewed | 112 | 100% |
| Matters initially placed on consent | 107 | 95.5% |
| Consent matters approved without being pulled | 96 | 85.7% of all matters |
| Consent matters pulled for separate treatment | 11 | 10.3% of consent matters |
| Matters with separately recorded substantive discussion | 13 | 11.6% of all matters |
| Matters producing a separately identified minority report | 2 | 1.8% of all matters |
The minutes do not prove that no informal discussion occurred when an item remained on consent. The careful statement is that no separate Council discussion was recorded in the minutes. Even with that limitation, the pattern is clear: most committee matters reached the full Council on an agenda mechanism designed for collective approval rather than item-by-item consideration.
The full Council almost always left the committee recommendation unchanged
The more important question is what happened to the committee recommendation after it reached the full Council.
The full Council took final action on 110 committee matters. In all 110 — 100% — it adopted the action recommended by the committee majority without change.
Two reports did not receive final actions: one was returned to committee, and one was removed from consent with no later disposition recorded in that meeting’s minutes.
Thirteen distinct matters received separately recorded substantive Council discussion. Only two of the 112 matters produced a separately identified minority report. Amendments or minority substitutes sometimes generated discussion, but none displaced the majority outcome in this sample. The committee majority position ultimately prevailed without change for every matter discussed in 2026.
What the evidence supports — and what it does not
Committees do not possess the City Council’s final legal authority. Aldermen retain the power to pull, debate, amend, reject or substitute a recommendation.
The 2026 record shows that every final Council action followed the recommendation produced by a committee of only three or four aldermen. For any one committee, several wards have no alderman participating as a member of the committee where the detailed review and recommended action are developed.
More elected officials is not necessarily the same thing as more participation in each decision.
The present framework solves the coordination problem created by a 14-member Council by breaking its work into smaller groups. That solution is practical, but it also fragments ward representation by subject matter and gives committee assignments and leadership substantial importance. Those tradeoffs are directly relevant to any discussion of Council size.
The problem of getting agreement by a 14-member Council should not be solved by making it easy to say “Yes” to a recommendation from a committee of three or four.
Source data and method
1 Chapter 2 of the Elmhurst, Illinois, Code of Ordinances (principally §§2.06, 2.09 and 2.10). Link
2 Elmhurst committee roster. Link
3 Minutes of 13 regular City Council meetings from January 5 through July 20, 2026; Link
each committee report was coded for initial placement, removal from consent, separately recorded discussion, separate vote, disposition and whether the committee recommendation was changed. Silence in the minutes was not treated as proof that no discussion occurred.
4 Raw data spreadsheet: Link