Note: This is the third in a 10-part series of stories introducing candidates who are on the ballot for the first time in Homewood and Flossmoor village board races. There is more competition for trustee seats than usual in Homewood. In 2023, five candidates ran for four seats. This year, Homewood’s new political party, the Greener Homewood Party, has swelled the ranks to eight candidates vying for four seats. More candidate profiles will be included in our March edition.
Tiffany Cole is a member of the new Greener Homewood Party slate. She has lived in Homewood and Hazel Crest most of her life, including the past eight years in Homewood.
Protecting the environment is one of her passions. She met party founder Liz Varmecky as a member of South Suburbs for Greenspace, an organization created early in 2021 to fight a proposed industrial development on land currently occupied by the Calumet Country Club.
She’s now concerned about problems with pollutants seeping into a pond at Izaak Walton Preserve.
“I think having green spaces are important,” she said. “We have to live here, and I think everybody wants to live in a clean, non-polluted neighborhood.”
In addition to environmental issues, Cole is interested in seeing the village do more to support small businesses.
“I think it’s imperative that we helped them. I feel like we always are giving to big conglomerates that come in and they stay for the little duration, and then they’re gone and then they leave these abandoned buildings just rot,” she said. Small local business people are “residents of the community. They’re giving back to the community. Why not support them?”
She said she would like to explore the possibility of providing more support to small businesses so they can expand and thrive.
Cole also would like to encourage more engagement from residents.
“I don’t have solutions, but I think together we can come up with some solutions,” she said.
