A decade ago while a trustee on the Alsip village board, John Ryan led the charge to impose term limits on the mayor and other elected officials in the south suburb so nobody would be able to serve more than three consecutive four-year terms.
He marshaled enough support on the village board to get a binding referendum placed on the 2016 ballot, letting Alsip voters decide whether to impose those limits, which they did.
Today, Ryan is Alsip’s mayor and in the midst of his third consecutive term — but it may not be his last, after all.
That’s because his colleagues on the village board — with what the village clerk says was Ryan’s support — recently decided to place a new referendum on the ballot in November that, if passed by Alsip voters, would extend term limits to four consecutive four-year terms.
That would provide an obvious benefit for Ryan should the ballot question pass, and should he run again and win. He’d not only stay in power longer, he would continue to get paid by taxpayers and accrue more service credits that would boost his public sector pension.
Among those to find an irony in the situation is Patrick Kitching, who was Alsip’s mayor at the time Ryan pushed for the 2016 referendum.
Calling his successor “no good,” Kitching described this as another opportunistic policy reversal by Ryan, like when he pushed for a cut in the mayor’s salary while Kitching was in office and later, when Ryan took over, wanted a mayoral pay hike.
A bitter political rival of Ryan, Kitching fought the initial term limit, arguing he was a full-time mayor and while limits at the federal and state levels make sense, they could prohibit someone at the local level from growing into and becoming better at the job.
“Show me a town that has a full-time mayor and has term limits,” he said then, according to a Daily Southtown article. “Three terms for a mayor is ridiculous. We are all subject to term limits — it’s called voting.”
But Ryan argued at the time, according to the news story: “The mayor made every attempt to obstruct voters’ rights. Just let the voters decide.”
The village board approved that ballot question, Kitching vetoed it and the village board then overrode the veto.
Of the 4,716 people who ended up voting on the 2016 referendum, 3,832 supported the limits, or more than 80%, according to election records.
Read Alsip’s new resolution, ballot question
In August, the Alsip village board approved a resolution to place the question about changing the term limits on the Nov. 3 ballot.
The resolution includes wording similar to Kitching’s long-ago argument, saying “the Mayor and Board of Trustees recognize that maintaining experienced leadership while continuously encouraging qualified public service ensures efficient and stable municipal management.”
Asked about the new effort, Ryan told the Chicago Sun-Times via email: “We are not trying to undo term limits. The Alsip Village Board approved a resolution to place a question on the November 3, 2026, ballot, asking Alsip voters whether they wish to modify the consecutive term limits for the mayor, clerk and trustees from three terms to four.”
Ryan didn’t respond to further questions, including his feelings on the proposed change to the term limits. He didn’t have to vote on the matter at the August meeting, but he registered no objection and publicly said it needed to be approved that night to meet the deadline for the ballot.
He won’t say whether he plans to run for reelection as his current term expires in 2029.
The existing term limits, when approved in 2016, were not applied retroactively, so even though Kitching was in the midst of his third term at the time, the restrictions went in place after the 2017 election. That means he would’ve been allowed to serve out three more consecutive terms if he won the corresponding elections.
But Kitching opted not to run again.
Instead, Ryan ran for mayor in 2017 and won by 60 votes against another opponent.
Ryan has been mayor of the community of just under 20,000 people ever since, most recently winning in the 2025 election while running unopposed.
Alsip Village Clerk Renee Harding says of the new term limit measure: “If this passes” as a referendum, Ryan “would be allowed to run for one more term” of four years, “not an additional 3 terms.”
Harding says Ryan “supports putting it on the ballot and hopes it passes so he can run for another term.”
Other suburbs with term limits include Tinley Park and Skokie.