Ald. Sarah Vogelsinger is stepping down from the Batavia City Council.

Her intention to resign was announced by Mayor Jeff Schielke at the Tuesday, Sept. 2, City Council meeting.

At the meeting, Vogelsinger called it “a really hard decision.”

“This is largely because my husband worked over 300 hours of overtime last year in the form of six-day weeks and holdovers,” she said at Tuesday’s meeting.

The second-term City Council member said her family’s schedule has become more challenging given her husband’s hours as an air traffic controller and as her children, 10 and 13 years old, got busier.

In addition to serving on the council, Vogelsinger works as a teacher at Geneva High School. On Wednesday, she told The Beacon-News she returned to the classroom last school year and has a larger workload this year.

“Everything was just feeling quite heavy,” she said on Wednesday.

Vogelsinger was first elected to represent Batavia’s 7th Ward on the City Council in 2021, and then won reelection this past April, according to Kane County election results. Her current term was set to extend through 2029.

The vacancy left by Vogelsinger stepping down is set to be announced at the next City Council meeting, according to Schielke.

To fill the vacancy, Schielke said, the city will solicit applications from residents of the ward the vacancy occurs in — the 7th Ward, in this case.

The City Council will then review the applications it receives and conduct an interview process at an upcoming meeting, according to Schielke. From there, the City Council will select and vote in the new member of the council.

At Tuesday’s meeting, Vogelsinger reflected fondly on her time as a council member.

“The reasons are not that I don’t find value in this,” she said at the meeting. “I have immensely enjoyed the time here learning from the experts that we have in all the areas that show up on these agendas that are not my wheelhouse or background.”

On Wednesday, she pointed to the environmental initiatives funded by the city’s plastic bag fee as an accomplishment she’s proud of from her time on the council, and noted discussions about the city’s energy policy as an important matter for the council going forward.

“I enjoyed being a part of those conversations in their infancy to kind of shape the goals we have for the future of energy,” she said. “I will be sad not to continue to take part in those.”

But, while she’s preparing to submit her resignation and leave public office for now, Vogelsinger said she’s not ruling out coming back one day.

“In the meantime, I’m just going to focus on my kids,” she said on Wednesday. “But I’m not opposed to returning in the future when life slows down a little bit and there’s another driver in the house, maybe.”

mmorrow@chicagotribune.com

https://www.chicagotribune.com/2025/09/04/sarah-vogelsinger-stepping-down-batavia-city-council/