My experience of being Village President is very important for this election. I have a proven track record of accomplishments that I have achieved while Village President and while I served as Village Trustee. (My opponent does not show any major accomplishments over his 13 years as trustee.) These accomplishments prove that I have the leadership qualities to lead the Village into the future. Being an active participant in community events is important as well for the position of Village President. This gives me the ability to talk to residents one on one to find out what they like and what they think we need to improve on in the community. My experience as a project manager also helps being Village President. I know how to lead a group, get participation, and how to track progress. Selling Banking services, in my past, gave me the knowledge of how to bring new business to our community. Finally, with my financial background, I understand how important budgets are and how important it is to live within the budget. This discipline has helped Sugar Grove get an A+ rating by Standard and Poor’s.
The number one priority is to continue to work to reduce the real estate taxes that Sugar Grove residents pay. It is my goal to bring in additional businesses that pay property taxes that will reduce the taxes that the residents pay. We have been successful over the last 4 years to bring in new businesses, which needs to continue.
A second priority is to get an Impact Fee Agreement signed with the Kaneland School District. Developers realize that good school districts sell homes. Sugar Grove needs to enter into the same agreement that the other towns in the District have approved. This will ensure that new development pays for itself and reduce the burden on our existing residents.
Another priority issue that faces the Village is completing the developments where the developers have gone bankrupt. Unfortunately, there are no easy answers and most of the issues need to be settled in court. The problem is that some of the groups feel it is cheaper to go to court than it is to make the improvements. The Village is caught in a predicament, in that if the Village makes the improvements, this relieves the Bank from paying the Village back
I believe it is dangerous to commit to freezing the tax levy at any time. If someone states the opposite, they are just saying so to be elected. Further, as long as the Village continues to bring in new business, this will not be an issue. As in Sugar Grove’s case, with all of the new businesses that opened up in the past three years, adding to our tax base, commercial property paid more as a percentage in real estate taxes than residential properties. I believe the Village should review its levy each year, and consider holding the levy constant from one year to the next, but not committing to freezing the levy over a long period of time. Real estate taxes account for approximately 25% of the Village’s revenue, while the other 75% can be more cyclical and vary from year to year. With these sources of revenue varying from year to year and the State of Illinois contemplating cutting the revenue sent to the municipalities, the Village needs a stable source of revenue and not commit to freezing the levy for an extend period of time.
I believe the Village Board should have passed the Impact Fee Agreement with the Kaneland School District. This agreement will help keep taxes down for all of the residents of Sugar Grove by having new development pay for itself. Developers will pay the impact fees because they know that good schools sell homes. The Village needs to enter into the same agreement that Elburn and Maple Park entered into with Kaneland to ensure that new growth pays its fair share.
The biggest accomplishment in the past year was resolving the Mallard Point/ Rolling Oaks drainage issue that the Village had been working on for the past few years. This was a very complicated issue that required collaboration between the Village, the County, and the Drainage District, to engineer a long term solution that would help the residents of the area and not transfer the burden onto the farms to the south. Further, the Village had to determine a fair and equitable way to pay for the improvements, obtain financing to pay for the improvements, negotiate easements, and then bury the drain tile to complete the project. All of this took time to work through, but the good news is that the residents have dry basements and the project came in under budget.
I believe I am the best candidate for Village President because of my passion for the Village and the goals that I have set for the future of the Village. I work hard nearly every day to make Sugar Grove the best community to live, work, and raise a family. To be a leader, it is important to have both short term and long term goals. The short term goals of getting an intergovernmental agreement with Kaneland and completing the interchange at Rt. 47 and I88 are to help keep our taxes down. My long term goals of bringing Fiber Optic to each home and business in the Village and to work on a Metra station are to make Sugar Grove a premier community in the future. (Compare these goals to my opponents.) In addition, I have worked hard with the Village Board to plan for how the Village will develop in the future by updating our land use plan and infrastructure plans. This helps us make sure that the decisions we make today will work with the plans for the future
The first 23 years of my career were spent in Telecommunications where I held a number of professional positions such as Technical Training Specialist, Customer Service Representative, and Quality Control Process & Metric Engineer. The last ten years I have spent working and building my own Real Estate and Property Management business. With my diverse background I would like to bring my Quality control, Customer Service, and Business experiences to the table and apply my outstanding business skills to our Village Projects, Programs, and residents need’s.
2.1. Open and honest government
I am a firm believer in open and honest government. The preamble to the Constitution begins with “We the people” and, in my view, any governmental body must serve the people that it gains its power from and should always be accountable to. One giant step toward open and honest government would be the village funding video recording and online streaming of every board meeting so the taxpayers can stay informed on the issues before the board. Secondly, moving the meeting start time to 7 pm so that our residents who commute can attend meetings and participate in our democratic process. The third is to bring exceptional customer service and best practices back to the village.
2.2. Diversify tax base
Another priority for the next four years is to diversify the tax base for the residents. This can be accomplished through commercial and industrial development. These types of developments can account for a significant part of our property tax base and it doesn’t negatively impact our schools or other governmental services. Additionally, if these businesses are a point of sale, sales tax dollars can be gained. This, in turn, would lessen the burden on the already over taxed homeowner without having to reduce village services or programs. We can encourage commercial growth sooner by better utilizing relationships with significant business leaders
Yes, but I think it is important to look at long term solutions by diversifying our tax base through commercial development. I would like to approach the question from a different angle, which is how can Sugar Grove be successful in growing our commercial areas? This question has the ability to affect the community in two specific ways.
The first would be property taxes. Sugar Grove has many undeveloped commercial lots and land that are not reaching their full potential. When fully developed, each commercial lot & building will pay their proportional share of property tax. The village’s share of the tax bill is 6% of the total and by broadening the tax base with new commercial development, this will offer relief to the residential property owners.
The second is sales tax. Having commercial businesses that charge sales tax in our community is good. As a byproduct of growing the above, you have job creation, which is also good. When the daytime population is increased, it also creates a demand for other businesses and services including restaurants, hotels, hair salons, car repair, etc. In many cases the money spent in Sugar Grove comes from outside of our community. Approximately one out of three purchases comes from an individual outside of our community.
The continued awarding of no-bid engineering contracts to a preferred vendor with close ties to the village president. Under my administration I would require a common sense bid process and see to it that the process is followed. This process will allow the residents to see who is bidding, what they are bidding, and that the village is being responsible with the tax payer’s money.
I believe the citizens of Sugar Grove have had many successes as a result of the efforts of village board from a McDonalds, to JimmyJohns to Walgreens. The business residents have most requested is an urgent care facility. While Sugar Grove has many outstanding physicians, the opening of the “Rush-Copley” emergency care facility has increased the quality of life for all residents. Additionally, with the recent announcement of the International Crown to be hosted at Rich Harvest Farms the world will be in our backyard and having a first class medical facility readily available is essential.
I care a great deal about Sugar Grove and my friends and neighbors throughout the community. This is why I find it easy to volunteer my time, whether as an assistant baseball coach, Corn Boil President, volunteer for Holiday in the Grove, or Veterans’ Park Director. I believe the best way to lead a community is to get involved and the best way to really capture the needs of our community is to listen. Public officials need to work together as a team. There is no “I” in Geary.
