Journal & Topics Media Group

Candidates Set Priorities For Elk Grove Village Board Election


Six candidates are running for three open Elk Grove Village Board seats in the April 2 election.

Running are two incumbents — Sam Lissner and Nancy Czarnik — along with former Elk Grove Village Police Chief Stephen Schmidt, Elk Grove Village Youth Committee member Scott Saxe, activist Julee Mortensen and Laborers Union Local 6 President and Business Manager Jeff Ziemann.

The Elk Grove Journal sent a questionnaire to those candidates. Their answers will be published in this edition and the next few editions of the Journal. Ziemann and Mortensen did not return questionnaires by deadlines this week.

 

Elk Grove Village Board candidates (from left): Scott Saxe, Julee Mortensen, Sam Lissner, Stephen Schmidt and Nancy Czarnik. Not pictured: Jeff Ziemann.

 

Top Priorities

 

Lissner said addressing vacancies in shopping centers, consolidating government services to save tax dollars and continuing infrastructure improvement projects would be his top three priorities.

He said he would support the village’s business development director to seek new retail tenants.

In the area of consolidation, Lissner said he would would work with other governments, including the state, county and townships, to reduce overlap of service areas, such as snow removal, and to find agreement to combine other overlapping services to save tax dollars.

In the area of infrastructure, Lissner said he would, “Provide resources to our staff to keep the (Elk Grove 2025) plan on schedule.” Lissner pointed to the recent opening of the west side Petri public works facility, and two new coming fire stations, as all part of that infrastructure effort.

Czarnik pointed to the need to keep the village “updated to meet the needs of the next generation and beyond” through infrastructure modernization through the 2025 plan.

Czarnik said her other top priorities include better communications to keep the public aware of what is taking place in local government, “using today’s social media to reach out in as many ways as possible, such as our app program, Facebook account, Twitter account and many other internet avenues.”

She said she would advocate, “Building strong partnerships with our state elected officials to make sure they (the state) don’t raid our funding sources.”

Schmidt said his top priorities include “keeping the business park vibrant, keeping up with technology issues, and identifying and preparing future leaders.”

On keeping the business park, whose vacancy rate is currently less than 3 percent, vibrant, Schmidt said the village needs to continue to “come up with unique and innovative ways to promote the village and business park.” Schmidt said he would not be satisfied until the business park is 100 percent occupied with a waiting list.

He said the village should keep up with the latest developments in communication technology to continue strong communications with residents and businesses. “One possible way to address this issue is to host periodic seminars of town meetings and invite technology experts to address future trends with both citizens and the business community,” he said.

Saxe said his top priorities include continuing strong economic development, building infrastructure and better communications and civic engagement. In the areas of infrastructure and economic development, Saxe is looking to the longer term.

“We must ensure that strategies remain in place to allocate funding from that increased development into reserves, so services are not diminished during times of economic downturn,” Saxe said.

“As statewide finances change, we need to be prepared for the impact on both businesses and residents and have contingencies in place to address the potential disruption of revenue resources,” he continued.

On infrastructure, Saxe said, “There is a current infrastructure plan that takes the community through 2025. I strongly believe that we cannot wait until that is complete to assess the needs of the community beyond the scope of that plan.” He advocated engaging stakeholders throughout the village in that process.

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