The top challenges facing Village and how I would address them

The primary responsibility of any municipality is to provide the core services that go to the safety and health of the citizens.  Primary core services are: Fire and Police protection, water and sewer services, roadways and sanitation.  Secondary core services are building and zoning which goes to safety and pest control which goes to both health and safety.  The biggest challenge is to provide these services and other services within the revenues available.  The Village has little control over the revenue stream because the majority of it is tied to property and sales taxes.  Budgeting is the key.  I reviewed audits from the past several years and found that while actual revenues have been decreasing, the budgeted revenues keep increasing.  Accounting adjustments have been made to make the finances appear as if everything is just fine.

The current structure of the Village government – the commission form - has inherent problems that lead to the type of issues we see in the lack of budget transparency.  As it exists now we have, by ordinance, a modified commission form.  To this we have added the Village Administrator position which has control of almost all of the real information that comes into, and goes out of, Village Hall.  This position is under the authority of the Mayor who needs only 2 members of the council to agree for a majority vote.  For the last 12 years, as well as in prior administrations, we have seen that “3 beats 2” is the rule of thumb in decision making.  Practically speaking, we have a de facto strong mayor form of government even though it is not designed that way.   I am advocating an examination of this form of government which would put the decision in the hands of the people.  Let the residents of Forest Park decide if they want to continue with the current form, or go with a strong mayor with more council members (8) to make the majority 5 instead of 3, or with a council-manager form of government.

Infrastructure improvement – specifically storm water drainage – should be a top priority.  The 8 inches of rain in 12 hours was an extraordinary event that affected almost every homeowner in Forest Park, but multiple other rain events have caused basement flooding with a little as one inch of rain in an hour.  I know this from the personal experience of my house flooding an average of once a year in the 15 years I have lived here.   Forest Park needs a comprehensive plan to deal with this issue, including short and long-term components.

Youth issues are of a particular concern.  The Park and the Community Center do a good job of providing programs, but not every family has the resources to pay for these programs.  Many parents are also working more hours due to the economic downturn that has affected all of us, leaving their children without supervision during the critical after-school and weekend hours. The Loyola survey taken 2 years ago proved what I have learned in my 7 years on the Youth Commission, teens will participate in chaperoned activities if they are unstructured.  Ultimately without activities that are chaperoned and guided by adults, we will develop the same problem that some surrounding communities are affected by – gangs and drugs.   Although youth activities are not a core service, I see it as highly desirable for our future quality of life.