Village board candidates outline Bensenville’s needs

During a time of major economic and infrastructural change in Bensenville, the six candidates vying for three seats on the village board in the April 5 election each offer a unique vision to keep the village moving forward.

Bensenville has settled most lawsuits with the city of Chicago regarding O’Hare International Airport expansion. The village has improved its bond ratings by boosting financial reserves and paying down debt. And now leaders have created a tax increment financing district to fix up its aging industrial park.

This week all board candidates spoke to the Daily Herald through written questionnaires and some through interviews about how to continue improvements.

Incumbents John Adamowski and Patricia “Patty” Johnson are running independently, as is political newcomer candidate Mary Ann Tully.

Incumbent Morris Bartlett is running on a party slate with Village Clerk JoEllen Ridder and Robert Jarecki, the former Bensenville Park District director who retired this year.

These are edited version of their comments:

Adamowski: We must improve Bensenville’s aging infrastructure while making it a financially viable community. A big part of that includes improving our housing stock and making Bensenville a financially viable place to live.

Every community needs to have a range of housing opportunities for residents. We have many starter homes, houses appropriate for seniors and quite a few rentals. But we need to improve the upscale housing for those that might own the properties in the industrial area. At the same time, we need to insure that the housing would be appropriate for the staff of the industrial area. This would minimize travel time and be a “greener” situation. You need to live somewhere, why not live near your place of employment?

With that that in mind, we must also explore what type of industrial growth should be our focus.

Bartlett: We need to realize what Bensenville can be in its proximity to O’Hare, especially with plans in place to create the overpass at York and Irving Park roads.

There are a lot of trucking companies in the north industrial district, and upcoming improvements and the overpass will draw businesses who want to be close to the airport. If businesses see we’ve improved the industrial park and infrastructure, obstacles will tend to disappear.

In Bensenville you could design, market and ship and product to all over the world. It will soon make sense for a mixed bag of companies to locate here because they can get products in and out quickly.

I also think we should be able to compete with a town like Rosemont, which would be good for the tax base and to maintain property tax levels for residents.

With western access to O’Hare coming, we should try to secure hotels, restaurants and entertainment. There is some vacant land along York and that offers a lot of opportunities.

Jarecki: The village has done well in the last few years paying down debt and creating about a $3 million surplus in the general fund, and now the next five years will set the groundwork in the next quarter century. During that time, I would like to see strong intergovernmental cooperation that would benefit the community. I would also like to see the Bensenville Intergovernmental Group resurrected.

One smart collaboration would be to team up with local real estate agents and offer subsidies for quality teachers to rent or buy property in the community. That way they can live where they work and boost our schools. Most families move to an area because of schools, and right now the District 2 schools are running a building campaign to bring themselves up to the 20th century. Both of these factors would be a good drawing card for families to come to Bensenville.

Because of Bensenville’s proximity to the airport, the TIF (Tax Increment Financing district) is also a strong starting point to re-brand the community. Our industrial park is there because of the airport and the airport is expanding. So why can’t the park expand with it?

Johnson: The big battle of O’Hare, whether you agreed or disagreed, has settled. Now the question is how will you attract people to Bensenville and improve its image? We are DuPage’s best-kept secret. We need a huge public relations campaign handled by the village’s marketing and community development departments to show people who we are. It’s going to take pounding the streets to let people know we are not just the town that lost out with O’Hare or America’s most dying town.

But this will take time as we usher in the grade separation at York and Irving Park roads, York redevelopment and western access. As that happens we need to make sure Bensenville is well-rounded, because the most successful communities have a great residential area, entertainment and a strong industrial base.

Ridder: Due to Bensenville’s contentious past, residents still don’t have trust in the administration and we’re still working to build that up. So customer service is huge. When we have a new business come in, we need to give them a packet of ordinances that could affect them, that welcomes them. I’d also like to see a welcome wagon packet for residents, to make sure they know what the village will be doing with them in the future. Bensenville does have a high rental rate and we need to improve on this and see if there’s a way to at least bring in longer-term renters. We could help apartment complex owners change their image to attract these kinds of tenants.

In addition, we should poll residents as we work to build up a city center and learn their needs. Bensenville doesn’t even have a place to eat breakfast and our residents must go to Elmhurst, Wood Dale or Addison. We can improve on that.

Tully: We need all taxing bodies to work as one unit to overcome obstacles that may develop while we try to make Bensenville prosperous and be proud of our multicultural town. It is also imperative that we strive for a balanced budget even in this economy and do everything in our means to make up for tax base lost. We must keep our tax base down so that we are able to attract more business, more families and bring our town back to the best kept secret in DuPage.

We must also take away the negative spin O’Hare expansion has carried for years. Now that it is settled we must spread the word that Bensenville is here to stay and that we have a massive school improvement plan in the works that will not require a referendum or tax increase. This should be a major draw for our community and should help us open avenues to help us prosper.