Robert Fritz: Candidate Profile

Note: Answers provided have not been edited for grammar, misspellings or typos. In some instances, candidate claims that could not be immediately verified have been omitted. Jump to:BioKey IssuesQA Bio City: LombardWebsite: Candidate did not respond.Office sought: York Center Park Board (4-year Term)Age: 60Family: Married to Doreen Fritz for 37 years. Three children, three grandchildren (two of whom live in the park district).Occupation: Part-time Instructor at COD - Motion Picture Television Department, retired Art Dept Chair - Willowbrook High School.Education: BS in Art Education (ISU) MA MFA in Glass / Ceramics (NIU)Civic involvement: Villa Park's St. Paul Lutheran Church choir Wednesday evening book group, Willowbrook Book Club, volunteer for art activities at Willowbrook H.S. (Art Alumni and field trip chaperone),volunteer for the past five years at North School "Booking with Professionals", led animation workshop for District 45 gifted program 2 of the past 3 years.Elected offices held: Candidate did not respond.Have you ever been arrested for or convicted of a crime? If yes, please explain: noCandidate's Key Issues Key Issue 1 Continue to reach out to the York Center community so that more of our residents can enjoy our parks, the numerous classes offered, and the variety of field trips which are taken around the Chicago area.Key Issue 2 Our local businesses have been helpful with donating items for our holiday special events. I would like to see if we could get sponsorship for some new park equipment in areas where the equipment is quite old or for adding new stations such as frisbee golf in one of the current parks.Key Issue 3 Candidate did not respond.Questions Answers What programs aren't paying for themselves? Would you keep, eliminate or change them? How and why?The special holiday events generally do not take in as much money as is spent to produce them, but tend to have excellent attendance. I am in favor of continuing these since they are an excellent opportunity for the community to gather together and allows our district to promote our other activities.Is there any additional open space the park district needs to acquire? Please describe.If open land becomes available at a reasonable price, I would advocate looking into the purchase.Are there any unmet recreational needs? If yes, what are they and how would you propose paying for them? Or, should they wait until the economy improves?I believe that adding goals for the growing sport of frisbee golf is a need to be considered. There is a band of metal at the top of each goal which would allow for lettering to display the name of a local business or family which spent $500 to sponsor the goal.Would you support sharing/pooling resources (i.e. printing, vehicles) with other local governments (school districts, village, etc.)? If so, what areas would you consider combining or merging to save money or improve efficiency?I would support pooling resources with the local governments in ANY area which would save money or improve efficiency.If you are a newcomer, what prompted you to run for the park board? If you're an incumbent, list your accomplishments or key initiatives in which you played a leadership role.I was appointed as commissioner approximately two years ago when an individual on the board resigned for reasons related to his work. I attended this year's Illinois Park Recreation Association state conference in Chicago, I backed adding a water fountain in our ball-field park, and I agree with the board continuing to look at the purchase of reasonably priced open land.