Patty Burns: 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: RoselleWebsite: Candidate did not respond.Office sought: Roselle Village Clerk (4-year Term)Age: 56Family: Married with three childrenOccupation: Village Clerk, substitute teacherEducation: BS Ag Business Management California Polytechnic State University 1979Civic involvement: Roselle Park District Commissioner 1995 - 2009 St. Walter School Board Tax Increment Financing (TIF) Commission 1996-present Taste of Roselle 1992-present Girl Scout leader Founding Member - Roselle League of Women VotersElected offices held: Precinct Committeeman 2004 - present Roselle Park District Commissioner 1995-2009 Roselle Village Clerk 2009 - presentHave you ever been arrested for or convicted of a crime? If yes, please explain: NoCandidate's Key Issues Key Issue 1 Service to the community - Continuing to provide beneficial, meaningful and helpful service to the residents of Roselle.Key Issue 2 Integrity. The Clerk's office will continue to be a Village office of integrity and transparency.Key Issue 3 Experience - I will continue to broaden my scope of experience and training to better serve the residents of Roselle and the Clerk's office.Questions Answers Some communities have contracted out for certain services, such as snowplowing, to save money. What innovative methods would you propose to reduce your office's budget? Explain your answer.The Clerk's budget is quite limited, with most of the expenses stemming from mandated statuatory requirements such as responding to FOIA requests, recording fees, codification of ordinances and the costs associated with the maintenance of all the Village records.The elimination of a full time position with in the Clerk's office and switching to codifying once a year vs. twice a year has saved over $60,000.I continue to look for more efficient and less costly ways to achieve the statuatorial requirement of this office.The state's revised Freedom of Information Act guidelines renewed focus on open government. Name one specific step you would take if elected to increase government transparency in your office.The Clerk's office receives hundreds of FOIA requests a year. Residents are not aware of the scope of documents that are available to them and that they can view just about any document that they want during regular business hours. Helping residents to become more informed about what is available to them is an ongoing goal to further promote our transparency.Do you believe the village clerk should be an elected or appointed position? Please explain your answer.There are pros and cons to both of these options. The Clerks position in Roselle is more like that of a staff person. the Clerk keeps regular business hours and has very specific job duties. The office requires a minimum of 40 hours a week to maintain the work load. The Clerk is suppose to the first contact that a resident has with Village Hall. So this person should be one that is sensitive to the needs of the community and a part of the community herself (or himself). On the other hand, knowledge and experience is critical to the performance of the Clerks office. Unfortunately, when elected, there are no educational or experience prerequisites when running for elected office, so anyone could get into the position and not know what they are doing.(This is the downside to it being an elected position) Ultimately, I feel that the residents of the community should have the final say in whom they want to be handling this important service.What steps would you take as village clerk to improve and increase the flow of information to residents?Technology has greatly expanded our ability to increase the flow of information to our residents. I use the Village website, Channel 6 (government access station), Community sign board, E-News, Roselle Reporter and new resident packets to convey important information to the residents of Roselle.If you are a newcomer, what prompted you to run for village clerk? If you're an incumbent, list your accomplishments or key initiatives in which you played a leadership role.I have definately improved the flow of information to our residents using the tools listed above. I have created a variety of handouts that are available to our residents addressing FOIA and our readily available records, how Village government works, what the role of those elected to Village government involves. Accessability to the resident has been a key initiative. As part of this accessability initiative, another initiative has been to take local civics to the class room. With budget restraints being experienced everywhere, the days of schools taking a field trip to village Hall are gone. I have connected with all the schools within Roselle, offering to present an age appropriate class in local civics within the schools social studies curriculum at the school itself. This allows me to talk to the youth, sharing with them the importance of voting, community involvement and how our community is run.This has been positively received by the students, teachers and school administration.