Sari Hurtig: 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: MundeleinWebsite: Candidate did not respond.Office sought: Libertyville Township Board (4-year Terms)Age: 43Family: Single mother of one 14 year old daughter, Sheridan.Occupation: Senior International Trade Compliance Specialist for Buehler, a division of Illinois Tool Works.Education: BA from Bradley University, majoring in International Business, a minor in Spanish and a concentration in Marketing, 1991 MBA From IIT Stuart School of Business, 2003 JD form IIT Chicago Kent College of Law, 2001Civic involvement: Volunteer regularly at Orphans of the Storm animal shelter, Feed My Starving Children, and the First Presbyterian Church in Libertyville food pantry along with working with NISP performing various volunteer services through many programs monthly offered through their program. Through ITW volunteering for United Way Campaign affiliated programs.Elected offices held: Libertyville Township Trustee, one term. Running for re-election for a 2nd one.Have you ever been arrested for or convicted of a crime? If yes, please explain: NoCandidate's Key Issues Key Issue 1 Managing the taxpayers money to allow for the Township to continue to help the local community as it has been doing while continuing to prevent taxes from being raised.Key Issue 2 Fairly representing the entire Township by being an elected official from Mundelein. The Township consists of an area including all of the city of Libertyville, part of Vernon Hills, Mettaw, Green Oaks, part of Mundelein and wanting to make sure all areas especially the unincorporated ones who depend more heavily on the Township to be represented fairly.Key Issue 3 Continuing to maintain the Open Space land while continuing maintaining the great relationships Libertyville Township has developed with the cities, park districts, and Lake County Forest Preserve lands.Questions Answers Name the three most important goals or objectives this board should tackle in the coming term. Prioritize them, and briefly discuss why you believe each to be critical, and how the board should go about addressing them.Developing a plan to make the community truly aware of what the Township government does for the community, including offering an open house so the community can see the openness and approachabilty of the Township. Continuing to encourage transparency in the Towship but not by spending money to do so. Continuing managing our budget in such a way to help our community and keep taxes low or at a minimum.In the 21st Century, with municipalities gobbling up vacant land, why are townships needed? Should they be serving a new role? If so, what?As of late in IL the voters are made to believe township government is obsolete because they do not realize the value it has throughout the ENTIRE state. Where cities or counties are big and encompass a large populated area, that may be true, however downstate IL the township areas are more important because they don't have local governments large enough to assist those areas or for example maintain an unincorporated road district area. For me personally, I live in an unincorporated area where the township highway commissioner is the one who maintains my roads or removes the snow. I and others like myself in unincorporated areas are not represented by the city police or road commissioner. Who would step up to take those responsibilities over? Would we become part of the city or would we fall only under the county jurisdiction. If the latter, I fear they would not be able to maintain my roads to a level needed because the counties are currently struggling to keep up with the areas they maintain. For example in a heavy snow the county highway personnel need to keep the larger more populated streets clean and that would mean the smaller roads that were formally covered under the township, the currently unincorporated areas may fall to the wayside. To remove the township governments, would have to be a statewide process, and consideration has to be made in the less populated areas who, what cities or counties, would take over the responsibilities the townships now cover? To think the tax money that currently goes towards the townships would not be given to another municipality is naive. That money would just be turned over to the new government body taking over the responsibilities that prior fell under the Township's responsibility.What should be the primary responsibility of township government?Depending on which township we are discussing the responsibilities vary. For example the Libertyville Township has open space land which they maintain and is a great responsibility for our township. There are 4 townships in IL with such land. We have an excellent food pantry that helps over 250 families (about 800 people or more) a month. We offer emergency assistance to those in need in the township. Such assistance is helpful because as you seek assistance from larger municipalities the processes are harder to obtain the aid needed, and requirements may become more difficult too. We have also partnered with various non for profits when we cannot provide assistance we can refer them to organizations that can. In our township we also have a great highway commissioner who maintains and repairs our roads, preventing flooding in areas, as well as removing snow in the winter. The Assessor's office is also very well managed too. I believe such responsibilities should be maintained and are currently managed well in the Libertyville Township.In these hard economic times, can you identify some township expenses/programs that could be trimmed or eliminated to reduce the tax burden?I would like to say I could however in the Libertyville Township the trustees make a big effort to hold the officials creating the budgets under tight controls. The budgeting process happens over various meetings and is scrutinized by all those involved, questioning any areas we think are out of line. We have frozen the elected official positions salaries for the next term as well. In Libertyville Township, the supervisor, assessor and highway commissionar work at least a 40 hour work week however most voters don't realize that there is no law requiring them to do so. The officials in our township take their responsibilities seriously and work hard to earn their salaries.What specific background or experience do you bring that makes you the best qualified candidate to serve as an elected official in the township?I have served as a township trustee for the past four years helping manage our large budget. I have served on my condo associations board for the past 8 years and prior to that when I lived in Wheeling I was on that condo association board as well, managing a budget of hundreds of thousands of dollars too. I am also a single parent who realizes the value of money and having, managing and maintaining a budget. Lastly I belive it is important that the local people get involved. I get tired of hearing people complain about our government or politics but never doing anything, getting involved to make changes. I never wanted to be such a person so I ran for election 4 years ago and am running agin for the same reason. I like to be involved and make a difference in my community and think it important to do so.