Endorsement: Mills, Vanderbergh, Gaeta for Hoffman Estates trustee

The village of Hoffman Estates is in a pretty good place. Yes, the Sears Centre is a nagging concern and development is lagging in the Prairie Stone business park. But the budgets have been balanced, the village is aggressively marketing its commercial space and issues in the village are at least being addressed. The sitting village board, whose members can disagree but still move forward, can take credit for much of that.

On April 9, three seats on the board will be filled. We strongly endorse Karen Mills for one. Mills joined the board in 1992, and her length of service there, her seven years on the plan commission and her incisive questioning and leadership at board meetings all make her a valuable asset. We also like challenger Gayle Vandenbergh, who has a lengthy resume of volunteer involvement in Hoffman Estates including the local schools, park district, chamber of commerce, plan commission and more. She has a lot of ideas and a polite way of speaking her mind that we think will fit in well with the current board. For the final seat we choose between Jackie Green, a trustee since 2007 with 29 years on the Fourth of July festival committees; and Michael Gaeta, vice chairman of the planning and zoning commission. Green has much more community involvement to boast of and her dedication to Hoffman Estates is unquestioned. Still, we like Gaeta’s aggressive, problem-solving style and would like to see what he can do as a trustee.