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Bill Jacob: Candidate Profile

Long Grove Village Board

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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:BioQA Bio City: Long GroveWebsite: Candidate did not respond.Office sought: Long Grove Village Board Age: 53Family: Wife Nancy of 22 years, daughter Rachel who is attending NIU, and son William who is at Stevenson High School.Occupation: Sales Management in the Mobility Technology FieldEducation: Bachelor of Business Administration from Loyola University of ChicagoCivic involvement: Indian Creek Club HOA President and I volunteer to support the Boy Scouts of America, Stevenson High School Band and other adhoc opportunities as needed.Elected offices held: Candidate did not respond.Questions Answers What makes you the best candidate for the job?I have been a resident of Long Grove for almost 15 years and I'm currently President of the Indian Creek Club Home Owners Association. As HOA President, I have represented our community on various concerns with the Village of Long Grove over the past 11 years. I have enjoyed the role as we have had a successful partnership with the Village. One example of this partnership is when we received mitigation funding from the Canadian National Rail Road (CNR). A few years ago with the support of my fellow homeowners, we secured a meeting with the Canadian National Rail Road along with village that successfully obtained $200,000 in mitigation funding that was shared not only with our subdivision, but a neighboring subdivision Eleanor Estates along the CNR Tracks as well as the Village of Long Grove. Over the past two years I have been very active as a committee member in the Village Infrastructure workshops to represent the residents of Long Grove. I feel that my 30+ years of business experience combined with my past and present successful engagements with the village board makes me an ideal candidate.What is your opinion of video gambling in Long Grove? As a trustee would you actively seek to repeal gambling, expand it, or leave it alone for now? Explain your thinking.I'm not a gambler but I don't have a major concerns with it other than does it fit the image of Long Grove? I would seek the feedback from the residents of Long Grove on this and take their lead as I don't believe that video gambling will generate a large amount of incremental revenue for the village nor drive significant incremental revenue for the business owners.Where, if anywhere, could the current budget be trimmed, and conversely, are there areas the budget does not give enough money to?Contrary to the messaging that the residents received prior to the defeat of the real estate tax referendum, the overall outlook for village finances is positive. The village made some strategic bets with the Menards and Sunset Grove that is providing incremental revenue to the village. As a result funds do exist to invest more in the maintenance of the public roads in the village but there are some areas we should consider trimming. For example, why are we investing $ 50,000 in pathways and only $ 450,000 in road repairs in the 2014 /2015 fiscal budget? It seems to me we should put more funds into the road budget as this is a critical need at this time and less into the paths. There are many other smaller expenses that we could consider reducing or eliminating but in the end the additional revenues from the Long Grove retail development will enable us to increase spending without incurring the need to tax the residents of Long Grove.Is the historic district on the right track? Explain how, in your opinion, Long Grove gets its "downtown" roaring again.With the significant number of vacancies we don't appear to be on the right track and we have already invested millions. Currently there are plans for Long Grove to invest even more with a proposed 3.7 million dollar streetscape project which seems out of line with the amount of potential revenue the down town will generate for the village. Certainly greater investment will make the property more valuable but will that in the end actually benefit the independent business owners that we are trying to attract as well as the village? We need to re-think how we proceed and engage the property owners in discussions going forward and consider zoning changes that are consistent with the image of Long Grove that will encourage more private investment and development in the downtown.What's one good idea you have to better the community that no one is talking about yet?Implement a means to publish Long Grove crime incidents / statistics real time and make the information available to all residents of Long Grove as there currently is not a process for proactively notifying homeowners of crime activity in the village. As an HOA president for over 11 years, I have had to learn every time from a homeowner of a crime incident in our subdivision. The problem with this process is the delay in time it takes to notifying the 140 homeowners in my development in regards to a security threat. I'm sure that all of the residents of Long Grove would feel safer if they had this information realtime to take immediate action versus finding out about it through the grapevine days or weeks after the fact.What other issues, if any, are important to you as a candidate for this office?We need to agree on a solution as a community on the best way to maintain our public roads in the village in light of the fact that not all HOA's are responsible for road maintenance. This issue divided the village last year and didn't have to. I was invited and participated in the majority of the village infrastructure workshops along with my running mates Stanley Borys and Michael Sarlitto and know that we made a difference in providing feedback and direction to the village. The good news is the village does not have a financial crisis but we need to agree on how we maintain all roads in the village going forward. Certainly there is no immediate need for a real estate tax in Long Grove for the purposes of maintaining our public roads whether they are in subdivisions or not. Finally, we need to revisit our comprehensive plan and update it as appropriate to encourage economic development that is consistent with the heritage of our community. The future is bright for Long Grove and I believe that with the right development we can be even more prosperous.Please name one current leader who most inspires you.Bruce Rauner as he is currently providing hope that we can get our state finances in order.What's the biggest lesson you learned at home growing up?Treat everyone with respect, honor your commitments and do as you say.If life gave you one do-over, what would you spend it on?Life provides many learning opportunities including mistakes as a result, I would not want to consider a do-over.What was your favorite subject in school and how did it help you in later life?I enjoyed business school especially marketing and it provided a solid foundation for my carreer in sales management.If you could give your children only one piece of advice, what would it be?Learn as much as you can and learning comes in many forms.