Linda Aylward: Candidate Profile

Back to North Barrington Village Board

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: North BarringtonWebsite: Candidate did not respond.Twitter: Candidate did not respond.Facebook: Candidate did not respond.Office sought: North Barrington Village Board Age: 67Family: Father and 4 siblings reside in S.W. Florida.Occupation: Manager, husband's orthodontic practiceEducation: BA Sociology St. Mary-of-the-Woods College, St. Mary-of-the-Woods, IN 1971; MUP University of Michigan Ann Arbor, MI 1976; JD De Paul College of Law 1981, ChicagoCivic involvement: Chair, Special Committee for North Barrington on Consideration of Waste Hauler Proposals. April-June, 2015Elected offices held: Vice-Chair, Environmental and Health Commission of North Barrington. 2013 to present.Questions Answers What makes you the best candidate for the job?North Barrington prides itself on its natural beauty and friendly and safe neighborhoods. Villagers cherish their homes, neighborhoods and open spaces that give this Village its special character. North Barrington seeks a balance between homeowners' quiet enjoyment and some of our residents who seek creative on-site business use of their property and homes. Resulting unconventional land use, short term rentals, and activities producing noise and unusual traffic patterns have arisin in this small community. My Master's Degree in Urban Planning and my planning and environmental law experience both inside and outside of government gives me a unique and useful perspective on the needs of our community and its special issues. I work well with others and I am a team player, yet I will speak out when its called for. I am an innovative problem solver who works for creative solutions on issues both large and small. I believe I have the ability and vision to push for those solutions for the good of the community and all of its residents.What is your opinion of your community's present level of local sales and property taxes? Is the tax just right, too low or too high? Explain.Lake County has one of the state's highest effective property tax rates at about 2.66%. That said, Lake County's property tax rate is also ranked as one of the state's highest in "best overall value" when the crime rate, school rankings, and property taxes are factored together. I feel that taxes are perceived as too high when the value added by the local community's services don't meet the community's expectations. As a trustee for the Village of North Barrington I would work to use every penny of tax dollars we receive to enhance and maximize local services and quality of life.Rate the efficiency of your town's police and fire coverage. Are the departments well prepared for the next decade? What, if anything, should be changed? Do you have specific public safety concerns?North Barrington has a contractual relationship with the Lake County Sheriff's Department for police coverage. It is a superior and responsive relationship which outshines nearby villages and small towns in the state for response times and customer satisfaction. As a result, our crime statistics are low. The Sheriff's Department and Wauconda and Lake Zurich Fire Departments all provide excellent proactive fire prevention, police protection, and are knowldgeable in disaster response for the Village. I believe entering into contractual relationships for fire and police protection is a responsible and cost saving measure for small communities like North Barrington. Security concerns for the community include excessive and high speed traffic cutting through our residential streets. Over 700 cars cut through our neighborhoods via Clover Hill and Miller daily. This safety hazard must be addressed immediately through the designation of either one way traffic flow, traffic redirection and warnings through signage, and shortening of the left turn wait times at the Miller at Rand Rd traffic signal. Another serious safety concern is short term rentals. Given the temporary nature of occupants' use of private homes as recreational weekend or short term rentals, occupants may not be mindful of existing ordinances, or the community's expectation of certain conduct or mores within this particular community. Even though an ordinance was issued recently addressing short term rentals, enforcement can be difficult.Where, if anywhere, could the current budget be trimmed, and conversely, are there areas the budget does not give enough money to?Particular attention has been paid to the issue of keeping fat trimmed from North Barrington's budgets in recent history. To its credit, this current Board has responsibly allocated its limited resources, watching where any excess can be trimmed. Given that budget allocations have been kept quite modest, I would push to allocate two to three times more additional funds to aggressively continue the Village Forester's ongoing careful dead ash and elm removal program. Our Village is proud of its designation as a "Tree City." I would creatively encourage a tree removal and replacement program throughout the village by substantially expanding the 50-50 tree planting program to include subsidized removal and replacement of dead trees by residents.What is one good idea you have to better the community that no one is talking about yet?Space for land-fills is rapidly diminishing and increasingly becoming more expensive by raising our waste disposal rates. As responsible stewards of our environment, I would investigate amending our waste disposal contract with Prairieland Waste Disposal to include food scrap pick-up year-round for every home in the Village. The food scrap composting program currently available to our residents was the first of its kind in the State of Illinois in 2015. A small under-sink bin and a 35 gallon pick-up cart would be supplied to every home and the food scraps could be co-mingled with yard waste and other organics year round. This relatively small and simple activity would allow each family to participate in a meaningful way towards significant waste reduction by recycling of all food scraps into the useful byproduct of black soil for planters and gardens. Each resident would receive one bag of composted soil yearly at no charge so they could see their conservation efforts come to fruition in a sustainable program.What other issues, if any, are important to you as a candidate for this office?I would encourage the creative use of alternative energy by the village and township to reduce costs for power by the village and potentially to subsidize the residents' cost of electricity in the future. As current Vice-Chair of the Environmental and Health Commission for North Barrington, and hopefully as a future trustee, I will push for future policy and legislative measures which would encourage the use of wind, thermal, and solar energy privately in our community.Please name one current leader who most inspires you.Joe Maddon looks out for the underdog, never lets superstition or fear dictate his team's future and treats everyone as equals in sports and life.What is the biggest lesson you learned at home growing up?Never ever give up and never leave a job half done for someone else to finish later.If life gave you one do-over, what would you spend it on?I would have gone to architecture school.What was your favorite subject in school and how did it help you in later life?Science class taught me to respect the skills of engineers and scientists. As an environmental lawyer, I always had to rely on their expertise.If you could give your children only one piece of advice, what would it be?Follow your passion and the reward will follow.