John Krummen: Candidate Profile

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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: NapervilleWebsite: Krummenforcouncil2017.comTwitter: Candidate did not respond.Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/KrummenforCouncil/?ref=aymt_homepage_panelOffice sought: Naperville City Council Age: 53Family: David, son 24Nathan, son, 22Occupation: Director of EngineeringEducation: MS Mechanical Engineering, University of CincinnatiBS Mechanical Engineering, University of CincinnatiMBA, Indiana UniversityCertificate of Innovation, Northwestern University, 2017Civic involvement: Chairman and Council Liaison to the Public Utility Advisory BoardCouncil Liaison to the Financial Advisory BoardChairman of the Chamber of Commerce Sustainability Forum (2012)Associate Director of the Naperville Area Home Owners Confederation (2012-2015)Member of the Renewable Energy Grant Design Committee (2012)Member of Naperville Development Partnership Marketing TeamMember of the Exchange Club of Naperville (Rookie or the Year 2011)Ãmacr;Æ'circ;frac14;Church volunteer and youth minister Election Judge SupervisorMember of the Samaritan Network (similar, not affiliated with, Habitat for Humanity)Church VolunteerElected offices held: Naperville City Council 2015-2017Questions Answers What should be the city's role in promoting availability of housing for people of all ages and income levels in Naperville? What should be more important in making decisions about proposed housing developments -- the opinions of neighbors or the housing needs of the community as a whole? Why?The diverse Naperville community includes seniors who want to stay in their homes, seniors who want to down size, and seniors who are searching for assistant care. The diverse Naperville community also includes empty nesters, families with older children, families with younger children, single parent households, blended families, and young millennials just starting out. It is a difficult mission to keep property values high, while also allowing for affordable housing for our divers community. The question proposes that it should be one or the other. One lesson that has become abundantly clear during my first term as a city councilman is that a balanced approach is best. The housing needs of such a diverse community is difficult to predict into the near future, and almost impossible to predict far into the future. Therefore, the only sensible approach is to allow for different types of housing options. Apartment buildings, condominiums, townhomes, affordable single family housing, large single family housing, along with assisted care facilities will offer a portfolio of options to fit every need. And every one of these much needed options should be balanced with neighbor's expectations and needs to have developments fit the nature of the neighborhood.How should the city prepare and pay for major expenses in its public utilities such as water, wastewater and electric service? How can this be done within the current financial principles of passing structurally balanced budgets, reducing debt and increasing reserves? Should those principles remain, or do they need to be changed? Why?The electric and water utilities represent nearly 50% of the city's total budget of approximately $450 million. A large percentages of the operating budgets are pass through costs for purchased electrical costs and purchased water volumes. This makes it difficult to reduce their budgets. Since 2011, I have been deeply involved with both utilities as the Chairman of the Public Utility Advisory Board and as council liaison during my first term on council. My background in engineering and large capital improvement projects is ideal for working with the public utilities. The electric power landscape continues to change. Fracking has produced newly found supplies of natural gas. Because of the tremendous drop in cost, natural gas will continue be the low cost fuel for electric power generation for the foreseeable future. Due to new EPA regulations and aging infrastructure, the water utility will be required to spend tens of millions of dollars in capital improvement projects over the next decade. As with most strategies, a multi-faceted approach must be taken in order to reduce risk. A combination of both savings and new bond issues will be required. Small increases in electric and water rates are needed to be banked in a lock box fund. A fund that can only be applied to one time, large capital expenditures like phosphorus treatment upgrades to the water treatment plant. Additionally, we must be prepared to fund these capital improvement projects with new construction bonds. The combination of which will need to be determined.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?Naperville is continually rated one of the best places to raise children and one of the safest cities in America. The great Naperville community spirit of neighbor helping neighbor along with public safety professionals, and city leadership will continue to work together to keep our community safe. This council will continue to support a strong focus and partnership on community safety. This partnership is demonstrated by a majority of municipal employee unions agreeing to long term, 5-year contracts with the city. However, this is not to say, we do not face real troubles. Heroin, prescription drugs, and other dangerous drugs are a real and present dangers to too many of our residents. Additionally, home invasions, assaults, and even homicides are not foreign to the Naperville community. The council must listen to the public safety professionals and equip them, not just with weapons, but with proper skills and training required of a modern police force. One approach is a strong police presence and another is a police force trained in deescalation techniques. Like housing, the future public safety needs of the community are difficult to predict. So it makes sense to take a balanced approach. The council should allow for a portfolio of public safety options including a strong police presents coupled with deescalation training.Where, if anywhere, could the current budget be trimmed, and conversely, are there areas the budget does not give enough money to?This is one of the most critical and difficult functions of the council. Providing superior city services with fiscal responsible budgets is not an easy task. As an adjunct professor of both economics and finance, I am comfortable working with financial statements and working with the city's professional financial department.This council has worked hard to foster innovation and to create new cost saving procedures. Some of these new procedures are upgrades to the city's IT capabilities. The city currently has multiple computer systems. Some of these computerized systems do not communicate well with each other and require duplicate effort within and amongst city departments. The IT department will implement current, standard private industry computerized systems. These new systems will eliminate duplicate data entry and allow for improved communication between city departments.This council hired a new IT director in order to bring a new vision and private industry expertise to the IT department. This has already resulted in removal of many out dated computers and other system improvements. These improvements will result in an overarching reduction in cost through greater employee productivity.What is one good idea you have to better the community that no one is talking about yet?In this election cycle there is much talk about government consolidations. Consolidation of townships road districts and other governmental entities. Although these are complicated issues with many known and unknown risks, there is no reason many of our governmental entities cannot come together and reduce cost by combining our purchasing power. Currently, the city of Naperville joined with other government entities to contract traffic signal maintenance. By combining our purchasing power, we were able to save tens of thousands of dollars. We need to learn from this example and look for additional cost savings through increased purchasing power with other governmental entities on computers, office equipment, road salt, and other commodities.What other issues, if any, are important to you as a candidate for this office?Holding the Line on SpendingI have consistently voted against increased capital spending. Upon swearing in, this council directly took to fixing long term debt, and operational budget concerns. We passed three financial principals of 1) structural budgets, 2) delivering cost effective city services, and 3) increasing savings and reducing debt by 25% over 8 years. Many politically difficult, but community correct, decisions were made. The council has passed balanced budgets, and is reducing debt. However, I want to do more, I want to reduce debt further, and have consistently voted against increased capital sending for my two years on council. Preserving NapervilleNaperville has worked hard to maintain our small town culture of neighbor helping neighbor while experiencing tremendous growth over the past 30 years. Naperville again is set to grow even further with the addition of downtown establishments, industry growth, and new housing developments. But every effort must be made by the entire community, to keep that famous Naperville hometown culture. Economic Growth This council has worked to strengthen the cities financial balance sheets. however, long term sustainable economic growth is the only way to hedge against increased taxes. I have consistently been a strong supporter of the Naperville Development Partnership. As an adjunct professor of economics and as an engineer, I understand the importance of technology and how to help attract and hold technology based companies to Naperville. I am the only current councilman, or candidate with a long track record with advanced technology.Please name one current leader who most inspires you.Angela Merkel, the Prime Minister of Germany. She is economically holding the EU together, while also politically out maneuvering Vladimir Putin.What is the biggest lesson you learned at home growing up?I was educated by Jesuit priests who taught us, it is a sin not to share your God given talents.If life gave you one do-over, what would you spend it on?I lost my wife, Barbara, to cancer when we were both 36. I would spend every second I could with her.What was your favorite subject in school and how did it help you in later life?Math, it allowed me to pursue career in engineering as well as understand and teach economics and finance. economics.If you could give your children only one piece of advice, what would it be?Do not get mad, get a plan.